A Fun Little Legal Trivia Question/Riddle

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I have a funny riddle/trivia question for lawyers.  I am a Mint Mobile Wireless Customer.  I take it from their television commercials and business communications that one of my favorite guys in entertainment, Ryan Reynolds, is affiliated with Mint Mobile in some way.  He is advertised as “OWNER”. So let’s assume for the sake of argument that he actually is the true owner of Mint Mobile, not merely a small partner given a stake in the company so that he can call himself “OWNER” in television commercials without lying.

So I do not know whether Ryan is AN owner, THE owner, both (i.e. the sole owner), or neither (which I think all lawyers would agree would make the television commercials a slight bit fraudulent).  But I actually do not know if or if not Ryan Reynolds is actually the Ultimate Authority at Mint Mobile. But to go past this point, we have to assume a condition.  So let’s assume the condition that Ryan owns Mint Mobile fully, truly and outright.

I really really like actress Scarlett Johansson.  I have a million things I’d like to talk to her about and I’d love to meet her. Duh. This blog tells that story.  But here is the riddle for lawyers.  I worked in law for a brief instant in time, which is why I know enough about the details of law to set up the QUESSTION, but I am NOT lawyer and until I’ve thought about it for a while, I don’t know the answer for sure.  But I have a way that I’m leaning, but it’ll kill the question if I tell you my leaning direction now.

I assume that if Ryan really NEEDED to, if he is the owner of Mint Mobile, there is some simple mechanism for him to find out what phone number is assigned to me, and that as an owner it would be legal for him to use that mechanism. 

I would assume that somewhere in legal code, it would be against the law for Ryan to tell someone my phone number without my consent (let’s assume such consent is NOT buried in the Mint Mobile contract agreement language).  But if I type on this blog “My full true legal name is Michael David Boyd Eagleton, and I hereby authorize the aforementioned Ryan Reynolds to give the actress Scarlett Johansson my Mint Mobile phone number, will that stand up in court as legal authorization? I ask you to consider the following partial list of more detailed scenarios:

Willi it stand up in court for Ryan alone if he is sued for giving her my phone number?

Will it stand up in court as a defense for Mint Mobile if they are sued for his act of giving her my phone number?

Would it stand up as a DEFENSE for Scarlett Johansson if she called me, and then I sued her for calling me in a clever entrapment scheme taking advantage of her because of her celebrity and wealth? (Which obviously I’d never do, but she must not know that or she would have called me already).

So, the bottom line question is, what KIND of a crime would it be if Ryan Reynolds gave Scarlett Johansson my phone number at a Holly wood party? I don’t know what law or laws would cover that, or where they are in the legal code, but I feel certain it would be one, because that is America. But I want, i.e. desire for Ryan to commit that crime as soon as possible and for Scarlett to call me so I can talk to her about this movie script I’m writing that I would like her to star in.

I assume from the get-go, from DAY ONE of law school, that any prospective lawyer would be expected to know that it would be all kinds of crimes for me to call Scarlett Johansson out of the blue without her personally authorizing me to do so.  I don’t have her phone number so far as I know ONLY because I’ve never really looked for it.

So here is where the question gets complicated, and, I would think as a layman, fun for a lawyer: A little quirk of the universe is that in the past, Ryan Reynolds and Scarlett Johansson were married to and divorced from each other (I think I remember that.  I’d have to check on that detail to make sure).  But let’s assume for the sake of argument that Ryan and Scarlett were married, but are not married anymore.

So what if any LEGAL OBLIGATIONS exist between the three of us, Ryan Reynolds, Scarlett Johansson and Michael David Boyd Eagleton (“me”), individually and separably AS A RESULT OF my purchasing cell phone service from Mint Mobile? Would there be a distinction in this instance between the SOCIAL world and the BUSINESS world? Or, to say that another way, would it make a difference LEGALLY if Ryan gave Scarlett my phone number 1) while Ryan and Scarlett were both in Ryan’s Mint Mobile office, 2) or in Ryan’s home (or Scarlett’s home), 3) on an airplane. Etc.  I know that I would be required by law to consider EVERY possible consequence of the action of calling Scarlett Johansson’s personal phone without her consent. But would Scarlett be legally required to do that before calling my number if Ryan gave it to her?

You know it’s bad when you like a girl so much that you buy cellphone service from her ex-husband! If I just wanted to hear Scarlett Johansson’s voice (other than in a movie or interview) THAT bad, I’m sure I could FIGURE OUT what her number is.  There are only a few million real possibilities, and back in 1994, I began studies at Stanford University, although I did not take a degree.  So, the math problem/verbal question “What is Scarlett Johansson’s phone number right now?” should be similar to 2+2=4 for most Stanford students It more than likely is an LA or NY tristate area code number.  And it’s probably not 222-2222 or anything like that  Just set up the right formulas in Excel.

I know it’s a ten-digit number already because all American phone numbers are.  I’m guessing probably a PRIME NUMBER, though maybe not.  But once we COMPARE a list of ten-digit primes with a list of known non-Scarlett phone numbers, we’re halfway there.  We can eliminate a bunch of numbers that we know are NOT Scarlett’s without needing to call them.

I don’t want to give you any more of that equation because I don’t want lone nuts to start ringing Scarlett’s phone off the hook and make her have to change her number again already.  I can design a more secure cellphone system than that, I THINK, but it would be a LOT of work, and rich people would have to pay me to do it.  It’s too much work to do for fun or just to be nice.  But at some point in that project, to succeed, I’m going to have to be able to CALCULATE Scarlett’s phone number without anyone telling it to me.  It’s the large prime that explains why, on rare occasion, you can clearly see the planet Venus in the daytime sky with your naked eye.  I been told by professors that this phenomenon does exist, but it is so rare few people have ever actually seen it.

Anyway, I think that makes for some fun legal bullshit for you lawyers (and maybe even Ryan and Scarlett) to play around with. Does Scarlett actually want to see if I can think my way to her phone number? LOL I’m not gonna do all that. I’m busy writing  But if you want to hire me, I’ll do all the parlor tricks you want.

 

So, what do you lawyers think?

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Oh, and please please PLEASE, I know I’m not as important as Scarlett, but please nobody prank me by trying to call me up and pretend to be her. It would just make me sad if the level of our civilization is that low. I don’t even give Scarlett permission to do that.  But if she’s SINCERE, she has, as of right now, my permission to call me ANY TIME on this little white and gold iPhone next to me right now that Ryan Reynolds can get her the number to. 

I like Mint Mobile so far.  But I’m in the WRONG TERRITORY if its not purely and plainly legal for them to WORK THAT OUT SOMEHOW so Scarlett can call me if she feels like it.