The firm’s chairman, Bill Hangley, sent the following message around the office:

A friend of mine, Al, sent me a couple of excerpts from a book of translations of ancient legal documents. Al thought I'd be particularly interested in the Formula of Excommunication of Animals. (Locusts and caterpillars are enjoined to leave the vineyards within six days, upon failure of which "we excommunicate them through this document and curse them by the same.") I was more impressed with a certain contract provision, circa 988 A.D. I think we should incorporate it in all agreements we write:

Now if anyone shall think to infringe on this deed of gift or bring a false action against it, may he be seized with jaundice and smitten with blindness; may he bring his present life to a miserable ending by the most wretched death and undergo everlasting damnation with the devil, where bound with red-hot chains, may he groan for ever and ever, and may the worm that never dies feed on his flesh, and the fire that cannot be quenched he his food and sustenance eternally.

So much for your limp little liquidated damages or equitable relief clauses.