This is our third straight post on the learned intermediary doctrine. Many things in life come in threes. We bet you have an aunt who, every time a famous person departs this vale of tears, announces that two more will shortly follow. Sometimes the rule of three celebrity deaths is fulfilled by a bit of stretching. Academy Award and Nobel Prize winners die, and then crazy auntie issues an I-told-you-so upon learning of the expiration of a minor actor who once played a villain on "Sheriff Lobo." Skeptical though we may be, we cannot deny that art, religion, and politics from all the world's cultures invest a special significance in the number 3. There were three Fates, three witches in Macbeth, three government departments that Rick Perry would eliminate, three Pep Boys, and, of course, Three Stooges.

On an episode of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" the $500,000 question was, "How many actors played the Three Stooges?" The contestant was a former clerk of Sixth Circuit Judge Danny Boggs, and he had chosen Judge Boggs as his "lifeline." Judge Boggs is certainly one of the most brilliant judges in America. He is famous for the quiz he sends out to clerk applicants that tests wide-ranging areas of learning. For example, "Distinguish Belisarius from Bucephalus from Bocephus." Anyway, Judge Boggs had to admit on National TV that he couldn't say how many thespians played Stooges. The answer is six: Moe, Larry, Curly, Shemp, Joe Besser, and Curly Joe DeRita. (No, Ted Healy and Emil Sitka don't count.) So the next time you have an oral argument in the Sixth Circuit and are frightened of facing Judge Boggs - who makes any panel "hot" - just remember that you know something he doesn't.