Before a judge renders an opinion, he might rely on case law or consider precedents established by the U.S. Supreme Court. But this week at the federal court in Concord, Magistrate Judge James Muirhead reached for his copy of Green Eggs and Ham.

Muirhead channeled Dr. Seuss after an inmate mailed him a hard-boiled egg to protest his diet at the state prison.

"No fan I am of the egg at hand," Muirhead wrote.

He continued: "I do not like eggs in the file. I do not like eggs any style."

Then Muirhead ordered the egg destroyed.

"Today! Today!" he demanded. "Today I say! Without delay!"

Muirhead could not be reached for comment, but Daniel Lynch, deputy clerk at the U.S. District Court on Pleasant Street, confirmed that the egg had been tossed.

But the case, brought by inmate Charles Jay Wolff last September, is pending and set for trial.

In his lawsuit, Wolff, 61 and serving 10 to 20 years for aggravated felonious sexual assault, has accused prison officials in Concord of refusing to feed him a kosher and medically adequate diet. In addition to the proper foods, Wolff seeks $10 million from the state.

The case is complicated and has required a lot of attention from court and state officials. It seems the prison has succeeded in providing Wolff, who says he's Jewish, a kosher diet. The problem, according to court records, is that some of those kosher items aggravate Wolff's heart, diabetes and other medical conditions.

Wolff responded at one point by refusing to eat the main course of his dinner 29 out of 31 days to avoid digestive problems, court records said. After researching the matter and hearing from Wolff and prison officials, Muirhead concluded in August that the prison had not responded to Wolff's medical needs and instead given him the "run around."

Muirhead ordered the prison to come up with a plan to better meet Wolff's dietary needs.

Hard-boiled eggs are among the foods Wolff says he cannot tolerate, and it was his understanding the prison would serve him eggs another way. So when Wolff was recently served hard-boiled eggs, he fired off a complaint to the federal court - with a hard-boiled egg attached.

Wolff sent a copy of his complaint, and another hard-boiled egg, to the state attorney general's office, which is representing the prison in the lawsuit.

Andrew Livernois, the attorney handling Wolff's case for the state, said the egg arrived in a padded envelope taped to a piece of paper. It was intact and hadn't begun to smell. It's an unusual piece of correspondence, not as bad as others, Livernois said.

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