Latin dead? Hold the postmortem!

In a Sixth Circuit opinion released today in which he chastises the State of Michigan for confusing the doctrines of res judicata and collateral estoppel, Judge Boyce Martin decided to apply the doctrine Michigan probably meant to argue (collateral estoppel) noting in a footnote that "Latin is a dead language anyway."

His colleague, Judge Alice Batchelder, filed a one paragraph concurring opinion which in its entirety reads as follows:

I concur in Judge Martin’s opinion. I write separately only to express my suspicion that, like the reports of Mark Twain’s death, see The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (Third Edition, 2002), the report of the death of Latin in the majority opinion’s footnote 5 is greatly exaggerated.

So I guess Latin as a language is every bit as alive as Mark Twain is?

On the other hand, Rident stolidi verba Latina. (Fools laugh at the Latin language.) ----Ovid

Hat Tip to The Volokh Conspiracy.