[ArtK78]

Every so often during the course of practicing law I run into something that makes me laugh out loud and shudder at the same time.

For example, I was just about to order a death certificate from the Pennsylvania Office of Vital Records. I went to the website, which is quite helpful. It offers three ways to order death certificates - online, by mail or in person. However, the link for the instructions to ordering by mail probably could have been worded better - "Order Death by Mail."

http://www.portal.st...tificates/14122

This brought to mind one of the forms that I use quite frequently when administering New Jersey estates. Under New Jersey law (and other states have similar laws), when a person dies the State obtains a lien against all of the deceased person's assets until either the New Jersey inheritance and estate tax returns have been filed and the tax due paid or it is demonstrated to the satisfaction of the State that no tax is due. If no tax is due, the estate's representative can get a waiver of the tax lien in the case of real property by filing a Form L-9. The title of the Form L-9 could use some editing, however:

Affidavit of Resident Decedent Requesting Real Property Tax Waiver(s)

http://www.state.nj....itance/itl9.pdf

In the 31 years that I have been in practice, I have never been witness to a decedent executing a Form L-9.

Feel free to post similarly incongruous official forms and instructions.

[billw55]

I am a licensed radon tester in Illinois. The state regs are very specific. There is a flow chart for conducting measurements. One branch of this chart stated:

if the measured radon level is greater than 8.0 pCi/L, conduct a second test. If the average of the two tests is less than 4.0 pCi/L, no further action.

This has since been fixed in the latest update to the reg, but in was in there for quite a while.