The phrase "thorny case" is a valid and commonly used expression in written English.
It can be used in a variety of contexts to refer to a complex, difficult, or contentious situation or issue. Example: "The lawyers were struggling to come up with a solution to the thorny case of property rights between the two neighboring countries."
Tornadoes, the deadliest weather disaster to hit the country this year, present a particularly thorny case.
In Mr. Lien, the committee found a man in harmony with the government on the longstanding, thorny case of Taiwan, which China regards as a breakaway territory.
But it is as much the second lawyer, William Jeffress Jr., who offers clues about how the thorny case will proceed.
Classmates remembered him wandering in late for a study group and rapidly rattling off solutions to a thorny case before dashing off to the water.
Mr. Hicks, though, is also a special, and especially thorny, case -- a citizen of one of the United States' closest allies.
The Nile Hilton Incident (Sweden. Dir: Tarik Saleh) Just before the 2011 revolution, a Cairo cop takes on the thorny case of a murdered singer.
In thorny cases, a critic or reporter can extenuate a passage outside of quotation marks.
Ann-Jane Levinson (she preferred A. J). was executive director of Concern for Dying for 11 years beginning in 1976, a period in which thorny cases like that of Karen Ann Quinlan, who spent years on life support equipment, provoked deep questioning about how people die.
The four-dimensional case was proved in 1982, and in 2003, a Russian mathematician, Grigori Perelman, completed a proof for the thorniest case, of three dimensions.
Lawyers and debt collectors say these are some of the thorniest cases in the attorney general's portfolio because of the wrenching issues they raise.
Another thorny legal case that the United States Embassy in Beijing has pursued repeatedly is that of Fong Fuming, a power company consultant and former Chinese power industry official, now an American citizen.
