Legal Rites

"Legal Rites"

Author	Isaac Asimov
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Fantasy short story
Published in	Weird Tales
Publication type	Periodical
Media type	Print (Magazine, Hardback & Paperback)
Publication date	September 1950
Followed by	"Time Pussy"

"Legal Rites" is a fantasy short story by Isaac Asimov, originally published in the September 1950 issue of Weird Tales, and included in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov. It is a fantasy rather than science fiction tale and based on an idea from his friend, the author/agent/writer Fred Pohl. Asimov was unable to sell the story and gave it to Pohl, who rewrote it (under the nom de plume of James MacCreigh) and changed the title from 'Legal Rights'. He sold it some years later after Asimov had forgotten about it.

It is one of several Asimov stories that center about a courtroom drama, such as Galley Slave.

Plot summary

Russell Harley travels to an isolated part of the American Mid-West to take possession of his inheritance, a ramshackle house known as Harley Hall, willed to him by his late uncle Sebulon Harley. Finding that the house is apparently haunted by a ghost, he flees in terror.

In a bar, he is accosted by a mysterious stranger known only as Nicholls, who persuades Harley to let him place magical paraphernalia in and around the house in an effort to control the ghost.

The ghost visits a lawyer, claiming to be the spectre of Henry (Hank) Jenkins who shared the house for many years and now claims squatters' rights. Despite attempts to mediate, the case comes to court.

Harley's lawyer disputes the claimed legal rights of the ghost and demands evidence that the ghost is actually who he claims to be. Under the pressure of the proceedings, Harley breaks down and admits that he did know of the presence of the ghost and therefore is willing to clear out of the house. The judge of course finds for the plaintiff.

At the conclusion of the case, Nicholls commiserates with Harley and his lawyer. He points out that the precedent now set means that ghosts in the state and the whole of the United States now have legal rights to haunt houses. Having said this, he simply vanishes - he was a ghost himself.

References

Asimov, Isaac, "Legal Rites" in The Early Asimov ISBN 0-385-03979-4.

External links

Legal Rites title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

The Early Asimov by Isaac Asimov

"The Callistan Menace"
"Ring Around the Sun"
"The Magnificent Possession"
"Trends"
"The Weapon Too Dreadful to Use"
"Black Friar of the Flame"
"Half-Breed"
"The Secret Sense"
"Homo Sol"
"Half-Breeds on Venus"
"The Imaginary"
"Heredity"
"History"
"Christmas on Ganymede"
"The Little Man on the Subway"
"The Hazing"
"Super-Neutron"
"Not Final!"
"Legal Rites"
"Time Pussy"
"Author! Author!"
"Death Sentence"
"Blind Alley"
"No Connection"
"The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline"
"The Red Queen's Race"
"Mother Earth"

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