Talk:Stambovsky v. Ackley

A fact from Stambovsky v. Ackley appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 16 March 2006. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that a house was held to be haunted by poltergeists as a matter of law in the 1991 New York case Stambovsky v. Ackley, making the Nyack, New York house the only legally haunted house in the United States?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2006/March.

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Earlier comments

Great article. Is there any information on what has happened to the house since the court case? —Cuivi é nen, Wednesday, 15 March 2006 @ 19:42 (UTC)

Thanks. The only information I could find about the house after the lawsuit is here. - Jersyko·talk 19:46, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, well written article. My only disappointment is that my Contracts professor picked a casebook without this case. Bobak 19:57, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting article, though my only quibble is that the "as a matter of law, the house is haunted" line is clearly facetious dicta by the court. While it's still an interesting case, it hardly stands for the legal proposition that ghosts are real, as is implied.

I think most law professors would include this as an example of the equitable doctrine of recission, but they could easily find any number of other cases to do the same thing. Choosing this one is motivated, I'd guess, because of its entertainment value to sleep-deprived law students. JJ, 15 Mar 06

Agreed, 100%. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if this case was cited at some point in a wacky conspiracy theory regarding the existence of ghosts, aliens, or whatnot . . . "see, even the government agrees that they exist!!!" ;) - Jersyko·talk 21:10, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps similarly, here in Sydney, we had a quite recent court case where the real estate agent did not inform a couple that the house that they just bought was the site of Sef Gonzalez murdering his parents and sister. The couple were refunded their money. And the RE industry lost a little credibility in the popular press. The case was very high profile, but he couple were Asian, and emigrated to Australia, perhaps after the sentencing.

I would like to begin by noting I am not weighing in one way or another on whether the house in the present case is haunted. I have seen the outside of the home, not the inside, and I am not sure it matters if it is or if it isn't, what matters is that the owners believe it is, and thus cannot achieve the "quiet enjoyment" promised by the bundle of rights in fee simple ownership. My note is purely theoretical.

There is a major flaw in the whole case history, if you study paranormal phenomenon or parapsychology to any extent. I am a practicing lawyer in Wisconsin with a BA in Psychology. I pointed this out to my professor in law school, as I am an avid student of the paranormal; mostly in how natural phenomenon may explain so-called "paranormal" occurrences (such as the natural decomposition of a body leading to vampire myths). The phenomenon in the case is described as "Poltergeist" activity. However, any real study into poltergeist activity would reveal that poltergeists tend to be one of the few disturbances linked not to a place, but a person. Most commonly, the person in question is a young girl approaching the onset of puberty (between nine and thirteen). Various explanations have attributed the activity to disturbances caused by the girl's transition from the relatively gender-neutral role of "girl" into the sexualized role of "woman." Documented cases tend to end later into puberty, and follow the girl. So, essentially, there is a problem here: either the disturbance in the house isn't a poltergeist, which would have left with the touchstone personality, or it didn't come with the house. I realize this is splitting hairs and has no legal bearing on the legal outcome and so-called "psychic damage" to a house (also including sites of murders, etc., like the DeFeo home in Amityville, NY and the Sydney case listed above), but I just felt the need to point it out in case there are any other aficionados of the weird out there. 97.86.122.137 05:37, 16 July 2007 (UTC) JLT, Esq.[reply]

Comparing 2007 and 2009 versions

I just reverted an edit by User:DeWitt. It appears in this edit he reverted the article back his version of 2007 with a slight change. There have been several anonymous edits in between of questionable value but there have been referenced edits (mine included) as well as maintenance edits that go knocked out so I'm reverted all of DeWitt's edit. 17:12, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

what's the opposite of clarification?

It is sometimes called the "Ghostbusters case", a reference to the author rhetorically asking "who you gonna call" to resolve a haunting.

Before looking at the article, I thought, sure, there's a (purported) haunting so naturally jokes were made about Ghostbusters; no explanation necessary. After reading the above sentence, I understand less than I did before! If "the author" means the judge (Israel Rubin) who wrote the decision, the article ought to say something about the context of the quotation. If "the author" means the scriptwriter (Aykroyd+Ramis), the article ought to say something about how that specific phrase is relevant; I don't see anything in the story about any attempt to remove the ghosts. —Tamfang (talk) 03:22, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Photo of Ackley house.

Can someone take a photo and upload a photo of the Ackley house to Wikimedia be used in the article? Sfar13 (talk) 09:17, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]