A Montana Supreme Court justice quietly paid a fine for a misdemeanor traffic violation this week, triggering what legal scholars are calling the state’s first “institutional irony event” since a fire marshal’s office failed a safety inspection in 2014.

Justice Marjorie Ashworth, who has spent 18 years interpreting the finer points of Montana law from the state’s highest bench, was cited for a traffic offense the details of which remain mercifully mundane.

“It was a routine traffic matter,” said a spokesperson for the court, who spoke on condition of anonymity because “this is all very embarrassing for everyone involved.”

The fine — reportedly under $200 — was paid promptly and without contest, though sources say the justice did pause for approximately 11 seconds while reading the ticket, which one clerk described as “the longest silence I’ve ever experienced in a professional setting.”

Legal experts have weighed in with varying degrees of seriousness.

“There’s nothing unusual about a judge receiving a traffic citation,” said University of Montana law professor Dr. Stanley Greenwald. “What’s unusual is the psychic damage it inflicts on every clerk, bailiff, and paralegal in a 50-mile radius. Nobody knows where to look.”

Staff at the Gallatin County Justice Court, which handles traffic violations, confirmed that they had “collectively agreed not to discuss it” and had placed a potted plant over the relevant filing cabinet “for morale purposes.”

Meanwhile, a junior associate at a Bozeman law firm who wished to remain anonymous admitted to framing his own parking ticket after hearing the news. “If a Supreme Court justice can get a traffic citation, then my $35 meter violation is basically a badge of honor,” he said. “I’m putting it on LinkedIn.”

Constitutional scholars note that the incident raises no legal issues whatsoever, which has not stopped approximately 4,000 people on social media from having opinions about it.

The justice has returned to the bench and is expected to resume normal duties, which presumably now include a heightened awareness of speed limit signs on Highway 191.