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Is it legal for a store to accept payment by debit card but not be able to refund to it, even in event of staff's mistake? A store accepts payment by payment cards, including debit and credit cards. Refunds are allowed, however due to a technical problem refunds cannot be made to debit cards. Sometimes a refund is necessary if a mistake was made, for example if the clerk scans the same item multiple times or the scanning gun malfunctions. This happened and the customer paid by debit and didn't have a credit card. (The mistake was caught after the customer read the receipt). Also the store does not carry cash. The store can give him the products that he paid for, but may the customer insist on getting a refund? Could the store give the customer credit, or must they actually return the money?	Could the store give the customer credit or must they actual return the money? The store has the legal obligation to return the money if the customer demands to be reimbursed. Section 155(4)(a) of the BC Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act explicitly provides reimbursement "to a consumer or class of consumers". The store's unilateral, inflexible decision to give the customer credit in lieu of a reimbursement is in violation of sections 8(3)(a) and 9(1) of the Act. That approach constitutes undue pressure to enter into an additional consumer transaction, more so where management is aware of the issue and refuses to fix it.	No they can't. The lease says the premises need to be cleaned without going into details how. You cleaned them yourself before moving out. If the landlord was not happy with that, they should have raised their concerns and discussed options. The security deposit that the landlord holds is only supposed to be used when something goes wrong. When something goes wrong, the landlord is supposed to talk, not to silently chop off a slice of the deposit as they please (unless the lease allows it, which it does not here). If the landlord refuses to refund, read the manual and go to small claims court to tell them where to get off.	Assuming USA law: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2315 If you accept or buy goods that are knowingly stolen you may be fined or imprisoned. If you buy goods and later find out they were stolen you can sue for a refund. However, I'd say the likelihood of getting your money back is incredibly low.	You mean like this? Of course, a website can charge you to access its pages; many do. And yes, clicking on an "I agree" button can form a valid contract (just visiting the website can't). Historically, the law has adopted the position that if you sign it (including by clicking "I agree") you read it, you understood it and you agreed to it. It's hard to imaging how it could be otherwise because allowing people to get out of contracts by saying "I never read it" is problematical as well. However, there are two things that mitigate against the type of term you suggest; one practical and one legal. Practical: How do they get your money? They can ask for your credits card details and, if they do and you give them a court will probably come to the conclusion that you knowingly and willingly agreed to pay for the service. However, if they don't have any method of getting money from you, they would have to take you to court to do so. There are a number of practical problems with this like: who are you? where are you? Which court can they sue you in etc. Legal: At common law, there exists the doctrine of unconscionability that describes terms that are so extremely unjust, or overwhelmingly one-sided in favour of the party who has the superior bargaining power, that they are contrary to good conscience. Such terms are legally unenforcable. Further, in many jurisdictions, consumer protection law often give additional protections up to and including not enforcing terms that are merely unfair not just unconscionable.	The fact that the terms and conditions do not mention the word "disable" is significant, but not in the way you seem to think. You state: "...the merchant's T&C which does not explicitly allow the merchant to charge a fee for a disabled account". However, this doesn't mean that the merchant needs to explicitly state that they may. What it actually means is that the merchant does not recognize the term "disable" in the context of terminating the service contract. (Did they use stop, terminate, delete, eliminate, fall into disuse, log off, etc. or any other similar expressions?) You haven't defined what "disable" means, but perhaps it is more like a "pause" in service for which payment is still required? (Like having the post office hold your mail vs terminating all deliveries.) What you need to do is to read the section of the T&Cs that deals with terminating service and payment, understand what is required, and execute the procedures they describe. Whatever words they use, do that. If you have done all the steps and can prove it then you have a case against them, otherwise you are arguing semantics and interpretation... As to the title question, it does not appear that any "law" has been broken, this is just a contractual misunderstanding. P.S. This is the reason why I always set up payments through my bank to "push" money to vendors rather than authorizing them to "pull" money from me. When I am done I notify them and stop paying. I don't need to ask them to please stop taking it from me.	Not a lawyer, but: In many countries, a purchased item is your property once you removed it from the premises of the seller. In practice, this rarely makes a difference. You have entered a contract with the seller where the seller has to deliver the product, and you have to pay the money, you did your part, they have to do their part. There would be a difference if the item was stolen while in the store, or damaged by fire, or if the store went bankrupt and bailiffs took the item. If these rules apply in your country, then what they did is not theft, otherwise it would be theft (in all countries, if the store removed the door from your home after it is installed, that would be theft). You paid for a door, the store owes you a door. You have a legal contract. Both sides are bound by that legal contract. They have to do what the contract says (delivering the door that was displayed in the store), if they can't, then they have to do the nearest thing that isn't to your disadvantage, like delivering a new door. Or possible a different door that was on display. They can't just declare your contract invalid because it suits them better. That wouldn't be the case if this would put the store at an unacceptable disadvantage. For example, if thieves had broken into the store and stolen ten doors, including yours, the store might get away with returning your money. Since they intentionally sold your door again to someone else, I don't think they could use this as an excuse. I'd go once more to the store and ask them whether they want to deliver a door to you, according to your contract with the store, or if they want you to get a lawyer. A letter from a lawyer might work wonders. (Or of course the lawyer might tell you that I'm completely wrong, but they don't know that, so telling them that you will hire a lawyer might be enough).	You owe money if there is a contract obliging you to pay. Whether you receive what you pay for (e.g. services) only affects your stance when suing for non-performance/damages; your obligation to pay still stands until the court decides it does not (or there is a mutual agreement to discharge the contract). It is irrelevant whether the original payment method still works or not. If it does not but you still owe money — you have to pay. The ability to turn the credit card off is just a handy feature. It does not affect your contractual obligations in any way except for when the terms explicitly provide for it (like automatic cancelling subscription when payment method fails).	My thinking is that there was no meeting of the minds, thus no acceptance. ( I can see that shipping the goods implies acceptance, however I understand that acceptance implies a meeting of the minds - and there would have been subterfuge to modify the return page with the lower amount - thus at the moment of apparent acceptance there was no actual acceptance) I doubt you would have a case against the other party criminally, but quite possibly in a civil court.
If a law or state constitution is struck down as unconstitutional, is there an obligation for the legislature to repeal it? When a court strikes down a federal/state law or state constitution as unconstitutional, can the legislature just leave that unconstitutional provision on the statute book as long as the executive does not enforce it, or is there an obligation to repeal the unconstitutional provision? I have been reading US state constitutions recently and noticed many have provisions barring same-sex marriage, which are obviously unenforceable following the Supreme Court decisions on the matter. Can the states just leave these provisions in their constitutions indefinitely ?	No, there is no obligation to repeal It is common for statutes held to be unconstitutional to be left on the books decades later, and for others which quite likely would be so held if anyone tried to enforce them to be similarly left for even longer periods. It is somewhat less common for state constitutional provisions, but it does happen, and as those commonly take more than a simple legislative act, there is even less motivation to go through the troublesome process in such cases. There are even a few provisions in the US constitution which have become obsolete, but not actually amended away. For example, the so-called 'three-fifths compromise', which counted slaves as worth 3/5ths of a person for computing representation, was effectively repealed by the Civil War and the 13th amendment, but was not formally removed. That section was actually formally replaced by the 14th.	The first thing to note is that your question is kind of the wrong way around. US states are sovereign and generally have the ability to make any kind of laws they want, unless they violate some specific tenet of federal law or the US Constitution. You suggest, for instance, that arguments which are "culturally founded" have no place in the law, but that's just your opinion, and there isn't generally anything preventing a state from making law based on such things, should its elected legislature see fit to do so. (Indeed, one could argue that nearly all laws are in some sense "culturally founded", since they are based on some notion of what kind of behavior is or is not appropriate, and those tend to be culturally based.) So legally speaking, the states aren't, by default, obligated to give any sort of justification for the laws they made. The burden of proof is on the other side. Someone seeking to overturn those laws would have to convince a court that the laws violated some specific provision of the Constitution (or another superior law). If they couldn't convince a court of this, the law would stand. From what I have read, before the US Supreme Court's 2015 legalization of same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges, the previous precedent was set in 1971 by the Minnesota Supreme Court in Baker v. Nelson. The decision itself is quite short and is worthwhile to read. Quoting Wikipedia's summary, the plaintiffs claimed that Minnesota's restriction of marriage to opposite-sex couples violated several provisions of the US Constitution: First Amendment (freedom of speech and of association), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual punishment), Ninth Amendment (unenumerated right to privacy), and Fourteenth Amendment (fundamental right to marry under the Due Process Clause and sex discrimination contrary to the Equal Protection Clause). The Minnesota court determined that none of the plaintiffs' objections were valid. Again, I'll refer you to the decision for the details, but the court mainly focused on their Fourteenth Amendment arguments (the others may have been addressed by the trial court, whose opinion I can't find online). They wrote: The equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, like the due process clause, is not offended by the state's classification of persons authorized to marry. There is no irrational or invidious discrimination. They specifically rejected any analogy to bans on interracial marriage, which had been held unconstitutional in Loving v. Virginia: But in commonsense and in a constitutional sense, there is a clear distinction between a marital restriction based merely upon race and one based upon the fundamental difference in sex. Baker appealed to the US Supreme Court, but his appeal was dismissed "for want of a substantial federal question," without any further explanation. (Nobody quite seems to understand what they meant by that, but here is an essay discussing the situation in a little more depth.) The effect of the dismissal was that the Minnesota court's decision became binding precedent upon the whole nation - laws against same-sex marriage didn't violate those provisions of the Constitution. And that was how matters stood for 44 years until Obergefell. (Of course, there was nothing to stop individual states from deciding to allow same-sex marriage, and some in fact did so in the meantime.) You have suggested that laws against same-sex marriage were religiously motivated. This might suggest an argument that they would violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The plaintiffs in Baker didn't raise that point, so it wasn't considered in the Minnesota court's opinion. I don't know whether any other courts have considered it; no such argument was mentioned in the opinion in Obergefell.	This is an open question in Colorado, where there's an ongoing challenge to the state's supermajority requirement in Kerr v. Hickenlooper. The state requires a supermajority for tax or spending increases, and several lawmakers challenged the law as violating the Guarantee Clause, which guarantees each state a republican form of government. The case has been going on for a long time. It's about seven years old now, and they're still arguing about who has standing to bring the lawsuit. The latest development is that no one had standing, but that decision is currently being appealed in the Tenth Circuit. A bigger problem than standing, though, may be justiciability. In Huddleston v. Sawyer, the Supreme Court of Oregon, rejected a challenge to supermajority requirements for reducing citizen-approved sentences for crimes, and in Lefkovits v. State Board of Elections, the Northern District of Illinois did the same with respect to judicial retention votes. Both courts concluded that supermajority requirements were a political issue, not a legal one. The justiciability concerns should be tempered by two considerations. First, there's an argument in Kerr that because taxes and spending are such core legislative functions, that it should be harder to uphold restrictions on the legislature's ability to vote on them. Second, there's U.S. Supreme Court precedent in New York v. U.S. suggesting -- but not deciding -- that the questions about justiciability are overblown: The view that the Guarantee Clause implicates only nonjusticiable political questions has its origin in Luther v. Borden, in which the Court was asked to decide, in the wake of Dorr's Rebellion, which of two rival governments was the legitimate government of Rhode Island. The Court held that “it rests with Congress,” not the judiciary, “to decide what government is the established one in a State.” ... Over the following century, this limited holding metamorphosed into the sweeping assertion that “[v]iolation of the great guaranty of a republican form of government in States cannot be challenged in the courts.” This view has not always been accepted. In a group of cases decided before the holding of Luther was elevated into a general rule of nonjusticiability, the Court addressed the merits of claims founded on the Guarantee Clause without any suggestion that the claims were not justiciable. More recently, the Court has suggested that perhaps not all claims under the Guarantee Clause present nonjusticiable political questions. ... We need not resolve this difficult question today. My money says that the question is not authoritatively answered in my lifetime.	This is a very straightforward point of constitutional law. Chapter and verse from the Constitution, art 224: (1) Notwithstanding anything in article 32, every High Court shall have power, throughout the territories in relation to which it exercises jurisdiction, to issue to any person or authority, including in appropriate cases, any Government, within those territories directions, orders or writs, including writs in the nature of habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, quo warranto and certiorari, or any of them, for the enforcement of any of the rights conferred by Part III and for any other purpose. (2) The power conferred by clause (1) to issue directions, orders or writs to any Government, authority or person may also be exercised by any High Court exercising jurisdiction in relation to the territories within which the cause of action, wholly or in part, arises for the exercise of such power, notwithstanding that the seat of such Government or authority or the residence of such person is not within those territories.	There are two cases to consider. If there is some evidence that the city intends to enforce the ordinance, then the business can go to court for an injunction preventing the city from doing so, if they can show that such enforcement would harm them (e.g. by making them impose a records policy they don't want). They don't have to risk arrest by actually violating the ordinance first. In granting the injunction, the court would likely rule that this particular ordinance is unconstitutional, which seems to be the "voiding" that you're looking for. If the city shows no signs of wanting to enforce the ordinance (e.g. they are well aware that it is unconstitutional and not legally enforceable), then a request for an injunction would likely be dismissed as not ripe. Courts do not want to waste their time on cases where there is no real dispute between the parties, or on issuing orders for an entity not to do something that they weren't going to do anyway. It's understandable that the business might wish for an explicit ruling anwyay, in case they fear that the city will change its mind tomorrow and start cracking down, but unfortunately for them, courts do not agree that this is worth doing. Note in either case the ordinance will remain on the books until such time as the town council (or other relevant legislative body) should vote to repeal it. Courts have no power to make that happen, no matter how unconstitutional the ordinance might be. So the business might find it more effective to petition the council for a repeal.	How can incitement of imminent lawless action not be constitutionally protected? The short answer to your question is "because the Supreme Court of the United States said so." In Brandenburg v. Ohio SCOTUS found that the Constitution protects speech that calls for lawless action in the abstract but does not protect speech "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action". The court's per curiam opinion seems to treat the decision as self-evident - it's quite short after discussing the facts of the case. However, Justice William O. Douglas wrote a concurring opinion (his "caveat") that discussed and was critical of previous decisions in such cases, including the use of the 'clear and present danger test', so his opinion is useful for a brief history of First Amendment judgments to that point (Brandenburg). The Declaration of Independence is not law. Following "a history of repeated injuries and usurpations" and failures to reach political settlements it asserts a moral right to overthrow the tyranny of the British crown. It alludes to rights, it does not "enshrine" or create a legal right that the judiciary can interpret. Judges might refer to the Declaration in their judgments, not using it as legal authority but an articulation of fundamental values.	A good starting point would be the SCOTUS opinion, or everything on SCOTUSblog, especially the application for injunctive relief filed on Aug. 30. There is a long sequence of petitions and orders which ask the courts either to issue an injunction preventing the law from taking force, or to vacate an administrative stay of proceedings by the lower court regarding petitioner's challenge. The lower court denied the petitions, therefore petitioners turn to SCOTUS to get an injunction against the law. Then you can turn to the SCOTUS opinion to see what the reasons were, for and against the petition. The majority position is that an applicant must carry the burden of making a “strong showing” that it is “likely to succeed on the merits,” that it will be “irreparably injured absent a stay,” that the balance of the equities favors it, and that a stay is consistent with the public interest. The majority concludes that The applicants now before us have raised serious questions regarding the constitutionality of the Texas law at issue. But their application also presents complex and novel antecedent procedural questions on which they have not carried their burden. Immediately after this the court comments that federal courts enjoy the power to enjoin individuals tasked with enforcing laws, not the laws themselves. However, it is unclear whether the named defendants in this lawsuit can or will seek to enforce the Texas law against the applicants in a manner that might permit our intervention The law states that Any person, other than an officer or employee of a state or local governmental entity in this state, may bring a civil action against any person who and the named respondents (government workers of various sorts) all appear to be precluded from filing an action – thus an injunction against the judge is superfluous since he cannot file a lawsuit anyhow. It is also unclear whether SCOTUS can issue an injunction against state judges asked to decide a lawsuit under Texas’s law. When SCOTUS say "it is unclear" in this context, they mean that petitions did not adequately demonstrate that the court can in fact issue such an injunction. It's not that SCOTUS cannot decide such matters after extensive consideration of the facts / arguments and discussion, it's that the standards for an emergency action require something that the court found lacking in the petition: we cannot say the applicants have met their burden to prevail in an injunction or stay application. In reaching this conclusion, we stress that we do not purport to resolve definitively any jurisdictional or substantive claim in the applicants’ lawsuit.	The religious freedom argument has no legs following Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990). Although a State would be "prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]" in violation of the Clause if it sought to ban the performance of (or abstention from) physical acts solely because of their religious motivation, the Clause does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a law that incidentally forbids (or requires) the performance of an act that his religious belief requires (or forbids) if the law is not specifically directed to religious practice and is otherwise constitutional as applied to those who engage in the specified act for nonreligious reasons. With respect to the "involuntary servitude", this was dealt with in Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241 (1964). The engagement of Federal power relied on the interstate commerce clause but the current case, as a state law matter, does not need to do this. Basically, by voluntarily providing the goods/service to the public, they agree that they will provide it in accordance with the law governing that kind of commerce. They are free to not provide it to anyone but if they choose to supply it they must supply it to everyone (subject ti normal rules of commerce like the customer actually paying etc.).
Is it illegal for a store employee to do this with payment? In a retail store the official policy is that cash is not accepted and payment must be made through payment card (e.g. credit card). Some employees started telling the customers who want to pay in cash "if you are OK without getting change, you can pay in cash" and the employee would pay using his own credit card and keep the cash for themselves. A small "profit" may be made, for example is the purchase cost $19 and the customer paid with a $20 bill then the employee gets the $1 difference. What laws may be broken? Does it matter if everyone does it or if management knows about it? To add to the hypothetical scenario, employees are at liberty to give 20% off discounts. What if the discount was applied, after the customer had been told the price and paid in cash? From the example it would be 19 x 80% = $15.20 and they pay with the $20 so it would be $4.80 profit instead of $1. Tips in the form of coins and bills are accepted, so in a sense it could be argued that it's a tip.	An employee is an agent of the employer when working and owes a duty of loyalty to the employer. One of the obligations associated with a duty of loyalty is to refrain from receiving anything other than the employer authorized compensation for the work, rather than benefitting personally from work done on behalf of the employer. By appropriating additional benefit from the customer in a way that is unauthorized by the employer (the employer would be within its rights to sanction and authorize this conduct if desired), an employee who does not turn the profit in this transaction over to the employer has breached a fiduciary duty to the employer for which the employer would have a right to sue the employee for the amount by which the employee was unjustly enriched in the transaction. Would it actually play out this way in real life for these sums of money? Probably not. The stakes involved wouldn't justify the time and money of a lawsuit. But, breaching a fiduciary duty of loyalty to your employer in this context probably constitutes good cause to terminate the employment of the employee without paying severance that would otherwise be payable under Canadian employment law (in theory anyway, I've never seen a reported court case on point).	No, this isn't legal. Had you authorized the purchase, then it would have been legal; this is similar to a store credit for returns without a receipt. But since you claim they charged you in error and you did not authorize the transaction, then they must refund the money directly to you (unless you agree to another method of compensation). In fact, a direct refund should have been the default unless they gained your permission to receive it in a different form. Why are you unable to contact the company? That seems like the simplest resolution so this.	It looks like the gym was allowed to take the money out of your bank account and didn't. They didn't notice that they didn't take your money, so they can't really expect you to notice it. So you haven't done anything that would be criminal. The bigger question is how much you owe them. If you used the gym all the time, like someone paying monthly would do, they will most likely have the right to payment. That's not unlimited, there will be some "statute of limitations" so they can't ask you for 30 years back payments, but with less than two years they probably have a right. If they raised prices, it's unlikely the would have a right to that because they never told you. The situation while your subscription was frozen is interesting. Basically you just walked in, used the gym without paying, but they didn't stop you in any way. I could walk into your gym, ask if it is Ok to use it, and if they say "yes" and don't mention payment, I'm in. So for this time you can argue whether or not you owe them money. Summary: You haven't done anything criminal. You most likely owe them money. About the money, they can take you to court if you don't pay which will cost both sides money. Since you did use their service and other users did pay, the morally right thing would be to pay what seems fair to you, possibly with some negotiation. And legally, you might consider paying them enough to make both sides happy enough so you can stay a gym member and don't get sued for the money.	Not a lawyer, but: In many countries, a purchased item is your property once you removed it from the premises of the seller. In practice, this rarely makes a difference. You have entered a contract with the seller where the seller has to deliver the product, and you have to pay the money, you did your part, they have to do their part. There would be a difference if the item was stolen while in the store, or damaged by fire, or if the store went bankrupt and bailiffs took the item. If these rules apply in your country, then what they did is not theft, otherwise it would be theft (in all countries, if the store removed the door from your home after it is installed, that would be theft). You paid for a door, the store owes you a door. You have a legal contract. Both sides are bound by that legal contract. They have to do what the contract says (delivering the door that was displayed in the store), if they can't, then they have to do the nearest thing that isn't to your disadvantage, like delivering a new door. Or possible a different door that was on display. They can't just declare your contract invalid because it suits them better. That wouldn't be the case if this would put the store at an unacceptable disadvantage. For example, if thieves had broken into the store and stolen ten doors, including yours, the store might get away with returning your money. Since they intentionally sold your door again to someone else, I don't think they could use this as an excuse. I'd go once more to the store and ask them whether they want to deliver a door to you, according to your contract with the store, or if they want you to get a lawyer. A letter from a lawyer might work wonders. (Or of course the lawyer might tell you that I'm completely wrong, but they don't know that, so telling them that you will hire a lawyer might be enough).	Dale has the right answer, but I'd like to elaborate on why it isn't lawful (as compared to why it would be unlawful). I know it doesn't work that way on line, but it's simpler to think of a credit card as a physical piece of plastic. The bank will have issued this to their customer. It will have a number and an expiry date. You have no way of knowing whether a replacement card has been issued. Even if one has, the customer has authorised you to charge a specific card - you do not have the customer's authorisation to charge a different card with a different expiry date. By guessing the expiry date, you would be making a representation to the bank that the customer has authorised you to charge that card (if it exists), when they have not.	If you are in Florida, the notion that this is "the only store around" is simply not accurate. I doubt that there is any place in Florida that is not within 15-20 miles of at least two stores. In any case, the store is within its rights to ban you from the store even if you acted lawfully.	Under Section 1 of the Sherman Act, there has to be an agreement for there to be price fixing. If the parties do not agree to engage in price-fixing or other anti-competitive behavior, there is no violation. There does not needed to be a written, explicit contract memorializing the agreement, but there does need to be more than just encouragement to change prices. Telling one person to charge more isn't price-fixing, because the person making the suggestion could then just leave his own prices in place and enjoy the competitive advantage. But if that person were to say, "We should raise our prices," and then they both did, you'd probably have a pretty good Sherman Act case.	This is a good example of the life of the law being experience and not reason. While there is a logical argument that this isn't theft, in reality, this conduct would universally be considered an open and shut case of shoplifting and anyone who tried this would surely be convicted of a crime with consequences far more severe than creating a tort debt for conversion of the property. Also, you do intend to permanently deprive the store of its property. The fact that you intend to remedy that by paying for it doesn't change that. You aren't borrowing the property with an intent of returning it.
When multiple people are included in the same defamation lawsuit, do they get sued separately or all together? Let's say two employees for a toy company talk about a company's product being dangerously unsafe (regardless if was true or not) on a news channel. The same toy company goes on later on to file a defamation lawsuit and the following happens: The witnesses made it clear they would not back down from the lawsuit and would challenge it. The news channel does not want to get involved and would retract any articles, but the company made it clear they would sue them anyway. If they are written in the same lawsuit (BT Baby Toys vs Alex A, Bobby B and XYZ News), are they sued separately or all together? Can the news organization bail out of the lawsuit early and pay a settlement fee or something?	Either is possible Let's look at a very recent example: Dominion sued Guliani and Powell separately. But Smartmatics sued both plus Fox at once. Their allegations are even very similar. The benefit of Smartmatics' approach is, they only need to file documents once, and only meet one time the filing fee. Parties may try to get their case split off, then they become a separate case and it becomes the Dominion strategy. The benefit of Dominion's approach is, that the separate cases are harder to dismiss for each party on their own and they have no standing to weigh in on the other case. If the court consolidates the cases, it becomes the Smartmatics strategy. Also note, that the court can act on its own against a joint lawsuit: parties might get dismissed from it that were improperly joined. Those dismissals are without prejudice and can be fixed by just re-filing the lawsuit against the dismissed defendant alone.	In theory, a store can ban you or anyone else for any reason except those protected by law against discrimination. As a practical matter, you potentially have various forms of recourse. The first thing to do is to write the the CEO of the chain, with a long detailed letter describing the incidents, and naming names. Most CEO's don't want to deal with this kind of bad publicity, and will at least order an investigation, and make amends, if the internal investigation is in your favor. This would apply even to the late Sam Walton, if the chain is WalMart, or whoever the current CEO is. If you are a member of a protected minority, or even have dark skin, you can sue the chain on those grounds. There will be a presumption that they barred you on grounds of race or color. Then the burden of proof will be on them to show that they didn't bar you for those causes. As a form of "entrapment," you should take a witness, basically the most influential person you can get hold of that's not a family member, to the store with you to ask them why you were barred. The mayor of your town would be ideal, more llkely it would be a boss, teacher, or clergyman, but in any event, someone who knows you well. If you can get them to accuse you of stealing in front of this third party, you have the makings of a defamation case. And even if you aren't a minority, you can sue them anyway. You can demand "discovery" of all internal documents, videos, etc. relating to your case. Your lawyer will also the right to "depose" (cross examine) all offending managers.There's a good chance that something embarrassing will turn up in the process. (Many defendants settle in connection with discovery.) You might want to hire a second (libel) lawyer to teach you how to publicize the case without running into libel laws. If all this fails, the store can probably bar you, but you want to make it prohibitively expensive for them to do so, meaning that most rational people wouldn't bar you after the above. If they do, they're not rational and you're better off not using the store.	The argument would have to be either a derivative work under copyright, or a trade dress/trademark claim. Neither sounds very solid at all. Neither copyright nor trade dress/trademark protect ideas like a TV format. They can only protect very similar expressions of an idea that necessarily flow one from the other and, for example, the game mechanics can't be protected by copyright.	Is it true that there has never been a single case It is tough to prove a negative. I am not going to completely parse the quote but please notice that the quote states "we couldn't find" and concludes that "it doesn't happen." Given these two pieces of information I do not conclude that there has never been a single case. Rather I conclude that the speaker in your quote could not find a case therefore he concluded that there has never been a single case. It's largely impossible to determine that there has never been a single such case. We can search published opinions but that barely scratches the surface of lawsuits that are filed. It is entirely possible that someone filed a suit which was quickly dismissed. The Act provides a defense, it does not bar lawsuits. Someone might get sick from food and not know where the food came from so they sue the provider. If this happens the provider may raise the Emerson Act as a defense and escape liability to the extent applicable. But again, we will never know because it's impossible to examine every lawsuit filed in this country.	Now the party in question is threatening to sue (but of course refuses to point to which sections he believes are libelous) ... do we have to pay the $$ to "lawyer up" if we want to be safe? If you get sued, you will definitely want a lawyer. If you don't get sued, well, in that case you're safe. So your first question is whether the supposedly aggrieved party will actually sue. Your second question is, if they sue, do they have a good case? That question will be useful in deciding whether to settle. If the threats are empty then you might want to hire a lawyer to call their bluff. Otherwise you may have to endure the continual empty threats. This is especially true if the libel case is weak. Your lawyer can write a letter that explains why there is no case. If they do sue, they will have to identify the specific libelous statements, so you will at that point be able to refute the claims. But you'll also want a lawyer at that point, so you won't have to be directly concerned with the details; your lawyer will take care of them. As suggested in a comment, do keep in mind that a true statement cannot be libelous, by definition. To the extent that you can prove that every statement in the piece is true then you don't have much to worry about. But even then you'll want a lawyer's advice, because even if you know yourself that everything is true, you don't know what it will take to prove that in court. (Another aspect of the element of falsity is that statements of opinion are generally not defamatory.) To learn for yourself about the elements of libel you can start with Wikipedia or a bit of internet searching. To get a thorough analysis of the facts of your case in light of the laws of the relevant jurisdictions, you will need to engage a lawyer. It might not cost as much as you fear.	(Standard disclaimer: I am not your lawyer; I am not here to help you.) Under American common law, the distinction here would relate to the harm to B: either a damages issue or a "special harm" issue. The Restatement elements of defamation are falsity, publication, fault, and inherent actionability or special harm. See Rest. 2d Torts § 558. The last element captures the traditional doctrine that slander (not libel) is only actionable if it falls into one of four or five specific categories ("slander per se"), or if it actually causes economic injury. Your example doesn't seem to fit into any of the special categories. But see Rest. 2d Torts § 573 (imputations affecting business or office). If the statement to C is oral rather than written, and C doesn't believe it or otherwise nothing comes of the statement, B may not be able to prove special harm and therefore fail to recover anything. If D, on the contrary, avoided doing business with B, B may be able to show special harm supporting a claim. Similarly, C's disbelief or D's belief may be relevant to determining the actual damages B suffered and is therefore entitled to recover from A.	My gut response without really analyzing it (which is honestly what a lot of these cases boil down to in the end) is that the proposed name would imply an affiliation with the company that does not exist. A case challenging that name could be expensive and come out either way. Instead, "The [Wife's Name] Toy Museum" with descriptive material in brochures and on a website saying that the exhibits were manufactured by "Toy Company", which is a nominative use that does not imply an affiliation with the Company would be a wiser move.	The relevant question for libel under US law is "would a reasonable person understand this to be a statement of fact about the plaintiff, or to imply a statement of fact about the plaintiff." It doesn't directly matter if the name was changed or not; what matters is if a reasonable person would think the statements in question are talking about an actual person (the plaintiff) and are stating (or implying) actual facts, or if a reasonable person would think the statements in question are pure fiction and don't say anything factual about the plaintiff. Changing the name tends to make it seem more like fiction, but that's not always enough: suppose I write a long fictional story about Theodore Bau, who is active on the Pile Market series of online Q&A sites, particularly a history one and a board games one, who published an economics book in 2004 and was an econ and history double major, and fills in more details from Tom's SE bios, and in the book talk about how Mr. Bau stole money from clients; I then send thto potential clients of Tom Au. The fact that I changed the names and said "this is a work of fiction and any similarities are coincidental" isn't exactly an automatic get-off-scot-free card. On the other hand, if I'm telling a story about Tom Au that uses a fair bit of your backstory, with no disclaimer that any similarities are pure coincidence but Mr. Au lives a secret life as a legitimate supervillain, a reasonable person is unlikely to conclude that I'm saying that you actually have a volcanic lair and that you are actually plotting to capture a US and a Russian missile sub to provoke a nuclear war. In this case, the court determined that a reasonable person familiar with the context could understand the book to be talking about the plaintiff's actual behavior, instead of just talking about a fictional character. The fact that it was fiction and the names were changed suggested that it wasn't talking about the real plaintiff, but the details of the book could make it go the other way.
What is considered “production” of an illegal image? Is a child sex abuse image considered “produced” by Bob if it was “received” or “viewed” on Bob’s computer? Does the computer displaying the image on Bob’s monitor count as him producing it? Or would Bob have to take the photo of the illegal image himself (or draw/render the photo if it’s considered an obscene image) to be judged as “producing” it?	18 USC 2251 has various provisions that outlaw "producing" child porn, and in 18 USC 2256(3) "producing" is defined as "producing, directing, manufacturing, issuing, publishing, or advertising". The same law also prohibits "transmitting a live visual depiction of such conduct", and also forbids one to "receive, exchange, buy, produce, display, distribute, or reproduce". §2252 has prohibitions against transportation, receiving and distribution of materials involving (previously prohibited) illegal production. In other words, "producing" does not include "viewing". §2252 itself also does not include "viewing" but it does include "accessing with intent to view", as does §2252A. Bob can be prosecuted no matter what, the only question is exactly which words of what statute apply. As you can see if he is involved in content-creation or any form of distribution, that is "producing".	OK, the prohibition on commercial use stems from either: The tort of passing off; this is a private civil matter between the model and the publisher, or Breach of s18 of the Australian Consumer Law which involve misleading or deceptive conduct; this is a public civil matter with strict liability (i.e. intention or negligence is irrelevant) between the ACCC and the publisher with fines of up to $1,100,000 for a body corporate and $220,000 for an individual. In both cases the cause of action arises from the possible presumption by a person who views the photograph that the model in it is endorsing the goods or services that you are selling. The standard is: Would a reasonable person, viewing the photograph in context, come to the conclusion that the model is endorsing the goods or services (either because they really like it or they were paid to show they really liked it). Context is everything here. Some examples: If you a photo studio selling the actual photograph then there is no endorsement. If you are using the photograph to promote the studio there is. If you are showing a crowd scene (e.g. at a football match) there is no endorsement. If you are showing a building and the people are incidental there is no endorsement. If you are showing individuals or small groups in a way that promotes your goods or services there is endorsement. So, look at the photograph and the purpose you are using it for: could a reasonable person draw the conclusion that the people in it are endorsing your application?	There are three main aspects to this: Its their website, and their terms of service. They can enforce those terms, or change them (in some appropriate manner). You have no recourse if they remove you, block you, or delete your account, for example. That's the measure that you would probably have, virtually every time. To claim damages, or litigate beyond just website access control, requires a legal claim. But there's a catch there. To claim damages, they need to show actual damage, which they wish to be compensated for. If you misused their website but no actual harm can be shown, the total damage claimable is zero, whether or not you followed their rules. Merely entering dishonest information isn't by itself harm. So they would have to show they suffered damage/harm because of that, which is directly attributable to your behaviour, was foreseeably harmful etc, or similar. They also need to consider legal costs, and ability to enforce, especially if you are in a different country. If for some reason the computer use was also illegal, then a criminal act could be committed and they could notify law enforcement. For example suppose you did this in the little known country of Honestania, where the law says that to prevent trolling and online abuse, anything posted on social media under any but your own legal name is a crime. Or suppose you'd been banned from the system and ignoring/evading such a ban was criminal computer use or criminal trespass due to the forbidden/unauthorised access (which can happen in several places). But this is purely for completeness; I guess you'd know if you were taking it further, into criminal computer use.	From the justice.gov site Federal law defines child pornography as any visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct involving a minor (persons less than 18 years old). So no, the mere showing of a naked chest or bare bottom does not constitute child pornography.	You can't own a database; you might, however, own (have) the copyright to a database if you created it or the creator transferred that right to you. You can also possess a copy of a database: the question is whether it is legal. "Leaked" implies that it is taken without permission, so you might be in violation of copyright law by possessing a copy. The only databases that would escape copyright protection would be those US government works, things put in the public domain, and things publically licensed to allow copying. Plus, any database whose content fails to exhibit a modicum of creativity (Feist). A database might be inherently illegal (at least in your hands), so it would depend on what the content is. The first thing that comes to mind is a database from a child-porn website, which contains numerous illegal images: see section 110 of Title 18. "Leaked" information might involve violation of 18 USC 1030 (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act), which prohibits unauthorized hacking. It does not directly prohibit being in possession of a hacked database: but you might still be prosecuted as an accessory after the fact. (That is one of those ad libitum areas of the law where there's no way to know for sure what is and is not "okay"). If they do prosecute you, you might rely on Bartnicki v. Vopper, 532 U.S. 514, where because it was a matter of "public interest", propagation of illegally obtained material was held to be protected by the First Amendment. Also there is the case of the Pentagon Papers. At the federal level, there are no controls over storing credit card information so if you get a copy of the Target or Home Depot hacked database, there's no federal law against that (if we discount "accessory after the fact"), but there are circumstances in Minnesota where retaining such information could be illegal.	The images and text are copyright (if they are). What Google does with them is fair use/dealing. It works like this: if Google's bot can find them then you (the owner) have put them on the World Wide Web presumably because you want people to see them, effectively you have put them on public display. Google is assisting you in that endeavour by enabling people who are looking for what you are displaying to find it. Their use of your material enhances its value to you which is a rock solid defence. If you don't want your stuff on public display then a) don't put it on a public part of the web - there are plenty of private cloud storage facilities or B) stick a file in your website that tells bots not to index it.	Because you are on their premises and they get to decide what people can or can't do while on their property. This has nothing to do with if recording is legal or not, it has to do with basic property rights and trespass. Let's assume that recording is perfectly legal: so is eating ice cream. However, if its my shop, I can require that you do not make recordings just as I can require that you do not eat ice cream. If I make this requirement known you have three options: you can comply, you can leave or you can stay and do the thing I have prohibited. The first two are legal, the last one isn't; its trespass which is both a tort for which I can sue you and a crime for which you can be arrested and prosecuted.	These are some thoughts about the state of affairs in the US, I do not know how it works in the UK. In the US it seems to be a legal gray area. Gray enough that I do not think any lawyer could say for certain that the use of the data is legal. The data is stolen. If possessing stolen property is illegal then possessing this data is also likely illegal. Of course experts disagree, Stuart Karle, an adjunct media professor at Columbia University and former general counsel for the Wall Street Journal says: ...the documents have been published by the hackers, they are now public by virtue of being put on the Internet. But Barrett Brown was charged with trafficking in stolen authentication when he forwarded a link to some stolen emails. He signed a plea for acting as an accessory after the fact. He spent more than a year in jail while they sorted it out. In the US there is no law banning the download of hacked documents. In fact Bartnicki v. Vopper 532 US 514 (2001) stands for the rule that journalists can report on illegally obtained information. But contrast that with the Barret Brown prosecution! And decide where a data scientist fits. Also there is the question of whether an illegally recorded conversation is of the same "illegal" nature as hacked personal information.
Cat Grooming Incident I recently took my cat to a groomer that advertises as being ‘cat only’ and even had a large sign on the front door that said ‘No Dogs’. When my girlfriend dropped my cat off she said there were two medium to large sized dogs that were barking very loudly and freely roaming the small building. She did not feel very comfortable leaving the cat at the groomer but since we'd paid up front so ultimately decided to follow through. When I arrived to pick him up I had a similar experience, the dogs were running around freely and barking constantly. The dogs belonged to the owner. They were making so much noise and acting so wild that she decided to let them out. She let them outside with no leash and within a minute they attacked a smaller dog that was being walked on the sidewalk. Her dog picked the smaller dog up, shook it, and threw it. When she came back in, we confronted her about the situation. We came here so that our cat could be groomed in a less stressful environment and there were two untrained dogs wildly running around and barking. Dogs that clearly demonstrated on another dog what they would do to my cat if they had the chance. When confronted she got a little heated and said next time she would charge us double and that we were lucky she didn’t cut up our cat. This was not the experience that I paid for, in addition this was not a controlled and safe environment for my pet. Is there a requirement to protect my pet in this situation? Is a cat grooming business that puts animals at risk even allowed to operate?	While there is no entry in the Michigan state licensing list for "cat groomers", there is one for "dog groomers" which is probably indicative of licensing for "cat groomers" at the same time - basically, there is no state licensed required. So theres no prospect of having one revoked. So, what can you do? Leave a bad review on Yelp, report them to the Better Business Bureau and never frequent the business again. Or, if you so wish, you can invest time and effort into a lawsuit in an attempt to prove negligence, animal cruelty, animal endangerment or something else on the part of the groomers - but don't expect that to either be cheap or something you might definitely win.	This depends on the nature of the "ban" ---i.e., who issued it, what legal power they have, and what it actually requires you to refrain from doing. You say it is "their ban" so I am going to assume that this is just a decision that the store has made not to allow you entry. If it is indeed the store itself that has "banned" you, this would not prevent you from calling them to apologise for whatever you did. Calling a business on the phone cannot generally be considered a trespass --- at most, if you were to repeatedly call and harass a business over and over again, it might give rise to a nuisance suit. Unless you have extremely strange laws in your jurisdiction, it is almost certainly not against the law for you to call a business that has banned you, a fortiori if this phone call is made for the purposes of apologising for whatever you did that led to the ban. Although it does not appear to be the situation in this case, if this ban was an actual restraining order of some kind issued by a Court, then it might indeed prevent you from contacting the business (in which case breaching it would lead to an action for contempt of court, not trespass). If a Court were to issue you with an injunction or restraining order of some kind to ban you from a business, then that instrument would specify what you are prevented from doing. You would then need to be very careful to comply with that order. In short: there is a great deal of difference between a "ban" made by a store as the owner of property, and a ban issued by a court through an injunction or restraining order.	Contracts are illegal if they require a signatory to break the law, so the contract here is detailing that this specific clause does not apply if following it would contradict the law. It's basically saying that no signatory may hold the other for breaking contract terms if the reason for breaking the contract terms is because the law specifically says these things are required. For example, if the contract reads "The hotel does not allow guests to have animals in the room", this creates an illegal situation if said animal is a guide dog assisting a blind person, which must be allowed under laws for Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). By changing this clause to "The hotel does not allow guests to have animals in the room, except as required by federal, state or local law." Then it is now acceptable. A able bodied guest will still be in breach of contract if a cat is brought into the room, but a blind person would not be in breach because the law says you cannot use this to bar a blind person with a guide dog, and the contract must comply with the law. The Cat Person can be thrown out for breech of contract, but the blind person cannot because this exception allows the blind person to bring the dog into the rented room.	Massachusetts is a 'two-party' state. So you'd have to have consent from them to record. You could probably travel to a 'one-party' state such as one of the states listed here and call them while recording. In a one-party state, only one of the parties to the conversation needs to know about the recording. In those states you don't even need to inform them. It would be interesting to see if the law applied to where the call center is located. When calling credit card companies these days, the call may be routed to any number of places depending on call loads, and those places might be out of country as well.	Laws against such actions are not stated in terms of popular and fluid concepts like "computer virus", they are stated in terms of clear concepts like "unauthorized access". There are federal and state laws against this. This web site lists and links to all of the state laws on the matter. There is also a federal law: a detailed legal analysis by DOJ is given here. There are some limits to federal jurisdiction, for example "protected computers" include "computers used in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce or communication". The term "affecting interstate or foreign commerce or communication" is widely used in federal law, and can be used to prohibit growing feed for your own animals. Anything that you "send" clearly affects interstate commerce (the internet is internationally connected). 18 USC 1030(a) says Whoever ... (2) intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains...(C) information from any protected computer Essentially, a computer connected to the outside world is protected. The key here is "without authorization". If you authorize MS to report back stuff about your computer, that is not unauthorized. It may not be possible to use their product without giving such authorization, in which case you can use a different product that doesn't require that you grant authorization. There is also the possibility that some software producer has technically violates the law because they think that it's okay for them to access the computer as long as they do no harm. Typically, people are not aware that they have granted software publishers access to their computer. The concept of "harm" is pretty much irrelevant to computer-crime criminal law. It would be relevant, though, if a plaintiff were to sue someone for sniffing around their computer: then you'd have to show that you were damaged.	This could be a violation of the Fair Housing Act, but Fair Housing v. Roommate.com, 521 F.3d 1157 says that we find that the FHA doesn’t apply to the sharing of living units The crux of the argument is that a room in a house is not a "dwelling", since it is not a complete living unit. Whether or not courts outside the 9th Circuit follow suit remains to be seen. Florida state law (760.29) states exceptions to its anti-discrimination laws, covering for instance Any single-family house sold or rented by its owner, provided such private individual owner does not own more than three single-family houses at any one time. If that is the case, then the exemption exists if the rental a. Without the use in any manner of the sales or rental facilities or the sales or rental services of any real estate licensee or such facilities or services of any person in the business of selling or renting dwellings, or of any employee or agent of any such licensee or person; and b. Without the publication, posting, or mailing, after notice, of any advertisement or written notice in violation of s. 760.23(3) Another exemption exists if Rooms or units in dwellings containing living quarters occupied or intended to be occupied by no more than four families living independently of each other, if the owner actually maintains and occupies one of such living quarters as his or her residence. Your attorney (hint) will be able to interpret that complicated section of the law.	user662852 has a good point -- whoever own the property has the right to make the rules. Is the property, land+construction in fact your's or does it belong to the HOA who just grant you access as a lease holder? Different states has different rules, but in my state it is illegal to maroon a property and there must be a access to public streets even when this necessitate passing over somebody else land. However that is irrelevant if the HOA owns the land your house is build on. I think you will have to look at your HOA agreement and see what it says.	We have no way of knowing when this happened, but it is probably a fact, recorded some time in the past. Utility companies very frequently obtain a right-of-way (easement) which gives them certain rights to your property. Typically, this happened a long time ago when a previous owner agreed. As for gas pipelines, that typically includes "don't plant trees" restrictions. The easement is usually recorded in the county office where deeds are filed. The legal basis is generally "because you agreed, or some previous owner agreed". You can get a copy of the easement to see if "no trees" is actually part of the agreement. If yes, no point in arguing, if not, you could hire a lawyer if they are demanding that they are threatening you. They are allowed to be concerned and to ask you to cut trees regardless, but if it's not required by the terms of the easement, you can say "No, I'd rather keep my tree".
Are warranties held to the same laws as regular insurers? In the case a consumer has purchased a warranty – in particular so-called "extended warranties" from a third party warranty vendor – on a vehicle (further, to be clear, I am not talking about any "lemon law" warranties), is the warranty subject to the same laws/statutes that a regular auto insurer is subject to? For example, to my knowledge almost all states detail some restrictions on how insurance settlement costs may be fairly calculated – e.g., NADA values. Similarly, some states allow consumers to pick their repair place and have independent inspections or that an insurer is liable for the degradation of value incurred by vehicles that have been in accidents are less desired. Is a warranty held to these same policies in general? My question pertains to the United States. I am most interested in CT law but more general answers are also appreciated.	Such "warranties" are generally subject to separate laws, and they are not treated as a subcase of "car insurance". Whereas homeowners insurance, vehicle liability insurance and so on are regulated in all states, extended warranties are regulated in over half of the states. There is a model law which tends to inspire state legislators in writing their own laws, and here is an instantiation in Washington state. At the outset, the law says that certain things are not covered, including warranties, maintenance agreements and service contracts (what then is covered??). There may be "required content", for example Service contracts shall state the procedure to obtain service or to file a claim, including but not limited to the procedures for obtaining prior approval for repair work, the toll-free telephone number if prior approval is necessary for service, and the procedure for obtaining emergency repairs performed outside of normal business hours or provide for twenty-four-hour telephone assistance. There are sections specific to motor vehicles, which could be relevant, for example "A service contract provider shall not deny a claim for coverage based upon the service contract holder's failure to properly maintain the vehicle, unless the failure to maintain the vehicle involved the failed part or parts". At the bottom of the Model Act document is a list of statuses in the various states: it's status in Connecticut is nonexistence, as of July 2014 (and no signs of such a law having been subsequently passed). There is a general law about express warranties, which doesn't impose any content restrictions on such contracts. So in CT, it depends on what the contract says.	You certainly can claim whatever you want. Will you be granted it though? Time is money indeed, and replacing the damaged items requires some time not just items themselves. The question is how much time and at what rate? Your duty will be to mitigate the damages and so to minimise the time and its cost. Will your normal hourly rate be applicable? Only if you have to use your actual work time and miss out on earning for those hours. It will probably be unreasonable to use work time in the first place, let alone that you may not necessarily miss out any earnings in case it's a salaried job and your boss is fine to just let you go for a few hours to sort out personal issues. If the time you use for replacement is evenings/weekends then you would need to quantify how much you miss out on not doing what you would do otherwise.	The fault lies with the people who vandalized your house. In general, whoever causes you damage is responsible (liable) for that damage. This is true whether or not you are selling your house, having guests over, letting a friend stay over for a night or a week, or whatever the circumstance is. Insurance is there to cover many such losses: if a friend trashes your house in a drunken rage, your insurance will cover the damage, but they will invoke the doctrine of subrogation whereby they get to go after the friend, and you have to cooperate. In a situation where nobody has a clue who did the damage, the only possible way that the agent has any responsibility is if they were negligent in their duty to take care of the house. For your specific case, you'd need to discuss the forensic facts with your attorney. But generally speaking, the issue would be whether the agent had breached his/her professional duty of care, which is best understood as comparing his actions (or lack) compares to actions of other professionals in the same circumstance. If a house has 3 or 4 sets of visitors simultaneously, it is really not possible for an agent to supervise all of them at once. So the question would be, was this the result of one concentrated vandalism attack, or serial vandalism. The former is more in the realm of "stuff happens", and the latter is indicative of an endemic lack of care. To repeat, the fault lies with the miscreants who vandalized your house. You, or your insurance company, may nevertheless have to bear the financial burden. Your insurance company will certainly have an interest in spreading responsibility to the realty firm, if warranted by the facts.	Kansas evaluates these kinds of cases, known as premises liability cases, under the general law of negligence (which is a common law claim governed by case law in Kansas, rather than a statute, except as modified by specific statutes in some respect or other). When you own or control a piece of property, you are responsible for making reasonable efforts to ensure that visitors are safe. If you fail to identify safety risks that you should have reasonably known about, or if you fail to correct potentially hazardous conditions, you could be held liable for any injuries that result. The law is just that vague and is interpreted by judges and juries on a case by case basis. When that happens Kansas uses a comparative negligence system that evaluates the percentage of the fault attributable to everyone who is alleged to have been negligent including the person injured. Damages are allocated based upon those percentages (unless the person injured is more than 50% at fault, in which case the person injured recovers nothing in the lawsuit). Kansas is not among the states that make a formalistic distinction between the duties owed to "invitees", "licensees" and "trespassers" as the common law historically did. If a risk is foreseeable and you could have taken affordable precautions (relative to the value of the activity the not taking the precaution made possible) to address it, and you didn't, you could be held liable. Trespassing is just one of an infinite number of factors that the jury considers in assigning comparative fault. The main pro-active actions that you can take are to purchase homeowner's insurance with reasonable liability policy limits and ideally umbrella insurance as well (which increases your policy limits at a modest additional cost), and to communicate in writing to the neighbor (in a way that you can prove if anything happens later) warning your neighbor of the risks that you foresee and urging your neighbor to take care to avoid those risks. The statute of limitations in these cases in Kansas is usually two years although exceptions apply.	Comprehensive insurance is generally there to cover repair / replacement for vehicle theft or non-collision damage. There is, additionally, collision insurance which covers losses arising from a collision. The vehicle is what is covered, and not the contents. If you have Valuable Personal Property protection, that may cover the cost of the cell phone.	One can certainly remove a trademark from an item that one owns, whether it be a car, cell phone, blender, or computer. Using some other firm's mark would not be trademark infringement if one did not try to sell the item. If the logo was complex enough to be protectable by copyright, copying it might be copyright infringement, but for such personal use it might fall under an exception to copyright, depending on the country. In any case a copyright infringement suit in such a case seems unlikely. For a car, registration is generally required, and must accurately specify the make and model. The same is true for insurance coverage, a falsely stated make or model would be fraud. If one were to sell the "rebranded" item, one would have to make the situation clear to any potential buyer, otherwise this might be some form of fraud.	Could you insure yourself either given the fact that- you bought the property on mortgage? A mortgage does not generally have the legal effect of insurance. You owe the debt to the lender, which is a strict liability obligation, without regard to the value of the collateral. So, if the collateral is devalued, you still owe the debt, whether or not the lender forecloses. For example, if you sell the property for less than the amount of the debt (i.e. a short sale), you remain personally liable for the deficiency between the proceeds of the sale, and the amount owed on the debt, unless the lender consents. The exception to this is a "non-recourse mortgage", which is a mortgage in which the lender expressly agrees to accept the collateral as the sole means from which the debt can be repaid in a compulsory fashion. The financial crisis of 2009 was mostly a function of a handful U.S. states like California and Florida with economically important mortgage markets having residential mortgage loans that were as a matter of law, non-recourse debts (or nearly non-recourse debts) compounded by people making risky decisions knowing that they didn't face the risk of a deficiency judgment. But, non-recourse mortgage lending is very rare in the U.K. (the linked material inaccurately asserts that mortgages in "most of the United States" are non-recourse, however, when, in fact, that is true only in a small minority of U.S. states, probably not more than five state in all, although a couple of the states that are close to non-recourse for residential mortgages, like Florida and California, are economically important U.S. mortgage markets). Of course, even in the case of a debtor who is obligated on a full recourse mortgage, it may be in the interest of the lender to write off the deficiency judgment, rather than seeking to recovery the debt from the borrower, if the borrower is apart from the collateral, judgment-proof or very nearly so. The lender is taking the risk that both the collateral will be insufficient and that the borrower will also be unable to pay the debt, and when that happens the lender takes a loss. Or is there any insurance which could protect you against massive downfall in any Unforseen compulsory purchase situation. In the United States, lenders often buy what is called "mortgage insurance" at the expense of the buyer, when the down payment on the property is under 20% of the purchase price, that remains in force until 20% of the purchase price has been paid through a combination of a down payment and principal payments on the loan. But, this form of insurance is not generally available to property owners themselves as a matter of economic reality, possibly because it is an uninsurable risk, and possibly because there isn't enough economic demand for it at prices that would make it profitable to do so. Also, when a lender receives a payment on a mortgage insurance policy, the insurance company receives in exchange, all of the rights that the lender had to sue the borrower for a deficiency judgment, if any. These are called the insurance company's "subrogation rights." I have certainly also never seen any form of insurance for an unfavorably bad outcome in an eminent domain/condemnation proceeding for any reason. In a case like that the court determines as a matter of law (in one of the few proceedings where there is still a right to a jury in the U.K.) what the fair market value of the property is at the time of the condemnation, and that determination would complicate recovery on any insurance policy because you would need to have a proof of the loss. Generally speaking, a mere decline in the fair market value of real estate, in and of itself, it not considered to be an insurable loss, of the owner of the real estate, for insurance law purposes. Bonding A very close cousin of insurance contracts are bonding contracts. When a third party is unsure that you will be able to perform a contract or pay a debt, you can encourage them to do business with you by having a bonding company agree to meet your obligations up to a certain dollar amount if you are unable to do so, usually, in exchange for a fee, a right to sue you if they have to make a payment for the amount that they had to pay, and sometimes for some sort of collateral to protect them against the risk that they are taking. But, bonding companies don't generally provide bonds for residential mortgage customers at any price, because someone who needs a bond on a debt like that is unlikely to be able to ever repay the bonding company for its loss if it does have to pay the mortgage debt, and because bonding companies would need to set aside too much money as financial reserves against this risk to be prepared in the event that it had to pay a lot of claims due to collapsing real estate price bubble or something like that. Or is there any way to mitigate this risk / avoid this risk? Option To Sell Contracts On the buyer's side the primary "insurance-like" legal instrument would be for the buyer to purchase from a third-party a legal option to sell the property at a specific price that is lower than the current purchase price. Such an option would probably be legal to enter into, and, with the proper regulatory compliance and financial disclosures, a firm could sell such options to residential property buyers. But, as a matter of practical economic reality, I have never encountered a transaction in which someone actually did that with an unrelated third-party in an arms-length business transaction. In the financial crisis of 2009, secondary market mortgage debt buyers had purchased options to hedge against just this kind of risk, but the counterparties who were obligated to cover the losses pursuant to those options didn't have sufficient reserves and other assets to cover the losses that they were obligated to pay, and so the people who had purchased these options were stiffed anyway. This is because prominent credit rating firms for businesses (of which there were only three or four in the United States) failed to properly evaluate the fact that the risk of one claim under this kind of option was not independent of the risk of other claims under similar options happening at the same time, and in general, failed to accurately evaluate the risk of counterparties being unable to perform their sides of the contracts because the counterparties were be prominent financial companies that had never failed before. But, faced with this situation, almost every investment bank in the United States either went bankrupt or was acquired by another financial company that was not allowed to engage in this kind of derivatives transaction. Mortgage insurance companies, in contrast, paid all of the claims against them, because state insurance regulators had adequately evaluated the risks and forced the mortgage insurance companies to set aside adequate reserves to pay claims in the event of a situation like the 2009 financial crisis. But, because the need to set aside reserves made mortgage insurance (which also had premiums that were not tax deductible to the property owner) made mortgage insurance more expensive than having the same bank give someone both a first mortgage and a higher interest second mortgage on a residence, and then entering option contracts to control their risk of loss in the event of a real estate devaluation that made the second mortgage uncollectible, mortgage insurance companies had a pretty low market share of the financial services providers who were addressing the property devaluation risk for mortgage lenders. Long Term Leases In Lieu Of Purchasing With A Mortgage Another alternative would be to enter into a favorable long term lease of the property, which would be owned by somebody else, rather than actually buying it. If the lease had a term automatically terminating upon a compulsory purchase such as an eminent domain proceeding, the landlord and not the tenant, would bear the risk of loss in the event that the property bad massively devalued due to a change in prevailing market prices (although the landlord would also benefit in the event of massive appreciation at the termination of the lease, although that might be long in the future). This would be an extremely uncommon arrangement for someone to make with their own residence, but isn't unthinkable. For example, over in Ireland, the Guinness Brewing Corporation rents rather than owns most of the real estate that it used on long term 999 year leases (if I recall correctly), possibly out of concern for this possibility, which was a very real one at the time that those leases were put in place. Similarly, my childhood home in a university town was built on land leased from the university on a 99 year lease in the 1960s or 1970s, that was later converted to absolute ownership of the land by my faculty and administrator parents about fifty years into the original lease by mutual agreement between the university and the original home builder. But, that wouldn't really be strictly analogous, because the house was purchased by my parents subject to a full recourse mortgage secured by the building and their rights as tenants on the land lease, so they weren't really protected from a mass devaluation of the property. The transaction didn't really hedge against an economic downturn. Instead, it effectively gave the university the right to buy back the land at the cost of compensating my parents for the value of the residence built on that land, if it wanted to expand. But, it would still probably be possible and legal to enter into a long term lease whose terms did hedge against that possibility, possibly with an option to buy the premises after a certain number of years long in the future when devaluation relative to the purchase price was much less likely to due gradual annual appreciation and inflation over that time period (e.g. 40 years out), if you could find someone willing to serve as a landlord in that kind of deal. Caveat Regarding Taxation The way business transactions are structured is frequently heavily driven not just by the underlying economic effect of the transactions, but also by the tax implications of the transactions. But, I am not familiar enough with the tax laws of the United Kingdom to evaluate that piece of the puzzle. In the context of the question, the most viable alternative to limit risk downside devaluation risk would be to enter into a long term lease rather than buying the residence. But, that only makes sense if there are not big tax benefits to owning a residence with a mortgage as opposed to leasing one. In the United States, there are huge tax incentives to buy rather than lease. But, I don't know if there are similar tax incentives in the United Kingdom that might make a long term lease solution less attractive. For example, a large share of all businesses in the United States lease rather than own the real property that they use, and a large share of skyscrapers and other high rise buildings in the United States are built on leased land. But, those transactions are structured as long term leases, rather than purchase transactions, primarily for tax reasons. Under U.S. tax law, businesses can't treat money spent to purchase raw land or principal payments on mortgages as an expense for tax purposes, but can treat the full amount of any lease payment the business pays to a landlord as an expense for tax purposes. So, transactions are structured accordingly. For example, in a high rise transaction, the building owner pays the fully deductible long term land lease payment to the owner of the land (usually a non-profit that isn't worried about having taxable income not matched by an expense deduction), while the building owner can make up for not being able to deduct principal payment expense on the construction loan by being able to take depreciation deductions on the building itself as an expense in a similar amount. The non-profits usually don't borrow the money to buy the land that they lease to high rise owners. Instead, this is an investment option for cash rich, stable non-profits that need to find a way to get reliable, low risk, long term passively managed returns on their investments. And, the risk of devaluation is much lower for a long term investor with a forty year time horizon than it is for property owner with a shorter time horizon. But, without these tax incentives, there would be far less real estate leasing by businesses in the United States, and a desire to hedge against significant real estate devaluations is a far more secondary reason for businesses to lease of real estate in the United States.	An analogy to towing companies is tempting but misplaced, since towing is a statutorily-authorized and regulated activity (e.g. RCW 46.55). You therefore cannot just charge an arbitrary storage fee for uncollected equipment, and it is highly unlikely that there is any provision in the contract which authorizes you to charge for storage. The question is why you think you think they are responsible for picking up the excavator – presumably there is a clause in the contract that says that they will pick it up. Assuming that the contract doesn't say much, then your recourse would reside in the fact of their equipment trespassing on your property. You would need to officially withdraw permission for their equipment to be on your property (since you gave it in the first place). They would have a reasonable time to retrieve their goods, and if they don't do so, you would have a basis for suing them for damages. Also, the worst thing you could do is forcibly keeping their key until they pay you a storage fee: you'd need a court-ordered award, to get anything from them. The Connecticut towing law is here. Note that in order to call a towing company to get the equipment towed (if that's even possible), there has to be "conspicuous signage" warning of the possibility of towing "on such private commercial property"; but an overriding consideration is that you may tow if the vehicle is left for forty-eight or more hours. Two points to be noted are that although the law refers to "An owner or lessee of private property", the signage requirement implies that the property has to be commercial, not residential (this limitation to "private commercial property" is repeated in the statute, indicating a legislative intent to restrict the legal towing permission to commercial property). The law refers to "motor vehicles", but it is not clear whether an excavator counts as a "motor vehicle" (defined in para 54 of the definitions section). Although an excavator is a "vehicle propelled or drawn by any nonmuscular power", exceptions are carved out for agricultural tractors, farm implements, and "and any other vehicle not suitable for operation on a highway", which I think reasonably means that an excavator is not a motor vehicle. So since the towing statute does not authorize towing of something that is not a motor vehicle, that would not seem to be an option in this case (even if there were signage, and this is commercial property). And calling a towing company would only get the item removed from your property, but would not authorize you to collect a storage fee (the towing company can only do so after the police have been notified, which they must do withing 2 hours).
Can minors express their political views? I am a minor and my family continue to tell me "Since you can't vote and a minor, you can't express your political beliefs." I stand more with the Republican Party but I don't agree with everything that they do or say. That doesn't mean that I don't agree with some of the Democratic beliefs. I did buy some stuff that expresses my beliefs on politics. My parents then told me that I am an extremist for buying that stuff. I bought a hat that supports the 2nd Amendment but it doesn't say anything that could be used to offend others. Am I allowed to express my political beliefs even though I am a minor?	The First Amendment generally prohibits the government from taking any actions to limit your speech, the same as adults. There are certain exceptions, particularly if you are enrolled in a public school, which has some latitude to impose speech restrictions to “avoid substantial interference with school discipline or the rights of others” Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U.S. 503, (1969). While you are a minor, though, your parents have virtually unlimited freedom to limit your freedom of speech. If they want to punish you for buying a hat or saying things they disagree with, they can generally do that. EDIT: The hat you've linked to probably would not fall within the Tinker exception. A similar case arose in Schoenecker v. Koopman, 349 F. Supp. 3d 745 (E.D. Wis. 2018), where a student was removed from class for wearing similar apparel supporting Second Amendment rights. The school made a vague allegation that his shirts were disruptive, but the court found that its concerns about disruptions were largely unreasonable and unsubstantiated. See also N.J. ex rel. Jacob v. Sonnabend, No. 20-C-227, (E.D. Wis. Nov. 6, 2020).	It is definitely illegal in Russia as well, but the police will do nothing. Previous activity of this group included forcefully attacking people who tried to speak to a girl who disliked it and handling over such people to police to get fined "for hooliganism". Usual practice in Russia is to beat the people whom the random girls around dislike. This group stepped a bit further, involving police. They use illegal or questionable methods, definitely. But they use them in a manner that people would be unlikely to complain to police because they themselves either did something illegal or public opinion is not on their side. The police usually will do nothing even with much more serious violations, like beating somebody.	The law does not say. It is up to the judgment of the judge to determine what constitutes "Le fait de provoquer directement à des actes de terrorisme ou de faire publiquement l'apologie de ces actes". I would not have predicted that the act constituted "faire publiquement l'apologie", but if that expression can reasonably construed as meaning "indicating approval of", then I understand the conclusion. The law does not mention SSIDs, that simply falls under the penumbra of "publicly approving of terrorism", and there isn't a specific list of forbidden acts. Analogously, Holocaust denial is against the law in France, and there is not a specific list of things that you can't say, there is a general rule from which specifics can be inferred. Publicly saying "Free Kurdistan!" could be construed as supporting PKK and thus approving of terrorism, but that would be quite a stretch. Using the SSID Pkk21, on the other hand, could be a problem.	Are political Flags ("Trump 2024") prohibited under the HOA's no signs rule? Why or why not? Probably. The Florida statute seems to imply that a flag is a type of sign and usually a political sign, even in the form of a flag, is still considered to be a sign. The Florida statute, in any case, only excludes the U.S. flag, not any other kind of flag. The First Amendment doesn't apply to an HOA declaration, although one could argue that FS 718 is a content based restriction of speech by exempting only the U.S. flag on particular days, and not other kinds of flags on other days, but that doesn't make a remedy clear. Allowing political signs isn't an obvious remedy for a 1st Amendment violation in FS 718.	Of course it is protected by the first amendment. Everyone in the US is protected by the first amendment. It's possible that some statements published on the site might fall afoul of any of the well established exceptions to first amendment protection, but in general the site is protected.	Children can enter contracts There seems to be this pervading myth that they can’t. This is weird because, if true, it would mean that a child couldn’t buy anything: a chocolate bar, a bus ride, a sandwich, because all sales involve a contract. What is true is that a contract is voidable by a minor. That is, they can walk away from it anytime until they turn 18 and for a reasonable time thereafter. They can’t do that if the contract is for “necessities” (all of the above examples are), if the contract is complete (again, all of the above) or if the contract is clearly for the benefit of the child (e.g. contracts involving the child’s education). Children do not normally need a parent’s permission or approval to enter a contract. So, the contract is binding on Mary and voidable by James. John’s involvement is irrelevant unless he is a party to the contract in some way such as if he is acting as a guarantor.	Federal facilities are required to adhere to the flag code. Non-federal governmental entities are not, and the explanation is more complicated. In theory, the federal government should have very little power over the decision-making of state governments -- this is a principle of federalism and is expressly stated in the 10th Amendment. In practice, however, the federal government has a lot of power over state governments. Congress can condition the allotment of federal monies to states, i.e. block grants, as long as such a condition meets the five point test spelled out in South Dakota v. Dole. The most stringent of these points is that the condition "must not be coercive" so as to apply "irresistible pressure", creating a false choice where accepting money is the only realistic option (thus complying with the conditions). I couldn't find a clause within USC Title 4, Chapter 1 for withholding funds from states in the event of noncompliance, similar to one that exists for the national drinking age. Therefore states (state, county, municipal all treated as an extension of state power under the US Constitution) are not required to to adhere to the flag code. Theoretically, Congress could pass a new law that would condition the receipt of some federal funds on the states' compliance with the flag code. But the new low could face additional hurdles, since the condition must be "directly related to one of the main purposes for which... [the funds] are expended" (quoting from Dole). This restriction is the reason why states were given the right to opt out of the Obamacare medicare expansion without losing their pre-existing Medicaid funding (567 U. S. ____ (2012) at 51), and is also the reason why the recent "Sanctuary Cities Ban" is having legal trouble. It would be unlikely that any law like this would hold up. It's also worth noting that most states have their own flag law, which makes this whole discussion of the federal law's effect on state facilities. As you noted, since US v. Eichman, all criminal penalties for violating any flag code have been unenforceable against individuals. My best guess is that the proper method of enforcement in federal buildings is simply administrative action, since violating the code can provide cause for firing federal employees under Chapter 75 of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978.	There is no country in the world that has absolute freedom of speech. There are many that have extreme limits on it. The country with the greatest freedom is probably the United States of America but even there there are limits. For example, it is illegal to defame someone. That is, make a factual statement about a person or organization that is not true and that could damage their reputation. For your case, as a student of the school you are subject to the rules of the school. If your statement breaks those rules you can be sanctioned. If the school is public, it would generally be as restricted as the government is in limiting free speech but, as stated above, such restrictions depend on where you are.
Is it legal for a shop to deny sale of age-restricted products to someone who shows two valid forms of I.D.? I've read that a shop can refuse for any reason but I have a suspicion this may be discrimination in my case. I'm a 23yr old black guy and I live in Ireland. I'm frequently told by family, friends, etc... that I don't even look over 18yrs old and look to be in my teens. This has led me to getting denied alcohol in a store twice even with a valid identification. The first time this happened was when I was 19yrs old and the shop assistant asked me for another form of I.D. I didn't have it, so she refused the sale. Ever since then I started carrying around my Irish passport as an I.D. and so far, it has worked. But last week I wanted to buy nicotine gum, which is age-restricted. I showed the sales assistant my age card and she didn't believe me, so I showed her my passport and she said that she still couldn't accept it. Surely that has to be discrimination, right? I was even told by a manager in another Tesco that I would be fine with two forms of valid I.D.	One official form of ID should be enough. Two pieces of ID is more than most people ever carry. And not selling to you because you’re black would be illegal discrimination. But that would be hard to prove. The most likely explanation is stupidity. Or lack of training. Might be an employee who is already deep into overtime, or just not mentally present. Some people go on auto-pilot and if you showed them an age card that isn’t accepted that’s fixed in their brain. Or maybe the passport photo doesn’t look like you. If it is an unusual form of ID like a 100% valid Japanese driving license, or a damaged passport, or a library card, those might be reasonably rejected. The best course of action would be to ask for the manager. The manager should either be able to give you a sensible reason why your passport is not acceptable, or give you the goods. And if not, your case for illegal discrimination is much stronger if a supposedly competent manager refuses to serve you. (Reading the other answer: Obviously if you are too young to buy the item, which is not true in your case, then showing 100 legal IDs wouldn't get you the item. And if you look so young that a reasonable person would think it's more likely that your ID is an excellent forgery than you being 18, they could deny the sale).	In German Law you need to give your agreement ("Willenserklärung") to a contract or in this case terms of service. This is done by telling the other part. In some cases this can also be implied by an action (example: putting your bottle of beer onto the cashiers table is an offer to buy this bottle). As a second criteria a "Willenserklärung" needs to be the exact will of the part that declares its will (the website user in this case) §§ 133, 157 BGB or that the other side (you) could only see so (not the case here as this mainly speaks of content). If you visit a website and there are terms of services, the "Willenserklärung" is only given when the user read and agreed to the terms. If he did not, the terms of service are not applied until the user agrees to them. So I would recommend to block the website until the user agreed (overlay) as you need to proof he did when in court. Additionally there are so called AGB's in Germany. Those are contracts that are used or planed for many (more than 3) uses and set by one side (you). This may apply here, so you need to follow a lot of other rules like making sure the user had access and agreed, then there are many content restrictions and so on... I recommend consulting a German Lawyer specialized on this topic as this is very complex and includes other German laws for Media too, depending on the content of your site and terms. Also note that everything said is only based on my own knowledge and can not be used as safe legal source.	I'm not a lawyer, but I am an NHS employee, and can more concretely answer your questions. Has any crime been committed, and if so, is there any point in pursuing this with the police? If so, how do I go about it? Yes, in-fact, several crimes have been committed. Firstly, NHS employees are prohibited from viewing patient's personal information that they are not specifically treating. In opening your letter from the NHS, the nurse in question violated this practice. It's a breach of both privacy and trust. This is taught at the NHS and the nurse would be aware of this. Secondly, by cancelling your appointment, the nurse has committed workplace fraud. They have impersonated a patient, and in doing so, cost the NHS money and time it won't get back by cancelling your appointment. Again, this is also taught within the NHS, and the nurse would be aware of this too. Thirdly, by cancelling your appointment, the nurse may have put a life in danger in doing so, which is effectively gross negligence at a minimum. Although this can be reported to the police, it'll be more effective to report it to the appropriate NHS bodies. Even if a crime has not been committed, I would think that at the very least, opening someone's mail and then impersonating them and cancelling the surgery would at least be viewed as unprofessional, especially for someone employed in the NHS. Is there a procedure for making a complaint against an NHS worker? There are several different approaches, given the various breaches of trust. As BlueDogRanch mentioned, you can file a compliant to NHS England, which includes via email. Be sure to get appropriate information like the nurse's name, address, and if possible any details (like appointment reference numbers) to aid the investigation. Secondly, because of the cost incurred via the malicious cancellation of an appointment, costing time and money (and running the risk of opening the NHS to litigation), you can also report the fraudulent aspects to the NHS Counter Fraud Authority.	The document may, but probably doesn't say what it is you are witnessing. For example, a person witnessing a statutory declaration in NSW attests: their qualification to be a witness (JP, solicitor etc.) that they actually saw the declarant sign it that they asked the declarant if they believed their declaration was true that they have known the declarant for more than 12 months OR the declarant provided a photo ID and either their face matched the photo or they had a valid reason for not showing their face. If it doesn't say then what you are witnessing is that the signature was made by a person whom you could identify if necessary (e.g. if the person denied the signature).	united-states Totally legal, as long as whatever you're forbidding isn't a protected class (race, gender, etc.—the details vary by jurisdiction), or, to some degree, a pretense for one. A real-life example comes via a feud between two artists: Stuart Semple and Anish Kapoor. For reasons that are not particularly relevant to this explanation (other than perhaps that they are unrelated to Kapoor's membership in any protected class), Semple strongly dislikes Kapoor, and has made one of his products available to purchase...as long as the purchaser agrees that they are not Anish Kapoor, that they are not an associate of Anish Kapoor, and that they do not have any reason to believe that the product they are purchasing will make its way to Anish Kapoor. The product page contains the following terms to accomplish this: Note: By adding this product to your cart you confirm that you are not Anish Kapoor, you are in no way affiliated to Anish Kapoor, you are not purchasing this item on behalf of Anish Kapoor or an associate of Anish Kapoor. To the best of your knowledge, information and belief this paint will not make its way into the hands of Anish Kapoor.	Question: Do I need a EU passport or EU ID card to legally work in the EU (or establish that I have the right to work in the EU)? Or is a certificate of citizenship sufficient? Legally, your right to work is not contingent on this and there is no Europe-wide rule that makes holding any document mandatory. Importantly, if you do start working anyway, you are not committing a crime and cannot possibly be banned or forced to leave the country. You do have the right to work from the day you became an EU citizen and if any doubt arises down the line, you should be able to clear it up later. In practice, employers are sometimes supposed to check you are allowed to work (and for that would require some proof of your citizenship) but they don't necessarily need a passport or ID. What's typical on the other hand is that you have to provide an official proof of address (in the countries where you have to register your address with the authorities) and the local social security, insurance, or national tax number. Both of these will require dealing with the authorities and will be considerably more difficult, if not downright impossible, without a national ID card or passport (in fact it can even be difficult with a passport). I worked in multiple EU countries and I don't recall always having to present my ID to employers. I recall at least one instance (in Germany) where I could start working without one (it had just been stolen) and another one (in the Netherlands) where I started on the day after I arrived, without official address nor tax number (BSN). In both cases, I was expected to solve these issues within the first month and you risk a fine if you don't register within a week or two but it was neither illegal nor impossible to start working before all the formalities were completed. None of this means I would be completely comfortable about being months without a passport. But the main issue for you will be entering the country and what your employer's HR department is prepared to tolerate, not any sort of legal obligation to hold a passport to work. Note that in one of the cases I described above I went to the local consulate to get an emergency passport. It wouldn't have been possible back in my country of citizenship but there are some special procedures when you reside abroad. These rules change all the time and depend on your country of citizenship but that could be worth a try.	Not a lawyer, but: In many countries, a purchased item is your property once you removed it from the premises of the seller. In practice, this rarely makes a difference. You have entered a contract with the seller where the seller has to deliver the product, and you have to pay the money, you did your part, they have to do their part. There would be a difference if the item was stolen while in the store, or damaged by fire, or if the store went bankrupt and bailiffs took the item. If these rules apply in your country, then what they did is not theft, otherwise it would be theft (in all countries, if the store removed the door from your home after it is installed, that would be theft). You paid for a door, the store owes you a door. You have a legal contract. Both sides are bound by that legal contract. They have to do what the contract says (delivering the door that was displayed in the store), if they can't, then they have to do the nearest thing that isn't to your disadvantage, like delivering a new door. Or possible a different door that was on display. They can't just declare your contract invalid because it suits them better. That wouldn't be the case if this would put the store at an unacceptable disadvantage. For example, if thieves had broken into the store and stolen ten doors, including yours, the store might get away with returning your money. Since they intentionally sold your door again to someone else, I don't think they could use this as an excuse. I'd go once more to the store and ask them whether they want to deliver a door to you, according to your contract with the store, or if they want you to get a lawyer. A letter from a lawyer might work wonders. (Or of course the lawyer might tell you that I'm completely wrong, but they don't know that, so telling them that you will hire a lawyer might be enough).	Aiden4's answer about Winconsin's statute 948.60 is correct, but incomplete and the complete reason is interesting/funny, so I'll expand on it: The statute reads: 948.60 Possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18. (1) In this section, “dangerous weapon" means any firearm, loaded or unloaded; any electric weapon, as defined in s. 941.295 (1c) (a); metallic knuckles or knuckles of any substance which could be put to the same use with the same or similar effect as metallic knuckles; a nunchaku or any similar weapon consisting of 2 sticks of wood, plastic or metal connected at one end by a length of rope, chain, wire or leather; a cestus or similar material weighted with metal or other substance and worn on the hand; a shuriken or any similar pointed star-like object intended to injure a person when thrown; or a manrikigusari or similar length of chain having weighted ends. (2) (a) Any person under 18 years of age who possesses or goes armed with a dangerous weapon is guilty of a Class A misdemeanor. (b) Except as provided in par. (c), any person who intentionally sells, loans or gives a dangerous weapon to a person under 18 years of age is guilty of a Class I felony. (c) Whoever violates par. (b) is guilty of a Class H felony if the person under 18 years of age under par. (b) discharges the firearm and the discharge causes death to himself, herself or another. (d) A person under 17 years of age who has violated this subsection is subject to the provisions of ch. 938 unless jurisdiction is waived under s. 938.18 or the person is subject to the jurisdiction of a court of criminal jurisdiction under s. 938.183. (3) (a) This section does not apply to a person under 18 years of age who possesses or is armed with a dangerous weapon when the dangerous weapon is being used in target practice under the supervision of an adult or in a course of instruction in the traditional and proper use of the dangerous weapon under the supervision of an adult. This section does not apply to an adult who transfers a dangerous weapon to a person under 18 years of age for use only in target practice under the adult's supervision or in a course of instruction in the traditional and proper use of the dangerous weapon under the adult's supervision. (b) This section does not apply to a person under 18 years of age who is a member of the armed forces or national guard and who possesses or is armed with a dangerous weapon in the line of duty. This section does not apply to an adult who is a member of the armed forces or national guard and who transfers a dangerous weapon to a person under 18 years of age in the line of duty. (c) This section applies only to a person under 18 years of age who possesses or is armed with a rifle or a shotgun if the person is in violation of s. 941.28 or is not in compliance with ss. 29.304 and 29.593. This section applies only to an adult who transfers a firearm to a person under 18 years of age if the person under 18 years of age is not in compliance with ss. 29.304 and 29.593 or to an adult who is in violation of s. 941.28. 2 things to note: (1) takes care to include, in the list of dangerous weapons: nunchaku, shuriken and manrikigusari. While the first 2 are more or less familiar to everyone knows anything about Japanese martial arts, the last one had to be looked up by everyone following the case to discover that it's the "secret weapon of the Ninja"(even more than the shuriken). (3.c) says that the whole of this entire section applies[adding the brackets to make following the formal logic easier] only if (the person under 18 is in violation of 941.28[barrel length under 16 inches]) or (is not in compliance with ss. 29.304[Restrictions on hunting and use of firearms by persons under 16 years of age] and 29.593[Requirement for certificate of accomplishment to obtain hunting approval]). In programming terms(for those so inclined), 3.C could be written as: IF ((barrelLengthInches < 16) OR (huntingUnder16Applies AND huntingCertificateApplies)) THEN statute948.60Applies ELSE statute948.60DoesNotApply Since the barrel length is over 16'' and Rittenhouse is over 16 and no hunting permit was required for his activities, the whole section of the law did not apply. Assistant District Attorney James Kraus argued that the exception renders the state’s prohibition on minors possessing dangerous weapons meaningless. In essence, that the legislators drafting that law spent too much time watching cheesy early 90's action movies and thinking of how to save Wisconsinites from the Ninja threat, to draft the law properly, so it should be read according to its intent from the title of the section. However, there is a binding Common Law precedent, dating back from the 16th century called the "Rule of Lenity", also called "Strict Constructionism" in the US, whereby if the legislature screws up, it's the legislature's problem. In the original case, the law in England forbade "felonious stealing of Horses, Geldings or Mares". A thief was caught, but argued that since he only stole one horse and the law specified horses, the law didn't apply to him. He was let off and the law hastily rectified. Pre-revolutionary Common Law precedent is binding in the US and it was re-affirmed multiple times, e.g. United States v. Wiltberger, where a US sailor got off with killing another US sailor in a Chinese estuary, because the law only applied on the "high seas". So, the charge was tossed and the defense didn't press the issue further. However, the really interesting bit is that even though it didn't get to be argued since Rittenhouse was 17, the way the law is actually written, this section only applies if (huntingUnder16Applies AND huntingCertificateApplies). That means that there is literally nothing in Wisconsin barring a 12 year old(under 12 is separately forbidden in the 29.304/huntingUnder16Applies section) from possessing and using an AR-15(or AK-47), as long as the barrel is >16'' and a hunting license isn't required for the activity. I think that the legislature will amend the law with haste, before it can be tested on 12 year olds. P.S. the other guy who gave him the gun will get off with this precedent too, since the statute for his charge is: This section applies only to an adult who transfers a firearm to a person under 18 years of age if the person under 18 years of age is not in compliance with ss. 29.304 and 29.593 or to an adult who is in violation of s. 941.28. i.e. the same 3 sub-sections as for Rittenhouse.
Can a student carry a knife at school? Can a student bring a 3.5in knife to school?	CO Rev Stat § 18-12-105.5(1) says that A person commits a class 6 felony if such person knowingly and unlawfully and without legal authority carries, brings, or has in such person's possession a deadly weapon as defined in section 18-1-901 (3) (e) in or on the real estate and all improvements erected thereon of any public or private elementary, middle, junior high, high, or vocational school or any public or private college, university, or seminary... but there are exceptions such as presenting an authorized demonstration, or for some authorized extracurricular reason. The meme about under 3.5 inches derives from the general statute pertaining to concealed weapons, where CO Rev Stat § 18-12-101 defines "knife" as being over 3.5 inches long (and it is a misdemeanor to carry a concealed knife). We'll come back to this. The applicable part of the definition of "deadly weapon" in the school-specific law is (II) A knife, bludgeon, or any other weapon, device, instrument, material, or substance, whether animate or inanimate, that, in the manner it is used or intended to be used, is capable of producing death or serious bodily injury. This raising a question that I encourage you not to test, whether the school deadly weapon definition excludes knives that are longer that 3.5 inches. The definition section for Article 12 starts by saying (1) As used in this article, unless the context otherwise requires so that means that "knife" is redefined in a special way (in terms of length), and that is for the entire article which includes the school weapon section. The actual definition of "knife" in the definitions section of Article 12 is (f) "Knife" means any dagger, dirk, knife, or stiletto with a blade over three and one-half inches in length, or any other dangerous instrument capable of inflicting cutting, stabbing, or tearing wounds, but does not include a hunting or fishing knife carried for sports use. The issue that a knife is a hunting or fishing knife must be raised as an affirmative defense. The modifier "with a blade over three and one-half inches in length" might be thought to refer to all of the preceding terms, or just the last one – stiletto. These is a rule of legal interpretation that a modifier should be interpreted as referring to the last antecedent, meaning that the length limit pertains to stilettos. The punctuation (lack of comma) supports the interpretation "stiletto with a blade over three and one-half inches in length", meaning that a knife is a knife. Whether or not a literal knife with a blade under 3.5 inches long constitutes a redefined knife, it certainly constitutes a "dangerous instrument capable of inflicting cutting, stabbing, or tearing wounds". In the context of a specific law restricting the possession of weapons (concealed or not) in schools, the context requires that the definition explicitly mentioned in 18-1-901(3)(e), which is outside Article 12, is being referred to. The reason the law was explicitly written to refer to that definition was so that the general definition in article 12 would be overridden. My point is that this is a not atypical example of the problem of legal definitions, which can get rather convoluted. If someone has told you that a knife under 3.5" is legally not a knife, you probably now know why they would say that, but also you should know what that's simply not true when it comes to weapons in school. I omitted one complication, which in this instance is not applicable, namely the kirpan exception. In Singh v. Thompson, 36 F.3d 1102, it was ruled that a prohibition against knives (in school), in that instance, violates the Free Exercise clause (the kirpan must be worn at all times). On the other hand, TSA does forbid taking a kirpan into the secure zone, a matter which has so far not been litigated.	It is legal, at least in the US, for a store (or other entity) to refuse to sell any item to any individual for any non-prohibited reason (prohibited reasons are typically things like race or religion). More over, in various US jurisdictions, it is prohibited to "furnish" alcohol to a "minor" (for example, under California's ABC law), which can be interpreted as prohibiting to an adult if they reasonably suspect that adult will pass the alcohol onto the "minor". This is to prevent "straw" sales. Additionally, larger chains generally prefer to have harmonized policies across branches, and where practical, across state lines, so will have policies that can accomodate multiple alcohol control regimes.	Possibly: remember that we have 50 different states and their laws plus the federal government. Alabama criminal code §13A-9-9 define the crime of "possession of a forgery device", which is when one makes or possesses with knowledge of its character any plate, die or other device, appliance, apparatus, equipment or article specifically designed or adapted for use in forging written instruments with intent to use it himself, or to aid or permit another to use it for purposes of forgery. Selling is covered under the fact of possession. Arizona has a similar law, referring to the situation when a person Makes or possesses with knowledge of its character and with intent to commit fraud any plate, die, or other device, apparatus, equipment, software, access device, article, material, good, property or supply specifically designed or adapted for use in forging written instruments. Makes or possesses any device, apparatus, equipment, software, access device, article, material, good, property or supply adaptable for use in forging written instruments with intent to use it or to aid or permit another to use it for purposes of forgery. Federal law would be covered here: §474 covers any plate, stone, or other thing, or any part thereof, from which has been printed, or which may be prepared by direction of the Secretary of the Treasury for the purpose of printing, any obligation or other security of the United States, uses such plate, stone, or other thing, or any part thereof, or... but this could not be reasonably interpreted to include a printing press, and would not cover a gadget that forges passports (Dept. of State, not Treasury). There isn't a federal statute with the breadth of the Alabama law. Any such law would have to include an "intent to forge" element.	Note that an essential element of the offense here is "with purpose to use it criminally." The specifications in B allow a presumption of such purpose, but such a presumption is rebuttable. The tools of a locksmith are somewhat different from those of a criminal "cracksman", I understand, and would probably not be considered "designed or specially adapted for criminal use". But even if they were, proof of regular employment as a locksmith would tend to rebut the presumption of criminal intent. Possession of tools with the intent of lawfully opening one's own lock would not be criminal intent, but a judge or jury might not be convinced of that.	Would any offence be committed for: Having this on your person? Buying or selling this? Leaving it around for people to plug in to a computer? In the abstract, I don't think that this conduct would violate either Section 36 of the U.K. law or U.S. law, although, obviously, purposefully destroying a computer itself (i.e. actually using the device without the consent of the owner of the computer) would violate many U.K. laws and would also violate many U.S. laws at both the state and federal level. I also don't think that possession or buying or selling this product would be a crime absent some intent that it be used illegally, in which case there might be an "attempt" to commit a crime offense, or an offense that would make one part of a conspiracy to commit a crime. In the "leaving it around" example, there is arguably an intent to use it to harm another improperly, although the phrasing is ambivalent. While many statutes in the U.S. criminalize possession of burglary tools, or drug paraphernalia, sometimes with an associated intent element (although even these crimes often have an express or judicially implied intent to use element), I'm not aware of any statute that criminalize possession of tools for malicious destruction of property. So, if the tools aren't possessed or used in a manner intended as a step in the facilitation of a crime, I don't think that any law is violated. So far as I know, the U.S. does not have a counterpart to Section 37 of the British statute cited above (it isn't a terribly easy thing to search for to definitively rule out the existence of such a law because federal law has many uncodified crimes in unexpected statutes and there are many sets of state criminal statutes, not all of which are codified either). The example giving in the comments by @gnasher729 of possession of a hammer which could be used to do the same things that this object could be used to do is instructive. Arguably, this USB-like tool is more specifically targeted at malicious conduct. But, for example, when I used to work as a radio news reporter, we had a machine that was basically a high powered magnet that was specifically designed to destroy all information on magnetic media. This was, in part, so that it could be reused, but it was also so that confidential interviews wouldn't fall into the wrong hands once they were no longer needed, in much the way that one might shred paper documents. It isn't so implausible to think that a device like this one might be necessary for individuals or firms with national defense secrets embedded in their hardware and software to have on hand in order to destroy a sensitive computer in order to prevent a security breach, if necessary. In a case like that, leaving one of these devices around the office unlabeled might be negligent, but wouldn't have the intent necessary to be an intended crime. And, it is hard to imagine that the device itself, which seems pretty simple, would itself involve any technology that is a national security secret, so it probably wouldn't violate export control laws. Of course, possession, purchase or sale of such a specialized device, or leaving it around unlabeled would certainly be powerful evidence of an intent to use the device in a wrongful manner, and hence, of an attempt to commit a crime. Indeed, possession of such a device or purchase of one might very well be sufficient to establish probable cause to seize the device and arrest the person holding it on charges of an attempt to destroy a computer. But, this device would be merely powerful evidence of an intent to commit a crime, rather than something that is a crime to commit in and of itself. There are no international laws that govern this kind of thing. The only international laws applicable to individuals pertain to war crimes and nuclear and chemical weapons. Even then, most international laws direct member nations to adopt domestic laws on the subject rather than being self-executing.	It depends. If the tip is that there are pictures proving that a minor consumed alcohol 10 years ago, probably not. If the tip is that there's a kidnapped child being tortured inside, more likely. In either event, they would probably seek to build up some independently obtained evidence to enable them to obtain a warrant based on probable cause. An anonymous tip might be enough, depending on how detailed it was and whether there were any objective indicators of reliability, but it's not a sure thing.	We're missing a lot of facts that would help drive the analysis. The first question I'd ask was whether this was part of an actual or attempted sex offense. If that's the case, the suspect could be facing particularly serious charges. Other information is also missing, such as the drug involved, whether it's on the list of controlled substances, her knowledge of the drug, her relationship to the suspect, and so on. Still, based on the information we've got and the inferences we can make from them, I could reasonably see the following charges being filed: Sec. 12-3. Battery. (a) A person commits battery if he or she knowingly without legal justification by any means (1) causes bodily harm to an individual Sec. 12-3.05. Aggravated battery. (g) Offense based on certain conduct. A person commits aggravated battery when, other than by discharge of a firearm, he or she does any of the following: (1) Violates Section 401 of the Illinois Controlled Substances Act by unlawfully delivering a controlled substance to another and any user experiences great bodily harm or permanent disability as a result of the injection, inhalation, or ingestion of any amount of the controlled substance. (2) Knowingly administers to an individual or causes him or her to take, without his or her consent or by threat or deception, and for other than medical purposes, any intoxicating, poisonous, stupefying, narcotic, anesthetic, or controlled substance, or gives to another person any food containing any substance or object intended to cause physical injury if eaten. Sec. 12-4.5. Tampering with food, drugs or cosmetics. (a) A person who knowingly puts any substance capable of causing death or great bodily harm to a human being into any food, drug or cosmetic offered for sale or consumption commits tampering with food, drugs or cosmetics. Sec. 12-5. Reckless conduct. (a) A person commits reckless conduct when he or she, by any means lawful or unlawful, recklessly performs an act or acts that: (1) cause bodily harm to or endanger the safety of another person; or (2) cause great bodily harm or permanent disability or disfigurement to another person. Sec. 21-1. Criminal damage to property. (a) A person commits criminal damage to property when he or she: (1) knowingly damages any property of another Sec. 11-1.20. Criminal sexual assault. (a) A person commits criminal sexual assault if that person commits an act of sexual penetration and: (2) knows that the victim is unable to understand the nature of the act or is unable to give knowing consent; Sec. 11-1.30. Aggravated Criminal Sexual Assault. (a) A person commits aggravated criminal sexual assault if that person commits criminal sexual assault and any of the following aggravating circumstances exist during the commission of the offense or, for purposes of paragraph (7), occur as part of the same course of conduct as the commission of the offense: (2) the person causes bodily harm to the victim, except as provided in paragraph (10); (3) the person acts in a manner that threatens or endangers the life of the victim or any other person; (4) the person commits the criminal sexual assault during the course of committing or attempting to commit any other felony; (7) the person delivers (by injection, inhalation, ingestion, transfer of possession, or any other means) any controlled substance to the victim without the victim's consent or by threat or deception for other than medical purposes; Sec. 11-1.50. Criminal sexual abuse. (a) A person commits criminal sexual abuse if that person: (2) commits an act of sexual conduct and knows that the victim is unable to understand the nature of the act or is unable to give knowing consent. Sec. 11-1.60. Aggravated criminal sexual abuse. (a) A person commits aggravated criminal sexual abuse if that person commits criminal sexual abuse and any of the following aggravating circumstances exist (i) during the commission of the offense or (ii) for purposes of paragraph (7), as part of the same course of conduct as the commission of the offense: (2) the person causes bodily harm to the victim; (5) the person acts in a manner that threatens or endangers the life of the victim or any other person; (6) the person commits the criminal sexual abuse during the course of committing or attempting to commit any other felony; or (7) the person delivers (by injection, inhalation, ingestion, transfer of possession, or any other means) any controlled substance to the victim for other than medical purposes without the victim's consent or by threat or deception. Sec. 9-1. First degree Murder (a) A person who kills an individual without lawful justification commits first degree murder if, in performing the acts which cause the death: (2) he knows that such acts create a strong probability of death or great bodily harm to that individual or another; or (3) he is attempting or committing a forcible felony other than second degree murder. Sec. 9-3. Involuntary Manslaughter and Reckless Homicide. (a) A person who unintentionally kills an individual without lawful justification commits involuntary manslaughter if his acts whether lawful or unlawful which cause the death are such as are likely to cause death or great bodily harm to some individual, and he performs them recklessly Sec. 9-3.3. Drug-induced homicide. (a) A person commits drug-induced homicide when he or she violates Section 401 of the Illinois Controlled Substances Act or Section 55 of the Methamphetamine Control and Community Protection Act by unlawfully delivering a controlled substance to another, and any person's death is caused by the injection, inhalation, absorption, or ingestion of any amount of that controlled substance. Sec. 9-3.4. Concealment of homicidal death. (a) A person commits the offense of concealment of homicidal death when he or she knowingly conceals the death of any other person with knowledge that such other person has died by homicidal means. Sec. 9-3.5. Concealment of death. (b) A person commits the offense of concealment of death when he or she knowingly conceals the death of any other person who died by other than homicidal means.	This is a pretty good guide to the student's right to express their views on religion (for or against). For example you may pray in school, but you cannot compel others to listen to your prayers. You may discuss Jesus Christ and you may advocate a religious perspective, if it is on topic (e.g. in a class discussion abortion, but not in an algebra class). There are familiar ways of saying "Jesus Christ" which would be disruptive, but a general prohibition against uttering a name (on the grounds that the name is of a religious figure) is not a proper application of the separation of church and state -- as the ACLU statement says, SCOTUS did not make public schools religion-free zones. Whether or not the teacher was given the authority to forbid mentioning religious figures by some supervisor, that would not have been proper authorization. Official advocacy of religion in general, or a particular religion, is contrary to the First Amendment, as is official prohibition of religion in general, or a particular religion.
What property rights do husbands have over their wife's hair? There is a question floating around on Skeptics SE that asks if married woman in Michigan are required to have her husband's permission to cut her hair. Here are some potentially relevant things included in an answer: Michigan's 1850 Constitution: The real and personal estate of every female, acquired before marriage, and all property to which she may afterwards become entitled, by gift, grant, inheritance or devise, shall be and remain the estate and property of such female, and shall not be liable for the debts, obligations or engagements of her husband, and may be devised or bequeathed by her as if she were unmarried. 1855 Michigan law titled "An Act relative to the rights of married women." 1981 Michigan law that includes something on "Rights and Liabilities of Married Women." Do the above sources say anything about whether married woman in Michigan are required to have her husband's permission to cut her hair?	Hair is not personally property until it is removed from your body, it is just part of your body, just like your nose or your femur. After it is removed from your body, it is the property of the person it used to be attached to, although it is frequently promptly abandoned to a trash bin or the floor of a hair cutter. A married woman in Michigan is not now required to have her husband's permission to cut her hair (unless the husband has been declared her legal guardian for extraordinary cause due to something like dementia by a court with ample due process protections, in theory, anyway). This wasn't true even in 1850 and hasn't been true at any time since then. It may never have been true in Michigan while it was a part of the United States of America, although the state of territorial law under the Northwest Ordinance was not necessarily easy to determine with certainty. Almost certainly, there was never a statute to that effect on the books in Michigan or any preceding U.S. territory. The 1850 Constitution recognized the right of a married woman to have separate property that was not marital property (not unlike the law of community property states and countries at the time and not unlike states like Colorado). The 1855 statute, a 1911 statute not linked above, and the 1981 statute essentially put married women on equal footing with single adult women in terms of property ownership and legal status, with the 1981 statute basically just re-codifying the 1855 and 1911 statutes in more modern language. These legal authorities did so in order to abolish the common law doctrine that upon marriage, a husband and wife become one legal person who acts legally though the husband, called the merger doctrine a.k.a. coverture. Historical background for this wave of statutes can be found here. Justice Kennedy reviewed the history of this law in his 2015 opinion legalizing same sex marriage nationwide in the United States. One U.S. state was outside the common law tradition and a laggard, but it wasn't Michigan: In 1979, Louisiana became the last of the states of the U.S. to have its Head and Master law struck down. An appeal made it to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1980, and in the following year the high court's decision in Kirchberg v. Feenstra effectively declared the practice of male-rule in marriage unconstitutional, generally favoring instead a co-administration model. While these statutes are not directly applicable to the question, they do, more generally, disavow a legal worldview in which one could imagine that a woman would require a man's permission to cut her hair, although this is almost surely just an urban myth. Pre-1850, the government in Michigan, which was basically on the frontier at the time, was just too weak to maintain that kind of control over people.	I'm assuming you are talking about something like this You didn't specify where you live, but in many places it is illegal to block the sidewalk with a car. I just looked up my local ordinances and it is there. In fact, it is your driveway, but often the land up to and including the sidewalk is considered part of a public easement. Typically you are required by law to maintain any grass in the easement, but if the sidewalk were to fall into disrepair, the local government would fix it. Information on easements can also be found in your local ordinances, here is an example in my area. Should I fight this ticket? You can try, but I doubt you will win. Is there anything I can do to my driveway to allow me to actually use it? I would suggest asking on Lifehacks. And post a link here to your question if you do, I'd be curious to know what they come up with.	The landlord may be confused about what is legal. Growing pot without a license (they do not have one: it cannot be grown at home, and certainly not if there is a minor present) is not legal, not even in Seattle (medical marijuana now requires a general marijuana license, and home-grown is not legal – some Dept. of Health pages don't reflect the new law). Under RCW 59.18.065, the landlord must provide a copy of the executed agreement to each tenant, and a replacement copy on request. Under RCW 59.18.150, the landlord may enter the unit in case of an emergency, and otherwise shall give the tenant at least two days' written notice of his or her intent to enter and shall enter only at reasonable times. The notice must state the exact time and date or dates of entry or specify a period of time during that date or dates in which the entry will occur, in which case the notice must specify the earliest and latest possible times of entry. The notice must also specify the telephone number to which the tenant may communicate any objection or request to reschedule the entry. The tenant shall not unreasonably withhold consent to the landlord to enter the dwelling unit at a specified time where the landlord has given at least one day's notice of intent to enter to exhibit the dwelling unit to prospective or actual purchasers or tenants A lease cannot be terminated without cause and a legal process (eviction hearing), rather, it runs out at a specific time (the end of July). The situation with dog-washing is unclear, since normally a landlord can't decide to use a person's apartment for a dog-washing operation (the common law right to quiet enjoyment). If there is such a clause in the lease then that would be allowed, but they can't now decide that they have this right (the terms of a lease can't be changed in the middle). They can restrict the cats from areas outside your unit. You may however have some (legal) misunderstanding about what exactly "your unit" is, specifically, is the dog wash part of a "common area" that isn't actually part of what you have an exclusive right to.	The "less wealthy" spouse can spend as much as they want on legal fees. The article is oversimplifying, though. It's not just about wealth, and the order won't necessarily be for all of the legal fees. Look at California's Family Code §2030-2034: 2032 (a) The court may make an award of attorney's fees and costs under Section 2030 or 2031 where the making of the award, and the amount of the award, are just and reasonable under the relative circumstances of the respective parties. 2032 (b) In determining what is just and reasonable under the relative circumstances, the court shall take into consideration the need for the award to enable each party, to the extent practical, to have sufficient financial resources to present the party's case adequately, taking into consideration, to the extent relevant, the circumstances of the respective parties described in Section 4320. Further reading: Maiden, Jan (2001) "Winning By Financial Attrition: A Study of Attorney Fees Under California Family Code Sections 2030 and 2032," California Western Law Review: Vol. 38: No. 1, Article 9. Available at: http://scholarlycommons.law.cwsl.edu/cwlr/vol38/iss1/9 It leads with an example where a party's fees were $115,000 but the party was only awarded $45,000. It also gives an example where a court found that "[e]ven where need is established, if the other spouse does not have the ability to pay, it is an abuse of discretion for a court to impose such an obligation upon one of the destitute parties which will hang as a sword over the obligor".	That is going to depend on the deed. In some cases a deed will include both surface rights and mineral rights. In other cases mineral rights are owned by some different entity, or by the state. If someone else owns the mineral rights, they can exploit those without the permission of the surface owner, and in some jurisdictions at lest they have a right to come onto the property and dig or drill there, even against the surface owner's wishes. In the US that varies by state, and also by the terms of the deed. If the surface owner also owners mineral rights, no one can dig ir drill from that land without permission, but I am not sure on the rules for 'slant digging".	Bob's will leaves everything to Abby. Bob has a brokerage account solely in his name with no TOD on the account. Bob then dies. It is my understanding that for Abby to get the money, you have to go through probate. Am I right about that? Yes, this has to go through probate. I have been told that when you are leaving everything to a spouse you can skip probate. I am thinking that is wrong. You are correct. This said, in a very small dollar estate (e.g. $20,000, with the actual dollar amount varying state by state), some states allow you to transfer assets by affidavit rather than via the probate process, if the sold heir at all and will beneficiary are the same and there are no unpaid creditors with a claim against those funds. New Jersey has two sets of small estate procedures for estates under $50,000. The cutoff is sometimes $10,000, sometimes $20,000, and sometimes $50,000 depending upon the circumstances and the nature of the simplified process sought. It isn't clear to me that they apply in cases where the decedent has a will and therefore is not intestate. Small Estates General Summary: Small Estate laws were enacted in order to enable heirs to obtain property of the deceased without probate, or with shortened probate proceedings, provided certain conditions are met. Small estates can be administered with less time and cost. If the deceased had conveyed most property to a trust but there remains some property, small estate laws may also be available. Small Estate procedures may generally be used regardless of whether there was a Will. In general, the two forms of small estate procedures are recognized: Small Estate Affidavit -Some States allow an affidavit to be executed by the spouse and/or heirs of the deceased and present the affidavit to the holder of property such as a bank to obtain property of the deceased. Other states require that the affidavit be filed with the Court. The main requirement before you may use an affidavit is that the value of the personal and/or real property of the estate not exceed a certain value. Summary Administration -Some states allow a Summary administration. Some States recognize both the Small Estate affidavit and Summary Administration, basing the requirement of which one to use on the value of the estate. Example: If the estate value is 10,000 or less an affidavit is allowed but if the value is between 10,000 to 20,000 a summary administration is allowed. New Jersey Summary: Under New Jersey statute, where as estate is valued at less than $50,000, a surviving spouse, partner in a civil union, or domestic partner, may present an affidavit of a small estate before the Superior Court. Upon the execution and filing of the affidavit, the surviving spouse shall have all of the rights, powers and duties of an administrator duly appointed for the estate. New Jersey: New Jersey requirements are set forth in the statutes below. TITLE 3B ADMINISTRATION OF ESTATES–DECEDENTS AND OTHERS 3B:10-3. When spouse, partner in a civil union, or domestic partner entitled to assets without administration. Where the total value of the real and personal assets of the estate of an intestate will not exceed $50,000, the surviving spouse, partner in a civil union, or domestic partner upon the execution of an affidavit before the Surrogate of the county where the intestate resided at his death, or, if then nonresident in this State, where any of the assets are located, or before the Superior Court, shall be entitled absolutely to all the real and personal assets without administration, and the assets of the estate up to $10,000 shall be free from all debts of the intestate. Upon the execution and filing of the affidavit as provided in this section, the surviving spouse, partner in a civil union, or domestic partner shall have all of the rights, powers and duties of an administrator duly appointed for the estate. The surviving spouse, partner in a civil union, or domestic partner may be sued and required to account as if he had been appointed administrator by the Surrogate or the Superior Court. The affidavit shall state that the affiant is the surviving spouse, partner in a civil union, or domestic partner of the intestate and that the value of the intestate’s real and personal assets will not exceed $50,000, and shall set forth the residence of the intestate at his death, and specifically the nature, location and value of the intestate’s real and personal assets. The affidavit shall be filed and recorded in the office of such Surrogate or, if the proceeding is before the Superior Court, then in the office of the clerk of that court. Where the affiant is domiciled outside this State, the Surrogate may authorize in writing that the affidavit be executed in the affiant’s domicile before any of the officers authorized by R.S.46:14-6.1 to take acknowledgments or proofs. amended 1983, c.246, s.1; 2004, c.132, s.77; 2005, c.331, s.24; 2015, c.232, s.1. 3B:10-4. When heirs entitled to assets without administration Where the total value of the real and personal assets of the estate of an intestate will not exceed $20,000 and the intestate leaves no surviving spouse, partner in a civil union, or domestic partner, and one of his heirs shall have obtained the consent in writing of the remaining heirs, if any, and shall have executed before the Surrogate of the county where the intestate resided at his death, or, if then nonresident in this State, where any of the intestate’s assets are located, or before the Superior Court, the affidavit herein provided for, shall be entitled to receive the assets of the intestate of the benefit of all the heirs and creditors without administration or entering into a bond. Upon executing the affidavit, and upon filing it and the consent, he shall have all the rights, powers and duties of an administrator duly appointed for the estate and may be sued and required to account as if he had been appointed administrator by the Surrogate or the Superior Court. The affidavit shall set forth the residence of the intestate at his death, the names, residences and relationships of all of the heirs and specifically the nature, location and value of the real and personal assets and also a statement that the value of the intestate’s real and personal assets will not exceed $20,000. The consent and the affidavit shall be filed and recorded, in the office of the Surrogate or, if the proceeding is before the Superior Court, then in the office of the clerk of that court. Where the affiant is domiciled outside this State, the Surrogate may authorize in writing that the affidavit be executed in the affiant’s domicile before any of the officers authorized by R.S.46:14-6.1 to take acknowledgments or proofs. amended 1983, c.246, s.2; 2004, c.132, s.78; 2005, c.331, s.25; 2015, c.232, s.2. The consent and the affidavit shall be filed and recorded, in the office of the surrogate or, if the proceeding is before the Superior Court, then in the office of the clerk of that court. Where the affiant is domiciled outside this State, the surrogate may authorize in writing that the affidavit be executed in the affiant’s domicile before any of the officers authorized by R.S. 46:14-7 and R.S. 46:14-8 to take acknowledgments or proofs.	The Miranda warning only has to be given to a person being interrogated in custody, and on the premise that the wife is not in custody, the police do not need to read her the warning. Therefore, anything she says can be used against her, or somebody else, unless there is a separate reason why the statement could not be used. The wife may invoke the spousal testimony privilege, in which case she cannot be compelled to testify against the husband. The officer could theoretically testify that the wife said "I washed blood out of his clothing", but this is an assertion made by an out-of-court declarant to prove the truth of the question at hand, i.e. hearsay. There are numerous exceptions to the definition so that in some cases, the statement would not be hearsay. If the wife refuses to testify, that cuts out half of the exceptions, but maybe the wife is a co-conspirator.	united-states Overview If someone owns a house before marriage, would that house be exempt from asset division in divorce? For simplicity, assume that otherwise, asset picture is fairly simple and even (2 working spouses with similar income, no children, a shared savings/checking account, similarly sized retirements accounts, no other properties or investments). This seemingly simple question doesn't have a simple answer. This is in part because state law on the subject varies so much. Would the answer depend on any factors other than whether the state is Equitable Distribution vs community property? Yes. The other reason that this is a difficult question to answer is that there are many other potentially relevant factors. This answer will provide some examples of some of the relevant facts that were not provided in the question. State Law Varies Greatly It is necessary to look to particular states, such as the New York and California, as suggested in the question, regarding this matter, as there is no uniformity or even guidance in federal law (there is even a common law exception to federal court jurisdiction that actually specifically prohibits federal courts from handling divorces and other domestic relations matters). There are two extreme starting points in terms of how this question is handled under state law, but many states are hybrid systems that borrow from each of these systems. Also, there are very practically important differences in detail with respect to how final outcomes are determined, even in states that have the same basic systems. Once critical details are considered, there are probably at least half a dozen basic sets of rules among the fifty U.S. states concerning the question of how a house acquired prior to marrying by one spouse before marriage is treated in a property division during a divorce, and each of those basic sets of rules has some state specific variations. This also sets aside the ubiquitous possibility in every U.S. state that these rules have been modified by a marital agreement between the spouses (such as a prenuptial agreement). There are also significant differences between states, beyond the scope of this question, regarding the inheritance rights of a spouse in a house acquired by the other spouse before the marriage began in that spouse's sole name, at death. Equitable Division One of the two extremes in U.S. law is the pure traditional equitable division rule, in which all property of each spouse (regardless of whose name it is titled in) may be distributed in a manner that the judge finds to be equitable, rather than equal, and the concepts of separate and marital or community property does not exist. In the traditional equitable division regime, and in some states, but not others, a divorce court may consider marital fault in some (but not all) divorces, in deciding what is equitable in divorces commenced on fault based grounds. Each of these states has both fault based and no-fault divorces, a marital fault in not considered in property divisions in no-fault divorces in these states. New York State, for example, has a mixed fault and no-fault based divorce system. In equitable division states, often a business or a pension will be allocated entirely to a spouse who is active in the business or occupation associated with that asset, and a house will be allocated to a spouse who is not involved with the business or the occupation that gave rise to the pension. Community Property Another of the extremes in U.S. law is the community property regime, in which property acquired before the marriage and by a gift or inheritance are separate property not subject to division in a divorce, and everything acquired during the marriage is owned 50-59 by the spouses. In a community property state, property acquired by either spouse during the marriage automatically becomes property that is owned 50-50 by the spouses immediate and often some kinds of property formally titled in only one spouse's name can't be transferred without the consent of both spouses. For example, in California, which is a community property state, a house purchased in the name of one spouse before the couple marries is initially, at least, on the day of the wedding, entirely the separate property of the spouse who owns it. But, considerations discussed below regarding appreciation and the source of payments to related to the house will sometimes muddy the waters of this analysis. New York State: A Hybrid System New York State is strictly speaking an equitable distribution state and a spouse does not have a present ownership interest in property titled in their spouse's name which is acquired during the marriage. But, New York State does make a distinction between separate property and marital property at the time of a divorce, so it is really a hybrid of a traditional equitable division regime and a community property regime, unlike some other states that are more pure examples of the traditional equitable division system. During the divorce both spouses have to tell the judge about their income and any debts they owe. When the court grants a divorce, property will be divided equitably (though not always equally) between the spouses. New York's Equitable Distribution Law recognizes marriage as an economic as well as a social partnership. The law requires that a judge divide property as fairly as possible. The Equitable Distribution Law talks about two types of property for purposes of divorce: marital property and separate property. Marital property will be divided between the two spouses. Marital Property: all property either spouse bought during the marriage, regardless of whose name is on the property. Pension plans and other retirement plans are considered marital property. The portion of marital property earned during the marriage will be divided by the court. Separate Property: property a spouse owned before the marriage, or any inheritance or personal injury payments or gifts from someone other than the spouse during the marriage. To see the factors a court should consider in making an equitable distribution award, see Domestic Relations Law § 236(B)(5)(d). (Source) In New York State, separate property and marital property is defined as follows: c. The term "marital property" shall mean all property acquired by either or both spouses during the marriage and before the execution of a separation agreement or the commencement of a matrimonial action, regardless of the form in which title is held, except as otherwise provided in agreement pursuant to subdivision three of this part. Marital property shall not include separate property as hereinafter defined. d. The term separate property shall mean: (1) property acquired before marriage or property acquired by bequest, devise, or descent, or gift from a party other than the spouse; (2) compensation for personal injuries; (3) property acquired in exchange for or the increase in value of separate property, except to the extent that such appreciation is due in part to the contributions or efforts of the other spouse; (4) property described as separate property by written agreement of the parties pursuant to subdivision three of this part. (Source) The factors to be considered in the equitable property division in New York State, per the same source, are as follows: Disposition of property in certain matrimonial actions. a. Except where the parties have provided in an agreement for the disposition of their property pursuant to subdivision three of this part, the court, in an action wherein all or part of the relief granted is divorce, or the dissolution, annulment or declaration of the nullity of a marriage, and in proceedings to obtain a distribution of marital property following a foreign judgment of divorce, shall determine the respective rights of the parties in their separate or marital property, and shall provide for the disposition thereof in the final judgment. b. Separate property shall remain such. c. Marital property shall be distributed equitably between the parties, considering the circumstances of the case and of the respective parties. d. In determining an equitable disposition of property under paragraph c, the court shall consider: (1) the income and property of each party at the time of marriage, and at the time of the commencement of the action; (2) the duration of the marriage and the age and health of both parties; (3) the need of a custodial parent to occupy or own the marital residence and to use or own its household effects; (4) the loss of inheritance and pension rights upon dissolution of the marriage as of the date of dissolution; (5) the loss of health insurance benefits upon dissolution of the marriage; (6) any award of maintenance under subdivision six of this part; (7) any equitable claim to, interest in, or direct or indirect contribution made to the acquisition of such marital property by the party not having title, including joint efforts or expenditures and contributions and services as a spouse, parent, wage earner and homemaker, and to the career or career potential of the other party. The court shall not consider as marital property subject to distribution the value of a spouse's enhanced earning capacity arising from a license, degree, celebrity goodwill, or career enhancement. **However, in arriving at an equitable division of marital property, the court shall consider the direct or indirect contributions to the development during the marriage of the enhanced earning capacity of the other spouse; (8) the liquid or non-liquid character of all marital property; (9) the probable future financial circumstances of each party; (10) the impossibility or difficulty of evaluating any component asset or any interest in a business, corporation or profession, and the economic desirability of retaining such asset or interest intact and free from any claim or interference by the other party; (11) the tax consequences to each party; (12) the wasteful dissipation of assets by either spouse; (13) any transfer or encumbrance made in contemplation of a matrimonial action without fair consideration; (14) whether either party has committed an act or acts of domestic violence, as described in subdivision one of section four hundred fifty-nine-a of the social services law, against the other party and the nature, extent, duration and impact of such act or acts; (15) in awarding the possession of a companion animal, the court shall consider the best interest of such animal. "Companion animal", as used in this subparagraph, shall have the same meaning as in subdivision five of section three hundred fifty of the agriculture and markets law; and (16) any other factor which the court shall expressly find to be just and proper. e. In any action in which the court shall determine that an equitable distribution is appropriate but would be impractical or burdensome or where the distribution of an interest in a business, corporation or profession would be contrary to law, the court in lieu of such equitable distribution shall make a distributive award in order to achieve equity between the parties. The court in its discretion, also may make a distributive award to supplement, facilitate or effectuate a distribution of marital property. f. In addition to the disposition of property as set forth above, the court may make such order regarding the use and occupancy of the marital home and its household effects as provided in section two hundred thirty-four of this chapter, without regard to the form of ownership of such property. g. In any decision made pursuant to this subdivision, the court shall set forth the factors it considered and the reasons for its decision and such may not be waived by either party or counsel. h. In any decision made pursuant to this subdivision the court shall, where appropriate, consider the effect of a barrier to remarriage, as defined in subdivision six of section two hundred fifty-three of this article, on the factors enumerated in paragraph d of this subdivision. Thus, in New York State, unlike Colorado (discussed below), appreciation in the value of separate property during the marriage is separate property and not marital property. Section 234 of the New York Domestic Relations Law referenced in the bolded language above states: § 234. Title to or occupancy and possession of property. In any action for divorce, for a separation, for an annulment or to declare the nullity of a void marriage, the court may (1) determine any question as to the title to property arising between the parties, and (2) make such direction, between the parties, concerning the possession of property, as in the court's discretion justice requires having regard to the circumstances of the case and of the respective parties. Such direction may be made in the final judgment, or by one or more orders from time to time before or subsequent to final judgment, or by both such order or orders and final judgment. Where the title to real property is affected, a copy of such judgment, order or decree, duly certified by the clerk of the court wherein said judgement was rendered, shall be recorded in the office of the recording officer of the county in which such property is situated, as provided by section two hundred ninety-seven-b of the real property law. Usually, the authority granted by Section 234 is used to enter temporary orders granting a spouse possession and use of a residence titled in the name of the other spouse until the case is concluded, although it could be applied to a post-decree decision as well. Also, while New York State now finally has "no fault" divorces (it was the last state in the U.S. to make this option available), it also allows spouses to commence a fault based divorce. In a fault based divorce, marital fault (e.g. having an affair) can be considered as a factor by the court in equitably dividing the couple's property in the divorce if fault is successfully established. Fun Fact: In New York State, family court judges don't have jurisdiction over divorces, which are instead handled by the general jurisdiction trial court in the state known as the "Supreme Court". New York State's apex court is called the "Court of Appeals". Complicating Factors The reality, however, is more complicated than these extremes in most cases. Many states adopt parts of each regime, develop their own special rules, or implement the same basic system of marital property ownership and property division upon divorce in different ways. Appreciation And Payment Of Carrying Costs During The Marriage For example, Colorado is not technically a community property state, and community property rights of a spouse in marital property are not recognized during the marriage. But in Colorado, upon divorce, there is a distinction between separate property and marital property that is very similar to that found in community property states. And, in Colorado, while property owned before a marriage is not marital property, appreciation in the value of separate property during the marriage, and income from separate property, is marital property. Another issue is what payment of mortgages and other costs of maintain real estate that is separate property from funds earned from wages or investments of either spouse during the marriage, will often muddy the waters. California's rule in this situation is non-obvious from general community property principles ands is quite tricky and technical. California allocates some appreciation of separate property which has had mortgage principal paid for in part from income earned during the marriage or marital property to community property and some of the appreciation to separate property, on a pro-rated basis determined at the time that the property is valued for divorce purposes. For example, in California, if the home was worth $100,000 net of a $100,000 mortgage at the time of the marriage, and then is then sold free and clear net of costs of sale for $400,000, then $100,000 of the proceeds are separate property, $100,000 of the proceeds are community property, and $200,000 of the proceeds are appreciation is is pro-rated between the two, in this case, evenly. so $200,000 of the proceeds is separate property and $200,000 of the proceeds is marital property. But, taxes, insurance payments, and interest payments as opposed to principal payments, do not add to the community property value of the house, as they are current expenses that don't change the value of the property under California law, even though money is fungible. In general, some states that distinguish between separate and marital property, or separate and community property, at the time of a divorce, treat appreciation in separate property and payment of carrying costs for separate property as giving rise to some marital or community property interest in that property that is traceable to appreciation during the marriage or income acquired during the marriage, while other states continue to treat property acquired before the marriage entirely as separate property even if it appreciates, and/or even if carrying costs for the property are paid for from income acquired during the marriage. In states where appreciation in the property and/or payment of carrying costs with income earned during a marriage, gives separate property a partial marital property status, these two factors often convert a house that was originally separate property almost entirely into marital property after a long marriage, while modifying its separate property status only slightly after a short marriage. In the same vein, different states that distinguish between separate property on one hand, and marital or community property on the other, treat income from separate property earned during a marriage such as rent, interest, and dividends, differently than other states do and sometimes differently than appreciation in the asset itself. Quasi-Community Property A third complicating issue is the question of "quasi-community property." If property is acquired as separate property or community property in a community property state, many states which are not community property states will treaty property acquired or owned by one or more members of the couple while they lived in that community property state as if it were governed by the community property laws of the place where the property is located, or the laws of the place where it was located before it was sold and reinvested in property in the state where the divorce case is being litigated. Other jurisdictions recognize property acquired while a couple lived in a community property state and its proceeds to retain its community property v. separate property status with a "quasi-community property" doctrine. But, these jurisdictions, rather than applying the community property laws of the state where particular property was acquired, applies a generic set of community property laws to property acquired in any community property state during the marriage. Sanctions For Economic Waste Also, in both traditional equitable division regimes that make a separate v. marital property distinction, and in community property regimes, sometimes if the owner of the house that would otherwise be classified as separate property commits "economic waste" that destroys the value of marital property out of spite, or without good cause. When that happens, a court may order that the harm to the marital or community property caused by the economic waste of a spouse be remedied with a contributions from the guilty spouse's separate property. Marital Agreements Finally, almost every state allows married couples to modify the property division rules of the state as applied to that couple, in a prenuptial agreement or a postnuptial agreement (collectively, "marital agreements") if it is prepared with the proper disclosures and formalities, and informed consent is given to the agreement. For example, one of the common terms of a marital agreement (especially for late in life remarriages of widows and widowers, but also in many other cases) states that upon a divorce, legal title to property will be followed strictly when making a property division, with the value of any jointly owned property split exactly equally. In other words, a marital agreement will often provide that property will be divided upon a divorce in the same way that it would be divided if the couple had never married. This is sometimes called a "your's is your's, and mine is mine" prenup. Marital agreements like this also often waive any right to alimony to the full extent permitted by law (which economically is almost equivalent to treating the members of the couple as if they had never married) and often waive any inheritance rights of a surviving spouse upon their spouse's death.
Can you be sued for getting COVID-19? A contractor that we do a lot of work for has recently told all subcontractors that if an employee of any subcontractor gets COVID and gives it to any other worker on the job site they will be sued. Is this legal? If so, under which laws? How would this work for breakthru cases in which an employee has been vaccinated and still contracts COVID?	In the absence of a contractual agreement saying otherwise, the lawsuit would probably just be subject to normal rules of tort liability. In that case, the contractor would probably lose his case unless he could prove that the one worker infected another through an act of negligence or could otherwise prove that the infected worker knew he was infected and posed a risk to others. In the basic negligence situation, the contractor would likely rely on the general duty we all have to avoid creating unreasonable risks of injury to third parties, and he would need to argue that Worker A somehow breached that duty. Coming to work knowing you're infected would almost certainly satisfy that standard, but it might be enough to simply show that Worker A was at a large gathering of unmasked people whose vaccination status was unknown. From there, he would also need to prove that breaching that duty caused him some injury, presumably by infecting Workers B through M, causing a work slowdown, causing missed deadlines, causing late fees, etc. The contractor might also pursue a claim for reckless, rather than negligent, conduct, if Worker A knew he was infected and came to work just the same. Or he might pursue an intentional tort claim if there was some reason to believe that Worker A was actually trying to get other people sick, as opposed to just ignoring the fact that such a risk existed. As I understand it, several states have also passed laws limiting liability for exposure to COVID in the workplace, so it's possible that none of these claims would be viable, no matter how strong the evidence.	What should and shouldn't happen isn't going to do a damn thing about your passport situation. Your passport isn't being 'held', it's in processing at a place that is currently not operational due to an unprecedented virus outbreak. No one is acting like a criminal or treating you like one, you are just unlucky. If your situation is that dire, you have no choice but to get a temporary passport. I seriously doubt an Indian court is going to side with you on this one. Just because the passport office is legally allowed to operate, doesn't mean that they are actually able to. If, for example, COVID-19 hit enough of their workforce, they won't have enough people to operate properly and they'll have no choice but to close. And no, '2 or 3 people' is not enough to operate such a large scale, sensitive operation with high security requirements, even just to return passports .	Not going to hold up. Dutch Supreme Court confirmed 2012-09-21 in LJN BW6135 that arbitration is still covered by the the right to an independent judge, as established in Golder v UK, ECHR 1975-02-21, nr. 4451/70. Stack Exchange can't decide the rules themselves. (The Dutch case confirms that sector-wide arbitration is in fact legal, with regard to a standard arbitration clause commonly used in the Dutch building sector. The arbiter was found to be independent in that case precisely because they weren't picked by the builder involved.) The GDPR is only indirectly relevant, but the fact that it's mentioned does mean that there is an indisputable intent to provide services to EU consumers. (See section 23 of the GDPR, or its national equivalents). As such, you can't hide behind a US business address. If you intend to do business in the EU, it's under EU laws - all of them. You can't say that only the GDPR applies, and not other rules. I'm having a bit of a problem finding a source, but I'm fairly confident that consumers have the right to sue at their own, local court, overruling the default of suing in the court where the counterparty is located. Finally, I have the right under national law (Dutch: BW 6:236 start and sub-n) to strike the arbitration clause up to 30 days after the conflict arises, and demand a court decision. That's not 30 days after I accept the "Public Network Terms", that's 30 days after the arbitration is invoked. Dutch law explicitly allows arbitration abroad, and arbiters may apply foreign law, but as written the arbitration clause has no legal basis in the Netherlands, and any arbitration resolution would therefore not be considered valid. You may wonder if it matters to Stack Exchange that the arbitration decision would not hold in the EU. Well, consider a clause like Indemnification, which demands the user indemnifies Stack Exchange. That's a pretty empty demand if it's not enforceable.	The primary question, in case of such a lawsuit, is whether you accepted the terms of the contract. You could accept the terms verbally, or you could accept them with a signature, or you could even accept by behavior (such as showing up to work). If you breach the contract and you want to make the argument that you didn't accept the offer (or some identifiable part of the offer), the plaintiffs would have a "yes you did" piece of paper to support their side. Now you would have to advances a very dangerous claim, that you didn't sign the document and that the signature there is a forgery. This is dangerous, because you perjured yourself in so testifying (it would eventually come down to you testifying, that you didn't sign the document). It's really beyond the scope of Law SE to get into forensic graphanalysis debates, but you should expect that the other side will have compelling expert testimony that you did in fact sign the document, with your other hand. In a civil suit (breach of contract), the other side would have to show that it is most likely that you did agree to the terms. It isn't just about the signature, it's about all of the evidence, which would include eyewitness testimony ("I saw him sign it", "I gave him the pile of papers and he returned them all, signed" or a later conversation "Remember that you agreed to X" – "Yeah, whatever").	If the contractor's advice that delay would be safe was reasonable under the circumstances, and other contractors or skilled professionals would have given similar advice, then the contractor will not be liable just because the advice was incorrect. If the advice was negligent, and fell clearly short of what a skilled professional would advise in the circumstances, then the contractor may have liability for the additional damages. That is the detailed facts will be very important in placing liability. The contractor is not an insurer who assumes all risk, but the contractor is responsible for acting in a reasonable, professional manner.	could they make a realistic claim that I had voluntarily terminated my contract before the year was over? The employer's act would forfeit its entitlement to reimbursement of bonus. The clause clearly indicates that the triggering event is termination, not the anticipatory notification thereof. Furthermore, the employer's act would be a breach of the [contract law] covenant of good faith and fair dealing. That would be in stark contrast with your compliance with, and/or kindness in, giving a two-week notice. The employer's termination of your employment seems improper in equity insofar as it was aware of your notice and thus took advantage thereof.	One thing that may prevent this is contract law: the employer may not have the power to impose new requirements on employees during the period of the current contract. For prisons that are run by government agencies, there may also be statutory restrictions on what the warden or Bureau of Prisons can compel employees to do without legislative approval (this is a general feature of government employment). There are additional disability and religion-based protections for employees. Apart from such legal considerations, the vaccine is not universally available, which explains why not all employers mandate that employees get vaccinated. It's not clear how prisons, specifically, are relevant: there's no general rule that "because it's a prison, normal law is suspended".	Would breaking a rule in the handbook constitute breach of contract? Generally speaking, yes. Of course, most employment contracts are "at will" so a breach of contract often isn't necessary to terminate employment. Does my employer's updating the handbook constitute a unilateral change of contract? It depends upon what is changed in the update to the handbook. Typically an employment contract would have a term that says something to the effect of "employee shall devote his full time effort to perform the duties he is directed to perform by employer in a satisfactory manner." If the employee handbook says, "part of every employee's duties includes cleaning up his work area at the close of business each day, locking his file cabinets and shutting down his computer", this would typically simply be a definition of the duties of the employee which the employer reserved the right to change in the original employment contract, and not a unilateral change of contract. On the other hand, if the employee handbook says, "vacation days may not be taken during December" when the employee's contract simply said that "you have ten vacation days per year", that might constitute a unilateral change of contract which might not be enforceable for an employee with a fixed term of employment who was not an employee at will, without additional consideration. Locale is UK but (I assume) contract law is pretty universal so answers specific to any region are welcome. I have answered based upon general contract and employment law, but the UK frequently sets mandatory standards for different kinds of contracts and modifies common law rules related to contracts (much more so than the U.S.), so it wouldn't be very surprising if this were modified by a statute of which I am not aware. We have UK lawyers who contribute to Law.SE and they can chime in if there are particular statutes in the UK that apply to this question.
"Or otherwise" in Copyright Agreement I have an agreement presented by an employer that has the following bullet point: Employees are prohibited from using, exploiting, disseminating, or reproducing any intellectual work, in any form or of any nature that belongs to [removed], whether or not it is covered by copyright, for personal profit or otherwise. What use is prohibited exactly? Does the "personal profit or otherwise" mean "personal or non-personal profit", "personal profit or personal non-profit", or "any reason"?	Does the "personal profit or otherwise" mean "personal or non-personal profit", "personal profit or personal non-profit", or "any reason"? This means personal profit, or any other use not authorized by the employer.	You are creating a derivative work. You are only allowed to do this if the library comes with a license that allows this. If you want to give your derivative work to anyone else, copying it is copyright infringement unless the license allows it. Copying the derivative work and attaching a different license is most likely to be copyright infringement. And if people receive a copy with an open source license that is not justified and rely on it, that’s creating one unholy legal mess for everyone involved and can be massively more expensive than plain copyright infringement. No license means you don’t have permission to do anything with it, not creating derivative work, not distributing it, and certainly not publish it with an open source license.	Another term sometimes used in place of "copyright troll" or "patent troll" in order to be less pejorative is "non-practising entity"1 (moreso in the patent context). These terms refer to a family of characteristics, not always present in every particular instance. These are not well-defined legal concepts but are used colloquially (mostly in academia and journalism) to describe a kind of behaviour in the legal system. Some legal opinions have used the term "troll".2 And some statutes even aim to assist defendants subject to claims from trolls.3 Some features: they do not licence or produce the material themself they adopt aggressive, vexatious, and frivolous litigation tactics to attempt to get high value settlements they initiate claims or demands beyond the scope of their rights or despite fair use defences litigation awards and settlements are a significant part of their revenue Because these terms (copyright troll, patent troll, troll, non-practising entity) do not have a precise meaning, good academic work that uses such a term will provide a definition of how they are using the term within their work.4 1. This is also somewhat imprecise, but by non-practising entity, this refers to entities that do not "practise the patent." This is an odd phrase, but to practise a patent means to actually use, make, or sell the patented invention or products incorporating the patented invention (as opposed to merely excluding others from doing so). 2. I haven't done my own independent research for this and am not providing a list of cases, but see footnote 17 of Brad Greenberg, "Copyright Trolls and Presumptively Fair Uses", 2014. It lists a few judicial opinions from the United States using the term, often in quotation marks. The opinions relate trollness to "costly and expansive discovery to need to oppose a fair use defence", that one party was not a troll because it "actually produced the [works] and did not merely acquire the copyright therein to enforce against infringers", that "copyright trolling" uses litigation "not to make the copyright owner whole but to provide a new revenue stream". There are likely many more examples. 3. See for example Washington State's Patent Troll Prevention Act. They use the term only in the short title because of its popular connotation. The term does not appear in the text of the statute. Instead, it prohibits what is considered "bad faith" assertions of patent infringement and includes a description in a preamble of what the legislature considers the nuisance to be. 4. Greenberg's operational definition is: "a copyright owner who: (1) acquires a copyright—either through purchase or act of authorship—for the primary purpose of pursuing past, present, or future infringement actions; (2) compensates authors or creates works with an eye to the litigation value of a work, not the commercial value; (3) lacks a good faith licensing program; and (4) uses the prospect of statutory damages and litigation expenses to extract quick settlements of often weak claims."	Such use might well be illegal, and subject the user to tort liability, or possibly even criminal liability. Parties For this discussion let us call the person or company that developed and wants to protect the information D, the person or company that downloaded and wants to use the information U, and the person who placed the information on the server P. Trade Secret One possible source of liability is if D considers the information to be a trade-secret. The law on trade secrets varies to some extent in different countries, although there is a general similarity. Since no jurisdiction is specified in the question, I am going to look at the united-states law. Definition The LII page on "Trade Secrets defines a trade secret under the US Uniform Trade Secrets Act ("UTSA") as: "information, including a formula, pattern, compilation, program, device, method, technique, or process that: Derives independent economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known to, and not being readily ascertainable by proper means by, other persons who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use; and Is the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the circumstances to maintain its secrecy. A similar definition is given by the USPTO page on "trade secret policy". Prior to the USTA, and still in those US states that have not adopted the USTA, trade secrets were/are protected under the common law. The LII page lists the common law factors, as given by the Restatement of Torts (1939) § 757, comment b: The extent to which the information is known outside the claimant's business The extent to which it is known by employees and others involved in the business The extent of measures taken by the claimant to guard the secrecy of the information The value of the information to the business and its competitors The amount of effort or money expended by the business in developing the information The ease or difficulty with which the information could be properly acquired or duplicated by others These factors may apply in other common-law countries. In either case, one must consider how the would-be user came to acquire the information, and thus how it came to be on the server from which it was downloaded. One must also consider whether it was the subject of "reasonable efforts" to protect its secrecy, under the circumstances. Circumstances If P was violating an obligation of confidentiality, such as an NDA or a duty as part of an employment relationship, then the placement of the info on the server was improper. In such a case its acquisition by another, such as U might constitute misappropriation. The same would be true if a person under an obligation of confidentiality arranged for the server to be indexed by a search engine, when it should not have been. The case for misappropriation would be stronger if U knew that the information was considered confidential by D, and also if P had informed U about where to find the info, or what search terms would uncover it. If P was acting with the permission of D, and P or someone else at D simply failed to realize that the server was, or might become, indexed, then the question is whether the steps taken by D to keep the info secret were reasonable. If this a case of "inadvertent disclosure resulting from the trade secret holder's failure to take reasonable protective measures" then there is no misappropriation, and the actions of U are lawful. That will depend of a judgement of whether D's actions were reasonable in light of the value of the info and the overall circumstances. If the placement of the info on the server is considered to constitute "general publication" of the info, so that it is no longer secret in any meaningful sense, then D may have a claim against P, but not against U unless U acted in collaboration with P. Copyright Law The documents downloaded from the4 server are almost surely protected by copyright. Directly incorporating them into an open source project without permission from the copyright holder would be copyright infringement, and would subject U to a suit for infringement. However, copyright does not protect ideas, methods, or facts. If U learns a method or idea from the document, and uses that knowledge without directly copying or closely paraphrasing the document, there is no copyright infringement and no claim under copyright law. Patent Law The question does not mention any patents. It is possible that D has patented the method describe in the downloaded documents. If so, and if the patent is valid, any use by U would be patent infringement, and the question of how U learned the info becomes irrelevant. However, most software developments such as data structures are not patented, so this is a somewhat unlikely, albeit possible, case. Notre that if the information is covered by a patent is is by definition not secret, as all patents must be openly disclosed. But they may not be widely publicized, and if U does not make a patent search, U may not realize that the document includes patented technology. This possibility is largely incompatible with the trade secret possibility, althogh it is possible to use trade secrets in connection with patented tech. Conclusion In short whether U may lawfully use then info, or is subject to a tort claim by D, or even criminal action, depend on the details of the overall facts. U would do well to take legal advice on the matter before proceeding to use the info.	I assume you are talking about United States federal copyright law. You can freely use any: material published before 1923 material published between 1923 and 1963 for which the copyright was not renewed material explicitly placed in the public domain material not copyrightable (such as any US government publication) material whose copyright has been abandoned (for example the author died with no heir)	Copyright never protects ideas or processes, it only protects expression: words, images, and sounds, some of which may describe ideas. But when a work is nothing more than a translation of an idea into words, with no independent originality -- when almost anyone would use more or less the same way to describe the idea, then the work will not be protected by copyright at all, as it is not considered an "original work". Computer code that implements an algorithm often falls under this rule. It is my belief that the code shown in the linked SE thread would fall under this rule, and would not be protected by copyright at all. If this is correct, then anyone may share such a program with no copyright concern.	My remarks pertain only to US Law. Laws vary in other countries. Subject matter eligible for copyright protection in the US must be expressive and creative. To the extent data are merely measurements of observable fact in the world, they are not copyrightable. It may be that the presentation or interpretation of data is eligible for copyright protection (for example, artwork used in charts, graphs, graphics, etc., that is expressive and creative), subject to various equitable use provisions (in particular Fair Use, which is still a legal grey area). The methods by which data are gathered can be considered IP, but is the domain of patents. Methods are not copyrightable (17 USC 102(b)).	Non-commercial copying of a copyrighted work is still copyright infringement. Realistically, a copyright or trademark infringement lawsuit is unlikely, uneconomical, and bad press, but ultimately, the owner of a copyrighted work has a right to control how it is used.
What would be the legal ramifications of lying to a business, if it causes no damages? Similar to another post, customer lies to a hotel about their age, but it doesn't garner any damages. i.e. A 17y/o purchases a room for the night, but lies and says they are 18. It doesn't change the price, and a minor over 16 can legally purchase a room. Thus there are no legal damages. However some public "outrage" is garnered over it (no decrease in sales happen after the incident comes to light). If the hotel wanted to, would they have any legal grounds against the 17y/o for lying?	Damages is an element of a common law claim for fraud, and of most other common law torts. Mere harm to the hotel's reputation as a result of the fact that it was deceived would not usually be actionable because the harm to reputation is based upon a true fact that it was actually deceived. Lying to the business about certain matters for certain purposes (e.g. age for purpose of serving an alcoholic drink) may be crimes for the 17 year old, but not grounds for a lawsuit by the hotel against the lying guest. A seventeen year old who lied to a hotel about his age might also be estopped from asserting (i.e. legally prevented from asserting due to one's own conduct) an affirmative defense of being a minor unable to enter into executory contracts against the hotel in a lawsuit for non-payment of a bill (and charged for damages to the premises, for example) on the ground that the seventeen year old was actually minor. Usually the hotel would not have criminal or civil regulatory liability if it was not negligent in believing the lie (e.g. by not checking ID). But some age related offenses are strict liability offenses for which the hotel would be punished even if it was reasonable in believing a lie that it was told. Some human trafficking statutes, for example, are particularly draconian about imposing severe punishments without proof of fault by an offender. In those case, it is conceivable that the hotel might have valid basis for a lawsuit to seek indemnification for its own losses from the misconduct of the lying guest, although this might be highly fact pattern specific and might also depend upon the terms of any contract between the hotel and the guest entered into when the guest books a stay with the hotel. For example, the hotel might have a grounds for an indemnification suit against the lying guest if the guest was a pimp, but not if the guest was someone who was being trafficked who was under duress from a third-party pimp.	Generally speaking, fraud in connection with an affirmative statement, in both criminal and civil cases, is limited to false statements of a presently existing material fact. Future income is not a presently existing fact. So, simply incorrectly stating your future income is not fraud. But, you are affirming when you make such a statement that you presently sincerely believe that you will have a future income of approximately the amount stated. And, if you make a statement about your future income when you do not actually believe that you will have that future income, then you have still committed fraud. In practice, there are lots of gray areas where a judge or jury considering the case would have to weigh the facts and your credibility. If you represented that you predicted that you would have an income of $1,000,000 in the next year, when you had never done so before and didn't even have any plausible plan other than playing the lottery for doing so, this would almost surely be credit card application fraud. On the other hand, if you represented that you predicted that you would have an income of $50,000 in the next year, when your income in past years had ranged from $30,000 to $45,000 from self-employment, and you believed sincerely that improvements in your marketing efforts and current economic trends were going to make the coming year your best year ever for income from self-employment that would give you a $50,000 income in the coming year, that would not be fraud. Where exactly the line between not fraud and fraud is drawn would be for the tier of fact to decide when and if the case went to trial.	Yes, there is legal precedent against this that would only apply to a government employee. First, let's discuss the private sector. In this case, you are a private employee that comes to your place of work and accuses you of "stealing the cookies from the cookie jar" which is a serious criminal offense. They wish to talk and your boss is in the room. You plead the 5th, but your boss says you're fired if you don't talk to the cops. This is legal because you still have the right to refuse to talk, you just lose your job. A private employer has the right to free association, and wants nothing to do with cookie thieves, alleged or actual. However, in the government employ, your boss is an agent of the government. This same situation is different because the government pays the boss and the agent... so in essence the government is saying talk or be fired. This is unconstitutional as the government cannot retalitate against you for your refusal to talk. Generally, in order to talk to you, the investigator would need either a signed Garrity Statement or a Signed Kalkines Statement. The former is a statement saying that they are investigating a wrong doing but you cannot lose your job if you refuse to speak to the investigators, where as Kalkines says you must talk but you are granted immunity for your part in the wrong doing, so long as you make truthful statements. For more on this, check this legal blog. There is also the matter that a false accusation (and let me be clear... this is academic, I'm not saying the accusation in the real life topic is false, nor am I saying that the defense is false... we're merely discussing a possibility) is made to your employer and they do not offer the job on the basis of the accusation alone, this is grounds for defamation actions... and in certain jurisdictions, it's criminal defamation, so there could be jail time. It's interesting you mentioned teachers, because this happens alot. Kids do know that there are certain things that get a teacher fired quickly, so teachers do get the occasional false accusation of sexual assault (I know one teacher who has had multiple accusations over the course of her career). One of the few good things I can say about the Teachers Union is they cover the legal defense of accused teachers. The accusations do get the teacher removed from the class for sometime, but they don't lose their jobs over this matter. It's followed up but the accusation doesn't immediately lead to the teacher getting fired..	Each case is decided on its own facts I know you want a clear answer to where the bright line between illegality and legality but there simply isn’t one. The reason you feel there is a “legal grey area” is because there’s a legal gray area. The way the common law works is that there are some acts and omissions that are clearly crimes/torts/breach of contract, some that aren’t and some that live in that grey area. When someone brings a case in the grey, the court will make a ruling that will apply to similar facts and we get a little light on the subject. Then the legislature changes the law and it all goes dark again. Each of your bullet points is simply too vague and encompasses so many fact patterns that it’s impossible to say. For example, “Using a fake name/birthday”: do the ToS prohibit this? is there an intent to mislead or deceive? are there laws that prohibit this? is a benefit being received dishonesty? etc. If you come with a specific, detailed fact pattern there might be case law that is specifically relevant that will allow an answer with a high chance of being right. However, nuances matter and no two fact patterns are exactly the same and the difference might be enough to distinguish your case from the precedent. Or there might not be a relevant precedent because no one has sued/prosecuted on this fact pattern before. Then we are in virgin territory and even experts are only making educated guesses until the judge (and the appeals court(s)) hand down their decision. These are the most interesting cases to watch but the most terrifying to be part of. If you need to ask the question”where’s the legal line on this?”, there’s a decent chance you have a foot on each side.	At a minimum, what the theater did was not a crime. When you are in a movie theater you have what is called a "license" from the theater to be present, which is revocable at will without due process (possibly subject to breach of contract damages) and not a property right to be in the theater the way that a tenant who must be evicted does. As a practical matter, given that the amount in controversy is, at most, $25 or so, and this is not a situation where the prevailing party would get their attorneys' fees, this is not cost effective to litigate, regardless of who is correct, even in small claims court without an attorney. Whether or not the theater breached its contract isn't perfectly clear, because usually, the contract between a movie goer and a movie theater is not spelled out in any writing provided to the movie goer, incorporated by reference in something disclosed to the movie goer, or signed by either of the parties, or even with an oral offer and acceptance setting forth all of the terms of the agreement. (Of course, if a written terms of service is actually provided to the movie goer, or a reference to where it can be found is provided to the movie goer, those terms will control and the contract will almost certainly be written to allow the movie theater to do what it did in this case.) In the frequent case where this is not done, the contract between a movie goer an a movie theater is usually a contract implied in fact whose terms at the edges aren't terribly well defined and there is little case law to tell us what the terms of the contract is, because the cases aren't worth litigating up to an appellate court where binding precedents are made. Indeed, one reason that movie theaters may have declined to put their implied in fact contracts with movie goers in writing is to leave the situation ambiguous so as to discourage someone whose case would be clear even if for a small dollar amount, if the terms of the contact were clear, from suing them over issues like this one. When the stakes are small and the outcome is always uncertain, it almost never makes sense to sue. There is certainly a colorable argument that you breached the contract by being present without an adult at an R-rating movie when the public statements about an R rating made available to the movie goers says that rated R means only admitted with a person over the age of 17, contrary to the theater's policies on that issue, although it isn't perfectly clear if this is a suggestion or a binding term of the agreement. Another fair interpretation of the contract between a movie goer and the movie theater is that a movie goer can be removed from any movie whenever, if in the reasonable opinion of the movie theater management, good cause exists to do so, and that its discretion should be upheld so long as it acts in good faith and in a non-discriminatory manner. I don't agree, however, that the question of whether or not you breached a contract was unambiguously clear, because the terms of the agreement are not well defined. I would give you at least a 20% chance of prevailing if you took the issue to court although I would agree that it is more likely than not that you would not prevail if you took the issue to court.	I don't know Canadian rental law, but as a general rule in civil cases you don't get to play Perry Mason and bring in evidence at the last minute. If you have evidence that the landlord broke the law then disclose it immediately and use it to pressure him into settling. His later lies to you are less important than the fact that he broke the law in the first place. However you can certainly testify about what he said as evidence that he has acted in bad faith.	If they really ordered it, they entered into a contract, and you have a claim against them for damages suffered because the contract was breached. This would be a civil claim, not a criminal claim, in the Netherlands. However, if you're delivering an order that was sent anonymously, you have no way to prove that the person at the door is the one who ordered the food - and the onus would be on your to prove that it was. It could become a criminal act under a number of laws ("oplichting", "fraude", etc.) if intent can be proven but that's not easy - and you first have to get the police/public prosecutor interested in the case. It's quite comparable to someone ordering in a restaurant and not paying the bill, which is notoriously hard to prosecute criminally in the Netherlands. (Search for "eetpiraat" - dinner pirates) As a restaurant, you usually can only try to enforce a civil claim through the civil courts.	Is it true that there has never been a single case It is tough to prove a negative. I am not going to completely parse the quote but please notice that the quote states "we couldn't find" and concludes that "it doesn't happen." Given these two pieces of information I do not conclude that there has never been a single case. Rather I conclude that the speaker in your quote could not find a case therefore he concluded that there has never been a single case. It's largely impossible to determine that there has never been a single such case. We can search published opinions but that barely scratches the surface of lawsuits that are filed. It is entirely possible that someone filed a suit which was quickly dismissed. The Act provides a defense, it does not bar lawsuits. Someone might get sick from food and not know where the food came from so they sue the provider. If this happens the provider may raise the Emerson Act as a defense and escape liability to the extent applicable. But again, we will never know because it's impossible to examine every lawsuit filed in this country.
Does someone in the U.S. illegally have the same rights in court as a U.S. citizen? So right now in my home state of Iowa, an undocumented immigrant is on trial for murder charges. Apparently he wasn't read his rights when he was being investigated. Whether that is true or not, does he have those same rights as a U.S. citizen?	Everyone physically present in the US is protected by the US Federal constitution. (In some cases persons not physically in the US also have protection from the US constitution. When that applies is too complex for this answer.) Most of the rights protected by that constitution are available to anyone present, whether citizen, lawful immigrant, lawful visitor, or a person in the US without lawful authority. A few rights, such as the right to vote and to run for public office, are limited to citizens. If a person was arrested but not informed of his or her Miranda rights, then statements made to the arresting officers (or later interrogating officers) would not be admissible in court, unless an exception to the Miranda rules applies, which is unlikely. I can't say if this happened in the particular case mentioned in the question. In general, in the area of criminal procedure, there is no difference between citizens and others subject to US jurisdiction (accredited foreign diplomats normally have immunity). A few crimes can only be committed by citizens (or others owing allegiance to the US) such as treason. A few crimes, such as unlawful entry to the US, can't be committed by citizens, as citizens automatically have a right to enter. But criminal procedure and constitutional rights affecting criminal procedure, are the same for all in the US, citizen or not. (Oh, there are special laws for minors, but that isn't a matter of citizenship.)	I'm no expert, but I had assumed this clause was present in case of the following situation. Joe is arrested for a robbery of a London bank. Joe says nothing under questioning. At trial, Joe's defense is that at the time of the robbery, he was in Sheffield drinking beer with his brother. On the basis of common sense, a jury could think: "Surely if Joe were really innocent, he would have told the police of his alibi at the time he was questioned, and saved himself a lot of trouble. Since he didn't do that, maybe a more likely explanation is that he wasn't actually in Sheffield, but that sometime between arrest and trial, he came up with the idea of faking an alibi in Sheffield, and convinced people to testify falsely to that effect. Yes, that does seem more plausible. So we are not going to give much credence to Joe's supposed alibi." So it really would be the case that not mentioning the alibi during questioning would harm Joe's defense at trial. The warning, then, is intended to keep Joe from doing this inadvertently. If Joe's alibi is genuine, but out of a misguided desire to exercise his right to remain silent, he doesn't mention it during questioning, he may accidentally increase his chances of being wrongly convicted. Everybody has an interest in avoiding this.	If you falsely claim to be a US citizen in order to obtain work, vote in a US election, or receive public benefits in the United States, you can be deported, lose a green card, or be banned from ever obtaining a green card or US Visa. See https://dyanwilliamslaw.com/2015/02/why-lying-about-being-a-u-s-citizen-can-stop-you-from-becoming-a-permanent-resident-and-what-you-can-do-to-overcome-this-obstacle/ and https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/how-falsely-claiming-us-citizen-can-deportable.html for more detail. This very much includes checking an incorrect box on an I-9 form when obtaining a job, although that is not usually considered a "benefit". In fact incorrect I-9 statements are a common source of such bans. However, if a person lies in response to a merely curious question, when no government or private benefit, and no job eligibility is involved, the ban should not, as far as I can see, come into effect, nor should that be grounds for deportation, or indeed any criminal or immigration action. If a person falsely claims to be a US Citizen merely to obtain social status or personal importance or reputation, that would seem not to be a crime under the doctrine of U.S. v. Alvarez, nor should it lead directly to any immigration consequences, althoguh I suppose it might draw attention to someone who is deportable on other grounds.	When a country makes criminal laws, these laws usually apply to anyone present in the country, and acting in the country. But the country is free to declare that some law might apply to its own citizens in a foreign country, or even foreign citizens in a foreign country. Assuming the laws about using marijuana say nothing about the country, that most likely means it only applies to using marjuana in the country itself. But if the US government decided that taking marijuana in Canada is illegal for US citizens, then nobody can stop them. In this case, Canada would not extradite you (unless Canadian law says that it is criminal for Canadians to use marijuana in another country), and Canadian police would likely not collect evidence. So even if illegal, it would be hard to convict you. PS. The "polygamy" case would be interesting, I think you would have to read the exact wording of the laws in every country. Some countries will say that you can't get married twice, and the attempt to get married a second time while already married is bigamy. In that kind of country you wouldn't have committed a crime within that country. Also, you would only be married to the first wife.	You are deeply confused, probably by the blogs of a conspiracy theorist (perhaps discussing the Sovereign Citizen Movement mentioned in the comments), whom it would be helpful for you to reference. In fact, people with and without lawyers claim common law rights in the ordinary courts of the UK every day, in the lion's share of civil lawsuits. For example: There is a common law right to sue for damages when someone breaches a contract by not paying a bill that they owe. A defendant, meanwhile, has a common law right to defend against such a suit on grounds, for example, that the debt has been paid or that the debt is not owed because there was no agreement to pay in the first place. The substantive right of an owner of real property to evict a tenant who breaches a lease arises at common law, even though statutes spell out the process for enforcing that right. Furthermore, the way that ownership of real property is established (i.e. through a chain of title involving purchases by deeds) likewise arises at common law. The defendant meanwhile has a common law defense to a claim for rent for the remainder of the period in a lease after an eviction for failure of the landlord to mitigate damages if the landlord does not make a reasonable effort to find a new tenant. The right to sue someone who negligently caused an accident that injured you is a common law right.	At the time of annexation of country X someone would have to decide the status of the countries citizens: If all citizens of X are now citizens of the USA, and whether they are legally citizens from the date of annexation or since they were citizens of X, and if they are considered residents in the USA since the day they became residents of X, and if they are retrospectively "born in the USA" if they were born in X. And other things, like whether non-citizen legal residents of X are now non-citizen legal residents of the USA. That has to be decided for many reasons, and the answer to your question follows naturally from this. Maybe you could check on a history site if anyone knows how this worked with Hawaii.	You don't really need any reasonable doubts about the currently available evidence to get it started. If an investigating authority thinks a crime has been committed and not yet been adjudicated, it is free to investigate, even if others disagree. There are plenty of avenues for starting an investigation: Congress can exercise its oversight power to initiate an investigation. State legislatures can do the same, so you could petition the New York Legislature, the Virginia General Assembly, or the Pennsylvania General Assembly. At both the state and federal level, attorneys general have the authority to initiate an investigation of crimes committed within their jurisdictions. At both the state and federal level, a judge's authority to appoint a special prosecutor is a power considered to be inherent in the courts, so nearly any court could appoint someone to pursue the investigation. Of course, the prosecutor's authority could be jurisdictionally limited -- if a New York state judge appointed a prosecutor, he wouldn't really have much authority to investigate federal crimes, and if a small-claims court judge in Idaho appointed a prosecutor, he'd be limited by both his lack of authority to investigate events outside his jurisdiction and the practical difficulties of enforcing a subpoena from out of state. Even at the local level, law enforcement and legislative bodies have the authority to launch investigations. If NYPD or the Somerset County Sheriff or the Arlington County Board want to investigate, they could do so. I don't know what the relevant rules are in each jurisdiction, but some states allow lawsuits for civil damages based on criminal activity. So if the gist of the sponsor's complaint is that someone used "explosives and/or incendiaries" to kill his son, it may be that he could bring a lawsuit over that, which would in turn open up the the tools of civil discovery. Of course, that's only if the claim isn't time-barred; now that we're nearly 17 years out, I'd guess that it would be too late. And there's always the possibility of continuing an independent investigation. Using the same tools that the press uses -- interviews, freedom-of-information laws, etc. -- any member of the public is free to make an inquiry into any matter of public concern. Obviously, I'd expect any of these authorities to be reluctant to take up the cause due to the investigatory consensus against the inside-job/cover-up theory, and I'd also expect -- for the same reason -- that any authority that tried to take it up would run into serious roadblocks from all the other authorities that have declined.	American citizens can have dual citizenship , but if an american citizen who has his/her citizenship renounced (even though the person was originally an american citizen) , then what is a way of obtaining the citizenship back? Possibly, by the same means that a non-citizen could be naturalized. But, immigration and nationality officials have broad discretion and would probably refuse to grant citizenship to someone who had previously renounced it. And can an american citizen without dual citizenship (Meaning that he is only an american citizen), renounce his/her citizenship? Yes. For example, Prince Harry's financee plans to renounce her U.S. citizenship and contemporaneously be granted U.K. citizenship (the paperwork goes through really easily when the Queen is your grandmother in law). Renunciation of citizenship is not necessarily tied to gaining a new citizenship, but leaving yourself stateless would be a foolish thing to do.
Can a police officer be charged with despotism? Can a US police officer be charged with despotism? Note: In Germany I heard it is possible	To the best of my knowledge, there is no crime under US law known as "despotism". However, many of the actions that might be called "despotism" are crimes, civil violations, or possibly violations of police regulations. "use of excessive force", "false arrest", "illegal detention",. and "deprivation of civil rights" might apply, as might various other charges or causes of suit. In particular there is 42 U.S. Code § 1983. Civil action for deprivation of rights often known simply as "section 1983". This provides that: Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer’s judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable. ... This means that if a police officer or other government official takes action based on his or her authority as a police officer or government official that deprives someone of rights, the person deprived can sue the police officer or official in court, and collect damages directly and personally from the officer. This is limited by qualified immunity. That says that is a point of law has not been "clearly established" police can not be sued for violating it. The exact limits of when qualified immunity applies is a complex topic that has been the subject of many legal cases, quite a few decided by the US Supreme Court. The rules have changed over time. But what has not changed is that clear violations of constitutional and statutory rights by the police and others can give grounds for a federal lawsuit against the people who committed such violations. qualified-immunity, section-1983	Part answer to Q1: Is my conceptualization correct? No, insofar that your Points 1 to 4 are all "completely illegal" regardless of how the authorities deal with them, and the rest are not, on the face of it, crimes but presumably civil wrongs (which can be dealt with by, for example, fines or restraint / good behaviour / banning orders etc without one having a "criminal conviction"). Also: if the authorities, for whatever reason, decide against dealing with crime then it hasn't been "decriminalised" - that is the remit of the law makers, not the law enforcers. It's still a crime but with a lower political/ operational etc priority.	As far as I know, every jurisdiction in America limits perjury to cases of lying under oath. Because it seems unlikely that the driver would be under oath at this point, you would probably lack probable cause to make an arrest. At the same time, many states have separate laws addressing the making of false reports, lying to an officer, etc. I'd imagine most jurisdictions would have a law supporting an arrest for lying at the scene, even if not for perjury.	I conclude (contrary to an earlier expression) that there is no such list, nor can there be, because the term "officer" is not well enough defined. The inferior officers are those officers who are not principal officers (as specified in the Constitution, e.g. ambassadors, cabinet members, judges), since there are only two kinds of officers. There is no constitutional or statutory definition of "Officer of the United States", so we have to figure it out from case law. As noted in Morrison v. Olson 487 U.S. 654 The line between "inferior" and "principal" officers is one that is far from clear, and the Framers provided little guidance into where it should be drawn. Officers of the US cannot be appointed by Congress (Buckley v. Valeo 424 U.S. 1 (1976), so that narrows down the possibilities – if in fact an appointment can be made by Congress, that is not an inferior office (since Congress has no such authority). That court also said that We think that the term "Officers of the United States," as used in Art. II, defined to include "all persons who can be said to hold an office under the government" in United States v. Germaine, supra, is a term intended to have substantive meaning. We think its fair import is that any appointee exercising significant authority pursuant to the laws of the United States is an "Officer of the United States," and must, therefore, be appointed in the manner prescribed by § 2, cl. 2, of that Article. To take a specific example, "special trial judges", authorized in 26 USC 7443a are an example of an officer. We know they are officers, because Freytag v. Commissioner 501 U.S. 868 says so (since they read Buckley): A special trial judge is an "inferior Office[r]" whose appointment must conform to the Appointments Clause. Such a judge acts as an inferior officer who exercises independent authority in cases governed by subsections (b)(1), (2), and (3). The fact that in subsection (b)(4) cases he performs duties that may be performed by an employee not subject to the Appointments Clause does not transform his status. The Dept. of Justice offers an analysis of "Officer of the United States". The main elements in their opinion are that the position must possess delegated sovereign authority of the Federal government, and the position must be continuing. There are other criteria possibly applicable (things that were invokes at some time) including method of appointment, having been established by law, taking an oath of office, an emolument (not a volunteer), and receiving a commission. Still, Congress authorizes (by law) the hiring of federal employees, and not all employees are "officers". An earlier memorandum on the topic is here. Footnote 54 notes that It is at least arguable, however, that the authority exercised by second lieutenants and ensigns is so limited and subordinate that their analogues in the civil sphere clearly would be employees. Warrant officers and non-commisioned officers would likewise have quite limited authority. Since the definition of "Officer of the United States" is up for grabs, there can't be a complete list of inferior officers, especially if all military officers are included. There is a long list of civilian officers under the executive branch published in United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions, after each presidential election. The so-called Plum Book is on a government web page here in the 2012 version, and here for 2016. However, you will not find special trial judges of the tax court in the Plum Book, which were held in Freytag to be officers, and are civilians in the executive branch. The special trial judges are apparently listed here, as are the sitting judges (who are also not in the Plum book).	From a US perspective, in a word, "no". Firstly, "presumption of innocence" is in a trial, not in police interactions. Being arrested does not violate the presumption of innocence. Police do not need any reason to interact with you or ask you questions. Police can arrest you if they have probable cause to suspect you have committed a crime, but this is not always necessary. More on this later(in the fourth section). Secondly, I wouldn't describe requesting to see your ticket, or any document as a "violent communication", in general. It may be rude or insulting, but not violent. (Also "violent communication" is not a legal term. The closest legal terms, verbal assault and threatening communication, are also not this.) More over, there is no indication of am implication of lying in this request. Thirdly, there are many situations in which possessing a document or credential is not sufficient; one must legally display or present them upon request. For example, multiple occupational licenses such as liquor licenses and barber/cosmetology licenses require that the licenses be prominently displayed; whereas, in California at least, a vehicle driver on a public road must not only possess their driver's license and proof of insurance, they must produce them upon the request of any law enforcement officer (Source: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/pubs/brochures/fast_facts/ffvr18). Fourthly, there are situations in which you can be legally searched and questioned without reasonable suspicion. Examples of this include boarder searches and sobriety checkpoints. Sources: (US Supreme Court rulings): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Martinez-Fuerte; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Department_of_State_Police_v._Sitz A note on sources: bdb484 and I have opposing court case sources. My sources have binding precedent over all courts in the US, save the US Supreme Court, whereas theirs don't have any binding precedent, but are more directly on-topic.	united-states Under US law, any citizen may hold a person caught in the process of committing a felony (which kidnapping surely is) for the police. A soldier has no special authority. Indeed under the Posse Comitatus Act, the military has more restricted authority in such matters than citizens in general. However note that the book doesn't say the soldier was justified. I do not find it implausible that a soldier might have believed that the military had such authority.	There is no constitutional provision which grants the President such power. I am not aware of any provision of federal law which grants such power, nor of any case where a real president has exercised such a power. Of course, the President is a citizen, and any citizen may make a Citizen's arrest Particularly for a felony. (See also this FindLaw page on the subject.) And of course, as the head of the executive department, the President could order someone who clearly has powers of arrest to make an arrest, although such an order would not be valid in the absence of legal cause to make an arrest. A comment called atention to 10 USC §252 which provides: Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion. The history for this section dates from 1861. A note indicates that a prior version was the basis of Executive order 10730, sending federal forces into Little Rock, AK in 1957 to enforce school integration there. However, this section does not explicitly increase the arrest powers of anyone, and does not grant the President personally any power of arrest.	The UK has particularly strong (indirect) restrictions on self defense. Askthe.police.uk appears to be an official police agency. As a police agency, they can only give their version of what the law is, but they could be mistaken. They say "The only fully legal self defence product at the moment is a rape alarm". This by itself does not mean that pepper spray and the like are definitively illegal: There are other self defence products which claim to be legal (e.g. non toxic sprays), however, until a test case is brought before the court, we cannot confirm their legality or endorse them. If you purchase one you must be aware that if you are stopped by the police and have it in your possession there is always a possibility that you will be arrested and detained until the product, it's contents and legality can be verified. One can infer that they somewhat disapprove of pepper spray: There are products which squirt a relatively safe, brightly coloured dye (as opposed to a pepper spray). A properly designed product of this nature, used in the way it is intended, should not be able to cause an injury. The underlying theory seems to be that the dye will frighten the assailant so it might be useful. Nevertheless, they do not fully endorse spray dye: However, be aware that even a seemingly safe product, deliberately aimed and sprayed in someone's eyes, would become an offensive weapon because it would be used in a way that was intended to cause injury. This underscores the point that "intent" determines the criminal nature of the act. If you accidentally spray a dye into someone's eyes, that probably would not make the thing an offensive weapon. Moreover, if at the moment of defending yourself with dye you intentionally spray it into someone eyes, that does not make it an offensive weapon (see below on per se offensive weapons). The difference between pepper spray and dye lies in the outcome that you expect, that pepper spray will cause actual and non-trivial physical discomfort, and it's foreseeability (the point of having pepper spray is to injure). The police are not making any definitive "rulings" (only a court can make a ruling), and they warn The above advice is given in good faith, you must make your own decision and this website cannot be held responsible for the consequences of the possession, use or misuse of any self defence product. Possession of other weapons (mostly knives, also weapons for beating people) is more clearly illegal, due to numerous acts enacted by Parliament over the years. The gov't. prosecutor offers useful details on their (current) policies and the underlying laws. The underlying authority for these restrictions seems to be the Prevention of Crime Act, 1953, which outlaws having an offensive weapon in a public place, and an offense weapon is simply defined as any article made or adapted for use for causing injury to the person, or intended by the person having it with him for such use by him A brick or an egg could be an "offensive weapon", if a person intends to use it to cause injury. It is more difficult to see how an egg could cause injury, but actual injury is not required under the law, only intent to injure. It is thus a bit surprising that the police would be so bold as to say that a "rape alarm" is fully legal, but this may refer to a specific thing, the "Personal Guardian", which silently notifies the police, and is not a loud whistle (which could injure a person). Intent being crucial to the determination of "offensive weapon" status, CPS points out that where a person uses an article offensively in a public place, the offensive use of the article is not conclusive of the question whether he had it with him as an offensive weapon within section 1(1) of the Prevention of Crime Act 1953. If you use a chain or stick offensively, that does not establish that you had it with you as an offensive weapon. You crucially had to previously intend to use it as an offensive weapon: as they say: Having an article innocently will be converted into having the article guiltily if an intent to use the article offensively is formed before the actual occasion to use violence has arisen. There are a number of per se offensive weapons: those made for causing injury to the person i.e. offensive per se. For examples of weapons that are offensive per se, see Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) Order 1988, (Stones 8-22745) and case law decisions. (Archbold 24-116). The Criminal Justice Act (1988) (Offensive Weapons) (Amendment) Order 2008 came into force on 6th April 2008 with the effect that a sword with a curved blade of 50cm or more (samurai sword), has been added to the schedule to the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) Order 1988 but sticks and chains would not be included. Spices are not likely to be shown to have a per se purpose of causing injury to others; but carrying pepper powder with the intent of throwing it in someone's eyes (for whatever reason) and thus injuring them fits the definition of "offensive weapon". Pepper spray even more clearly fits that definition (you don't use pepper spray in curry), and has resulted in arrests. In fact, the Firearms Act 1968 (S5) (b) specifically makes it illegal to possess any weapon of whatever description designed or adapted for the discharge of any noxious liquid, gas or other thing
To which court can you file an interlocutory appeal from a superior court in California? To the California Court of Appeal of the [ordinal number] District or to the United States District Court for the [geographic jurisdiction] District of California? If both, is any of them almost always more advisable? Which one and why? Thank you!	Assuming you have a right of interlocutory appeal at all -- you usually don't -- you would file the appeal in the Courts of Appeal for whichever district. There are some types of cases that can be appealled directly to the California Supreme Court, or where you could petition the federal courts for an order to vacate the trial court's ruling, but these would be uncommon.	If 'literally 300' attorneys declined your case on the basis of a phone call, without looking into the details, I can see three options: You are unable to communicate the nature of your case clearly. In this posting, you mentioned complaints against a company, a municipality, and a landlord, plus being evicted. Focus on explaining one case. If you think you 'know for a fact' that you have several big payouts coming, there is the first problem. Nobody knows what a jury will decide. An attorney might hesitate to work for a client who does not understand this. Litigation is always a risk. All your cases actually lack merit, a lawyer sees this and you do not. Not knowing the cases, I cannot tell. (And no, you should not explain them in detail on the web. If they do have merit, posting your strategy hurts the cases.) Your state has a vexatious litigant list and you are on it. That would not prevent an attorney from taking your case, but it might make them hesitate.	Only if counsel challenged the point during the trial Difficult as it might be, you can’t allow the judge to be wrong during the trial without calling them on it: very, very politely. For example, there is case law that says you can’t successfully appeal because the judge was asleep through significant parts of the trial; appeals courts are clear that you have to wake them up. If you don’t then you accepted that you didn’t want the judge to hear the parts of the case they slept through, it’s your choice how you present your case. Frankly some cases are better if the judge misses half the evidence. Of course, if the error of law makes it through to the oral or written judgement then you can appeal even if you didn’t take issue with it.	The custom is that the person who brings the case is named first. This will be the plaintiff in a civil case. But when the plaintiff wins, and the defendant appeals, the case in the appeals court may have that person (often referred to in older cases as the "defendant appellant") named first. More recent practice is to keep the name of the case the same. But it used to be considered a separate case with a separate name in some jurisdictions. In any event, this is merely a custom, and not a law. The court has discretion to name cases as it chooses in its judgements, and if a court chooses for whatever reason to follows a practice that differs from the usual one, that is the name of that particular case. Without a full citation or a link, so that the actual opinion could be consulted, three is no way to know what reason, if any, there was for the order of parties in the particular case mentioned in the question. A quick Google search did not turn up the case.	Congratulations, intrepid legal enthusiast or learner! What you'll need A legal dictionary, especially if you're just getting started. If you don't own one, you can try Black's Law Dictionary A little bit of patience and time. Or maybe a lot, depending on the particular case and the particular question you're trying to answer. Maybe a normal dictionary, too. Again, if you don't own one, there's plenty online. Onelook is a dictionary search engine, so it'll search a lot of dictionaries at the same time. Okay, I've got those things, now what? Alright, there's a few things you should know. Firstly, decisions of superior courts are binding only on those inferior courts within the same hierarchy. This means that you can appeal to a higher court so long as it has appellate jurisdiction. Generally, a state (meaning a country) will have a supreme or highest court, with appellate jurisdiction over all other courts - in Australia, this is the High Court of Australia, in the United States, this is the Supreme Court of the United States, and in the United Kingdom, this is the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. Secondly, decisions of a court are generally binding only on the matter in dispute. For example, if in a case, the matter of whether the police owe a duty of care to citizens in detecting crime, a comment on whether the police had correctly parked their vehicle is not binding - it is called obiter dictum (plural obiter dicta). What we're looking for in a judgement is the ratio decidendi (plural rationes decidendi), which is the reason for the decision. This is what is binding, and would be considered in future decisions. The problem? It's not always easy to tell the ratio from the obiter. Finally, often, the only way to know whether our interpretation of a case is right is to see whether it is applied in a future case, or overruled. Examples, examples! Sure. Let's try something easy to start with. Do product manufacturers owe a duty of care to their customers? Yes. The decision in Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] UKHL 100 found that product manufacturers - in this case, a ginger beer manufacturer - have a duty of care to ensure their products are safe for use or consumption. Lord Atkin said: The answer seems to be – persons who are so closely and directly affected by my act that I ought reasonably to have them in contemplation as being so affected when I am directing my mind to the acts or omissions which are called in question. Okay, so the answer to this question is yes. How do I verify it? Get the source of the judgement. Without this, you're going to be relying on hearsay. The next best thing is a subsequent judgement that applies the one you're looking for, because if the judgement says what it's supposed to, it'll be mentioned in the subsequent judgement. I've found this one. Decide whether the matter in dispute is actually being decided. In our case, it is. But if I was quoting this from a judgement on whether product manufacturers have an obligation to transfer title for goods supplied on a credit agreement, it wouldn't be binding. Find the quote. If you've been given a quote. Otherwise, grab a cup of tea or coffee and get ready to read. A lot. If you can't find something that says, or means, what it's supposed to, it's probably not accurate. Make sure the judgement hasn't been overruled This is tricky, unless the judgement database you're using has a way of searching it. Most do. In any case, it's much like trying to prove a negative. In fact, it's exactly that. But always check whether the judgement has been overturned on appeal. Make sure the judgement hasn't been obsoleted by statute Again, this is tricky. It's proving a negative, again. And trying to find statute might be an answer for another time. Is that it? Pretty much, I think. These are at least the main points. There's a whole laundry list of things you shouldn't do with judgements, but they're more about reasoning than legal principles. It's a skill you can really only develop by using, and I'm constantly practising myself. Many discussions about cases are precisely about what their effect is. Yes, the decisions and orders are usually pretty clear-cut - for example, the decision is that the manufacturer has a duty of care, and the orders are for damages and costs to be paid. But what it means beyond that can be murky. Luckily for us, judges have become better at writing their judgements so that others can understand. Also, for more important cases, where the entire country, or world, is watching, others will interpret it for you - consider Obergefell v Hodges, for example. Not everyone can be trusted, but everyone, taken together, is a much more trustworthy source than just one person. In the end, there's not a mathematical formula for determining what judgements mean. There's some interpretation involved, some judgement. There's not always going to be one judgement that's enough to prove your matter. I'm struggling to end this post neatly so I'll just finish it with a cliff-	There is no such law mandating this layout, nor is there any law permitting the defendant to demand a change to it. The arrangement seems most likely to have been driven by security concerns when courts began removing "the dock" and letting the defendant past the bar to sit with his attorneys. One court has also concluded that it was meant to assist the government "because it bears the burden of proof." It's of course impossible to prove a negative like this, but I'll note that Kenneth Lay's attorneys raised the issue in the Enron case, and they were unable to cite a single case saying that the defendant has the option to sit closer to the jury. If they couldn't find it, it probably doesn't exist. Meanwhile, the government was able to find several cases saying that the defendant does not have the right to demand a change, though it did not have any cases saying that the layout is mandatory. Instead, it described itself as "traditionally" having a right to the table. In that case, the judge ended up splitting the baby. Saying that there was "no law" to inform his decision, he sat the government next to the jury during its case, and it sat the defense next to the jury during its case. That was quite a bit more generous than the Seventh Circuit, which has rejected the jury-proximity argument as frivolous. So there are some cases addressing the issue, but I don't know of any case where a court has actually looked at the issue and given any real consideration to the due-process implications of the substantial empirical evidence suggesting that the party closest to the jury enjoys an advantage.	Some people seem to believe that just because something happens 'in the internet' it is somehow outside normal jurisdictions. Wrong. In may be harder to investigate and prosecute crimes in the internet, but the laws apply all the same. There are some problems when it is unclear 'where in the world' something did happen -- in the jurisdiction of the perpetrator, the victim, or the service provider? But problems of jurisdiction apply e.g. to international fraud cases in the non-web-world as well. In many jurisdictions, the informed and voluntary consent makes some things legal which would otherwise be illegal. For instance, if two boxers get into the ring, it is understood that each of them did consent to be hit by the other. But usually two fighters could not legally agree to a fight to the death, because even if there are laws on assisted suicide, they do not apply to a fight. Insults, libel, and slander are not on the same level as homicide. There are jurisdictions where they are not prosecuted without the request of the victim. But an insult might also violate other laws, e.g. disturbing the peace. So don't bet on such an app unless you know for sure which jurisdictions are involved.	In my experience, varying jurisdictions can and do differ as to the myriad ways these disputes are resolved. Contract law is one area where the judge has a lot of discretion. This is definitely true in state courts, even from judge to judge, and can even be true in the federal level-The 9th Circuit has some wildly different appellate decisions when compared to the 1st Circuit, and so on. I say this not to be argumentative, but to highlight the importance of careful and concise drafting that fully explicates the bargained for exchange, as there can be a vast amount of judicial subjectivity that goes into determining which rules pertain to certain situations. "Conflicting or competing clause" cases are now some of the most commonly litigated contract disputes. This is largely because the last 20 years has seen a huge influx of people "drafting" (more like piecing together) contracts without benefit of qualified counsel. This is particularly true because lay people do not generally create a specific insturment like an attorney would - from scratch, with definitions and terms specific to the transaction. Rather, they go online and find "form" or model contracts that they feel are close enough (which are almost always missing key components), and then they type in their own terms, or even write them in. Because this is so common, most jurisdictions follow the rule that hand written terms supersede pre-printed terms; likewise, type written terms will take precedence over pre-printed terms. Specific terms also carry more weight than general terms. Specific terms will usually be given precedence over general terms, as these are seen as creating a specific exception to the general terms. For example, if Clause A in your scenario said: Written notice must be provided at least five days in advance of (any) change... (leaving out "to price"), then clause B would prevail because it would be more specific than the more general term (A), which in my scene would pertain to any change whatsoever (this is assuming the whole of the agreement did not shed light on the issues more fully). In your hypothetical, these are both specific terms. In that case, the court would first examine the entire contract and all addendum, specs, plans, etc. when interpreting competing or conflicting clauses applying the fundamental principal that a contract should always be interpreted as a whole - not clause-by-clause - and not section-by-section. Contracts will often have numerous parts with portions incorporated specifically by reference, or numerous documents that may be integral to the transaction, If the parties agree to what constitutes the various parts of the contract (even if not incorporated) the entirety of the transactional documents may be considered by the trier of fact (and law). Once examined, if a proposed interpretation makes other portions of the global agreement meaningless, illogical or unenforceable, and another party's interpretation is in keeping with the document as a whole, that is the interpretation that will typically be adopted. Assuming this analysis doesn't work to resolve the issue, then the court would look to see if there is an order-of-precedence clause, which is a clause that lays out what parts of the contract / types of clauses take precedence over others (ex. written requirements take precendee over performance requirements, addendum hold less import than the signed agreement, schematics hold less import than addendum, and so on). Assuming this there is no order of precedence, the court will look first to see if the contract was negotiated back and forth, with terms being modified with each draft. If Yes, then the court will except extrinsic evidence (parole evidence) that goes to the intent of the parties bargained for exchange. If not, the contract term(s) will be construed against the drafter and in favor of the one who signed the others' instrument. So, as you can see, there is no clear answer to what seems to be a simple issue. This just goes to show: Lawyers seem expensive when you decide to hire them - Lawyers are expensive when you have to hire them, because you decided not to in the first place!
UK law: compromising digital material - compelling someone to inform who showed them a naked video A video depicting a friend, is allegedly circulating at my local pub which is embarrassing and demeaning to them, showing them naked, though not actually engaged in any relational activity. The person who made the video is not currently known. My friend was informed of this video circulation by another person, "Party X", who was shown the video by "Party Y". Party X is not under suspicion, but refuses to tell my friend who Party Y is. It is not necessarily the case the Party Y actually recorded the video, since it may have been sent to Party Y by messenger or other means so further parties may be involved. Under UK law, can Party X be forced to identify Party Y?	england-and-wales There is nothing in the criminal law to compel Party X to identify Party Y in this scenario - they are under no legal obligation to contact the police or anyone else, and a witness summons, for example, cannot be served as there is no trial. That said, one option is for the victim to make a complaint to the police for an alleged offence of what is colloquially referred to as "revenge porn" contrary to s.33 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015: (1) It is an offence for a person to disclose a private sexual photograph or film if the disclosure is made — (a) without the consent of an individual who appears in the photograph or film, and (b) with the intention of causing that individual distress. ... The definitions of "private" and "sexual" may be found at s.35: (2) A photograph or film is “private” if it shows something that is not of a kind ordinarily seen in public. (3) A photograph or film is “sexual” if — (a) it shows all or part of an individual's exposed genitals or pubic area, (b) it shows something that a reasonable person would consider to be sexual because of its nature, or (c) its content, taken as a whole, is such that a reasonable person would consider it to be sexual. The police can then ask Party X to either provide a witness statement identifying Party Y or, if Party X is concerned about unwarranted repercussions etc, to provide this information in confidence and their involvement will be protected as Sensitive Material as per para 2.1(9) and 6.14 of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 Code of Practice.	This very much depends on where you are. Different jurisdictions have wildly different laws about this. Some places are very permissive. You can record a conversation that you aren't even a party to so long as nobody has any reasonable expectation of privacy. In others, affirmative consent is required from every party to a conversation before it's legal to record it. The laws run the entire spectrum. Some places allow you to record anything you're a party to without permission, but you can't record others' conversations. Some places require you to disclose, but not obtain explicit permission. Some allow you to record but restrict who you can disclose it to. Some allow you to record or ban recording only under certain circumstances. It's a really wide gamut of laws. Since you don't say where you are, who you're recording, or why, there's no way to really answer the question. Here's a good rundown on the United States. This Wikipedia article covers lots of different countries, but only with regard to phone calls.	It is, in most jurisdictions, not a crime to download YouTube videos. For criminal law, the answer is that it is not illegal. In many jurisdictions, downloading music or video of any kind from the internet is not a crime. Thus, police has no power to punish you for downloading, and even less power to shutdown such "downloader" websites. YouTube's Terms of Service seem to disallow such downloads so YouTube has the right to terminate the agreement with the downloader. They may prevent you from viewing any more videos, for example. However, I think Google does not even have a technical measure in place to do that. Google is not interested in preventing you from using YouTube (its servers can handle that) and that is pretty much the only punishment it can use. Google could use the Terms of Services to say that the downloader-websites are breaking them and thus should not have access to YouTube. The websites could be sued for breaking the Terms of Services (and the court could order them to stop) and Google can block those websites from accessing YouTube by technical measures. It appears it did so in at least one case. Google could sue you (or the websites) for advertisement revenue loss, but it is unlikely. In theory, Google loses advertisement revenue from the video playbacks you would have done on YouTube but did not play because you downloaded the video and played it offline (contrary to the Terms of Service). Google might attempt to sue a downloader website on this basis and try to make it give it money. It would be difficult for Google to prove that it deserves such money, though. I cannot imagine how it would prove that "you would have played the video online, again, with advertisements, if you didn't download it. Note that when you replay a video from browser cache, advertisements do not replay. Why Google doesn't sue downloader-website more often? It's expensive. Google could pay a lot of money to shut down a website via court order but if it really wants to do so, they can apply a technical measure (such as IP block) instead. It is much cheaper and has the same effect. This may change in the near future. There's a some talk around about European court rulings and directives that may change this. It is quite possible that in the near future, even viewing illegally uploaded music on YouTube will be criminal. I find this doubtful because of the difficulty of proving knowledge ("How was I supposed to know that it wasn't an official clip?"). As for whether downloading to a file (as opposed to downloading to the browser cache) will become criminal, I really doubt that.	In the US, the various "child pornography" laws apply only if there is an actual picture of an actual child. A computer-generated image does not count under those laws, unless it is recognizably of an actual identifiable person who is or was a minor at the time, nor does a description of sex with a child, no matter how graphic or realistic. However I need to point out that any accusation of child pornography is potentially very serious, and any person who has been or might plausibly have been accused of such would do well to consult a lawyer who can review the exact facts and has tools to check recent caselaw. This page from the US DOJ says: Images of child pornography are not protected under First Amendment rights, and are illegal contraband under federal law. Section 2256 of Title 18, United States Code, defines child pornography as any visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct involving a minor (someone under 18 years of age). Visual depictions include photographs, videos, digital or computer generated images indistinguishable from an actual minor, and images created, adapted, or modified, but appear to depict an identifiable, actual minor. Undeveloped film, undeveloped videotape, and electronically stored data that can be converted into a visual image of child pornography are also deemed illegal visual depictions under federal law. That page cites: 18 U.S.C. § 2251- Sexual Exploitation of Children (Production of child pornography) 18 U.S.C. § 2251A- Selling and Buying of Children 18 U.S.C. § 2252- Certain activities relating to material involving the sexual exploitation of minors (Possession, distribution and receipt of child pornography) 18 U.S.C. § 2252A- certain activities relating to material constituting or containing child pornography 18 U.S.C. § 2256- Definitions 18 U.S.C. § 2260- Production of sexually explicit depictions of a minor for importation into the United States The Wikipedia article mentions that: Simulated child pornography was made illegal with the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 (CPPA). The CPPA was short-lived. In 2002, the Supreme Court of the United States in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition held that the relevant portions of the CPPA were unconstitutional because they prevented lawful speech. Referring to Ferber, the court stated that "the CPPA prohibits speech that records no crime and creates no victims by its production. Virtual child pornography is not 'intrinsically related' to the sexual abuse of children". The opinion in Ashcroft included the statement that: Whether or not the films we mention violate the CPPA, they explore themes within the wide sweep of the statute's prohibitions. If these films, or hundreds of others of lesser note that explore those subjects, contain a single graphic depiction of sexual activity within the statutory definition, the possessor of the film would be subject to severe punishment without inquiry into the work's redeeming value. This is inconsistent with an essential First Amendment rule: The artistic merit of a work does not depend on the presence of a single explicit scene. See Book Named "John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure" v. Attorney General of Mass., 383 U. S. 413, 419 (1966) Under Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U. S. 629 (1968), it may be a crime for an adult to provide "inappropriate" sexual content to a child, even if the content is not legally obscene, but this does not apply when both parties to a communication are minors. Text, written words, may be unlawful to distribute if and only if it passes the Miller* test, making it legally obscene. The wording of the test is: The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be: (a) whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, Roth, supra, at 354 U. S. 489, (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law, and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. If a state obscenity law is thus limited, First Amendment values are adequately protected by ultimate independent appellate review of constitutional claims when necessary. Pp. 413 U. S. 24-25. This test applies whether the subjects are children or adults. I do not know\ what rules would be applied by the authorities in Sweden. They are likely to be quite different.	Recording other people without consent is a crime (§ 201 StGB). But so is threatening other people with violence (§ 241 StGB). Secret recordings and other acts can still be legitimate if they are necessary and appropriate to deflect harm (§ 34 StGB), similar to how hurting someone can be legitimate if you're acting in self-defense. If you're prosecuted for this, it will be up to the court to determine if your act was necessary and proportionate. But regardless of what you did, your recording can be used as evidence against the ex-roommate. German criminal law does not generally exclude illegally acquired evidence. The main risk of disclosing this recording is that you are also providing evidence against yourself for possible wiretapping charges (which may or may not be punishable as discussed above).	According to EU case law, everything in your scenario is legal except if Example Site is hosting the image without authorization and Pirate Site is a for-profit site, then Pirate Site is presumed to be violating Article 3 of the Copyright Directive on communication to the public (in this scenario, Example Site is also trivially violating Article 2 on the right to reproduction). In Meltwater, Case C-360/13, the court ruled that browser cache and on-screen copies fell under the temporary reproduction exception, Article 5(1) of the Copyright Directive. This means that the visitor is not infringing copyright (IPKat reference). In BestWater, Case C-348/13, the court ruled that embedding content was itself not a communication to the public when that content was hosted with rightsholder authorization, and so did not violate Article 3. This means that Pirate Site is not infringing on communication to the public rights (it is also not creating a copy itself, so is not breaking Article 2) (IPKat reference). When content is not hosted with authorization, the situation is quite a bit more nuanced. GS Media, Case C-160/15, is the controlling case. Here, the court ruled that if a link (note it doesn't even have to be embedded/hotlinked) is posted by a for-profit site, that site is expected to have done its due diligence to ensure the linked content is hosted legally. Therefore, it is presumed to be violating Article 3, i.e., the burden of proof is on the link posting site to demonstrate that it had done its due diligence in verifying the legality of the linked content. So in this scenario, Pirate Site is presumed to be infringing on communication to the public rights (IPKat reference - WARNING: slightly NSFW image here, Playboy was one of the parties to the case).	A party may subpoena materials from a nonparty using a subpoena under Rule 45. A party may generally subpoena anything that is within the scope of discovery under Rule 26, i.e., any material that is relevant, not privileged, and proportional to the needs of the case. Rule 45 also protects third parties from subpoenas that impose an "undue burden," but I would argue that this is essentially the same thing as Rule 26's proportionality requirement. Records of phone calls, e-mails, and text messages are routinely subject to subpoenas under Rule 45, but again, that assumes that the messages are relevant and not privileged. Records to Facebook and Google can be a bit more complicated. I don't know that the question has actually been definitively answered, but social-media companies seem to take the position that access to certain records created by their users is exempt from subpoena under the Stored Communications Act.	Assuming that the documents were either true, or Manning reasonably believed that they were true, there would be no cause of action for defamation. Many of the documents disclosed would have been confidential in some sense, but usually a violation of a confidentiality statute has a criminal sanction associated with it, but does not carry with it a private cause of action – in part, because conceptually, the party actually harmed is considered to be the government and not the person about whom information is revealed. It is also possible that Manning could utilize the state secrets privilege as a defense and have such a suit dismissed on the grounds that a full and adequate defense of the claims would require the disclosure of official state secrets. For example, if a covert agent were murdered due to a wrongful disclosure of information, usually official disclosure of the fact of being a covert agent would be required to prove the case, and that evidence would be barred by the state secrets privilege, effectively barring the lawsuit entirely. Constitutional claims of privacy violations under the 4th Amendment generally relate to the wrongful acquisition of information and not its wrongful disclosure. The constitution bars unreasonable search and seizure, not unreasonable disclosure of information. The only privacy tort that might be applicable is "Public disclosure of embarrassing private facts." (A sister privacy tort, Intrusion upon seclusion or solitude, or into privacy affairs, is directed at the collection of data phase and not the dissemination phase). See Restatement of the Law (Second) of Torts, §§ 652B and 652D. But, this tort raises serious First Amendment concerns and has not been widely adopted. Realistically, this tort is unconstitutional in the absence of an affirmative contractual or quasi-contractual duty not to reveal facts that runs to the person making the disclosure, and in general, Manning would not have that kind of relationship. The classic public disclosure of embarrassing private facts case would involve a lawyer's or psychotherapist's revelations about a client. Also, in the case of the public disclosure tort the basis for damages is largely personal emotional distress and violation of trust, as opposed to damage to reputation, per se. The requirement is that the disclosure be embarrassing or breach of contract, not that it harm someone's reputation since you have no legal right to a reputation that differs from the truth.
Does the originality requirement within U.S. copyright law mean that some Stack Overflow code snippets are not copyrightable? I understand that code on Stack Overflow is licensed under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license, and that fair use doctrine may not apply to code snippets. I also recognize that it is ideal to rewrite code posted on Stack Overflow in our own words, both for legal reasons and for the learning experience it presents. However, what about code that would be hard or impossible to rewrite in our own words because there is only one accepted way to write it? Would it possibly be ineligible for copyright? For instance, let's say that I go to Stack Overflow because a Python math function like math.modf is not working. I then see a Stack Overflow post explaining that to make math functions work, you need to enter this line: import math If I copy and paste the import math code into my own program, then release it under a non-Creative Commons license, does that mean that I am violating copyright? I'm doubtful that this would be the case due to the originality requirement within U.S. copyright law: The Originality Requirement Originality is “the bedrock principle of copyright” and “the very premise of copyright law.” Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., Inc., 499 U.S. 340, 347 (1991) (citation omitted). “To qualify for copyright protection, a work must be original to the author,” which means that the work must be “independently created by the author” and it must possess “at least some minimal degree of creativity.” Id. at 345 (citations omitted) Source The above chapter goes on to say that: “[T]here is nothing remotely creative” about a work that merely reflects “an age-old practice, firmly rooted in tradition and so commonplace that it has come to be expected as a matter of course.” A line like import math does not strike me as very creative; rather, it is simply a required bit of code for getting Python's math library to run within a program. I doubt it would be necessary to rewrite the code as import math as m when import math works just fine. In other words, I am wondering if the originality requirement implies that some code snippets on Stack Overflow may not be original enough to be copyrightable in the U.S. Please let me know your thoughts. Additional notes: I do not believe that this FAQ post, while informative, addresses this specific question, since that post does not make any reference to the originality requirement for U.S. copyright. The answer to that post states, in part, that "Anything that you post to Stack Overflow will be under the terms of the Creative Commons license." However, I believe there are cases (such as the one in my example above) where a code snippet may not qualify for a Creative Commons copyright because it fails to meet the originality requirement. In fact, such cases may be substantial, especially for beginner-level questions that address general programming conventions. tpg2114 pointed out in the Meta forum (where this question had originally been posted) that a detailed explanation + import math or similarly non-original code block + detailed explanation as a whole would qualify for a CC license. I think my main concern is about situations where the code provided is the widely accepted best practice for a particular language, rather than someone's original creative work. In other words, if the line of code reflects how thousands of programmers around the world would accomplish a task because it's the best way to do so, I'm just doubtful whether a copyright license would apply. tpg2114 also helped me realize that a relevant question here is: if something can't be copyrighted, does it qualify for a Creative Commons license? The following quotes from the Creative Commons website indicate that material that can't be copyrighted also can't have a Creative Commons license applied to it: "CC licenses do not contractually impose restrictions on uses of a work where there is no underlying copyright." "CC licenses are operative only when applied to material in which a copyright exists, and even then only when a particular use would otherwise not be permitted by copyright." "You should also not apply Creative Commons licenses to works that are no longer protected by copyright or are otherwise in the public domain." Source for all 3 quotes This raises a new question: even if a post + code snippet as a whole are eligible for Creative Commons (due to the originality expressed in the text, for instance), if the code snippet by itself does not qualify for copyright because it's similar to import math, would I be able to use that without releasing my own program under Creative Commons? I believe the following quote may help answer this question: "To constitute an adaptation [which would need to be licensed under CC-BY-SA as well if the source was CC-BY-SA], the resulting work itself must be considered based on or derived from the original. This means that if you use a few lines from a poem to illustrate a poetry technique in an article you’re writing, your article is not an adaptation because your article is not derived from or based on the poem from which you took a few lines." Source So in other words, if I take an excerpt like import math from a CC-BY-SA post on Stack Overflow and incorporate it into a larger project, my project may not be an adaptation of the Stack Overflow post, and therefore I may not need to release my project under CC-BY-SA as well. I say "may not" because (1) I'm not a lawyer, and (2) the code snippet isn't just an illustration or an example, but rather plays an important role in the functioning of my actual program. I also found this helpful article from an attorney that addresses whether simple code snippets can be copyrighted: However, this article states that Stack Overflow posts are covered by CC-BY, when in fact they're covered under CC-BY-SA.	You are in general correct, KBurchfiel. A code snippet such as import math; or For i := 1 to 10 print i; has no originality, and is not protected by copyright. A post eplaining the meaning an usage of such a snippet might well be original enough to be protected by US copyright, indeed it probably would. But the code on its own would not be. Anyone could read such a post, and if s/he understood it, use the code snippet and not be in violation of copyright, not compelled to place the entire program in which such a snippet was used under a CC-=BY-SA license. The creative commons people would prefer that a CC license not be applied to a publication that is not protected by copyright, and if it is so applied it is legally meaningless. But they have no legal way to enforce such a preference. A stack exchange post that consisted of nothing but such an uncopyrightable code snippet, with no explanation r discussion, might well be downvoted or even deleted. But that is a matter of site policy on what is a useful answer, not a matter of copyright. Using an excerpt from a copyrighted work so small that the excerpt alone would be uncopyrightable, would probably be fair use under US law, and might well be fair dealing in UK law. Something that is fair use does not compel the reuser to abide by the terms of a CC license, because those terms apply only when the content could not be reused without the CC license's permission. However, a code snippet does not need to be very much more original than the above examples before it becomes copyrightable. Whether it can be used via fair use rather than via the CC-BY-SA license is a very fact-based decision (the usual four-factor analysis is spelled out in 17 USC 107).. But if the snippet can be rewritten to express the same concepts but in a different expression, then there is no copyright issue, and again the CC license will not apply. If the snippet is complex and original enough to be copyrightable (a fairly low bar) and it is re-used unchanged, under conditions where fair use does not apply, then the CC-BY-SA license's terms must be complied with for the use to be legal. That is several "IFs" however. The exact details of a specific case will matter in such cases, there is not one rule for all snippets, all posts, or all programs.	If one is writing about a work of fiction, one may describe the work, and use terms from the work in doing so. One might write, for example: In Spaceman Sam the characters use "blasters" as weapons, while in Jack of the Galaxy "contragravity" is used to propel "aircars" These are facts, and copyright may never be used to protect facts. Moreover, such uses as reviews and criticism are particularly likely to constitute fair use under US law, or another exception to copyright under the law of some other country, even if some otherwise protected content is quoted. If something appeared in that sci-fi universe prior to me re-iterating it; does that mean it's fair game for me to use? If the "something" that appeared earlier is an "idea" or a name, it is indeed fair game. This is true whether it is obscure or well-known. In any case describing the facts of the fiction, even in detail, is generally not an infringement. If "re-iterating" something from an existing work in a new fiction involves an extensive quotation, or a detailed, point-by-point reuse of a fictional element, that might constitute infringement, unless fair use or another exception to copyright applies. Does intellectual law protect very specific plot concepts? No, it doesn't. A plot concept is an idea. In the US, 17 USV 103(b) reads: (b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work. Laws in other countries are similar on this point. This is sometimes known as the idea/expression distinction. This means that while the expression used to embody a concept is often protected by copyright, the concept itself never is. Are you allowed to borrow names of different generic sci-fi inventions that aren't super-important to the story. Yes. In fact even the names of fictional technological devices that are very important to a story may be, and often are, reused in different works by different authors. For example Ursula LeGuin used "ansible" as the name of a faster-then-light communicator, in fact an instantaneous communication device, in her "Hanish" series, particularly in The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, and The Word for World is Forest. (She wrote that the term was derived from the word "answerable".) The term and concept were reused by Vernor Vinge in "The Blabber" and A Fire Upon the Deep, and by Elizabeth Moon in the "Sassanek" series and more centrally in the "Vatta's war" series starting with Trading in Danger. Moreover, the names of fictional characters are not protected. An author might introduce characters with names borrowed from Tolkien, Heinlein, or other well-known (or obscure) fictional works. US Copyright Office circular #33 "Works not protected by Copyright" says that "names, titles, and short phrases" may not be protected by copyright, and will not be separably registered. However, if a character has not only the name of a previous character, but a detailed, point-by-point similarity in distinctive elements to a character in a protected work, that may be enough to make the newer work a derivative work, and thus be infringing if permission is not obtained from the copyright holder on the source work. The same is true of the detailed reproduction of a distinctive setting from a source work. But a mere name and broad, general description is not enough tom make a later work derivative. The more details are reproduced, and the more distinctive and specific those details are, the more likely the newer work is to be found distinctive.	"Pastiche" is a literary, not a legal term, and as a professional coder, I would not use it to describe code that to some extent imitated other code. The legal question here is: is your code a derivative work of the code it is based on, and if it is, did you have permission to make that work. Copyright, in an Berne Convention country, which includes the EU, does not protect ideas and concepts, it protects expression. It protects the choices of words and symbols, and other forms of expression. If all you did was study example code, presented for educational purposes, and then write code that performs a similar function, using the same general techniques, then I don't think you have infringed copyright. That, after all, is why people post code to Stack Overflow and similar sites, to allow them to learn how to use specific coding techniques, including in commercial projects. I have used techniques posted to SO to do coding as part of my paid job. The usual test for copying under US law is "substantial similarity". This takes into account cases where there is essentially only one way to say or code something. I don't know the exact tests under the various laws of various EU countries, and they will not all be the same. But I suspect that on this point they are, well, substantially similar :). I can't advise on your specific situation. But if it is as described, I don't think you have a problem.	Ideas (methods of playing, game mechanics, strategy, goals) cannot be protected by copyright. But any part of a creative work can. So, no copying of drawings, patterns, images, sounds, or the element. I suppose copying the software code is not an issue here, but it can, obviously, also not be copied. And nothing in your game can look like someone's else trademark.	First, there's a step missing: parody does not "therefore" allow you to copy protected works. You have to determine whether this is "fair use", where you get in the neighborhood of parody in identifying "purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching ..., scholarship, or research". Therefore you have to go through the balancing act that is fair use analysis. In Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., SCOTUS considered parody as a form of criticism or comment, noting that "This Court has only once before even considered whether parody may be fair use, and that time issued no opinion because of the Court's equal division". For that case, the court continues Suffice it to say now that parody has an obvious claim to transformative value, as Acuff Rose itself does not deny. Like less ostensibly humorous forms of criticism, it can provide social benefit, by shedding light on an earlier work, and, in the process, creating a new one. We thus line up with the courts that have held that parody, like other comment or criticism, may claim fair use under § 107. The important step in this ruling is tha For the purposes of copyright law, the nub of the definitions, and the heart of any parodist's claim to quote from existing material, is the use of some elements of a prior author's composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author's works. If, on the contrary, the commentary has no critical bearing on the substance or style of the original composition, which the alleged infringer merely uses to get attention or to avoid the drudgery in working up something fresh, the claim to fairness in borrowing from another's work diminishes accordingly (if it does not vanish), and other factors, like the extent of its commerciality, loom larger. In other words, you can't catch a free ride on "parody" to reach a fair use judgment. Even if it were parody, "parody may or may not be fair use", as the court said. That does not preclude establishing that the work in some other way comments or criticizes. Get a lawyer before you go doing this, in case you end up involuntarily making new law.	Generally, no, this will not violate copyright. Your end user might violate copyright, but that is their problem not yours. Your program is a tool, just like a word processor is. If I copy a Harry Potter book into a word processor that does not make the word processor maker liable. There is a concept of "contributory infringement", which I think is what you are concerned about. I don't know about Danish law in particular, but most countries would require evidence that you had reasonable knowledge that actual copyright violation was occuring, rather than just being aware that it might happen in theory. This is normally applied to file sharing services who have to have "notice and takedown" measures, file filters and the like. This isn't your concern as you never have any access to the files created by your users. You can also be found liable if you induce anyone to commit copyright violations. Don't draw your customers attention to the custom monster feature as a workaround for those copyrighted monsters, as that could be considered to be inducement. Also don't provide any "wizards" or similar tools which make it noticeably easier to duplicate the custom monsters (e.g. if you notice that the copyrighted custom dragon stats are all on a linear scale with dragon size, don't create a "dragon creation wizard" embodying that fact.) This assumes that your program runs entirely on the end user computer. Its different if you provide any kind of cloud storage for generated characters.	What you're talking about is called black-box reverse engineering. It can be done, and as long as you are meticulous in your record keeping the fact that it has been done should be an appropriate defence against copyright infringement. But that doesn't help against patent claims - while in copyright cases the fact that code has or has not been directly copied is critical, in patent cases it its irrelevant: if you use a patented method, it's a violation. You therefore will need to be careful about any patents that may have been issued to the original author, as well as avoiding copying.	Whoever "derived" the illegal derivative work most likely has copyright in his derivations, unless they are not worth copyright protections. Say I take the Harry Potter books and add a few chapters and try to sell it - that's copyright infringement of course, but I have the copyright on these additional chapters. However, I don't have the right to allow you to copy the derived work. And even if you have the right to copy the original work, you don't have the right to copy the derived work because it is a different work. I could extract my changes, and allow you to take them and do with them what you like. You could then create an illegally derived work yourself. I couldn't sue you, but the original copyright holder could. To the comments: One, a work and a derivative of the work are not the same, so even if you have the right to make a copy of a work, that doesn’t give you any right whatsoever to copy a derivative work - they are not the same work. Two, the copyright holder has the exclusive right to control copying and the creation of derivative works. If the copyright holder doesn’t want derivatives to exist, then creating them, copying them etc. is always copyright infringement.
Increased speed limit and decreased speed limit signs located ~1/3 mile apart on opposite side of road. When is it legal to increase speed? Sorry for the confusing title, this is kind of hard to describe. I just moved to western MA. In my new town, there is this road where on one side, the speed limit goes from 40 to 30, but on the other side, rather than having the sign saying the speed limit goes up to 40 directly across the road, it is located another 1/3 to 1/2 of a mile further, meaning that oncoming cars will be legally travelling at 40 MPH in the opposite direction, but just going by signs it appears to the cars travelling in my direction that the speed limit is still 30 (I have drawn a sketch of what I am talking about below since it's difficult to describe). I always wait until I pass my 40 MPH sign before I speed up, but everyone behind me gets annoyed and starts tailgating me if I don't speed up. Also, when I'm driving behind someone, they always speed up to 40 after passing the 30 MPH sign on the opposite side of the road, even if they were driving 30 before. My question is whether it is legal to speed up to 40 once I get past the point where oncoming traffic needs to slow to 30, since from my understanding speed limits always work in "zones" where the limit is the same on both sides of the road. Or do I technically need to wait until I pass the 40 MPH sign even though it's quite far away? Sorry for my bad drawing skills	The national standard, found in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), indicates, in Section 2B.13 Speed Limit Sign: 03 Speed Limit signs, indicating speed limits for which posting is required by law, shall be located at the points of change from one speed limit to another. It would not be legal to accelerate to the new speed before reaching the sign. All states were required to adopt the MUTCD no later than 2012. This standard is followed by all states.	No, it is generally not legal. In most (maybe all) states, this would be vandalism. For example, see California Penal Code Section 594(1)(a): Every person who maliciously commits any of the following acts with respect to any real or personal property not his or her own, in cases other than those specified by state law, is guilty of vandalism: (1) Defaces with graffiti or other inscribed material. (2) Damages. (3) Destroys. For another example, see Kansas Statutes 21-5813. In your hypothetical, the pedestrian absolutely hit the vehicle, not the other way around, so the "fine line" you mention doesn't effect this conclusion. The practicality of proving the case against the pedestrian is a separate matter but the law favours neither the pedestrian nor the driver. The standard is the same no matter who the charges are filed against: proof beyond a reasonable doubt.	Can anyone help me understand who's liable for any damages that occur? Yes, a judge. Seriously, in almost all cases in a collision between a turning car and a straight traveling cyclist, the car will be held responsible on the basis that the turn should not be commenced unless and until it can be completed safely. If the car has to stop during the turn, the turn shouldn't have been commenced. The only exception would be if evidence could be provided that the cyclist collided deliberately. Does it matter if it's the car that's damaged or the bicycle that's damaged? No	The critical consideration is that the permitted left turn must be onto a one-way roadway in that direction. One is not permitted to perform a left turn which involves crossing traffic from the left, which would also imply that it is not a one-way roadway.	The exact situation depends on where you are. If you are in Washington state, what you get (but did not realize) is a notice to appear in court. By not paying the fine or showing up to court, you could be subject to RCW 46.64.025, so that the department of licensing is notified. You have 15 days to respond to the notice. We assume that you are a resident, because if you are a non-resident (and not resident of another state with a reciprocal agreement), they would have required you to pay a bond at the time of the ticket (though that isn't possible with automated infraction-detection). When the Dept. of Licensing gets the notice of the unpaid ticket, they may suspend or revoke your license. At this point, you will have received notice that your license was suspended (unless you changed your address and mail isn't forwarded, in which case you have a different problem, that you're supposed to apprise DOL of your current address, and didn't do so). At that point (after they send the letter), you have 15 days to respond. One response is to pay the ticket plus the added fines, or, you can request an administrative review (to appeal the suspension). The point of going to court to plead your case would presumably be to modify the judgment against you, for instance to reduce or eliminate the added fine. You would then need to give a good reason for not being punished: RCW 46.64.025 already has you covered, because the suspension process starts with willfully failing to appear. You would then need to show that your failure to appear was not willful. It does not legally matter whether you are a foreigner or have problems understanding the language. Speeding tickets usually say pretty clearly that you must pay the ticket within a specified time frame, or appear in court, but people don't always read tickets. It is entirely plausible that one's grasp of the language is low enough that there really was a misunderstanding. If you can provide credible evidence that your failure was not willful, by law you would only be liable for the ticket. In other states and countries, the situation could be somewhat or quite different (e.g. Norwegian traffic laws are stricter). In New Mexico, it is more serious to fail to appear. NM Statute 66-8-126 states that "It is a misdemeanor for any person to violate his written promise to appear in court, given to an officer upon issuance of a uniform traffic citation, regardless of the disposition of the charge for which the citation was issued". Your license can/will be suspended (it is not clear whether suspension is automatic), but additionally since failure to appear is a misdemeanor, you can be arrested. Unlike Washington law, there is no willfullness requirement for such a penalty. Given the criminal nature of failure to appear, a traffic attorney would need to suggest an appropriate belated response.	Is it illegal to display a flag in front of a store? Maybe - not because it's a flag but because it could be an unlawful obstruction of the highway (which includes the pavement) contrary to section 137(1) of the Highways Act 1980: If a person, without lawful authority or excuse, in any way wilfully obstructs the free passage along a highway he is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale. (i.e. £1,000) Many shops fall foul of this if they don't have a licence, especially with 'A' boards and goods displayed for sale.	In general, you don’t need an alternative defence. It is inherent in the common law that, unless the statute is explicitly retroactive (and legislators are reluctant to go there) it cannot make illegal that which was at the time of the act, legal. For example, assume the old sign had unlimited and the new sign reduces this to 2 hours. If you parked before the sign was changed you could leave your car there forever so long as you never move it. The NYC law give further rights - a period of grace where the owner can rely on the old restriction as a defense, even if they parked after the sign had been changed.	As Mark's answer indicates, you are evidently thinking of the Full Faith and Credit Clause. "Public acts" being laws, it may seem at first glance that states must fully respect the laws of other states. But the interpretation of this clause by the courts is rather different, and has evolved a bit over time. The short of the (modern) matter is that it mostly applies to matters concerning the judiciary. SCOTUS has recognized a "public policy exception" to the clause, which limits the ability of the clause to force a state to abide by laws which are in conflict with their own (for the most part: they don't have to). Driving privileges, and more generally who is licensed to do what (doctors, hunting, concealed carry, etc.), within a state falls under that public policy exception. So Texas does not have to obey New Hampshire's laws concerning the legal privilege to drive. As a basic sanity test, if this were not the case, then why wouldn't everybody in Texas not simply bounce off to New Hampshire for a summer to get their license there and then return to Texas and never bother with insurance? It entirely undercuts the state's sovereignty and ability to set their own laws if any other state can so easily create loopholes around them. Moreover, despite what the name might suggest, a "driver's license" is more a certification that you have the requisite skills, physical performance (passing an eye test), and knowledge to drive safely and in accordance with that state's traffic laws. It certainly makes sense for a state to require you to demonstrate at least that much, but they may also impose additional requirements. A requirement for insurance demonstrates your ability to handle financial liabilities that may reasonably result from your driving. All states currently accept a valid out-of-state license in the above sense: that you are certified to have the requisite skills, that it is valid proof of age, etc. Though if you become a permanent resident there they may require you to take new tests. However to legally drive in any particular state you must not only have such certification (a driver's license) but also satisfy any other conditions, such as age requirements and insurance requirements. As an aside, such state-by-state variations as to who is licensed to do what are in fact quite common, especially across history, even on very prominent issues. But even nationwide resolutions of those issues via SCOTUS have never, to my knowledge, utilized the Full Faith and Credit clause to do so. And, really, how could they? By saying since some state could force all other states to do X via the clause, then X must be a constitutional requirement? Or that any one state could unilaterally dictate laws in all other states? Madness! For one example, anti-miscegenation laws, which outlawed (certain) interracial marriages, were quite common until 1967, when SCOTUS struck them all down using the 14th amendment. More recently, gay marriage was forced to be recognized in all states, also via the 14th amendment. In both cases, before those SCOTUS rulings, the courts had generally recognized that the Full Faith and Credit clause did not compel the state to recognize (out-of-state) marriages it did not want to recognize. These both fell under the public policy exception.
US case law where riling up someone and then telling them to go to a specific location constituted incitement? It's probably going to be bit transparent what inspired this question, but assume someone gives a long speech in which he declares that an entity is doing terrible things and then urges everyone listening to go to the entity's specific location, but the speech doesn't otherwise contain any overt calls for breaking the law. Is there some US case law on incitement that has rendered a guilty verdict in a situation like that? Or at least case law where someone was (actually) charged under similar circumstances, but the verdict was "not guilty" or even the case was dismissed early? There's fairly related q here, but it doesn't specifically ask for case law, nor do the answers provide any--they just quote the statutes and their own interpretation thereof. Brandenburg v. Ohio (mentioned there) seems somewhat relevant here, but its general test Advocacy of force or criminal activity does not receive First Amendment protections if (1) the advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action, and (2) is likely to incite or produce such action. doesn't seem incredibly illuminating here; is riling up someone and directing them to a specific location "inciting or producing imminent lawless action" if the persons who go there do actually engage in lawless action (even if the speech doesn't explicitly call for it)? I think some actual case law on incitement may be more illuminating here. I actually found a discussion of "oblique" aka "indirect incitement" in a paper on English law, which is illustrated (inter alia) with this hypotehtical example: The second example is drawn from Mill’s essay, On Liberty. The passage, though occasionally mentioned in commentaries on the essay, has received little detailed consideration, least of all from a legal point of view: No one pretends that actions should be as free as opinions. On the contrary, even opinions lose their immunity when the circumstances in which they are expressed are such as to constitute their expression a positive instigation to some mischievous act. An opinion that corn dealers are starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn dealer, or when handed about among the same mob in the form of a placard. But are were there any actual cases like this in US jurisprudence?	The Brandenburg Test This is not a "general test" - it's the test that applies. The prosecution must prove beyond reasonable doubt that: The speech is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action,” AND The speech is “likely to incite or produce such action.” The first goes to mens rea; that the person intended by their speech to incite lawless action. This is a matter of fact based on conduct before, during and after the speech act. That is, intention can be established by what the speaker said and did before they spoke, while they were speaking and after their speech concluded. The second is based on the speech act itself. Here we have no precedent as to whether the incitement must be explicit (Lady McBeth or Iago) or implicit (Marc Antony): Hence, since Brandenburg, the Court has not elaborated on whether words of incitement are a necessary condition for conviction or if, absent words of incitement, a defendant has a First Amendment defense as a matter of law. We are left only with the Court's language in Brandenburg to try to divine whether words of incitement are in fact a necessary condition for conviction. The text is ambiguous. The Court stated that the First Amendment protects a speaker unless the speaker's advocacy is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action." Professor Gunther's position, that Brandenburg adopts Judge Hand's view, is supported by its self-conscious use of the term "inciting," suggesting that words of incitement are a necessary condition. No doubt, the Court was aware of Judge Hand's use of that term. But, of course, the Court did not state explicitly that a speaker has a First Amendment defense. Rather, it used an additional term, advocacy directed to "producing" the imminent criminal conduct. Arguably, unless the "producing" language was merely surplusage, the Court recognized that language not explicitly inciting lawless conduct may nonetheless be sufficiently dangerous that it should be criminalized.	What you are describing seems to raise the defense of necessity. I cannot pinpoint the line for you or tell you whether any particular action would lie on one side or the other, but I can describe the test. In Maryland, there are "five elements necessary to consider before applying the defense of necessity" (Marquardt v. State, 164 Md. App. 95, 135-36 (2005), citing Sigma Reproductive Health Center v. State, 297 Md. 660, 677-79 (1983)): The harm avoided — this need not be physical harm but also may be harm to property as, for instance, where a firefighter destroys some property to prevent the spread of fire which threatens to consume other property of greater value. The harm done — this is not limited to any particular type of harm but includes intentional homicide as well as intentional battery or property damage. An illustration is supplied: `[A]s where A, driving a car, suddenly finds himself in a predicament where he must either run down B or hit C's house and he reasonably chooses the latter, unfortunately killing two people in the house who by bad luck happened to be just at that place inside the house where A's car struck — it is the harm-reasonably-expected, rather than the harm-actually-caused, which governs.' Intention to avoid harm — to have the defense of necessity, the defendant must have acted with the intention of avoiding the greater harm. Actual necessity, without the intention, is not enough. However, an honest and reasonable belief in the necessity of his action is all that is required. The relative value of the harm avoided and the harm done. The defendant's belief as to the relative harmfulness of the harm avoided and the harm done does not control. It is for the court, not the defendant, to weigh the relative harmfulness of the two alternatives. To allow the defense the court must conclude that the harm done by the defendant in choosing the one alternative was less than the harm which would have been done if he had chosen the other. Optional courses of action; imminence of disaster. The defense of necessity applies when the defendant is faced with this choice of two evils: he may either do something which violates the literal terms of the criminal law and thus produce some harm, or not do it and so produce a greater harm. If, however, there is open to him a third alternative, which will cause less harm than will be caused by violating the law, he is not justified in violating the law. For example, "[a] prisoner subjected to inhuman treatment by his jailors is not justified in breaking prison if he can bring about an improvement in conditions by other means." Marquardt at 137: in order for the defense of necessity to have been warranted in this case, appellant must have presented "some evidence" that there was a choice between two evils, that no legal alternatives existed, that the harm appellant caused was not disproportionate to the harm avoided, and that the emergency was imminent.	Is it acceptable for person A (representing themselves) to refer to person B as "their neighbor" instead of by their name, or would that cause the suit to be dismissed? Omitting the neighbor's name in the pleadings & proceedings cannot singlehandedly cause the dismissal of a defamation suit. The matter would result in dismissal only if the plaintiff repeatedly disobeys court order(s) (if any) to disclose that information. Before the proceedings get to that point, the plaintiff will have had one or more hearings to dispute the defendant's alleged need for identifying a non-party by name. When opposing to that disclosure, the plaintiff's goal is to establish that the false narrative about robbing a neighbor at gunpoint is defamatory regardless of neighbor's name. Keep in mind that the focus in a claim of defamation is the defamed person, whereas the relevance of details such as who the non-parties are pertains to context and evidence. Lastly, the fact that a party to the suit is a pro se litigant is irrelevant from both substantial and procedural standpoints.	If a libelous statement is posted online, and the victim and offender are from different states, which state would be more pertinent to the defamation case? I.e. which state's defamation laws, statue of limitations, etc. are relevant? First of all, a basic point. Defamation claims arise under state law, even though state law is required to conform to the limits imposed by the U.S. Constitution. Also, there are two distinct issue to consider. One is which state's courts have jurisdiction to hear such a case, and the other is which state's law should be applied to each particular issue in the case which is called "choice of law". In practice, the two issues often overlap. But this isn't always true. For example, you can always sue a defendant where they reside (or in the case of a business entity, where its headquarters are located) on a claim arising anywhere in the world. The courts of this state have "general jurisdiction" over this defendant. But, suppose for example, that the defendant resides in Maine, but the defamatory statement was made in New York State by the defendant when the defendant was located there to people who were predominantly in New York State, and the statement was about someone who lived in New York State and things that that person supposedly did in New York State. In that case, if a lawsuit were filed in Maine against the defendant (since Maine would have "general jurisdiction" over the defendant), the courts of Maine might very well apply the law of New York State to most or all of the non-court procedure related legal issues in the case. The law of the place where the statement is made can apply, and the law of a place where the statement was intended to be directed (e.g. a state where a known subject to defamation resides) can be applied to a defamation case. But, the law of a place were people merely incidentally receives knowledge of a defamatory statement is not a proper law to chose or forum in which a lawsuit can be brought, if (1) the person making the statement was not directing the statement at someone in that state and (2) the person making the statement did not intend that the person to whom the statement is directed suffer reputational harm in that state. The default choice of law rules (in the absence of a contrary statute) apply the law of the place with the "most significant connection" to the legal issue being applied and the same state's law is not necessarily applied to all issues in the case. In the absence of a showing that another state's law differs from that of the state where the lawsuit is filed and that it has a more significant connection to the relevant legal issue in the case, the law of the state where the case is being tried will be applied. Many states have specific statutes regarding the application of a statute of limitations from another state than the one where the lawsuit is filed in order to discourage efforts to apply the law of whichever state has the longest statute of limitations, and to discourage filing case in a state just because it has a long statute of limitations. In practice, a lot of the substantive law of defamation is limited by federal constitutional First Amendment limitations and by a common English common law source for defamation law. So, the substantive law of defamation other than the statute of limitations isn't that different from state to state. But, in recent years, the biggest difference has been that some states have enacted Anti-SLAPP statutes (SLAPP is an acronym for "strategic lawsuits against public participation") that disfavor many kinds of defamation actions procedurally. The existence or lack of an anti-SLAPP statute in a state may make choice of law important in a defamation case. A recent case illustrates that it is hard to decide which states's law applies (via this blog around April of 2022). Former California Congressman Devin Nunes sues Georgia-headquartered, Delaware-incorporated CNN in Virginia for allegedly defamatory claims made in New York about Nunes' conduct in Austria. The case is transferred to New York, but still governed by Virginia choice of law, and the New York court determines that, under Virginia law, California law governs the claims. The California Congressman objects that Virginia law would have applied New York law. Second Circuit: Virginia law would have applied California law. Dissent: Virginia law would have applied New York law. Or maybe D.C. law. A comparative international analysis of the choice of law rules that would apply in the same fact pattern can be found here. See also a Florida federal court case applying these tests in 2019. Can a lawyer licensed from any state handle such cases? Usually a lawyer must be licensed to practice law in the state where a lawsuit is filed (but not in a state whose law is applied by an out of state court). A lawyer from outside a state where a lawsuit is commenced can seek admission to the bar of the state where the lawsuit is pending pro hac vice which is an admission for a single lawsuit. But, usually a lawyer admitted pro hac vice in a state court must be affiliated with a lawyer admitted to practice in the state where the case is filed as co-counsel for that case in order to do so.	There are problems with the claims. In summary: someone that in Sweden acts to defend themselves while "in peril" when subjected to — or are in imminent risk of — a criminal attack, will not the convicted, unless the act is "blatantly unjustifiable". Context We have a problem here in Sweden with people being ill-informed about the right to self-defence, and this is compounded by people with opinions spreading myths about it. Often these myths err on the side of claiming you have less rights than you really have. So, two things before we go on... The characters may have been unreliable. Do not ever assume that just because a character says something in a work of fiction, that the character is meant to know what they are talking about. And even if they are meant to know what they are talking about... The author may have been unreliable, and done their homework poorly. Keep this in mind... That said, the right to self-defence is not infinite. The law According to the Swedish Criminal Code (Brottsbalk, 1962:700), Chapter 3, §§ 1-2 and 6... If you intentionally kill someone, you get convicted of "murder" If you intentionally kill someone, but there were mitigating circumstances, you get convicted of "manslaughter" If you act in reckless disregard for the risk your actions are causing, and this leads to the death of someone, you get convicted of "causing the death of another", or what we here can call "reckless killing" And Swedish Criminal Code (Brottsbalk, 1962:700), Chapter 24, § 1 states that an act performed in "peril" shall only lead to a conviction if the act was "blatantly unjustifiable". "Peril" is enumerated to exist in cases of... A commenced or imminent criminal attack on person or property A person has gained or trying to gain unauthorized access to a room, house, yard or ship A person refuses to leave a domicile after being told to If — when caught red-handed — a person uses violence or threats of violence to resist stolen property from being retaken When judging whether an act is "blatantly unjustifiable", the prosecutor must look at... the nature of the attack that caused the peril the significance of that which the attack was aimed at (such as a human life) other significant circumstances That last bit is interesting because it takes human psychology into consideration, and let the defendant's assessment of the peril be the standard by which the act is judged. The claim Let us start with the easy bit first... "if she killed the intruder, under Swedish law, she could very well be charged with manslaughter, and possibly murder if it could be proved that she placed the golf clubs around the house ahead of time." Murder? No. According to the Swedish Criminal Code (Brottsbalk, 1962:700), Chapter 3, §§ 1-2, a person that kills an intruder in their home could at the most be charged with manslaughter, because there are mitigating circumstances, i.e. the person felt threatened and there was a home invasion in progress. In order for this to become murder, she would more or less have to have invited the assailant or in any other way drawn them in with the intent to kill them. Yes, she prepared to defend herself or a potential intrusion, but without knowing for certain that the assailant would come at certain time or at least a certain day, any kind of premeditation towards killing is more or less impossible to prove. With this, murder is off the table. That claim is simply wrong. Whether it is the author or the character that is erring, I cannot say. So, manslaughter then, or the even lesser degree, called "causing the death of another", or reckless killing. Manslaughter would come up of she — when whacking them with the club — did so with the intent of killing them. The operative word here being intent. The prosecutor has to prove that intent. Sure, we can dream up scenarios where this is the case; the classic reason for why people do get convicted even acting in peril is when they keep harming the assailant after the danger has passed. But — again — just preparing for a potential intrusion is not enough to prove that intent. Finally, reckless killing. This is where such cases usually ends up. And — again — this usually happens because the defendant did something when the danger has obviously passed; the criminal attack was no longer imminent but passed. Conclusion Unless the protagonist in question had set up lethal traps; unless they had foreknowledge of an attack; unless they invited the assailant in with the intent to kill them; unless they fend off the attack and gets themselves into a perfectly safe situation and then proceeds to beat the assailant to death; and unless all of this can be proved, then it cannot become murder. Manslaughter or reckless killing, yes, there will be an investigation for that, but from the description of the situation — the protagonist fearing the assailant is dangerous and means them harm — preparing a home defence with strategically placed golf clubs does not in any way preclude the prosecution being dismissed as justifiable self-defence. Only(!) if the home invasion was obviously harmless, and/or the protagonist keeps harming the assailant after the home invasion has been staved off / neutralised, can a conviction for manslaughter or reckless killing become a possibility. Summary Yes, in Sweden a prosecutor will look at the case when you kill someone. But — no — in the situation described, a home invasion by someone perceived as wanting to cause harm, this is very unlikely to become "murder", for lack of premeditation. The remaining possible charges — manslaughter or reckless killing — will only result in a conviction if the situation was obviously and provably harmless in the eyes of the defendant, and they still killed the assailant.	The question is oddly phrased: The law does not give allowances for its violation. Many laws have exceptions. E.g., the law against killing endangered animals contains an exception for defensive killings. Perhaps you are thinking of safe harbors? For example, there are general provisions in the law like "exigent circumstances" that allow police to proceed with actions that, absent those provisions, would constitute violations of law. "Permission" to violate a right can be granted explicitly in the form of a warrant, which allows law enforcement to "violate" specific property and freedom rights. Finally, one might consider an executive pardon or jury-nullification to be ex post "permission to break the law."	Yes, certainly. A prominent example was Lawrence v. Texas. The defendants were charged in state court with "deviate sexual intercourse". They moved to dismiss on the grounds that the statute was unconstitutional. Their motion was denied and they were convicted and fined; the denial was upheld by the state's court of appeals. They then appealed to the US Supreme Court, which eventually ruled that the statute was indeed unconstitutional. A defendant likely wouldn't have standing to sue the state for enforcing the law in general, only for enforcing it on the defendant himself.	A lawyer is obligated to accurately state the law as stated in the jury instructions in closing argument (and also not to make a clear and deliberate misstatement of the facts presented at trials, and also not to express personal knowledge of the facts based upon anything other than what the jury has seen). But a certain amount of poetic license is allowed so long as the closing argument is not so misleading, as a whole, that it is likely to lead the jury astray. In this case, the prosecutor is alluding, with poetic license, to the idea that an aggressor or interloper can't assert self-defense. You can't "look for trouble" and then be shielded by that doctrine. A more full quote from that prosecutor makes that more clear: you lose the right to self-defence when you’re the one who brought the gun, when you’re the one creating the danger, when you’re the one provoking other people I have no opinion concerning whether his statement does or does not cross the line. I'm not sufficiently immersed in the case, and don't have enough context from having heard the closing arguments as a whole, to have a confident opinion on that point. If there is an acquittal we'll never know. If there is a conviction and appeal and this is an issue raised on appeal, we might find out. Opposing counsel has a right to object in closing argument if it goes too far, and appealing an argument that a closing argument is objectionable is challenging unless it is preserved with a timely objection at the time. Particularly if the prosecution makes a misstatement in their initial closing, rebutting it in the defense closing may be more effective than objecting. But, if the prosecutor makes a misstatement in a rebuttal period to which the defense can't offer a corrective statement, an objection may be wise in order to preserve an issue for appeal.
If a director of a private limited company in India dies, will their spouse get the profits of the company later? If I am a director in a private limited company in India with a friend, and I die after some years, will my wife get the profits of the company?	Directors don’t own companies - they manage them Shareholders own companies. So, if you are a director and die, the legal upshot is you are no longer a director and the company may need to replace you in accordance with its rules. If you are a shareholder, then, subject to any other contracts like a option for the company or other shareholders to buy the shares of a deceased shareholder, the shares will be distributed in accordance with your will or the laws of intestate succession if you don’t have a will. Whoever owns the shares with have the same rights as you did.	In the Hovey case, the purchasers would get the profits from the agricultural operations, less a service fee. They would not operate the farms themselves, nor get the produce. Instead they would hire the associated company "Hovey in the Hills" (HH) to run the farms, and get only money. HH had the "sole right" to run the farms and sell the produce. Consider a somewhat similar situation. I want to build and operate a mall. I don't have enough money to do this on my own. So I sell shares of the enterprise. By contract, I retain "sole right" to build and operate the mall. The investors will not do any part of the work of running the mall, and their skill and knowledge will not be used and will have no effect on its success or failure. All that they get is a share of the profits from my work, in return for providing the money which lets me create the mall. The mall is the common enterprise here, and the money provided by others is an investment. Suppose instead I want not investors but partners. Each of the partners will pout up money, but they will also co-operate in creating and running the mall. Decisions will be made jointly, after consultation. Partners will be expected to some part of the work, and it is our joint skills and efforts will will lead to success or failure. That would not be an investment in the sense of Hovey, because the profit would not derive solely from the work of others. In the scenario in the question, Renzo does all the work, Samir only puts up money. The amount of profit will depend on the skill and efforts of Renzo in maintaining the house, finding tenants, and collecting rents. As described, this would seem to pass the Hovey test, and be classed as an investment. This would be true whether Renzo gets a share of the profit or a fixed fee, and whether the value of the house is over or under $100,000.	One of the biggest problems here is in proof of injury attributable to an individual... With asbestos, you can prove that direct exposure in a certain instance caused a long-term harm. Just because you were around asbestos doesn't mean you get lung cancer, so if you don't actually suffer any harm (or any harm yet), you won't get awarded damages. Similarly with lead, you have to prove both the exposure, the entity which exposed you to it, and harm that you suffered. Just being around a lead pipe or paint doesn't mean you get damages, you need to have suffered harm. The problem with second-hand smoke is that you can be exposed to it from many different sources. Any problems you have (lung cancer) would need to be proven as a direct consequence of one specific (or prolonged) exposure. I could see this working if a non-smoking spouse developed cancer from a smoking spouse being exposed to it for years, but you can't just say "I walked by Joe Camel in the street while he was smoking now I have cancer and it is his fault". So the issue becomes who is responsible for your damages. You can't narrow it down to one smoker (or even cigarette smoke, as lung cancer can develop from other sources), so just proving that your cause-effect is directly related to smoke will be difficult. After that you can't say one single person caused it (unless they forcefully locked you in a room and chain-smoked for a year). So who do you sue? All of smoking society? You might just as well sue God for putting those people on earth, really the only recourse you would have is to sue the tobacco companies, the individual smokers are not going to be held liable as a group.	Defining the value of a privately held company is hard (tax returns don't provide a very informative basis because accountants will tend to under-value things like "goodwill" in order to avoid paying tax). However that doesn't matter for this stack, because the only legal question is: If I had some means of coming up with a number and presenting it, would it be legally acceptable to define that as their company value in a license? And the answer is: absolutely yes! You are pretty much entirely free to define terms in your license as you see fit. If you want to define "company value" as meaning "the annual gross salary paid to receptionists", go for it. (You would probably need to define what a "receptionist" is in this case).	When a company stops existing for whatever reason, then its assets (physical, financial, intellectual or otherwise) don't stop existing. When the company dissolves voluntarily, those assets usually go to the owner(s) of the company. When the company got bought up and integrated into another company, the buying company will usually own them. When the company went bankrupt and got liquidated, then they will often get sold off to the highest bidder. And then there is the question of who actually owns the IP rights to a specific game asset. Often there is not just one legal person which worked on a game. In addition to the developer, there might also have been a separate publisher who might or might not own IP rights. There might have been investors in the background who financed the project and now own some copyrights. Sometimes there was more than one publisher. And sub-contractors might have been involved in the development who only licensed their assets but retained copyright. So unfortunately it is often not really clear what happened to IP assets of a defunct company. People who might have the rights will often not care much about them until something happens which gives new commercial value to those assets. So even if you are unable to determine who owns the assets to a game, as soon as you start using them, someone might show up with a plausible claim to the IP rights and demand money from you. Such lawsuits can get really messy and really expensive. For a good example for just how much of a goose chase you might be in for when you want to legally obtain the rights to a game from a defunct company, check out the story of the re-release of No One Lives Forever. tl;dr: multiple game companies said "Maybe we have the rights to the game according to some contract buried in some file cabinet, but we don't care enough to find out. But if you try to release it, we will find out and if we do we will sue you!"	There is certainly precedent. This list of the 10 biggest class action lawsuits in the world indicates that 8 of the 10 were by investors against their own company. In any event your analysis is flawed. The people who initiate the class action may (probably are) no longer be investors because they sold their shares and realised their losses. Further a legacy investor who didn't buy on the basis of the company's wrongdoing would not be entitled to damages. Finally, an investor who bought at say $100 on the basis of false information (like the cars were legal when the company knew they weren't) and now hold shares worth $40 will wait many years (if ever) to make good their losses: a lawsuit will be quicker and more certain.	Critique I'm technically a director of a company ... You either are or you aren't - there is no "technically" involved. ... is not currently trading ... And doing nothing can create a conflict of interest? How? You mustn’t be involved either directly or indirectly with any other trade or business competing in or conflicting with the interests of our Company. "competing or conflicting" is the key here - if the "other trade or business" can adversely affect the performance of your employer then you have a conflict, if not, you don't. are only related in such that they are both technology based but otherwise are unrelated. Sorry, but that is so vague as to be totally useless - what company today is not "technology based"? Pharmaceutical companies are technology based, so are construction companies, so are law firms but one would hardly call them "related". Solution Conflicts of interest are easy: If you don't think you have a conflict of interest and they don't think you have a conflict of interest then you don't have a conflict of interest. If either or both of you do; then you do. Tell them about it! Conflicts of interest are a problem because people think that if you are keeping secrets then you are doing it for a nefarious purpose! In 90% of cases declaring the potential conflict resolves the conflict because the other party says "That! Don't be silly; that's not a problem!" or words to that effect. In the 99.9% of the remaining 10% of cases then sensible people can come up with sensible solutions, for example: If you want to be involved with another business whilst working for us then you’ll need to get a letter from the Director of your area confirming that they’re happy for you to do this.	What you quoted does not say "a" director can appoint a director. It says "the directors", plural, can appoint a director. I assume that would be by a vote. Elsewhere in the document it might or might not be made clear if this requires only a majority and/or if this is only in cases to fill a vacancy.
Can perjury apply to arbitration proceedings? Can guilt for the crime of perjury apply outside of judicial or other government proceedings? The answer to this very general form of the question seems to be no. Affirming that answer: It appears that the legal definition of perjury, for example in 18 USC §1621, applies only where "a law ... authorizes an oath to be administered." So it would seem that nobody can make an affirmation "under penalty of perjury" unless the government permits it. Can or does perjury apply in arbitration or other alternative-dispute-resolution (ADR) proceedings? There might be a law that explicitly says oaths administered in the course of bona fide ADR are made under penalty of perjury; if so that's the answer to this question. If not: At least U.S. courts generally respect and enforce ADR results. Which would make it seem in the public interest to enforce perjury against anyone who lies to frustrate ADR proceedings. What's the reality?	RCW 7.04A.170 states that "An arbitrator may issue a subpoena for the attendance of a witness and for the production of records and other evidence at any hearing and may administer oaths", also "All laws compelling a person under subpoena to testify and all fees for attending a judicial proceeding, a deposition, or a discovery proceeding as a witness apply to an arbitration proceeding as if the controversy were the subject of a civil action in this state". There may be states or circumstances where arbitrators are not authorized to administer oaths.	26 USC 7206: Any person who— (1) Willfully makes and subscribes any return, statement, or other document, which contains or is verified by a written declaration that it is made under the penalties of perjury, and which he does not believe to be true and correct as to every material matter [...] shall be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not more than $100,000 ($500,000 in the case of a corporation), or imprisoned not more than 3 years, or both, together with the costs of prosecution. ("Return", as defined in 26 USC 6696, includes an income tax return.) This clause notably doesn't care whose favor the falsification was in, or why you did it. You knew it wasn't true and you put it on your tax return anyway, and you declared under penalty of perjury that it was true and correct. That's a felony, end of story. (Paragraph (4) of this section covers some other types of fraud done "with intent to evade" taxes, but that restriction does not apply to paragraph (1).) The likelihood of actually being prosecuted in such an instance is beyond the scope of this site. But in the given case, the falsification really isn't in the government's favor. The purpose was to become eligible to collect government social security benefits, which you otherwise wouldn't be eligible for. Presumably you would only bother to do this if you thought you'd collect more in benefits than you pay in extra tax, which means the government loses in the long run. This also eliminates any chance you'd have of claiming the falsification was "immaterial": it affected your eligibility for social security, and you knew that - it was the whole reason you did it.	See jury-nullification. I'm not a legal historian, so I can't say for sure what the laws on jury acquittals were at that time in that jurisdiction. However, when a jury has final discretion to acquit a defendant of a crime that's it: They can effectively ignore laws if they want to acquit someone. Such acquittals do not set a precedent or have any bearing outside of the trial in which they issue their verdict.	The concept of "jury nullification" is not really applicable to civil litigation, whether it's a bench or a jury trial. The short answer is: generally in the United States, civil judges, and civil juries, have to follow the law. If the jury doesn't follow the law, the judge can entertain and grant a JNOV motion on the basis that no reasonable jury could have reached the verdict in question. If the judge doesn't follow the law, the aggrieved party can appeal the judgment as an abuse of discretion or on similar grounds. Jury nullification occurs when a criminal jury returns a verdict of "not guilty" although they feel the defendant was in fact guilty under the law. That is the only circumstance where no legal review can reverse the verdict. Civil "jury nullification" is not a particularly meaningful concept.	There is a big difference between knowing something and proving it. A lawyer who knows a client is guilty can take steps to prevent the state from proving guilt. (E.g., motion to exclude evidence, cross examining witnesses.) The belief that a client has committed a crime does not necessarily mean one knows what specific crime was committed. Is a killing Murder 1, Murder 2, or manslaughter? There are defenses even when an act may be a crime. E.g., self defense, insanity, justifiable. Lawyers are not permitted to assist in perjury. E.g., allow the client to testify to something he knows is false.	Acquittals in criminal jury trials cannot be appealed (at least in a way that affects the outcome, Colorado and a few other states allow criminal appeals by the prosecution solely for the purposes of clarifying the law prospectively). Interlocutory appeals (i.e. appeals before the case is over) by the prosecution are allowed for pre-trial rulings (e.g. suppression of evidence rulings in a pre-trial hearing), in criminal cases, but not for evidentiary rulings made in the midst of a jury trial (which is when jeopardy attaches for the purposes of the double jeopardy rule, which is what prevents acquittals from being retried). An error in a ruling on an admission or rejection of evidence at trial may be appealed by a convicted defendant if the alleged misapplication of the evidence rule was an abuse of discretion by the judge, and was not "harmless error" (i.e. if as part of all errors made in the case there is a reasonable probability that it changed the outcome that the jury reached).	The US legal system deals with this by punishing you for the crimes of which you are convicted. That is, those where the evidence (whatever it is) convinces a jury that you are guilty beyond reasonable doubt. If there is insufficient evidence, for whatever reason then you would not be convicted. The prosecution can, subject to admissibility, put forward whatever evidence they like in order to convince the jury. This can include a pile of ash that they allege contained convincing and unambiguous evidence of guilt. Of course, if that's all they've got the prosecution would probably be censured by the judge for wasting everybody's time and money, more likely, a prosecutor wouldn't lay charges in the first place. As to punishment for an evidence tampering conviction: you have been convicted of evidence tampering, not drug production so you will be punished for evidence tampering, not drug production. The legislature sets different punishments for these for a reason, possibly a reason known only to them but a reason nevertheless. The judge has discretion to apply anything between the minimum and maximum sentence prescribed. A conviction for evidence tampering in a drug case rather than, say, a jaywalking case, is likely to get a more severe sentence all else being equal.	No Chapter 1, Section 10 of the FAA states that a court may vacate an arbitral award only if it finds that one of the following limited grounds applies: (1) the award is a result of corruption or fraud; (2) evident partiality or corruption of an arbitrator; (3) arbitrator misconduct, such as refusing to hear pertinent and material evidence; or (4) the arbitrators exceeded their powers, or so imperfectly executed them that a mutual, final and definite award was not made. There is no “the arbitrator screwed up” basis. This is pretty much universal across jurisdictions for arbitration. One of the features (whether you think it’s a good or bad feature is up to you) is that arbitration is, for all practical purposes, final. That’s it, we’re done. The law is written that way because parties to an arbitration freely and voluntarily chose this method of dispute resolution over the courts. In theory, at least. Having made their choice, the courts will not unmake it.
What is an appropriate CC license, if any, for work I may wish to re-use commercially in the future? I am writing a set of cycling route guides, with photographs, which I intend to publish on a website, free of charge. I would like to license the text and images with a permissive Creative Commons license if possible, but retain the ability to re-use the content myself in a future commercial work (e.g. a book), should I choose to create one. I have little knowledge of CC or licensing in general so I would like to know if this is a common tenet of CC and/or if there is a specific CC license I should select that would leave open this possibility for myself in the future, while allowing others non-commercial use now.	A licence is your permission for others to use the work within the specific terms of the licence. You never license yourself, you license someone else or someone else license you. If you are the sole right holder of a work and you do not assign or transfer your copyright interests to others, you retain all rights regarding the work. Licensing your work under a CC licence does not make it impossible for yourself to use it commercially in the past, present or future. Of course, permissive licences like CC-BY might decrease the commercial value of your work since anyone else could reuse your work freely with minimum restrictions. But that does not prevent you legally from use your own work for commercial purposes. The exact choice depends on your wish on other aspects of using your work. For example, CC-BY-NC would require the licensee (essentially, anyone else not having another overriding agreement with you) to attribute/give you credits in order to use it non-commercially only, but they may remix and adapt your work as they wish as long as they credit you and the purpose is non commericial. You may also add an ShareAlike (SA) requirement where if the licensee creates an derivative work based on your work, they must license their derivative work using CC-BY-NC-SA as well. The last kind, CC-BY-NC-ND (NoDerivatives), would not only require credit when the licensee uses your work, but also prevent them from creating derivative works from your work.	Any adapted work derived from a work used under a CC-BY-SA licnese must be distributed, if at all, under a compatible license. The question is whether a large work incorporating a much smaller work is said to be "based on" that work. The CC-BY-SA 4.0 legal text does not use "include" or "incorporate" or any similar term to define an adapted work, instead it says: Adapted Material means material subject to Copyright and Similar Rights that is derived from or based upon the Licensed Material and in which the Licensed Material is translated, altered, arranged, transformed, or otherwise modified in a manner requiring permission under the Copyright and Similar Rights held by the Licensor. For purposes of this Public License, where the Licensed Material is a musical work, performance, or sound recording, Adapted Material is always produced where the Licensed Material is synched in timed relation with a moving image. If including a single work makes your book Adapted Materiel, than you must either release the book under the same license, or else not rely on the CC license. I am not at all sure if such use would make the book Adapted Materiel. If the content could be quoted (perhaps only in part) based on fair use or fair dealing or a similar theory, you would not be relaying on the license. But whether such use is legitimate is always a very fact-bound question, which will depend on various specific facts. See Is this copyright infringement? Is it fair use? What if I don't make any money off it? for a summary of US fair use principles. If the materiel you want to use would not qualify under fair use (or whatever similar principle applies in your jurisdiction), and the book would be considered Adapted Material, then you would have to omit it or put the book under the CC license. I see in The CC case law page the statement that: The atlas was a compilation not a derivative work, so did not need to be licensed under the SA term, Which might apply to your book. If it does, you would not need to place the book under a CC license. Update: On reading CC's detailed wiki page on Drauglis v. Kappa Map Group, LLC I find the statement that Use of a whole work is suggestive of a "compilation" rather than a derivative work subject to the ND/SA terms. attributed to the US District court (DC district) that decided this case in 2014. If that decision were followed, it would seem that the book would not be considered a derivative work and while proper attribution must be provided, and the applicable license must be indicated, the book itself need not be released under CC-BY-SA.	License to use does not mean license to create derivative works These are different rights under copyright. If you want to make a derivative work, which your animations are, you must have a license to do so.	I believe the author has published it online. I agree. It is posted at his publisher's website. However, I am unsure if I'm allowed to read it. This answer assumes you are in jurisdiction whose copyright laws is based upon the Berne convention (i.e. the civilized world + USA). Assuming it was the author published it online, it is perfectly legal to read it. Technically, the author is performing his work by putting it online, and by reading it, you are just enjoying his performance. Also, if you are in a jurisdiction with an explicit exception from copyright for personal use, or where fair use allows making copies for personal use, it would also be legal to download it, or to print it on paper (but for personal use only). As for downloading and printing for non-personal use - that is not legal in Berne jurisdictions.	You give SE 2 licences The CC-BY-SA one and the one that goes “the perpetual and irrevocable right and license to access, use, process, copy, distribute, export, display and to commercially exploit such Subscriber Content … as reasonably necessary to, for example (without limitation):”. SE can choose which one it uses. Even though the enumerated cases are “without limitation”, they indicate the general area where the 2nd licence would be “reasonably necessary”. If SE used it outside that domain and did not comply with CC-BY-SA they would arguably be in copyright violation.	A car, or other useful object, is not generally a copyrighted work. There can, in come cases, be a copyright on the aesthetic aspects of the design, which might prohibit a different car maker from making a different car with a very similar appearance, But taking a picture of a car is not an infringement of copyright, and the photographer does not need permission from the car maker to take the picture. Such a picture would itself be protected by copyright, and the book author would need permission from the photographer or other copyright holder to use the image, unless that use came under fair use or fair dealing. (If the book author took the picture, this would not be an issue, of course.) This would be true whether this was a "commercial use" or not. Such permission is often granted freely if proper credit is given, but that is the choice of the copyright holder, and in some cases a fee would be charged, or permission might be denied on any terms.	This would likely be considered a derivative work. You would need permission from the copyright holder to make it, especially if you intend to distribute it for profit.	As long as you own the copyright to the works, you can even publish the source code itself under two different licenses, which can be radically different. For example, MySQL is licensed under both a commercial and an open-source license. Given that you can publish a single piece of work as multiple licenses, it is your choice which one you wish to grant to the book or the code, as long as you own the copyright.
Is it legal to have someone dispose of garbage for you? I have a bunch of miscellaneous stuff in my garage I want to get rid of. I have been meaning to take it to the dump but just haven't found the time. Items include old sink old toilet miscellaneous boxes containing other empty boxes, old kids' toys that are broken, etc. On a yard sale group on Facebook, someone is offering to pick it all up and dispose of it for roughly $50. That is what I have estimated it to be if I were to take it to the local dump myself. Obviously I do not know the person but I suspect they have access to a large trash area at their workplace or other private property; they claim they have a legal means of dumping the items which I have not questioned further. I doubt it will be taken to the dump because there wouldn't be much profit in it for them. Is it legal for me to go ahead and pay him to dispose of it? Am I open to legal repercussions for paying them to load up all my stuff if they disposed of it for me without going through the local dump? Would this count as me "selling" those old items and having no further responsibility for the items?	Very briefly in terms of contract law, by hiring this person to haul away your trash, you're entering into a contract with him/her for the disposal of the trash. The fact that he says he has a legal place to dispose of the trash is part of your contract. That fact - either verbal (or in writing) in that contract - should really absolve you of any responsibility of what happens to the trash. You don't need to actually know all the details of his legal dumping place, but you can hold him/her to the agreement if it happens that they do illegally dispose of the property they have been hired to remove. In reality, this person is advertising this service as a business (on Facebook) and has been operating for some time, so they are probably legally disposing of refuse in a landfill while making some money from whatever might be valuable. The trash hauler probably depends on some of your trash being valuable, in terms of recycling or repairing or selling collectables ("old toys"), and not all of that will be disposed of in a landfill. I suppose it's possible a municipality could accuse you of illegally disposing of the trash if it was somehow tracked back to you, i.e. personally identifiable items or papers in the trash that was found illegally dumped. But you have the contract with the trash hauler to show you acted in good faith. Ask in the Facebook group if indeed this person disposes of trash in a legal manner, or ask others who have hired him/her. Clearly outline your stipulations for legal disposal with them. You can even ask to see their business license from the city/county.	Your question seems to be about abandoned property and whether Missouri’s statute on disposing of property after a tenant abandons his/her property applies. See Mo. Rev. State. Ann. § 441.065 (“Abandonment of premises, disposition of remaining property.”) Assuming there was no agreement (in writing or orally) for the 19 year-old to pay rent, he was most likely a guest and not a tenant. As a guest, landlord-tenant laws, would not apply to the property that that was left at the nice family’s house. The definitions section of Missouri’s landlord-tenant statutes (and common sense) support this analysis. See Mo. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 441.005. Therefore, the issue them becomes did the 19 year abandon his property? To that question, I think the answer is yes. Missouri Courts have defined the test for “abandoned property” in Herron v. Whiteside, 782 S.W.2d 414, 416 (Mo. App. W. Dist. 1989), stating: Abandonment is the voluntary relinquishment of ownership so that the property ceases to be the property of any person and becomes the subject of appropriation by the first taker. Wirth v. Heavey, 508 S.W.2d 263, 267 (Mo.App.1974). Abandonment of property requires intent plus an act. Id. A sufficient act is one that manifests a conscious purpose and intention of the owner of personal property neither to use nor to retake the property into his possession. Id. Intention to abandon may be inferred from strong and convincing evidence and may be shown by conduct clearly inconsistent with any intention to retain and continue the use or ownership of the property. Herron, 782 S.W.2d at 416. So to synthesize that passage from Herron, the court is saying that there is a 2 part test for determining if property is abandoned. Did the person intend to abandon the property? Did they commit some act to show this intention? If the answer is yes, to both, they the “first taker” or person that gets possession after the property is abandoned is the new owner. Here, it seems that the 19 year-old intended to abandon the property. He left without explaining why and stated that he would not unload the property if the nice family tried to return it (implying he would not accept the property back). Looking at the second part, him moving without giving notice, and telling the nice family that he won’t accept delivery of the property are both acts showing his intent to abandon the property.	You have the right to notify the owner of the car of their vehicular trespass and the consequences of that. You do not have the right to damage the car in giving said notice. You have the right to offer to clean the gum off whatever part of the car you stuck the notice to. If you succeed in cleaning it,the other party will not have a legal cause of action, in all likelihood, since there is no damage (though with a bit of imagination they might come up with some 'missed business opportunity' loss). The court would probably find your choice of sticker to be negligent (put the notice under the wipers? use painter's tape -get some if you don't have any). The rationale 'we had no other choice' holds no water: there are alternatives. 'Criminal Damages' is a concept in UK law, but it relates to willful damage such as vandalism, not accidents. It would be an issue if you had planned to cause damage, but that seems not to be the case here.	Check your local law. In Washington, the chapter RCW 63.21 says what you are supposed to do. The first part of the law has apparently been satisfieds: Any person who finds property that is not unlawful to possess, the owner of which is unknown, and who wishes to claim the found property Then you need to get a signed appraisal stating current market value from a qualified person engaged in buying or selling the items, or by a district court judge (I have no idea where district court judges get their qualifications to appraise bricks), then within 7 days, report this to the cief LEO where the stuff was found (and surrender it, if requested). You also have to serve written notice upon that officer stating your to claim the property. The burden now shifts to the government, which must publish notices in a local newspaper at least weakly, for 2 weeks. The notice might be publishable in a no-cost venue, in case the publication cost is greater than the value of the stuff. If the owner appears and establishes ownership, that's the end of the finder's potential interest. If the owner does not show up, the property will be released to the finder once he has paid the government's publishing expenses plus $10, but if the goods are appraised at less than publishing cost, there is no fee. As a finder, you have 30 days after that 60 days to pay required costs, otherwise it goes to the government. There are some exceptions, things not subject to finders-keepers (crab pots, secured vessels, motor vehicles, unclaimed property in the hands of a bailee). If you do not comply with these requirements, you forfeit any right to the property and you are liable to the property owner for the value of the bricks. Under the definition of theft, you have a defense that The property or service was appropriated openly and avowedly under a claim of title made in good faith, even though the claim be untenable since you presumably intend to claim ownership of the bricks under the lost property statute.	One legal notion of "abandoned property" pertains to tenants leaving things behind after they leave – clearly not applicable. A second regards e.g. bank accounts that haven't been used for a while, again, clearly not relevant. The law regarding goods dropped in the street, and so on, is here. The law starts by saying Any person who finds a thing lost is not bound to take charge of it, unless the person is otherwise required to do so by contract or law, but when the person does take charge of it he or she is thenceforward a depositary for the owner, with the rights and obligations of a depositary for hire. Any person or any public or private entity that finds and takes possession of any money, goods, things in action, or other personal property, or saves any domestic animal from harm, neglect, drowning, or starvation, shall, within a reasonable time, inform the owner, if known, and make restitution without compensation, except a reasonable charge for saving and taking care of the property. Any person who takes possession of a live domestic animal shall provide for humane treatment of the animal. Also relevant is the fact that stealing lost property is a crime: One who finds lost property under circumstances which give him knowledge of or means of inquiry as to the true owner, and who appropriates such property to his own use, or to the use of another person not entitled thereto, without first making reasonable and just efforts to find the owner and to restore the property to him, is guilty of theft. There is no specific legal definition of "lost", so the courts would look at the facts and ask whether the property was indeed "lost" – clearly, it is not. Property that is intentionally placed somewhere and is unattended is not "lost", and there is no law declaring open season on unattended property. This is true of bicycles, as well as unofficial ballot boxes.	We don't want this issue to adversely affect our credit and got legal consulting which suggested we should pay the debt collector to protect our credit score, and then sue the landlord for the money back in small claims court. I'm a little worried about this strategy since it requires to hand away the money first, and am trying to get second opinions. The debt collector is probably either the owner of the claim against you, if it is an assignee of the claim, or an agent of the landlord for purposes of collection. Thus, payment to the debt collector is equivalent to payment of the landlord. The law varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction regarding whether payment constitutes of waiver of a right to sue over the debt. Sometimes it is necessary to designate the payment "under protests" or "reserving all rights", but that is not a uniform rule of law that applies in all jurisdictions, and I do not have the time and familiarity with that state's law to research Massachusetts case law on that point accurately.	I am not a lawyer, I am not your lawyer, I am unfamiliar with the jurisdiction I demand you give me your hat! You're not going to, are you? The point of that is that you are not obliged to do anything just because someone demands that you do. Now, if I had a court order that required you to give me your hat ... It appears that there is some confusion over who owns some land in Nebraska. This is a problem; it is not your problem. From my understanding which is entirely based on this: A warranty deed is a type of deed where the grantor (seller) guarantees that he or she holds clear title to a piece of real estate and has a right to sell it to the grantee (buyer). you would be extremely unwise to sign such a deed since it is in no way clear that you (or anyone) does have clear title. Now I take it that you are not interested in owning land in Nebraska and even less interested in getting into a legal battle over it. If that is the case then I suggest that you consult a local lawyer and ask for his advice on the following plan of action: You and your wife will renounce any claim that you may have if: You do not guarantee that you have any claim or title, The person to whom you are making this grant indemnifies you against any legal action that may result, They will prepare the documents, Your lawyer will review them, They will reimburse you for your lawyer's fees. Come back and tell us how this works out. Edit to address subsequent questions Can you be responsible for costs? Well, anything is possible but it would be extremely unlikely. If there was any wrongdoing it was many years ago by someone else! If you approach this in a reasonable way and attempt to assist in reaching a resolution (so long as it doesn't cost you time or money) then it is highly unlikely a court would award costs against you. What about background checks? This would be a civil case. It would not appear in your criminal history. While it is a matter of public record all it really means is that you and someone else had a dispute that required a court to settle; happens all the time.	No. Only specified means of disposition of bodies are allowed by law in Kentucky and this is not one of them. The statute that applies once the body comes into the possession of a coroner is here. The statute that applies when a death appears to involve suspicious circumstances is here. Dispositions of a body that constitute the crime of "desecration of a dead body" crimes in Kentucky are described here. But, the the scenario in the question, while not within any of the clear exceptions to that particular crime, is also not clearly within the definition of that crime. Instead, it would probably be a violation of state funeral home regulations, which are mostly civil rather than criminal offenses. A subtle point is that certain transformations of a dead body such as cremation and certain kinds of treatments (such as plasticizing) that can cause a body to cease to rot also have the effect of causing the dead body to no longer count as a dead body legally for purposes of laws regulating the disposal of dead bodies. Kentucky law does not expressly authorize something quite similar to the original post which is the Tibetan Buddhist and Parsi (a.k.a. Zoroastrian) religious practice of "sky burial". But, the free exercise clause of the freedom of religion granted by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and incorporated against the states via the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (a federal statute), may either render this state prohibition unconstitutional or pre-empt it under federal law, because religious practices have greater legal protections than artistic practices. This would be a close call because sky burial can present public health risks that overcome first amendment freedom of religion rights.
Phone Recording and phone routing - USA I am pretty familiar with the legalities of USA one-party and two-party recording laws, but there is one piece of the puzzle that doesn't seem clear. For some background, I received a call from a Missouri number (landline). We discussed some things and figured out how we wanted to handle them. I then asked if the call was being recorded. The caller said "yes" and he was located in Kansas. I told them that was illegal (I will get into the why in a moment). I was in Missouri at the time the call (cell:T-Mobile) initiated. (Both are one-party consent states.) Now for the "why". At the surface, this looks legal. But my understanding is that if the call is routed by the phone companies through a state that is a two-party state (e.g., California), it must follow the two-party consent rules of recording. Since all calls are digital and managed by computer network routing algorithms, it is completely feasible the call could be routed through a two-party state. Since they failed to state that the call was being recorded at the beginning of the call (and there were no distinctive beeps), I believe they are in violation of the law (as it would be nearly impossible to prove where the call was routed without tons of digging through multiple phone company records, switch logs, discovery, etc). When I have posed this question to lawyers I have worked with in the past, they get that glassy-eyed look and don't really know how to respond. So I figured a larger audience with a more technical understanding of routing, might be a better fit for my question. Thank you for your time. Update 5/21/21: I found an occurrence (from the Hobbs Act info @bdb484 provided) where a call in Georgia was routed to Florida then back to Georgia. Here's the source information: https://casetext.com/analysis/interstate-offenses United States v. Drury, 396 F.3d 1303 (11th Cir. 2003) The initial panel decision in this case held that use of a telephone to make an intrastate phone call was not sufficient to create federal jurisdiction under the 2002 version of 18 U.S.C. § 1958, the murder for hire statute. Though the telephone system is an instrumentality in interstate commerce, the statute, as construed by the Eleventh Circuit, requires a call that actually travels in interstate commerce. The element was actually satisfied in this case, because the cell phone call relayed the signal from a place in south Georgia, to a tower in north Florida and then back to the recipient of the call in south Georgia. Though the caller and recipient of the call were in Georgia, the signal actually traveled in interstate commerce. The statute was subsequently amended to specifically provide for a conviction if a facility of interstate commerce was used – i.e., a telephone – even if the call was purely intrastate. While it doesn't answer my question, it is interesting that it was important to recognize that the call "relayed the signal" through a two-party state.	The courts of Washington will not apply the law of Tennessee in an action somehow involving something about Tennessee, they will apply the laws of Washington. If neither end of the conversation is in an all-party state, no party has standing to sue under the laws of some other state. If a person in Idaho calls a person in Oregon and the call is routed through Washington state, neither party can sue under Washington law. In all 50 states, there is an "exception" to the consent requirement when the "interception" is due to routing / switching, otherwise it would be illegal to call from house to house if you don't have a single wire between the houses (never the case). No state has a law that imposes two-party state law in calls that pass through a two-party state. The federal wiretapping law say you may not intercept any wire, oral, or electronic communications without consent, then sets up the definitions to encode the exceptions. For example, "aural transfer" is a transfer containing the human voice at any point between and including the point of origin and the point of reception (anticipating the need for connections), and "intercept" means "acquisition of the contents of any wire, electronic, or oral communication through the use of any electronic, mechanical, or other device" (a hearing aid is a device). But then "electronic, mechanical, or other device" is further defined to exclude a hearing aid, or also they exclude any telephone or telegraph instrument, equipment or facility, or any component thereof, (i) furnished to the subscriber or user by a provider of wire or electronic communication service in the ordinary course of its business and being used by the subscriber or user in the ordinary course of its business or furnished by such subscriber or user for connection to the facilities of such service and used in the ordinary course of its business; or (ii) being used by a provider of wire or electronic communication service in the ordinary course of its business, or by an investigative or law enforcement officer in the ordinary course of his duties which is a good thing since the telephone is a device, and the switching system is a system used to make a phone call possible, but it intercepts under the ordinary meaning of intercept. Intercept has a specific, narrow meaning. The law of Florida is very similar	In this specific case and location, the precise location of the incident was explicitly made a public space via state law not too long before this actual event. They therefore most certainly have no right to privacy. What is interesting to me though is the other side of this, does someone have the right to record others in public spaces, or is it simply not illegal? For instance if I non-destructively and non-violently "jam" your camera by shooting a low-power IR beam at your lens, have I abridged a legal right of yours? I don't think it would be illegal to do this. I am not even positive its against the 1st Amendment. The 1st Amendment relates only to the dissemination of information, not the collection of it. The Constitution doesn't seem to compel the gov't to make information available, or even to make things/events/spaces observable. The various "sunshine" laws after-all had to be enacted, it wasn't part of an interpretation of the 1st Amendment. To put a finer point on it, is recording events in public spaces legal or merely lawful?	You do need to know the location of both parties. U.S. Federal law (18 USC 2511(2)(d)), which prohibits the interception of wire and electronic communication, states: It shall not be unlawful under this chapter for a person not acting under color of law to intercept a wire, oral, or electronic communication where such person is a party to the communication or where one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception unless such communication is intercepted for the purpose of committing any criminal or tortious act in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States or of any State. California Penal Code 632 requires the consent of all parties to a confidential communication in order for the conversation to be recorded. The statute defines a "confidential communication" as follows: The term “confidential communication” includes any communication carried on in circumstances as may reasonably indicate that any party to the communication desires it to be confined to the parties thereto, but excludes a communication made in a public gathering or in any legislative, judicial, executive or administrative proceeding open to the public, or in any other circumstance in which the parties to the communication may reasonably expect that the communication may be overheard or recorded. Once AT&T, or anyone else for that matter, states that the communication is being recorded, it is no longer considered a confidential communication requiring the consent of all parties in order for any party to record it. Part of the California Civil Jury Instructions for this code requires that the plaintiff must prove, among other things, that the plaintiff had a "reasonable expectation that the conversation was not being overheard or recorded." You can see the full jury instructions here: https://www.justia.com/trials-litigation/docs/caci/1800/1809.html	The opt-out option is exercised by hanging up the phone. The federal wiretapping law 18 USC 2511 would contain any specific restrictions on recording federal employees, and there are no such restrictions. Each state has their own laws as well, so if either party is in a two-consent state such as Florida, consent from the other party would be required. The federal law only requires one party consent. It is possible that the individual expanded a separate rule that s/he may have heard of, one prohibiting recording of an IRS due process collection hearing that is conducted by telephone, as ruled in Calafati v. Commissioner. In that case, petitioner owed taxes and penalties and there was a process where the IRS was going to take his stuff, which requires a hearing. There is a federal statute 26 USC 7521 allowing the in-person hearing to be recorded, but no mention of recording telephone hearings. The Tax Court has taken the position that if it is not explicitly allowed, the IRS can forbid it: but this is in a very specific context, i.e. a specific legal hearing.	You are right that this is probably a private space; you are wrong in thinking it is your private space; it isn't. The space belongs to your employer and they can do whatever they want with their space unless there is a law that says they can't. As to what type of "hidden surveillance" is allowed that depends on your particular circumstances including what state and federal laws apply and the employment contract you are covered by. As a starting point, if this was happening in Australia then: If you gave permission, all would be legal If you did not give permission: it would be illegal to record anything taking place across a public telecommunications system (i.e. phone tapping) it would be legal for anyone to make an audio recording (not phone tapping) of any conversation to which they were a party it would be legal to make a video recording without sound.	Absent a specified jurisdiction, I'm going to assume the US state of New York. This conduct falls squarely within the definition of extortion under New York Penal Law section 155.05(2)(e): A person obtains property by extortion when he compels or induces another person to deliver such property to himself or to a third person by means of instilling in him a fear that, if the property is not so delivered, the actor or another will: [...] (iv) Accuse some person of a crime or cause criminal charges to be instituted against him; There is a defense under section 155.15(2): In any prosecution for larceny by extortion committed by instilling in the victim a fear that he or another person would be charged with a crime, it is an affirmative defense that the defendant reasonably believed the threatened charge to be true and that his sole purpose was to compel or induce the victim to take reasonable action to make good the wrong which was the subject of such threatened charge. However, in your hypothetical, the customer is just seeking a payout. This defense is meant for situations like a theft victim telling the thief "give me back my property or I'll call the cops;" unless paying the customer is actually a reasonable action to make up for the crime, the customer can't use this defense. If the crime is a federal one, this is also blackmail under 18 U.S. Code § 873: Whoever, under a threat of informing, or as a consideration for not informing, against any violation of any law of the United States, demands or receives any money or other valuable thing, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both. If interstate communications are involved, 18 U.S. Code § 875(d) can also apply: Whoever, with intent to extort from any person, firm, association, or corporation, any money or other thing of value, transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to injure the property or reputation of the addressee or of another or the reputation of a deceased person or any threat to accuse the addressee or any other person of a crime, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.	From what I understand, courts occasionally use "sound" recordings in place of stenographer records. The original recording is not made available to the public but transcripts are. When, where, and why is this done? In Colorado this is done in all limited jurisdiction court proceedings (i.e. the courts where misdemeanors and smaller money claims and evictions involving premises with fairly low rents are tried), and in most general jurisdiction court proceedings unless the parties pay for live transcription at their own expense. Transcripts are made when there is a sound recording only upon a request submitted to the court that then outsources the request to independent contractor transcriptionists. This is a fairly recent development and there may be live stenographers (also known as court reporters) in some general jurisdiction courts still today in Colorado, but it is profoundly less expensive to tape record a hearing or trial and just transcribe them upon request at the expense of a party, than it is to have a live stenographer make a verbatim record of every hearing or trial. In limited jurisdiction courts typically only about one in a hundred cases is appealed, and in general jurisdiction courts typically about one in ten cases are appealed. The marginal cost of an audio recording that isn't transcribed, once the courtrooms are wired for sound, is negligible (perhaps $10 per day (or less) for storage media). The marginal costs of a live stenographer or transcriptionist per day is on the order of $240+, which adds up over the course of a year. In the limited jurisdiction court, live court reporting would cost about $24,000 per day of trial in cases that are actually appealed (since only about 1% of cases are appealed and those cases would have to bear the entire cost of the transcription system). In general jurisdiction courts, live court reporting would cost about $2,400 per day of trial in cases that are actually appealed (since only about 10% of cases are appealed and those cases would have to bear the entire cost of the transcription system). In contrast, with sound recordings, the cost per day of trial actually appealed in limited jurisdiction courts would cost $1,240, and in general jurisdiction courts it would cost $340. These are judicial branch expenses small enough to be financed with court filing fees. Depositions prior to a trial are often handled by a live stenographer and sometimes handled by a videographer as well, but almost never conducted with sound only recordings in the absence of extreme circumstances like a blizzard that makes it impossible to secure the court reporter's attendance (in part because there is almost always a desire to have a transcript made and because the stenographer can confirm spellings and ambiguous sounding words with the deponents and counsel during breaks avoiding errors in the final product). Are court proceedings ever filmed or otherwise visually recorded? Depositions and court proceedings are sometimes filmed. A video of a deposition can be presented to a judge or jury in lieu of testimony when the witness is not available or to impeach the testimony of the witness. It is unusual in Colorado for court proceedings to be visually recorded. But, in Alaska, there is a state constitutional right to participate in most kinds of court proceedings and legislative hearings by video conference (because geographically, Alaska is about a third the size of the continental U.S. and thinly populated with large roadless areas), so I presume that in Alaska, court proceedings are routinely videotaped. Some courts in the U.S. do initial appearances and arraignments in many criminal cases by closed circuit television from the jail, before a judge in the court house, in order to reduce the need to transport prisoners from the jail to the court house for a perfunctory five minute hearing which is not evidentiary, and there may be video recordings of those proceedings as well. Many federal courts and some state courts do status conferences and similar minor procedural hearings by telephone conference call and those are usually audio recorded without a live court reporter. In Colorado, all oral arguments in appeals (except those rare cases that are secret such as juvenile cases and rare cases involving the details of trade secrets) are live streamed and podcast over the Internet. Many other appellate courts (but not the U.S. Supreme Court) do this as well. But, transcripts of oral arguments at the appellate level are rarely considered in further appeals. The video (or in the case of U.S. Supreme Court hearings, previously transcripts only and now audio as well) are released for PR reasons and for public transparency, reflecting appellate court's role as law making institutions, not for the litigants themselves. It seems that facial expression, hand motions, vocal intonations, etc. are part of the body of evidence on which a judge or jury decides a case. So is this type of record ever made available, and if so, when? A deposition or other videotape provided as evidence in a case at trial is part of the record on appeal that an appellate court may consider. And, a judge or jury may consider things like facial expressions, hand motions, vocal intonations, etc. in those cases. But, video of the court proceeding itself is simply a basis for preparing a transcript that will become part of the court record. Appellate courts in common law systems are forbidden from considering things like facial expressions, hand motions, vocal intonations, etc. of witnesses testifying in a trial. This is part of the credibility evaluation function that is reserved entirely to the judge or jury who is the trier of fact in a case. The only time a video of a trial court proceeding itself would be considered would be as evidence in a different trial arising out of events that took place in the courtroom itself. For example, suppose that a court bailiff goes berserk and starts shooting jurors for no reason in the middle of a trial that was being videotaped. That videotape could be considered in a criminal trial of the court bailiff for assault with a deadly weapon or murder, or in a civil case brought by the jurors or their surviving next of kin, for battery or wrongful death. The appellate court of the criminal or civil trial of the bailiff could consider the videotape, but an appellate court considering an appeal of the proceeding that was being videotaped could not. This is basically just a historical artifact. If videotape had been in existence at the time of the Norman invasion in 1066 CE, appellate courts in common law countries would no doubt have the right to review questions of both fact and law, rather than merely law as they do today. In civil law countries, such as those of continental Europe, judges take notes regarding evidence, but there is no verbatim record of the proceedings and any assertion that the judge was mistaken about the facts is resolved by retrying the disputed facts over again in a second instance court proceeding, a process reflecting even more rudimentary court resources than those existing prior to tape and video recording were invented.	There is a relevant law, Title 18 section 907 which states that "A person commits a misdemeanor of the first degree if he possesses any instrument of crime with intent to employ it criminally". So possession of lock picks is not a crime per se. In Com. v. Gendrachi 389 A.2d 604 we are reminded that "intent need not be directly proved, but may be inferred from the circumstances surrounding the incident out of which the charges arise". The accused was busted in mildly suspicious circumstances at 5:20 am in the dead of winter, urinating. The court notes that "There is no evidence that appellant's hands were on the door or that he made an attempt to extract the tools from his pocket and apply them to the door. In fact, there is no act or statement by appellant that would lead one to infer that he intended to use the tools at that time", and that "appellant is a certified locksmith and it is not unreasonable to find the tools of his trade in his pocket, especially when he is wearing his work attire". Note that this is on appeal: he was convicted initially. The point is that there is a lot of slop in cashing out the legal concept of "intent". Pennsylvania does not, apparently, have any specific laws that refer to lock picks. It does have a statute that addresses having criminal tools, which are defined as (including) "Anything used for criminal purposes and possessed by the actor under circumstances not manifestly appropriate for lawful uses it may have". Mr. Gendrachi had those very tools, and the appeals court did not say anything to suggest that the tools were not "criminal tools" (and in FN 5 they actually point out that the Commonwealth cannot say that the tools were weapons, a ludicrous proposition never raised by anyone – so by failing to deny that lock picks are criminal tools, they are adoptively admitting that they are criminal tools). Thus I conclude that there is a law in PA, that lock picks are burglary tools, and that the government would have to prove intent to use criminally.
Is kissing the crotch of an underage girl of age 5-6 illegal? I have recently seen a grandma kissing the crotch of a girl of age 5-6 through panties in a public place. She was holding the girl in hands. Is this illegal? Is it legal only for women to do?	england-and-wales Is this illegal? YES, NO, MAYBE Context is everything, and it depends on whether this was just playful (for want of a much better word) or sexual touching. Assuming that the "grandma" is actually her grandmother, the likely offence - if there is one at all - would be sexual activity with a child family member contrary to s.25 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003: A person (A) [i.e. grandma] commits an offence if — (a) [s]he intentionally touches another person (B) [i.e. the child], (b) the touching is sexual, (c) the relation of A to B is within section 27 [which includes grandparents], ... (e) — ... (ii) B is under 13. Touching is defined at s.79(8): (8) Touching includes touching — (a) with any part of the body, ... (c) through anything [e.g. panties] ... Sexual is defined at s.78 as: penetration, touching or any other activity is sexual if a reasonable person would consider that — (a) whatever its circumstances or any person’s purpose in relation to it, it is because of its nature sexual, or (b) because of its nature it may be sexual and because of its circumstances or the purpose of any person in relation to it (or both) it is sexual. A key point to prove is whether s.25(1)(b) is met or not, so again: context is everything. Is it legal only for women to do? NO - Both males and females (over the age of criminal responsibility of 10) can commit any sexual offence apart from rape which is purely male-specific for anatomical reasons.	There are no such laws that are specific to rape, but there are general laws about false statements. In every state there is some law against making a false statement to a government official, e.g. Washington RCW 9A.76.175 which says that one who "knowingly makes a false or misleading material statement to a public servant is guilty of a gross misdemeanor". To shift context slightly, if you report to the police that Smith stole your lawn mower when in fact you gave it to him, that is a false statement. However, there would have to be clear proof that you lied in your report, and not that there was a misunderstanding. If Smith stole the mower but the evidence did not support a theft conviction, that does not mean that you can be prosecuted for making a false statement (whereas, if someone has a video of you telling Smith "Here's a mower, which I give to you because I like you", then you could almost be prosecuted for making a false statement, were it not for the fact that the video is illegal in Washington). Perjury is the other related crime: RCW 9A.72.020 "a materially false statement which he or she knows to be false under an oath required or authorized by law". [Addendum] About the video of the mower being given away... Washington is an all-party consent state, meaning that you can't just record people, you have to have their permission (everybody's permission). RCW 9.73.050 says that information obtained by illegal recording shall be inadmissible in any civil or criminal case in all courts of general or limited jurisdiction in this state, except with the permission of the person whose rights have been violated in an action brought for damages under the provisions of RCW 9.73.030 through 9.73.080 which is to say, "unless the person(s) who did not give permission to be recorded now give permission for the evidence to be admitted". Since "you" would be the one making a false statement, "you" would have an interest in suppressing the video, thus "you" could withhold permission for the video to be introduced.	Under United States law, it is not illegal to simply make an account on a forum where criminal activity takes place. The closest thing I can think of would be misprision of felony (AKA failure to report a crime), which requires active concealment (see United States v. Johnson, 546 F.2d 1225 (5th Cir. 1977)). Simply observing evidence of criminal activity and not reporting it would not qualify. However, if that forum also contains material that is illegal to posses (such as child sexual abuse material), downloading that (even by simply viewing it using your browser) could be a crime. I would note that I am specifically not advising you whether or not doing any of the other things, like making and publishing tutorial videos on how to access such sites, is likely to get you into trouble with the law. If you want that sort of legal advice, you should contact a lawyer, as the advice is going to be very specific to the exact details.	The central legal question would be whether the minor has the capacity and authority to consent to a search: in the context of search law, the police would have to have a reasonable belief that both are the case. It is not reasonable to believe that an 8 year old can consent to a police search, that is, a child will most likely acquiesce to a request from the authorities to conduct a search. It is as reasonable to believe that a 16 year old can give actual consent as it is to believe that an 18 year old can consent. The law leaves the matter open for those under 18, to be determined by circumstances. The other consideration, applicable to younger children, is whether the child is authorized to open the house to outsiders. So in People v. Hoxter, 75 Cal. App. 4th 406, a 16 year old child invited police in, whereupon polices obtained plain sight evidence of drug offenses by the child's father. The court found that "sufficient discretion certainly exists" by that age. There are similar results in Saavedra v. State, 622 So. 2d 952 involving a 15 year old. In contrast, in Davis v. State, 422 S.E.2d 546, a 10 year old child who was home alone called the police to report drugs in the house. The search was invalidated because although the child's mother had given him permission to call for emergency assistance if he needed help, the child had no right, absent an emergency, to invite anyone into the house while he was alone there, much less into his parents' bedroom See also People v. Jacobs, 729 P.2d 757 involving an 11 year old, for extensive discussion of the question of "joint control" and authority to permit a search, citing US v. Matlock, 415 U.S. 164 there must be some objective evidence of joint control or access to the places or items to be searched which would indicate that the person authorizing the search has the authority to do so. The mutual use of the property must be such "that it is reasonable to recognize that any of the co-inhabitants has the right to permit the inspection in his own right and that the others have assumed the risk that one of their number might permit the common area to be searched This article has a number of citations of relevant cases, which suggests a line for police searches somewhere around 13-14 years old. But also see Lenz v. Winburn, 51 F.3d 1540 for a permitted case of consent given by a 9 year old to a guardian ad litem: the court found a 4th Amendment issue and and concluded that the search was reasonable, holding that minors can give third party consent. Fourth Amendment rights, unlike rights attendant to due process, do not guarantee a fair and impartial determination of truth; rather, they protect the interest of the citizen "to be let alone". Thus, the subject of a Fourth Amendment-violative search need not be aware of her right to refuse to give knowing and voluntary consent. However, the circumstances surrounding the consent must demonstrate that it was voluntarily given, free of duress or coercion.	In the UK, no offence is committed, however many public locations cite the Data Protection Act 1998 as a reason to stop people taking pictures. DPA does not mention this topic at all, and is a red herring (however informing the location of this is unlikely to help, I have discovered) In fact, in the UK, the only laws that appear to exist cover either specific locations and properties (eg military installations) or using photography to take pictures of individuals in areas where they have an expectation of privacy. The Photographer's Rights Guide published by digitalcameraworld in 2012 is still current as far as I can see. It has this specific guidance: Photographers Rights: Taking Pictures of People in Public Are you breaking any law when you’re taking pictures of people in public? Probably not, but the position under UK law is uncertain. There are currently no general privacy laws under UK law, but the UK courts must take into account the European Convention on Human Rights, which gives everyone the right to respect for their private and family life. As this is an area of law that has been developing rapidly over the last few years, it is hard to be certain what will constitute an infringement. The key issue is whether the place the image is taken is one where a person would have a reasonable expectation of privacy. For example, it has been suggested that the right of privacy of a child could be infringed by publishing a photo of them with their parents in a public street. It is therefore advisable to be careful when taking photos intended for publication, even where the subject matter is in a public place. Failure to obtain a model release for the use of an image will certainly make it harder to sell the picture to stock libraries. Photographing children The same laws apply to adult and child subjects, but a child does not have the legal capacity to consent and a parent or guardian must therefore do so on their behalf. Be aware that schools, leisure centres and places where children and adults gather usually have their own photography restrictions. Although decent photos of children (see our tips for better pictures of babies, children and teenagers) taken in a public place may be fine for non-commercial use, seek permission from the child’s parents or guardians and don’t shoot covertly with a long lens. For commercial images, you’ll need to get a model release signed by the parents. Also read the section on the powers of police and security guards.	As cited by @xuhdev, discrimination on the basis of marital status is prohibited in Colorado. And, even though age is not on the list, the couple could claim that you discriminate them based on their marital status, whether current or would-be, and whether related to their age or not. Note that the reason why you discriminate is irrelevant: whether you do it by calling on your religious freedom or without giving any reasons at all does not make any difference. Holding religious beliefs is by no means a lawful excuse for discrimination, no matter how deeply they are held.	The issue is not exactly with minors, it is with FERPA and COPPA. This assumes that you have some indication of what students are connected to the web page. If you have students under 13 (surely you do), you need verifiable parental consent. The FTC approves or disapproves particular methods of verification, here is their page on that. One approved and patented method is ChildGuardOnline Technology (it;s a business, not a free service). The other concern is that you have to scrupulously protect "student records". You already know that you can't disseminate "student records" without parental consent, what this adds is possibly new concerns with online security. However, many schools are exempt from the COPPA requirements. Here are some "exceptions" to the rule, and nonprofit organizations are not subject to Section 5 of the FTC Act.	I'm not sure a case of harassment could be made out (it would depend on the circumstances in which you purportedly did those things or threatened her, except for touching her. Sexual assault The Sexual Offences Act 2003 defines sexual assault as: (1) A person (A) commits an offence if— (a) he intentionally touches another person (B), (b) the touching is sexual, (c) B does not consent to the touching, and (d) A does not reasonably believe that B consents. (2) Whether a belief is reasonable is to be determined having regard to all the circumstances, including any steps A has taken to ascertain whether B consents. To your questions: What is the law on a 16 year-old doing the things listed above with a 14 year-old? Same as the above, except what would happen if it was made out that there was not consent? For sexual assault, it is presumed that if the person is between the ages of 13 and 16, they do not have the capacity to consent. That is - if there is no proof of consent, you are guilty of the offence, if the requisite mens rea - intent - to touch them can be proved. For everything else - it might amount to harassment but that is probably a stretch, I don't see the elements being made out. However, there are certain limits to what people can consent to - you can't consent to someone murdering you in most jurisdictions, for example. ... what would be the best way to go about disproving (in a court scenario) that I did all of these things? You do not have to disprove that you did these acts - it is the job of the prosecution to adduce evidence beyond reasonable doubt that you have done so. You can present evidence that satisfies an evidentiary burden that you did not do these acts, such as not being able to do so (by being in another place), or not intending to do the act. However, you would need to prove that you had consent and believed she was 16 or over to stand a reasonable chance of escaping conviction for the above crime, if prosecuted. As Martin has said - you need to get a lawyer for the right answer here.
Is it illegal to claim a patent when you don't have one in the EU? This company is claiming they are using "patented technology" https://marx-shoes.com/pages/technologie sourced from a company call "powerinsole". The only patent associated with this so called technology that I could find is A 60002/2018 http://seeip.patentamt.at/NPatentSuche which is abgebrochen (cancelled) Title pi performance chip Application No A 60002/2018 Patent No Application Date 03/01/2018 State Registration Canceled Zugehörige Schutzzertifikate Applicant Martin Masching, Pfarrhofweg 1a, 5162, Obertrum (AT) I have asked the company, 'Marx Shoes', to produce the patent number or document for any current patent but they have deleted my questions on their social media site. Is it illegal within the EU to claim to have patents when you do not?	They don't actually claim to have a patent. Lots of people license a patent, and then they are using "patented technology". The only effect of this statement is: If you want to copy their product, you better find out what patent they are licensing, otherwise you might be in legal trouble. And their statement means you should have known that your copy of their product is covered by some patent, so you lose some defenses if you are accused of using a patent without license. And of course many customers think if something is patented then it must be good. Which is not true obviously. But logically who owns the patent doesn't make a difference to that, so their statement isn't misleading IMHO.	Patents are not that relevant in this case. Software patents are unenforceable in most parts of the world anyway. What matters here is copyright. Every work contract has a clause that everything an employee creates as part of their employment is copyrighted by the company. So using company-owned code to build an own project would be a copyright violation. There are also other legal tools in some jurisdiction which can be used against employees trying to misuse intellectual company property. But that's a topic for Law Stackexchange. Also, this isn't really related to a BYOD policy. Being able to bring your own device to work and then back home might make data theft more convenient, but isn't required. There are many other ways to steal sourcecode, like USB drives or uploading them to the internet. To prevent the first you would have to design your software development offices like a supermax prison facility with meter-high walls (so nobody can throw a device over it) and strip searches on everyone leaving the building. This is neither feasible nor reasonable for anything below matters of national security. To prevent the second, you would have to completely prevent internet access from developer workstations, which would greatly impede the productivity of any software developer. So most companies do not even try to physically prevent employees from stealing sourcecode. They rather rely on the legal safeguards and on maintaining a mutual trust relationship with their employees. It might seem counter-intuitive to some, but when you do not treat your employees like potential criminals they are in fact less likely to betray you.	The most important fact to bear in mind is that there's no way to predict whether a given individual will decide to file a suit against you, though we might say on what basis he might, if he so chooses. There are two basic grounds for a suit, one pertaining to trademarks and the other pertaining to use of names – misappropriation and violating the right of publicity. A word can be a trademark, but the scope of protection is somewhat narrow because the protection is in terms of use within a given business. So calling your computer company "Apple" is out, but calling you roofing service the same is okay (assuming that somebody didn't previously register "Apple Roofing"). The main consideration is the likelihood of confusion. Supposing your business were selling landline telephones and I don't think Apple computer company sells such phones, you might still be in trouble if you called your company "Apple Phone", since they certainly do sell phones. There are thousands of trademarks that include "Puff", including Cocopuffs and various pizza and cheese puffs. Since "Puff" is such a generic word, there is a higher bar to proving infringement (there are thousands of trademarks including "Puff"). "Puff Daddy" is, however, a registered trademark covering perfume, jewelry, clothing and certain online services, so there is a non-negligible chance of confusion. In the case of names (or apparent names), an additional concern is whether this is commercial exploitation without consent of a person's name (which causes harm to the subject). The underpinning of this tort is that such a use falsely implies an endorsement of the product. Again, with a fairly generic word like Puff, there isn't a clear implication that Sean Combs has endorsed a product that is called "Puff Communications", but "Puff Daddy Communications" would almost certainly cross that line. The main issues, then, are the extent to which the name is generic vs. unique, and whether it is likely that a person would interpret the product or service as being the same as another, or would constitute an endorsement.	Prompted by this recent similar question, I've revisited this question and deleted my original answer as it was completely off the mark. This is its replacement. It is illegal, and it turns out to be an international standard in the Berne Convention. Article 16 in full: (1) Infringing copies of a work shall be liable to seizure in any country of the Union where the work enjoys legal protection. (2) The provisions of the preceding paragraph shall also apply to reproductions coming from a country where the work is not protected, or has ceased to be protected. (3) The seizure shall take place in accordance with the legislation of each country. Your scenario falls squarely within point (2) and the imported George Orwell book is to be treated as an infringing copy within the UK. The implementing UK legislation for (2) can be found in Section 27(3) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.	First of all, although the GDPR is stated to apply to any site which processes the data of any person who is in the EU, it is not clear how a site not located in the EU, does not business in the EU, and does not primarily target EU residents as its audience can be required to comply with the GDPR. To the best of my knowledge, no such case has yet been brought, much less decided. There has also been some debate on whether an IP address constitutes Personal Data under the GDPR, and if it always does so, or only under particular conditions. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) held that (under the predecessor Directive 95/46/EC) that a dynamic IP address was personal data. But in that case the web site was run by the German Federal Government, which surely has wider scope for getting info from a German ISP than a small private US web activist does. There is not yet any case law that I know of on the applicability of the GDPR to IP addresses in any case at all similar to the one in the question. Joe would in my view be wise to at least learn that logs are being kept, and post a disclosure of this on the site. Whether Joe needs to do more than that is less than clear at this time.	You can't patent an algorithm, but I'll assume you are talking about the case where you have patented a machine or process that uses an algorithm, but that adds significantly more, and that the software being distributed implements much of this process. Courts might find an implied licence or promissory estoppel when distributing software under an open source licence that doesn't explicitly exclude patent licencing as part of its terms. It would be prudent to state your patent rights and explicitly exclude a patent licence if you intend to enforce your patent rights. As an example, this software implicates a patent , so they allow "permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation for educational, research, and non-commercial" purposes. Users that want to use the software commercially need to contact the authors who also happen to be the patent owners, and I assume would negotiate a patent licence at that point.	Is it illegal to ask a company for money in exchange for information on a bug in their software/website? That in itself is legal. Indeed, the company would incur unjust enrichment if it coerced you to disclose your discovery for free. Only if you threatened the company to divulge to others your discovery unless the company pays you, it would be illegal and trigger charges such as extortion (likewise, legislations outlaw the unjustified delivery of programs or instructions for hacking a software/network/etc., although this goes beyond your actual question). Can the company take legal action against me? That seems doubtful, futile, and it could backfire (please note I have not done any research on legal precedents about this). Although the terms and conditions of the website or the End User License Agreement (EULA) of software might prohibit you to reverse engineer (RE)/decompile/etc. the application, anti-RE clauses are unenforceable and the remedies therefor are indeterminate because the sole act of conducting reverse engineering does not subject the company (or third parties) to any losses. The company's decision to take legal action for your discovery could backfire from two standpoints. First, it calls attention to the fact that the software at issue is defective and unsafe. And second, the bug is likely to be detected by someone else anyway, thereby potentially compromising customers' systems.	In the most likely case No, but you can make it happen! First - almost every patent is rejected - at first. Then you respond to the office action rejection by arguing and/or amending and - guess what - you are likely to get a final rejection. That means the rejection is final until you pay them more money to file a Request for Continued Examination and get two more go-arounds with them. Can you keep doing this? Yes. A previous director of the USPTO tried to make a rule that limited the number of RCEs - the courts knocked it down. If you give up and let it go abandoned by not responding to an office action within the statutory limit (6 months) then the process of that application is over. If you have not filed a co-pending application before the initial application went abandoned then you are really starting over if you file a new application. The original application can be used against any new application on a similar subject matter if it has been published. But it might not have published. The law (35 USC 102) contains - (a) NOVELTY; PRIOR ART.—A person shall be entitled to a patent unless— (1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention; or (2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151 , or in an application for >patent published or deemed published under section 122(b) , in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. Your application may or may not have been published. Then it is neither published or issued and does not fall under prior art under 102 or 103. Applications are automatically published by the USPTO at the 18 month point unless you requested non-publication. In that case if your application never issues it is never public and can't be used against you or anyone else as prior art. You could even decide to keep it a trade secret. Before the publication process came into being as part of TRIPS, an applicant could wait until they saw the claims that had been allowed and the patent was ready to go. If they didn't feel the claims were valuable enough they can chose to explicitly abandon and keep it secret.
How do various factors affect the legality of streaming? I was wondering whether watching a video that was uploaded without permission from the copyright holder was illegal. Also... Which country’s laws apply if a lawsuit were to arise? For example, if a person in Country A accessed content owned by a company in Country B using software from Country C, which country would the person be legally liable to, in case of a lawsuit? Does it make a difference whether the site is legal or illegal? It seems reasonable to expect pirated content on an illegal site, but on a site like YouTube, it would be difficult for users to know whether the copyright holder is okay with the file being uploaded. YouTube actually runs on a download system, storing the file in the browser cache. How would that affect legal complications? What is the expected maximum penalty for streaming privately? I read that it was $750 per clip, but I am not sure if this is correct. How much of a video clip could be considered Fair Use, approximately? Clearly, taking a few minutes of a movie is generally considered Fair Use, but a full movie being uploaded is probably not. Where is the threshold approximately?	It is not copyright infringement to read or watch an unauthorized copy of a written or audio-visual work under US copyright law. This is not even slightly ambiguous. Damages and fair use are somewhat more complex. Infringement In the united-states the exclusive rights that a copyright holder has are given by 17 USC 106 as: to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords; to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work; to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending; in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly; in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission. Note that the right to read or watch, or to authorize or permit reading or watching, a work is not one of those rights. To distribute copies is a right under point 3, and to perform the work publicly is under point 4. Thus to stream the work is probably infringement (unless covered by safe harbor) and to post to a streaming service likewise is. But to read or watch is not infringement. 17 USC 501 (infringement) provides that: (a) Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner as provided by sections 106 through 122 or of the author as provided in section 106A(a), or who imports copies or phonorecords into the United States in violation of section 602, is an infringer of the copyright or right of the author, as the case may be. For purposes of this chapter (other than section 506), any reference to copyright shall be deemed to include the rights conferred by section 106A(a). Again note that this does not include a person who reads or watches an unauthorized (pirated) copy. Note, by the way, that infringing copyright is not, in most cases, "illegal" in the sense that it is a crime. It is a tort, which gives the copyright holder, or the holder of one of the exclusive rights, grounds to sue for damages or an injunction to stop the infringing activity. But except for the limited subset of cases covered in 17 USC 506 it is not a crime. It might be said to be unlawful. As a practical matter, only a small subset of the cases in theory criminal under section 506 are prosecuted. In general only bulk reproduction or distribution on a commercial basis of infringing copies will be criminally prosecuted in the US. Damages If infringement is proved in a suit, the copyright holder will be rewarded damages. These can include the holder's actual losses, plus the infringer's profits, if any. Or statutory damages may be available, which can be as low as $750, or as high as $30,000 as the court may find just. In the case of wilful infringement, statutory damages can be as high as $150,000. That is per work infringed, not per act of infringement. This is spelled out in 17 USC 504.In many cases legal expenses and lawyer's fees may also be awarded under 17 USC 505. Fair Use There is no bright line separating fair use from infringement, and the amount of a work that is used is only one factor that must be considered. In the case of Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539 (1985) the use of about 300 words from a 500 -page book was held not to be fair use, while the use of an entire feature film for teaching purposes can be a fair muse. Fair use is spelled out in 17 USC 107. The four fgactors which must be considerd are: the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; the nature of the copyrighted work; the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. No one of these factors is primary in every case, and the court may consider additional factors as well. Length of an excerpt used goes only to factor 3. US courts have persistently declined to fix rules on how much copying is or is not permitted under a claim of fair use. The idea that so many seconds is always allowed and so many is always infringement is a myth with no legal validity. Note that fair use is a very specifically US legal concept. other couturiers have somewhat similar concepts, but the rules are quite different, and generally significantly narrower. Venue The question asks: Which country’s laws apply if a lawsuit were to arise? For example, if a person in Country A accessed content owned by a company in Country B using software from Country C, which country would the person be legally liable to, in case of a lawsuit? The first think to remember is, an infringer is not liable to a country, but to the copyright holder. The holder may possibly sue in any of several countries, or perhaps even in all of them. In the example the holder could almost surely sue in country A and/or country B, depending on the details of the laws of each. Whether the holder could sue in country C, and could also sue the maker or distributor of the software, will depend on the laws of C, and on how the software works, and on how it is marketed and normally used. If the sole or primary use is to facilitate infringement, or if it is marketed for that purpose, the case against the software maker is stronger than if there are many legitimate uses. But the factual details will matter a lot.	Quoting content may or may not constitute copyright infringement, depending on the various factors that go into the fair use defense. Short quotes which are made for the purpose of discussion, research and commentary and not for copy would be squarely in the domain of "fair use" under US law. That means that the copyright owner would not succeed in suing you for quoting them: under the statutory mechanism for recognizing his right to his intellectual product, there is a limit on how much control he can exert over your behavior (since the two of you have not worked out some kind of agreement -- copyright law creates rights even when there is no contract). As for Facebook, you have a contract with them, embodied in the terms of service. You have been given permission to access material that they host (permission is required, under copyright law), and their permission is conditional. It says "you may access stuff on our platform only as long as you do X": if that includes a clause "don't be nasty", then that limits your right to speak freely and be as nasty as you'd like. If it says "don't quote even a little", that means you cannot quote even a little, even when you would have the statutory right to quote a little (or, to be nasty). Fair use would mean that you can't be sued for copyright infringement of the stuff that you quoted a little of. You can, however, be expelled from Facebook. You probably cannot be sued for "accessing Facebook without permission". There is a federal law against unauthorized access of computer networks, and there was a failed attempt to construe violation of a TOS as "unauthorized access" – it isn't. But accessing Facebook necessarily involves copying (that's how computers work), and there is no "fair use" defense whereby everybody has a fair use right to access Facebook. Theoretically you could be sued for copyright infringement, for accessing Facebook's intellectual property without permission. Also, Facebook can rescind your permission to access their content (see this case), and once you have been banned, it is a crime to further access their network. This assumes that there is no overriding limit on contracts that would nullify a no-quoting condition. There is no such limit on contracts in the US, so such a contract would be enforceable. There is also nothing illegal (unenforceable) about a TOS which prohibits automated methods of access.	1) I saw that no where during registration you actually tell what your work does, you only fill up details, how exactly is it protecting you if you don't specify? For example I have a computer program/website that do something, how exactly the copyright protects you if you did not specify about it? A copyright protects a particular single expression of an idea and versions that are derived from that particular expression. When you copyright software you have to provide approximately 50 pages of printed code so as to make it possible to distinguish your code from someone else's and you generally deposit a full copy with the Library of Congress. The ideas in the computer program are not protected. You only protect the exact language of the code in the computer program and other programs that use that exact language as a starting point. If someone reverse engineers a way to achieve the same process or outcome with different code language (or even comes up with exactly the same code language without ever looking at the language used in your code) then their software does not infringe on your copyright. To protect the ideas in a computer program you need a patent. 2) If I am a non-us citizen, do I need to select in State "Non-US", or leave it blank on "Select"? Because it allows me to complete registration with either. State "Non-US" refers to where you are located, not to your citizenship. If you are located outside the U.S., then you select "Non-US" and if you are located in a U.S. state, but are a non-citizen, you select the state where you are located. The answer does not affect the validity of your copyright. It is used for economic statistics and to determine where the copyright office should locate its own offices to be maximally useful to the public.	No If YT#1 gets a license from artist A, that permits YT#1 to do whatever copying and reuse is stated in the license. It might be narrow or very broad. Usually such a license will only grant permission to the person who asked. Unless the license also grants permission to YT#2, or to some broader group which includes YT#2, YT#2 cannot claim any rights under such a license. Assuming that the license does not include him or her, YT#2 has the same rights as any member of the public would, but no more. In general, pitch raising a piece of music is a way of creating a derivative work. In the US, under 17 USC 106 one needs permission from the copyright owner to create a derivative work. Otherwise doing so is copyright infringement. The laws of other countries, and the Berne Copyright Convention have similar provisions on this point. Creating a derivative work requires permission in all countries that I know about. "Piggybacking" is not a thing in copyright law. A copyright owner can give permission (usually called a license) to any person or group of persons that the owner pleases. The permission does not extend to anyone else. This is true in all countries. I should be clear that YT#2 needs permission from both YT#1, and from A. The way the question is worded I have been assuming that YT#2 had permission from YT#1, but a comment from grovkin made it clear that I needed to be more explicit about this. It is possible for a license to permit a person to pass on the license to others. For example, all CC licenses and all copyleft and most open source licenses do this, and others could. But the license must explicitly grant such permission. The one way in which a person might create a derivative work without permission and without it being infringement is if an exception to copyright applies. In the US the main exception to copyright is fair use. See Is this copyright infringement? Is it fair use? What if I don't make any money off it? for more detail on fair use. Fair use decisions are made on a case by case basis, and generally depend on the detailed facts of the ase. But based on the limited info in the question, this would not qualify. It seems to use the whole piece of music, which tends to weigh against fair use. The new work does not seem to be transformative, that is, it seems to serve the same general purpose as the original. The new work might harm the economic value of the original, or might if many people did this. The original is creative, not factual. All of those weigh against fair use. Different countries have very different exceptions to copyright, and I do not know all of them. But the use described in the question does not seem to fit any that I know of. In any case, an exception to copyright applies to anyone, and does not depend on another person's license. It is thus never a form of "piggybacking". By the way, the question describes pitch raising ads "illegal". Making an unauthorized derivative work gives the copyright owner grounds to sue. If the owner does sue, and wins, s/he might be awarded money damages, and the court might issue an injunction ordering the infringer not to infringe again. But it would not normally be treated as a crime, and law enforcement would not be involved. In the US, only bulk copyright infringement, carried out as a business, is usually prosecuted (for example a factory churning out unauthorized music CDs).	It is still making a copy, and thus an infringement of copyright unless an exception, such as fair use or fair dealing, applies. But if in fact it is never distributed, the copyright owner will never hear of it, and thus will never sue. Remember that copyright infringement is, in all but a few extreme cases, a tort and not a crime. The basic law for the united-states is 17 USC 106. This grants to the copyright owner ... the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords; subject to various limitations, particularly those in 17 USC 107 where [tag:fair_use] is defined, as much as it is in statute. However, in 37 CFR § 201.40 an exemption to the anti-circumvention provision has been declared by the Librarian of Congress has determined, pursuant to 17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(1)(C) and (D), that noninfringing uses by persons who are users of [certain] works are, or are likely to be, adversely affected. This includes Motion pictures (including television shows and videos), as defined in 17 U.S.C. 101, where the motion picture is lawfully made and acquired on a DVD protected by the Content Scramble System, on a Blu-ray disc protected by the Advanced Access Content System, or via a digital transmission protected by a technological measure, and the person engaging in circumvention under paragraphs (b)(1)(i) and (b)(1)(ii)(A) and (B) of this section reasonably believes that non-circumventing alternatives are unable to produce the required level of high-quality content, or the circumvention is undertaken using screen-capture technology that appears to be offered to the public as enabling the reproduction of motion pictures after content has been lawfully acquired and decrypted, where circumvention is undertaken solely in order to make use of short portions of the motion pictures It is not so clear that it includews entire films for personal use.	There are a number of existing legal sites that do this, for free or for pay. The main concern for a website operator pertains to the DMCA "safe harbor" provisions, which protect against vicarious liability for infringement. A "report piracy" option is not sufficient; see this answer to a related question.	Seems unlikely that it will "forestall copyright infringement suits". Some jurisdictions, e.g the USA, say that "Works produced by mechanical processes or random selection without any contribution by a human author are not registrable". On the face of it, in such a jurisdiction copyright can't exist in a randomly generated work. Which the TED talk doesn't mention. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJtm0MoOgiU Let's imagine a case in a jurisdiction where copyright can exist in such a work. There is a dispute between two artists or labels. The plaintiff produced a well known tune and accuses the defendant of copying this work. The defendant says the plaintiff didn't have copyright in that work because it wasn't original in the first place, there is a 1200GB TAR file (compressed file) on GitHub that contains all possible single octave, 8-note, 12-beat melody combos, which were produced before the plaintiff's work. The plaintiff says, "like the majority of the population I never heard of GitHub, let alone downloaded, uncompressed a 1200GB file and listened to every melody." That's all aside from plaintiffs or lawyers deciding they have a case or believing the mere threat of civil proceedings will cause the alleged infringer to acquiesce to their demands. I think they are making a point about the law rather than a realistic means of thwarting copyright disputes. It's reasonable of the creators to say there is a finite set of melodies and the likelihood of inadvertently 'creating' the same melody as someone else may be smaller than we think, maybe copyright law has led to some unjust outcomes and led to a chilling effect on music-making.	I'm pretty sure in France you have moral rights and copyrights. I am writing from New Zealand, but we have some similar intellectual property laws due to being member countries of the World Intellectual Property Organisation. We are also both member countries of the World Trade Organisation (WTO has the TRIPS agreement which relates to IP). So my answer may or may not be right – check what it says in France's copyright acts: you should be able to search for terms like first owner, and moral rights, films/videos, etc. The school isn't your employer, and so the basic rule is that you as the author are automatically the first owner. Since you're not really at school to create anything or research for the school, I don't think the court would enforce a blanket term that you had to agree to that the school owns intellectual property in what you create. You probably own the copyright. You also have moral rights in what you have created, which means even if the school does own the copyright in your work, you can request they attribute it to you if they show it in public (online). Not all works have moral rights. However, in NZ if you create a film/video you do have moral rights in it.
Using fonts with a pirated version of Photoshop? Violating copyrighted materials? So Windows and Photoshop copyrighted most of their fonts. Now let's say my friend uses a pirated version of Photoshop and Windows and creates some photo with subtitle or a meme. Then what? Did he violate the copyrighted material and can now Microsoft sue him and have the court order him to take down these images?	The owner of the font copyright, who is probably not Microsoft, could (if the owner learns of the unauthorized use) sue for copyright infringement. The owner could, in the united-states, collect actual damages (probably the retail value of the fonts) or statutory damages, which can be anything from $750 to $30,000 as the court thinks just. In a case like the one above, probably closer to $750, if the owner thinks it worth bringing a suit at all, which is not highly likely. However, the owner would have no claim to own the infringer's creative works. But if the infringer makes money from using the fonts without a license, any profits could be included in the actual damages. Better to get licensed. Microsoft could similarly sue for the unlicensed copy of Windows, or Adobe for Photoshop. But mostly they just deny support. Again, even if they were to sue and win, they would have no claim on the infringer's creative works. Addition in response to comment: Nothing in Title 17 of the US Code would give the holder of the copyright on the fonts control over the creative work in such a case.. Using a font does not normally make a work in which it ism used a derivative work. 17 USC 106 gives the source holder the right to approve the making of derivative works, but not to own the derivative copyright, which is separate. If an unauthorized derivative work is created, that would be infringement (unless fair use or another defense applied) and the holder would be entitled to damages, but not to ownership of the copyright. Damages could include an injunction against further publication of the unauthorized derivative work, however.	Per a decision of the US Copyright Office last month, AI generated images are not subject to copyright. That means you can use the generated images for any purpose you want1, but so can anyone else. However, the specific usage of a given image might be protected - so if you put a caption on the image and arrange it in the form of a comic (as the artist in that example did), that specific text and arrangement can be protected, but the underlying image can't be. Laws may differ elsewhere in the world, but that's the current stance in the US. 1 Subject to any appropriate laws, including any copyright laws which the new image itself may violate. Just because the image isn't protected itself doesn't mean that it can't infringe on someone else's copyrights. See the other answer for more details.	united-states The composition of a photograph, a painting, or an image of any sort is one of the elements that can be protected by copyright, and indeed one of those aspects that make an image original and thus a proper subject of a copyright under US law. A new image that imitates the original and distinctive composition of another might be held to be a derivative work, and thus an infringement of copyright if done without permission. Note that the composition must be original. A photo of, say, two people standing side-by-side has been done many times, and would probably not have any distinctive element of composition. The images shown as part of the question look rather distinctive to me, but for all I know this is a cliche that has been done over and over. If this came to an actual lawsuit a defendant could present evidence showing the composition to have been previously used by others, and thus common coin, free for anyone to adopt. This would be similar to the Scènes à faire concept. Things that have been done over and over are not original and are thus not protectable by copyright. That would ultimately be a judgement for the court to make, dependent on the facts of a specific case. I suspect this answer is correct for the laws of many countries, but I can only confirm it for US copyright law.	Copyright almost certainly exists in the images, since presumably someone took those pictures and so they would own the copyright of those images. However, that doesn't mean you don't own the film, you just that don't own the copyright. You can have it developed to see what's there without copying the images. Just tell the developer you only want the film developed and for no prints to be made. If there's child pornography you could end up in a lot of hot water. While you'd be innocent of any crime, if the developer reports the images to the police you'll have to convince them that you had no idea what was on the film. It's extremely unlikely that there's anything untoward on the film however. I'd note however that unless the film is only a couple years old then it's likely the pictures have faded significantly. If it's ten or more years old, there might not be anything recognizable.	Yes, you can do that, assuming that the pictures are really in the public domain (i.e. due to their age, and not only claimed to be). But you probably shouldn't, but you'll probably want to add a label to the images anyway (what it depicts, who the original painter is, etc). So adding a "public domain" tag to each image shouldn't be a big issue. You can do that on a separate page as well, giving the source for each. Note that while using pd images does not create a copyright violation, even if you blatantly say that you created them yourself, it could still be considered plagiarism. When writing a science book or even a thesis, this could get you into trouble.	Copyright protection is about certain acts, and not about relationships between products. Copyright law says that the creator of an original work hold the exclusive right to copy and to authorize creation of derivative works. Copyright law does not say that anybody can freely create derivative works as long as they are different to a certain extent. So if you take an original Mario and modify it a teeny bit, that is a violation of copyright; if you take an original Mario and modify it hugely, that is a violation of copyright. Degree of similarity is relevant on some cases when the factual question arises whether the allegedly-infringing work is based on some protected original. This is most obvious in music cases, where all baroque music has some similarity to all other baroque music, all death metal has some similarity to all other death metal, and so on. There is not a legal quasi-statutory standard for measuring substantial similarity in music. The scientific underpinning of such a standard would be based on (weighted) combinatorics and the idea that there are only so many tunes possible (that would be a huge number, until you get to the "within a genre" condition). It seems obvious (by your "admission") that the derived works are based on protected works, so Nintendo's permission is required to legally create such works. However, you do or would hold copyright in your unauthorized derived work. Without a trail of evidence such as a SE question pointing to the connection, the derived images might be hard to connect to the originals. In addition, you may be able to avail yourself of a "fair use" defense, in case you get sued by the original creator. Factors favoring such a defense are the insubstantiality of the copying (a small portion) and the "transformativeness" of your creation.	No, the clause is correct. The reason it is put in is to protect the designer from the client's mistakes (or lies) about whether the material the client wants to use is copyrighted. To see how this works, suppose the client gives the designer a photo, and says she has the rights to it. It turns out the client doesn't have rights, and the true owner sues. The designer will undoubtedly be named in the suit. This clause will probably not protect the designer against the true owner, so she may end up having to pay damages. However, this clause gives the designer grounds to sue the client to recover any damages she suffers.	You might be able to use a site like the Internet Archive to preserve the TOC even after the site is shut down. The real liability trap here is if the site does not have the authority to give you this license. If a user uploads a photo that they do not own, and you use it, you are infringing the copyright of the original owner. Innocent infringement is not a defense to liability (although it may reduce damages in some cases.)
At an unlawful traffic stop, police searches the car and find the weapon used in a recent murder Say that a murder was committed. Some time after, without any justifiable reason (perhaps on a hunch, or just by coincidence), a police officer stops a car, unlawfully searches it and stumbles upon the weapon used in the recent murder. What would happen in this case? Is the murder weapon inadmissible? If so, what would happen to the driver, who was most likely the murderer? Can the police arrest him, and investigate him with the hope of finding other evidence that would be enough to sentence him for the murder, despite the inadmissibility of the actual weapon? Or is the murderer in practice immune from being charged for this case, since the weapon cannot be tied to him? If the weapon is considered inadmissible, is it returned to the suspect? If yes, would it also be returned even if it is of a type that the suspect is not legally allowed to own? Is the weapon permanently inadmissible for all future, or could it be used in a later court proceeding?	So, lets say for argument's sake the search is illegal (we'll discuss scenario later). Is the murder weapon inadmissible? No. Evidence seized in an illegal search is inadmissible for use in court, as to allow it would reward the state for breaking the law. At time of arrest it's still evidence and depending on what other evidence comes out might not be inadmissible (More on this later). If the knife is the only thing linking the driver to the murder, then it's inadmissible. What would happen to the driver, who was most likely the murderer? At this stage, the driver might be arrested and charged... inadmissibility is a matter for pre-trial motions, which takes place after the cop made the search. Whether the guy is a murder or not, he is a suspect who has been accused. Can the police arrest him, and investigate him with the hope of finding other evidence that would be enough to sentence him for the murder, despite the inadmissibility of the actual weapon? This all takes place before the inadmissibility of evidence is declared, so they certainly could investigate the guy, cuff him, read him his rights, book him, Danno, and put him in jail to help build their case. HOWEVER, if the knife is the only thing linking the man to the crime, then all of this becomes what's called "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree". Because the knife was used as the sole evidence to secure search warrants against the suspect, and should the knife become inadmissible, anything that resulted from the execution of the warrants is itself inadmissible. is the murderer in practice immune from being charged for this case, since the weapon cannot be tied to him? Not entirely. Rarely is a murder weapon needed to secure a conviction. Not only that, but while the search is illegal, there is an exception called "Inevitable Discovery" which holds that evidence seized illegally initially may still be admissible if the cops can show that the legally obtained evidence would have led to the knife. Suppose they had CCTV footage and captured the man entering the area of the scene and found out he had a connection to the victim, and got a warrant that would have included his car... that would mean the knife is admissible even if the search was illegal. If the weapon is considered inadmissible, is it returned to the suspect? If yes, would it also be returned even if it is of a type that the suspect is not legally allowed to own? Yes to both, though when it would be returned is subject to possible use in other investigations. Additionally, while I don't know of any knife ban laws in the U.S., there are examples of contraband seized by arrest for a different offense was not returned when the initial offense was overturned on appeal, meaning the contraband evidence was no longer validly seized and thus that half of the case was overturned... but the defendant wasn't returned his drugs. Is the weapon permanently inadmissible for all future, or could it be used in a later court proceeding? No. I'm starting to suspect I know the TV show and episode that inspired this question, but the search violated suspect 1's rights and thus was inadmissible for his trial. However, if a second suspect was discovered as the evidence was developed, and the investigation lead to the knife (say... suspect 2 had access to suspect 1's car... like say... through his job at a car wash that suspect 1 was patronizing... and planted the knife in suspect 1's car to frame him) then the knife is admissible because of inevitable discovery rule. Now, the TV Show I alluded too, and you'll forgive me as it's been a while, the events were that the cop pulled over suspect 1 for a valid reason (busted tail light, intentionally done by suspect 2 to get attention) and saw the knife on the backseat of the car, which is not a violation of search and seizure rules. The bloody knife was in plain view and gave probable cause to arrest and search the entirety of the car. If you leave evidence in a place where the officer can see it, they can seize it in a car at least. Places like the glove box, under the seats, or the trunk would properly hide it and not allow the officer to search the car, but through the windows is just fine.	The officers could incur liability under 28 U.S.C. 2680 (h) with jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1346 (b). This would probably be considered "loss of property" or a "wrongful act". It is very rare for cases to go forward for this because of the costs of litigation against an officer. "[I]t is well recognized that ‘officers executing search warrants on occasion must damage property in order to perform their duty.’" Cody v. Mello, 59 F.3d 13, 16 (2d Cir. 1995) (quoting Dalia v. United States, 441 U.S. 238, 258 (1979)). “Before any due process liability can be imposed for property damage occurring in a lawful search, it must be established that the police acted unreasonably or maliciously in bringing about the damage.” Cody, 59 F.3d at 16. That actually means that the burden of proof is on the victim to show unreasonableness / maliciousness. It would probably be easier if the thing destroyed could not possibly have contained the item looked for. For instance, if they are looking for a 65" LED TV, they can't even look in a 64" dresser (or something smaller than the object that could not physically hold the object). This issue becomes moot when dealing with drugs.	Would any offence be committed for: Having this on your person? Buying or selling this? Leaving it around for people to plug in to a computer? In the abstract, I don't think that this conduct would violate either Section 36 of the U.K. law or U.S. law, although, obviously, purposefully destroying a computer itself (i.e. actually using the device without the consent of the owner of the computer) would violate many U.K. laws and would also violate many U.S. laws at both the state and federal level. I also don't think that possession or buying or selling this product would be a crime absent some intent that it be used illegally, in which case there might be an "attempt" to commit a crime offense, or an offense that would make one part of a conspiracy to commit a crime. In the "leaving it around" example, there is arguably an intent to use it to harm another improperly, although the phrasing is ambivalent. While many statutes in the U.S. criminalize possession of burglary tools, or drug paraphernalia, sometimes with an associated intent element (although even these crimes often have an express or judicially implied intent to use element), I'm not aware of any statute that criminalize possession of tools for malicious destruction of property. So, if the tools aren't possessed or used in a manner intended as a step in the facilitation of a crime, I don't think that any law is violated. So far as I know, the U.S. does not have a counterpart to Section 37 of the British statute cited above (it isn't a terribly easy thing to search for to definitively rule out the existence of such a law because federal law has many uncodified crimes in unexpected statutes and there are many sets of state criminal statutes, not all of which are codified either). The example giving in the comments by @gnasher729 of possession of a hammer which could be used to do the same things that this object could be used to do is instructive. Arguably, this USB-like tool is more specifically targeted at malicious conduct. But, for example, when I used to work as a radio news reporter, we had a machine that was basically a high powered magnet that was specifically designed to destroy all information on magnetic media. This was, in part, so that it could be reused, but it was also so that confidential interviews wouldn't fall into the wrong hands once they were no longer needed, in much the way that one might shred paper documents. It isn't so implausible to think that a device like this one might be necessary for individuals or firms with national defense secrets embedded in their hardware and software to have on hand in order to destroy a sensitive computer in order to prevent a security breach, if necessary. In a case like that, leaving one of these devices around the office unlabeled might be negligent, but wouldn't have the intent necessary to be an intended crime. And, it is hard to imagine that the device itself, which seems pretty simple, would itself involve any technology that is a national security secret, so it probably wouldn't violate export control laws. Of course, possession, purchase or sale of such a specialized device, or leaving it around unlabeled would certainly be powerful evidence of an intent to use the device in a wrongful manner, and hence, of an attempt to commit a crime. Indeed, possession of such a device or purchase of one might very well be sufficient to establish probable cause to seize the device and arrest the person holding it on charges of an attempt to destroy a computer. But, this device would be merely powerful evidence of an intent to commit a crime, rather than something that is a crime to commit in and of itself. There are no international laws that govern this kind of thing. The only international laws applicable to individuals pertain to war crimes and nuclear and chemical weapons. Even then, most international laws direct member nations to adopt domestic laws on the subject rather than being self-executing.	In general in the US, anyone may photograph anyone else if they are all in a public place, although in some states such a photo may not be used commercially without permission, which must often be paid for and may be refused. It is unusual for police to photograph people on the street, but they might want to document who was present at a particular place and time. They can do so, but I am not at all sure that they can prevent a person from covering his or her face, or turning his or her back, or charge a person who does so with obstruction. I don't think so. Under some circumstances in the US police may ask a person for identification, and may charge a person who refuses to provide it. This varied from one state to another, and usually depends on the specific circumstances. (If a person is driving an automobile, police may demand to see a driver's license, for example.) Unless a police officer puts a person under arrest, the officer has no general right to control that person's actions, beyond instructing the person not to interfere with ongoing police work. I do not think an obstruction charge would hold up for covering one's face or turning away in the absence of an arrest.	None of the factors you list about Charlie committing a crime, about to commit a crime* or being responsible for the officer's injury apply to whether or not Bob can shoot Charlie on behalf of the officer. On the other hand, if Charlie's actions lead Bob to the reasonable belief that Charlie represents an imminent threat of death or grave bodily injury to anyone then Bob will be justified in using force, including deadly force, to stop Charlie. I'm aware of many states that also allow the use of deadly force to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony. A normal citizen can go to great lengths to assist the police and stories of citizens coming to the aid of police officers are easily found. There may be some reason the police officer felt the need to use deadly force against Charlie. Bob will need to make his own determination based on all the factors available to him, which may include communication from the officer. If Bob decides to shoot Charlie then an investigation will center on whether it was reasonable for Bob to deduce that the use of deadly force was justified given the information available to Bob at the time. Some states have laws that penalize refusal to aid a police officer. A list of them can be found on this wikipedia page. Notably, California just repealed their statute requiring assistance. *The statutes of some states allow the use of deadly force to prevent the commission of felonies, typically forcible felonies. However, just because a crime is listed as a forcible felony doesn't always mean that deadly force can be used to stop the crime. An example comes from Florida where the statutes state that deadly force can be used to stop forcible felonies, the statutes also define burglary as a forcible felony. However, the courts have ruled that the use of such force is not reasonable where the structure being burglarized is unoccupied.	There are some complexities here, and several possibilities. First of all, it seems from the question that: There were not any "exigent circumstances" or any other special situation which would justify making a search without a warrant (there are several circumstances which can justify a warrantless search, but none are mentioned in the question). The police had no probable cause, indeed not even any reasonable suspicion. Thus the police had no valid reason even to request a warrant, and if they had asked for one, they should have been refused. No resident of the house consented to any search at any point. The police had no honest belief that they were acting lawfully. They knew, or any reasonable police officer should have known, that they were acting unlawfully. Now, let us consider some of the possibilities left open by the question. For purposes of discussion, let us assume that the house was owned by Bob and Carol, and no one else lived in it. There are several possibilities. Case One: The evidence appears to implicate Bob. Bob is charged, and Bob's lawyer Joan makes a timely motion to suppress the evidence. The judge should hold a suppression hearing, and under these conditions, should suppress the evidence. The trial will go forward without it, or be dismissed if there is not enough other evidence to proceed. Case Two: Much like Case One, but another group of police officers had good reason to suspect Bob, and was already in the process of preparing a request for a warrant, supported by valid probable cause. Had the first group not searched the house unlawfully, the second group would have obtained a valid warrant and found the evidence under its authority. In this situation, known as inevitable discovery the evidence would be admitted, and the unlawful search will not matter. Case Three: The evidence implicates Fred, not Bob or Carol. Fred did not live in the house, but had asked Carol to store some boxes for him. Carol did not know what was in them. Fred has no privacy rights to the house. Bob or Carol could have lawfully consented to a search, and Fred would have no grounds to object. Fred has no grounds to suppress the evidence, as Fred's rights were not violated, and Fred cannot assert Bob or Carol's rights. A trial of Fred would proceed as if the search had been lawful. Bob and Carol may have grounds for a Section 1983 lawsuit against the police for violation of their rights, but that will not help Fred. Case Four: The evidence appears to implicate Bob. The police arrest Bob, and tell him that they have a case against him, and that if he does not confess, they will also arrest Carol as an accomplice. (They lie, but Bob believes them.) Bob pleads guilty. The unlawful search is never raised, and Bob is sentenced as if it had been lawful. Case Five: The evidence appears to implicate Bob. Bob's lawyer Joan fails to request a suppression hearing, or to object at trial to the evidence from the unlawful search. Or more likely, instead of going to trial, Bob's lawyer arranges a plea bargain without raising the issue of the search. Bob is convicted as if the search had been lawful. Bob may have a valid appeal on the grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel, as Joan should have known better. Case Six: The evidence appears to implicate Bob. But the police have other evidence as well. Bob's lawyer raises the issue of the unlawful search. However, the prosecutor convinces Bob's lawyer Joan that they can probably convict Bob even without the evidence from the search. Joan arranges a plea bargain, and Bob accepts it. Bob will be sentenced under the plea deal, and nothing will be done about the unlawful search, except that Bob may get a somewhat better deal because the authorities do not want it exposed in court. Note that only in cases One and Five will a possibly guilty person possibly go free because of the unlawful search, and it is by no means certain even there. It is also possible that a judge will wrongly admit the evidence in a Case One situation. This is likely to be corrected on appeal, with the unlawfulness as blatant as the question assumes. In a case where the unlawfulness is more marginal, this is less sure.	I'm not sure what jurisdiction you're referring to, but here are the state involuntary manslaughter laws. Broad brush, the elements tend to be: Someone was killed as a result of act by the defendant. The act either was inherently dangerous to others or done with reckless disregard for human life. The defendant knew or should have known his or her conduct was a threat to the lives of others. However, you're really backwards planning from a jail vs. army decision, so you might actually be after something like felony hit and run, which can most certainly result in incarceration. The elements of felony hit and run generally include leaving the scene of an accident regardless of fault (hit and run typically becomes a felony when someone was injured in the accident). Since the elements vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, it makes sense to look them up wherever the accident will take place in the book. If it takes place in the U.S. this is a state-by-state compendium. Then you can tweak the story to satisfy the applicable elements and induce the jail vs. army decision (even if army policy prohibits it, it's still pretty common fiction!).	The pawn shop has the "use of property" of their own premises. The pawn shop has obviously the right to examine the gun to determine its value, for example, or to clean it if it needs cleaning to avoid damage, or to show it to a potential customer. And the pawn shop is allowed to let the police onto their own premises, even without a search warrant.
Hospitalized person in custody. Not allowed ANY FORM of communication My wife had an altercation with her son: he shoved her and she broke her hip. We called the police because he was out of control. She tried to stop him from flattening tires on his wife's car, however the police had to arrest her since she put her hands on him first. They didn't want to but said they had to arrest her. Now she's in hospital with 2 officers in her room. I tried to visit and got kicked out. She had booking ink on her hands and they said she was in custody. I can't call her either. I called the jail and they were no help on writing to her either. I really need to find a way to communicate with her. The police said it will almost certainly be nolle prosed. But I cannot find anyway to communicate with her. Also dont they only have 48 hours to hold her without formal charge? So my question is: any ideas on communication? I was considering serving her with some type of legal document. I think they have to allow that. Any ideas there? My other question what about her right to a speedy trial? She doesn't show on their system as being in custody or charged. Don't they only have 48 hours? This is all so stupid, she is the one who called the police to begin with. She has serious medical conditions beside her hip as well. Is there any way to establish communications?	The way to establish communication is through her lawyer. You may or may not have a right to talk to her while she's "in custody," but her lawyer would.	IMO this is a perfectly reasonable question, amenable to a common law analysis: (1) indicates that A has committed the tort of false imprisonment (Restatement of Torts, 2d, §35). Because of 2-4, we can see that A intends to confine B (though vide infra). The confinement is complete (§36), this being a single aisle plane although the same would be true if this was a 5-aisle plane. A has no authority to confine B (§ 41) and is not otherwise privileged, and is accomplished with a physical barrier (§38). B knows that he has been confined (§42). B is "privileged to use any means of self-defense to protect himself against confinement which he is privileged to use to protect himself against a harmful or offensive contact or other bodily harm" (§68). B uses reasonable and minimal force not likely or intended to cause death or serious bodily harm (§63), force which is privileged and thus protects B from being subject to liability (§10). A commits the tort of battery (and a second round of false imprisonment) by taking B down (§13). A is not privileged to use force in self-defense. There is no reasonable belief that B will spontaneously turn on A and use further, unprivileged force – A is simply punishing B for his minimal use of force in self defense, so A's final act is not privileged. There is a related but distinct scenario that adds a material fact, which could change the analysis: C calls out "Excuse me, my flight flight leaves in 15 minutes, may I pass?" whereby A allows C to step ahead of him in the queue. A has no obligation to let anyone jump the queue, but may consent to inconsequential contact which might constitute battery. It is reasonable to conclude that there is apparent consent (§50) given to anyone (§52) when A makes way ("making way" is a publicly-available fact, but "for C to pass" is a private fact of A's state of mind which B cannot reasonably infer: except, B has heard the "May I pass?" request). So the analysis really hinges on how to interpret 2 and 4. Coupled with 6, we (jurors) have a preponderance of evidence showing that A intended to confine B, and battered him when his confinement failed.	Legally you face no problem. The section 66A of the Indian IT Act, which used to be previously misused for penalizing anyone who dared insult a politician, has been struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of India. But the police could still detain you for 48 hours (legally) without giving any grounds; they are required to do that, but the police are seldom held accountable. The supporters of the said politician can vandalize your home and office without fear of legal action. I am not a lawyer. Whatever is posted above is my opinion and data that I believe to be true to the best of my knowledge and resources available to me. Please contact a lawyer for professional advice.	If I were a DA (District Attorney) looking out "stamp out" statutory rape, I would make the rounds of the hospitals, identify women who gave birth, or were impregnated when underaged, and go from there. But few, if any DAs, do this. No, you wouldn't. First, you have neither the time nor the budget to do this. Second hospitals are not public property, you would need a warrant which the court won't give you because you don't have probable cause to believe a crime has or is being committed. As a DA, I would of course, follow up on any complaints lodged by the victim, or even by her/his parents. And maybe I would prosecute a case where people were "caught in the act, or there were nude pictures, etc. May even an especially egregious PDA (public display of affection). No, you wouldn't. You would follow up on complaints to the extent that you have the time, budget and manpower to do so and you would prosecute cases where you believe that you have a reasonable prospect of getting a conviction and where prosecution is, in your opinion, in the public interest. In the real world, that means where the police hand you a brief of evidence that is a lay-down misere and (for statutory rape) where there is a real power imbalance between the perpetrator and the victim - giving 2 willing 15 year old kids the label of 'sex offender' for life is probably not in the public interest. But suppose there were no complaints or smoking guns. Could someone investigate based on something like a teenager "holding hands" with someone much older? To make the question objective, what has historically caused DAs to prosecute people outside of the above parameters? With some exceptions, it is not the role of the DA to initiate or conduct investigations of criminal actions - that is the role of law enforcement officers, usually for this particular crime, police officers. Notwithstanding, the general rule in western, liberal democracies (which the United States, with a certain generosity of spirit, can still be considered) is that citizens are allowed to get on with their lives without day-to-day interference from the state. That is, law enforcement officers do not 'go fishing' for crimes, they investigate crimes that they have a probable cause to believe have actually happened, either because they themselves saw it happen or someone has reported it to them as having happened. The term for having a law enforcement officer following you around waiting for you to break the law is 'harassment' and may itself be illegal. A law enforcement officer can initiate an investigation based on anything but as no law enforcement agency has unlimited resources, they tend to follow only those investigations that might lead somewhere. For example, it has been known for parents to hold the hands of their children and even to publicly display affection towards them and parents are often "much older" then their children - this would not generally be grounds for initiating a statutory rape investigation.	The government must have reasonable suspicion to stop you and ask you questions. The government must have probable cause to arrest you. The government cannot question you if you have invoked your 5th Amendment rights The government must release you if you post bail which is set by a magistrate in some cases but can be posted without conferring with a magistrate for many minor offenses for which the amount is set in advance. Also, you can only be constitutionally held for a certain period of time without appearing before a court for an initial appearance at which you are charged and typically you have an attorney assigned for you if you cannot afford one. Generally speaking a lawyer for a defendant will either post bail on behalf of the client, or will seek to invoke the client's 5th Amendment right to silence and 6th Amendment right to counsel (including the right of a lawyer to visit his client in jail) making further detention much less useful, while challenging law enforcement to articulate probable cause for the arrest with the implication that a civil lawsuit and suppression of evidence and loss of credibility with the local judge could follow if they fail to do so. If the client is not brought before a court by the constitutional deadline (unusual, but not unheard of), the lawyer can bring this to the attention of the court and have the court demand that his client be brought before the court. Of course, strictly speaking the defense lawyer can't force the police to do anything. Instead, the defense lawyer persuades the police to do something based upon what a court is likely to do, or has already done, as a result of their conduct so far. Also, of course, it isn't always possible for a lawyer to get his client out of jail. If the police do have probable cause and the offense is not one for which bail is set in advance, it is not possible for the client to be released until bail is set by a judicial officer such as a magistrate and bail (if granted at all) is posted, which may be beyond the client's means in the case of a serious offense, particularly if the client is considered by the magistrate to be a flight risk. On TV and books, the person that the police have arrested is usually someone that the police had no probable cause to arrest but suspect of a crime anyway, and the police usually fold when called on the fact that they lack probable cause by the lawyer. Less commonly, on TV and in books, the lawyer facilitates the payment of bail on behalf of his client.	First off: if someone in DHS is telling you this, your first, best, and really only option is to get advice from an attorney specializing in family law. Regardless of what we tell you here, without representation you will have a hard time with officials who believe otherwise. That said: I don't find anything exactly matching what you describe. The Uniform Adoption Code (AR Code § 9-9-200 (2014)) does not specifically address sibling groups at all. Adoptive parents do have rights to streamlined adoption of a sibling of a child they already adopted, under the Streamlined Adoption act (AR Code § 9-9-701 (2014)). In the section related to Placement of Minors (AR Code § 9-28-108 (2014)), however, is likely what the case worker was describing. Subsection (b) (2) reads, in part: (2) When it is in the best interest of each of the juveniles, the department shall attempt to place: (A) A sibling group together while they are in foster care and adoptive placement This is discussing foster care and adoptive placement, of course. I think the key wording is When it is in the best interest of each of the juveniles; that would be your argument (that it is not in their best interest). I see a 2011 case, for example, discussing a sibling group of four children not entirely different from yours; while there are not children with special needs, there is a child with major behavioral issues, and one of the (three) foster parents is considering adopting one of the children and "would be open" to considering others, but clearly isn't expecting to be required to do so. Note: I am not a lawyer, and particularly not one specialized in family law This is based on my reading of the 2014 Arkansas code. That is almost 2 years old. That said, I don't see any news articles or similar discussing limitations in sibling group placement in Arkansas recently, which is the sort of thing that usually would get attention. That said, this has also been something that HHS has been trying to encourage states to push for – more sibling group placement and awareness of sibling group issues – so it's entirely possible something could have changed.	"Does the needlessly obnoxious and antisocial manner in which they're behaving and clearly drugged intoxication create any kind of charge like disturbing the peace or something like that?" Probably. But you don't want to take the law into your own hands. Call the police and have them make the judgement. There is a lot of discretion involved; some police officers may simply tell the preacher to move on; others may detain him on public intoxication or being a nuisance, according to local and UK laws, as well as check for permits and licenses for street/public performances. Many people gathered around the busker to express support and appreciation for him as well as disgust toward the preachers unnecessary disrespect. That's well within rights, as long as the behavior doesn't degrade into the same type(s) that the preacher is exhibiting and possibly be a nuisance or worse (i.s., assault) as per the law.	This is a fun one. I don't have any particular domain knowledge about this question. So this one is just a guess. My answer is strictly from a practical standpoint. If I were faced with this situation in real life, what would I do? (Technical point: I feel the vagueness of the language, "Is he allowed to" allows me to answer this way.) My assumptions: My assumptions are that: The cost of consulting an attorney on the matter or filing a law suit would likely exceed the combined total cost of the bike and the lock. Usually, the law follows what "feels right" and what makes common sense to the average person. Usually. Not always. But usually. (Legal principles: "Equity follows the law." and "Equity does not aid a party at fault." See this reference.) What I would do: So, I would do the following... (if I were in the U.S.) I would simply cut the bike lock and repossess my bike (unilaterally) if and only if all the following conditions were true in the situation: I could confirm without any doubt that the bike in question is actually my bike and not just another one that looks just like it. I could not find anyone around who looks like they might be the owner of the lock or the other bike. If I could find the owner of either the lock or the bike it is highly likely there was some mistake and the situation could be resolved directly with them. There are no law officers nearby. If so, I would engage them in helping me rectify the matter. If they said it was a "civil matter" and refused to get involved, I would proceed to the next item on this list. I had the tools handy and available to cut or break the lock. If any of the above conditions were false, I would flag down the nearest law officer or call one to the scene to help resolve the issue. Any other approach would seem impractical to me on the basis of my above assumption numbered 1. If I were anywhere outside the U.S., I would involve the local authorities without considering the unilateral repossession option.
What is the difference between obtaining title to a car and registering a car? In the United States, a person can obtain a government-issued "certificate of title" for a car. There is also a "registration" process, and there are registration forms. What is the difference between a certificate of title, and registration forms?	The short answer: The title is, more or less, a record of who "owns" the vehicle. It's you if you own it free and clear, the dealer if you're leasing it, and it depends what state you're in if you're financing the car. The registration is a permit to operate the vehicle. In all three situations above, you would hold the registration (you could also not register your vehicle if you're not using it, for instance by filing for a certificate of non-operation in California).	I couldn't find any decisions on CanLII where someone was punished for a fictitious or out-of-province front plate in Alberta, however the Traffic Safety Act states the following: 1(1)(s) “licence plate” means a licence plate that is issued under this Act and includes an object that is recognized under this Act as a licence plate; (9) For the purposes of sections 1(1)(rr) and 11.1 and Part 8, licence plate includes a licence plate issued in another jurisdiction. 53(1) Except as otherwise permitted under this Act, a person shall not do any of the following: (b) display on a motor vehicle or trailer a licence plate other than a licence plate issued or authorized for use on that vehicle; (c) operate or park a motor vehicle or trailer on a highway with an expired licence plate displayed on it; (Part 8) 168(1) If a peace officer has reasonable grounds to believe (a) that a vehicle is displaying licence plates that (i) were not issued for that vehicle . . . the peace officer may seize and take possession of the licence plates displayed on that vehicle. 169(1) A peace officer may arrest a person without warrant if the peace officer, on reasonable grounds, believes . . . (2) For the purposes of subsection (1), the following are the provisions for which a person may be arrested without a warrant: (c) section 53(1)(b) relating to the displaying of a licence plate other than one authorized under this Act; While the connection of the extended definition in s.9 to s.53(1) is a little vague, the connection to Part 8 is not, and therefore I can confidently say that the Act clearly states it is a violation to use out-of-province plates on the front of a vehicle. The plates can be seized and you may be arrested. It may further be a violation of the BC Motor Vehicle Act if/when you travel there.	Governmental disclosure of information on death certificates is controlled by state law. In Washington, vital records are controlled by RCW 70.58A. §520 limits the possible recipients of such records. One category is "for research", which involves a review that covers guarantees of confidentiality among other things. §530 allows certain other disclosures, specifically to (a) The decedent's spouse or domestic partner, child, parent, stepparent, stepchild, sibling, grandparent, great grandparent, grandchild, legal guardian immediately prior to death, legal representative, authorized representative, or next of kin as specified in RCW 11.28.120; (b) A funeral director, the funeral establishment licensed pursuant to chapter 18.39 RCW, or the person having the right to control the disposition of the human remains under RCW 68.50.160 named on the death record, within twelve months of the date of death; or (c) A government agency or court, if the certification will be used in the conduct of the agency's or court's official duties. and additionally (10) The state or local registrar may issue a short form certification of death that does not display information relating to cause and manner of death to a qualified applicant. In addition to the qualified applicants listed in subsection (9) of this section, a qualified applicant for a short form certification of death includes: (a) A title insurer or title insurance agent handling a transaction involving real property in which the decedent held some right, title, or interest; or (b) A person that demonstrates that the certified copy is necessary for a determination related to the death or the protection of a personal or property right related to the death. Then finally, and this is as close to a "public information" clause that you get, (17) The state or local registrar must issue an informational copy from the central vital records system to anyone. Informational copies must contain only the information allowed by rule. Informational copies of death records must not display information related to cause and manner of death. Vital records are specifically exempted from the Public Records Act. California also allows disclosure of a subset of death certificate information. The records are exempt from mandatory disclosure under the California Public Records Act, but the registrar will release "noncomprehensive death record indices for public release shall be comprised of first, middle, and last name, sex, date of birth, place of birth, place of death, date of death, and father’s last name". One would first have to determine what state a person died in, in case that state has fewer restrictions on disclosing personal information.	What you are describing may be the crime of insurance fraud: to avoid that, you would have to admit to the insurance company that you put a "Please steal me" sign in an unlocked car with the keys in the ignition, in a high-crime area. If we remove some of the elements of the scenario and reduce this to "leaving the keys in the ignition", this would probably be be considered contributory negligence, meaning that you failed to act prudently to protect your property. This can reduce the amount that the insurance company has to pay you. At this point, it depends on what state you're in, since sometimes a little bit of negligence (in Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia) means that you may get nothing. However, negligence hinges on an assessment of the actions and intentions of a party, and what you describe isn't "neglect", there is the direct intent that the car be stolen. Insurance policies exclude coverage for intentional loss. So the bottom line would be that the person would be out a car, and could be in prison for fraud if they did not reveal what they actually did. One should assume that the thieves took a lulz video of the sign before they stole the car, and posted it on FaceTube where it entered the viral hall of fame and was used against you in a court of law, so fraud is the worst choice. An alternative if you have a car is to donate it to charity, and take a tax write-off.	How Are Liability And Insurance Matters Usually Disclosed? Normally, in a car sharing arrangement, you must establish a membership or account with the car sharing firm that includes all of the terms and conditions of the agreement between the parties (at least by reference to a document that you acknowledge that you have had an opportunity to read), often in connection with downloading an app necessary to use the service. I also strongly suspect (as a comment below indicates) that if you dug around enough on the firm's webpage that a link to the relevant terms and conditions could be found, even if it wasn't in the most obvious place. But, this information will often not be on the firm's main landing page of their website, and can instead often only be reached with multiple clicks and/or drop down menus. Sometimes this is called a "terms of service", sometimes this is called a "master agreement", sometimes it is called a "membership agreement" or "account agreement". My list of names for this agreement is not exhaustive. Often these terms are also described elsewhere in simplified form, such as a "how to" brochure, or information that is posted on the interior of the vehicle itself or in a sleeve of documents in the car. Usually, in the course of the sign up process there would typically be a box to click and a link or scrollable portion of the screen at which you can review all of those terms and conditions which are the terms of the contract. What Must Advertising Say And Why? It is not generally necessary for the advertising itself to disclose every term and condition and detail of the arrangement. Generally speaking, an advertisement is considered merely an "invitation to make an offer" to enter into a contract, rather than an offer which can be accepted directly and form a contract. Of course, a particular jurisdiction's legislature certainly has the power to require that a car sharing company disclose liability and insurance information in a particular fashion set forth in a statute or regulation, if that jurisdiction's legislative body chooses to do so. Even when these issues are mentioned in advertising (even when some disclosure is required by law in adverising), usually this would be in the form of a sentence that incorporates another document by reference like "Additional terms and conditions, including terms and conditions related to liability and insurance, that can be found at . . . . apply." This is due to the practical reality that TV and radio ads are usually just 15-60 seconds allowing about 25-100 words or perhaps a few more if the announcer speaks quickly, and that ads in print or on a screen also typically have room for only a very small amount of text. Websites, in principle, provide an effectively infinite amount of capacity to host content, but considerations of ease of website use and the need to make the landing page striking for marketing purposes (as well as the need to make websites mobile user friendly when that is the only way that many Internet users can access the web) usually relegates the legal terms of the agreement to less attention grabbing locations. Often, these terms are disclosed more conspicuously when the terms and conditions change materially, something that often has its own little PR campaign accompanying it. Unilaterally Imposed Contracts of Adhesion One reason that disclosure isn't such a huge issue is that car share agreements are almost always mass produced, not up for negotiation, "contracts of adhesion" that only senior management of the firm has the authority to modify. In the case of these intangible contractually agreed services, the terms of the agreement are more akin to a non-negotiable product design than to the paradigmatic haggled legal agreement between parties. Thus, a customer has only two choices. Use the service according to the standard terms, or don't use the service. Given this reality, the average buyer of the services relies upon the market place rejecting contracts of adhesion with bad terms, upon testimonials (good and bad) from prior users of the service, and upon media publicity for notorious terms or incidents that makes it look like the business doesn't treat it customers well, to keep the agreements reasonable, rather than upon individualized decisions to use or not use the service based upon a detailed review of the contract terms. There are legal doctrines pertaining to contracts of adhesion that invalidate terms that are unconscionable or not within the reasonable expectation of a consumer unless those terms of conspicuously disclosed. A classic example, for example, would be that a car share agreement that imposed extraction of a kidney as a fine for being one days late in paying an invoice would be void as a matter of law, even if the referenced document said so in bold large face type and the customer clicked a box acknowledging having read the agreement. What Happens If There Is No Agreement Or Disclosure? If there was never a step at which the terms and conditions were disclosed or accepted, then the default rules of law pertaining to personal property leasing, together with the laws pertaining to automobile accidents and insurance (both statutory and case law) in the jurisdiction in question. In almost all cases, liability to third parties for accidents is generally a matter of tort law or statute imposed by the government, rather than being something that can be modified by agreement. Also, usually the government imposes minimum insurance requirements and the owner of the car also has an incentive (and often a legal requirement) to have car insurance in force. In the United States, the default rules of law pertaining to personal property leasing, are set forth in Article 2A of the Uniform Commercial Code, which has been adopted in every U.S. State, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and each self-governing U.S. territory with its own internal laws. In countries Europe or Latin American or Asia known as "civil law" countries (i.e. in those countries outside the British common law tradition, the Islamic law legal tradition, tribal or clan or caste law, or legal systems with communist regime roots established in the 20th century), the equivalent default rules of law (governing personal property leases, contracts to provide services, leases and insurance) would be contained in either a civil code or a commercial code of that country in most cases. In common law countries, the contractual agreements tend to be longer than the default provisions of law are skinnier. In civil law countries, the reverse is true. A hybrid of these two approaches which also limits the need of customers to monitor contract terms is the regulatory model commonly used in the insurance industry in the United States takes the reality that contracts of adhesion are the norm and gives it a regulatory twist. In this hybrid model, all of the boilerplate language of every insurance contract down to the last word of non-customized or only semi-customized language, and often fee schedules as well, must be substantively improved by a state agency that regulates insurance. In these models, a public official negotiates the terms of the contracts with the firms, subject to intervention in and participation in the process by industry associations and non-profits or interested individuals on behalf of consumers or other interested parties. In these hybrid systems, the approved contract language which can't be modified in the boilerplate language by either the firms or the customers, is on file with the regulatory agency and provides constructive notice to all parties in much the same way as a statute or government regulation. If not enough material terms of the agreement (e.g. the rental rate) were disclosed to form a contract, then there would be no enforcement contractual arrangement involved in the car share and the car share company would have to rely on the law of unjust enrichment to recover the fair market value of the services provided in each case, which as a practical matter, wouldn't be viable as a business model. Distinctions Between The Two Kinds Of Car Sharing Arrangements There is some ambiguity in the question because there are a couple main types of car sharing arrangements. One is more like a rental car and you drive the vehicle yourself (Car2Go is one of them). In this case, the firm typically provides car insurance and does a limited background of a prospective account holders driving record before allowing someone to use the service. But, the user of the service, who drives the car, would be primarily liable for any accident that the car gets into. The other kind, sometimes called a "car share" and sometimes called a "ride share" is more like an Uber or Lyft, which is a glorified, on demand taxi service, in which a driver provides the services of the driver and the vehicle and takes car of insurance and will be primarily liable for any accident the car gets into as a driver and owner of the car.	As mentioned in the comments, the simple answer is 'probably not' because you probably haven't yet gotten around to taking your halftrack in to get the necessary paperwork to demonstrate eligibility for registration, even if said halftrack was eligible for registration. I'm also going to confine this answer to whether you can legally drive the halftrack on public roads. I am not aware of any special laws about merely owning a halftrack that (say) you keep on a farm as decoration, but in any case I think you are more interested in whether the vehicle in question can be registered. Vehicle registration standards are (mostly) dealt with under State and territory law. I can give you an answer for Victoria, to at least illustrate the issues and where to look for answers. However, (at least some of) the relevant standards appear to be uniform across Australia. The starting point is that it is an offence to operate a vehicle on a public road without registering said vehicle: Road Safety Act 1986 (Vic), s 7. The Act provides that: the Regulations may prescribe how registration is applied for and granted or refused: s 9; and the Minister may prescribe standards for registration by notice in the Gazette: s 10. The standards cover "the construction, efficiency, performance, safety, design and equipment of, and the method of identifying" vehicles. I'm not good at searching Gazettes so I'm going to wave my hand over a gap and skip straight to things like: 'Guide to Modifications for Motor Vehicles' on the VicRoads website (VicRoads being the road traffic authority in Victoria, the government agency in charge of registering vehicles): https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/~/media/files/documents/safety-and-road-rules/vsinumber8guidetomodificationsformotorvehicles.ashx?la=en 'National Code of Practice for Light Vehicle Construction and Modification (NCOP)', which is an Australia-wide document: https://infrastructure.gov.au/roads/vehicle_regulation/bulletin/vsb_ncop.aspx This is one of those areas where you probably need a mechanic more than a lawyer. Once you have satisfied yourself that your halftrack meets the applicable standards, you need to go and get a 'VASS Approval Certificate' ('Vehicle Assessment Signatory Scheme') from a certified tester and then register the vehicle with VicRoads. Happy driving!	Let's say one of us borrows the other one's car (with permission) and has an accident. Whose coverage is responsible at that point to satisfy the legally mandated insurance coverage? I assume that's only coverage against damage to others (which should go under liability insurance?) but if I'm wrong please correct me. There are different types of insurance that may be required: liability insurance - pays damage to others (usually including your own passengers) which you are responsible for. This is legally required almost everywhere (both in the USA, where this depends on the state, and elsewhere). Rules vary on the required minimum amount, and the exact coverage (e.g. whether lost wages are covered in case of injury). uninsured motorist coverage - pays damages you or others suffered, which are the responsibility of another driver who is not insured. This is mandatory in some states of the USA. In some other countries, these damages are covered by a public insurance or trust (such as the Verkehrsopferhilfe in Germany). personal injury protection - pays your own medical costs, no matter who is at fault. Required in some states of the USA. Is the lender's insurance supposed to cover it? This depends on the insurance policy, but in almost all cases the policy is for the vehicle (and often has to be, under the laws requiring insurance). So if yes, if you lend your car to someone else, your insurance will cover them. Note, however, that some insurance policies restrict your right to lend your car - read the fine print! There is one situation where your own policy may be relevant: If the damages exceed the limit of the vehicle's insurance policy, your own policy may pay the rest - again, this will depend on the policy. If so, wouldn't this not make sense? Insurance companies look at your driving history (& risk) when they offer you a plan, and if the borrower has a poor history, you've increased the company's risk without their knowledge, right? It would seem to open insurance rates to abuse. Yes, exactly. That is why many (if not most) insurance policies place limits on lending your car. You may only be allowed to lend it to people over 21 years of age, or only to people who you have registered as car users with the insurance company. Is the borrower's insurance supposed to cover it? If so, wouldn't this not make sense? Insurance companies charge you differently based on what and how many vehicles you want covered, so wouldn't borrowing someone's Lamborghini suddenly open your insurance company to a massive risk without their knowledge again? No, the borrower's insurance does not usually apply. Making the borrower's insurance apply would be problematic because the risk is based on the vehicle (type), too. Also, the borrower may not have insurance (e.g. may not own a car). In particular, enforcing the mandatory liability insurance is easier in practice if it is per vehicle, because you can check the insurance at vehicle registration (which practically all countries already require). If the liability insurance were per driver, it would be difficult to prevent a person w/o insurance to borrow a car (as in your example). Finally, sometimes after an accident there is a dispute about who was driving the car (especially with hit-and-run accidents), but there is usually clear evidence (collision damage) what vehicle was involved. If insurance applies to the vehicle, a dispute over who was driving will not interfere with the victim's restitution.Thanks to supercat for pointing this out.	Companies have a registry of their shareholders. Anyone with at least one share registered in their name is a shareholder of record. However, the vast majority of people who consider themselves "shareholders" aren't actually registered owners of a stock. Instead, almost all public stock in the US is held "in street name." That means that the stock is formally held in the name of a brokerage. What an individual has is "beneficial ownership:" the brokerage passes dividends on to the beneficial owner, will vote how the beneficial owner tells it to vote, and requires agreement from the beneficial owner before it can sell the stock. To make stuff even more complicated, the broker itself generally holds the stock in street name. Almost all public stock in the US is really owned by the Depository Trust Corporation in the name of Cede and Company (a general partnership of a few DTC officers). The reason public stock is mostly held in street name is efficiency. Transferring the legal owner of a piece of stock is a nontrivial process; until recently, it involved physically shipping stock certificates to the new owner. Even now that stock ownership can typically be transferred electronically, it's much easier to tell Cede & Co. "the new beneficial owner is this person." Because beneficial ownership is just a contract, you can skip all the formalities of updating the company's official register of shareholders.
What kind of "theft by..." is it when someone refuses to return deposit? I made a deposit payment to a moving broker but never signed the agreement. They are refusing to return my deposit. "Theft by unlawful taking" doesn't apply because I willingly gave them the deposit, neither does "theft by deception." This seems like it is some kind of theft, just trying to figure out what. I live in Kentucky, the moving "broker" lists Chicago, IL as their main office. Regarding an answer below about "damages", i.e. expenses incurred on my behalf, 1) they have no valid contract 2) I didn't wait until the day before the move. I notified them a few days after the deposit and that was well over a month before the move date.	This is not theft, this is a contract dispute. You gave them money, they promised to do certain things, the contract says what that is. I surmise that they wanted a deposit to cover their costs in further dealing with you (moving is more complicated and costly than buying a loaf of bread), so in walking away from the deal, you've economically damaged them to some amount. The deposit is "liquidated damages". Your recourse is to sue them for that amount, because... Perhaps you didn't understand why you were giving them this deposit (an act that constitute some level of agreement), but any time you hand over a deposit, there is a circumstance under which you will not get that money back, and you have to understand what that circumstance is.	I gather that you either a) don't want the bike or b) are physically unable to retrieve it. You are acting like a spectator here. You ARE involved. By doing nothing, you are creating trouble for others, and failing to create a good. They must go through an extensive process to protect the rights of an owner they don't know who even is. What you should do, is to send a paper letter to the landlord at that complex. Dear landlord, You may have a bicycle at Location Here inside Apartment Complex Name Here. I am the owner of the bicycle. I had to leave the region, and I had to leave the bicycle behind. I cannot come back and claim it. Perhaps you know someone who could use a bicycle. Please give the bicycle to them, or dispose of it as you see fit. Here is the key to the lock. Signed, Your name Why a paper letter? Because you can't email a key! If you sent an email and key separately, they'd get confused. Plus, the signature on paper is legally binding, so they don't have to worry about it being a trick. Tape the physical key to a piece of paper, to keep it from rattling around and chewing a hole in the envelope. (it could be the paper the letter is written on, note that a printout of a Word document is fine). Paper letters have gone out of style, I know; you can work out how to send them, but an older person will help you do that faster, since well, we used to do everything that way. Now if you do want the bicycle, that gets harder. You will have to have one of your roommates give a key to someone who can retrieve it for you and store it for you. And you/they may need to coordinate with the landlord to even get access to it / find out if it's still there. This is probably a waste of your time.	you cannot be compelled to accept a modified lease that you never agreed to, and that was not even shown to you when you discussed the issue. You should notify the management in writing at once that you reject this "offer" and do not plan to transfer under those terms.	My friend should have taken his property with him, but presumably the host can't just keep it, especially after reaching out to them? Correct. However, the host does not have to do anything to facilitate its return i.e. they don’t have to post it to you. So long as they keep it for your friend to collect and don’t appropriate it for their own use, they are not breaking the law. If they do appropriate it, that is called theft or its tort equivalent, conversion. As my contract was with Airbnb and the host works from them, is there any responsibility on their part, e.g. Could I hypothetically open a small claims case against them? Or would any small claims case be directly against the host themselves? This is not true. You and the host each have a contract with Airbnb for the use of the platform. The contract for the accommodation is between you two and doesn’t involve Airbnb at all. In any event, there is no contractural issue here.	Unfortunately for you, the insurance company is right. Even with the rise of modern consumer protection law, caveat emptor ("Let the buyer beware") still largely applies to real estate transactions. Exceptions are where the building is new (not applicable), the seller gave a specific warranty (unlikely) or the seller deliberately concealed the defect (not applicable). If, as you say, the damage was "completely hidden" it is unlikely that your building inspector was negligent or breached their contract so you cannot recover from them. Sadly, this is at your cost. Your insurer may be liable but that would depend on the terms of your insurance policy.	Unfortunately, your relative is more in the wrong here First, the COVID situation does not change anyone's rights and obligations under a contract (see What effect does an event like the current Covid-19 pandemic have on contractural obligations?). So the landlord (through their agent) is obliged to provide the property and your relative is obliged to pay the rent and to occupy the premises (most residential leases contain a requirement for the tenant to live in the premises and not leave it empty). Your relative (through you) has indicated that she will be in breach of her contract. The agent has considered her position and has offered two (IMO generous) alternatives: Allow her to continue with the lease without taking possession providing the rent is paid. To release her from her obligations under the contract and return the rent. To put it in perspective, if your relative simply "walked away", she would be liable for the rent until a new tenant was found and, if that new tenant was paying less rent than she was, the difference for the duration of the lease plus the costs of finding a new tenant - advertising, agent's fees (usually 1 month's rent) etc. Now, the landlord has an obligation to minimise your costs so advertising the property could just be prudent. However, if they lease it when your relative's contract has not been properly terminated then it is they who are in breach. Surely they can't take the rent and offer to re-let the property at the same time? Surely they can. What they can't do is relet the property without properly terminating your relative's lease. Would they even be entitled to retain the deposit under these circumstances? Absolutely. The deposit is to cover their losses if your relative breaks the lease - as she has indicated she is going to do (this is called anticipatory breach). Finally, I'd rather not go down this route but is there any protection for my relative for not being forcefully 'evicted' - since she's paid the deposit, rent - and those haven't been returned? Having never taken possession, she is not being evicted.	He may be entitled to (part) of the deposit or he may owe you more money When you and he agreed you both entered a legally binding contract - you are obliged to sell the vehicle to him, he is obliged to buy the vehicle from you. The deposit is merely the first instalment of the payment for the vehicle with the balance being due on delivery. They are not refundable by default. He now wants to repudiate the contract and you have several options: you can refuse his repudiation and require him to complete the contract within a reasonable time. He probably won’t do this so when he doesn’t we move on to one of the other options. In essence, this is simply a warning shot that if he doesn’t complete the contract you will move on to item 2. you can accept the repudiation and sue for damages, these would include your lost rent, pro-rata of registration, insurance etc. from the time you would have sold to the time you do sell, any additional advertising, any difference in the price you ultimately get if it is lower than his offer etc. you can accept the repudiation in return for keeping the deposit in lieu of the actual damages. This in makes the deposit a liquidated damages amount and it must follow all the same rules, basically it must be a genuine pre-estimate of the damage you would suffer and not be so high that it amounts to a penalty. You can accept the repudiation and, as a gesture of goodwill, return some or all of the deposit.	A "limited license housing agreement" may be an interesting attempt to get around landlord-tenant laws, typically associated with official student housing (e.g. this from Queens College CUNY). This facility near WMU is not overtly related to the university, but might be subcontracting for the university. At any rate, there is no special provision under Michigan law that exempts landlords from the provisions of the law in case they declare the contract to be an agreement as opposed to a lease. It is possible that this is copy-and-paste law that erroneously relies on provisions in landlord-tenant laws that exempt university housing agreements from provisions of a state's landlord-tenancy law. You do not need to be informed that you should / could consult an attorney before signing a legal document: this knowledge is presupposed. It is also assumed that when you sign a document, you read the document. It is reasonably likely that the lease contained language like the following (from the above contract): I have carefully read, fully understand and voluntarily sign this Housing Agreement. Once fully signed, this is a binding contract and is intended to be enforceable under its terms. I have had the opportunity to seek independent legal advice The disclaimer "This Housing Agreement is not a lease and no tenancy, leasehold, possessory or other property interest in any specific apartment or bedroom is created" has dubious legal status. The rights given by the landlord-tenant act cannot be waived, under the Truth in Renting Act, so saying "this is not a lease" does not make the lease not a lease. In Michigan there is a duty on landlords to mitigate loses when a premise is abandoned. The case Fox v. Roethlisberger, 85 N.W.2d 73 mentions such a possible duty in the context of tenancy is often cited on the web as establishing such a duty, but I disagree. Froling v. Bischoff, 252 N.W.2d 832 however establishes that there is such a general duty for any breach of contract (and even applies it to breach of a rental agreement). So whether or not you call it a lease, there is still a duty to mitigate losses. In the scenario where you abandoned the unit and the landlord waited until the end of the year to file an action for breach of contract, they could have failed in their duty to mitigate their losses (but see Fox v. Roethlisberger, where landlord did make an effort to re-rent, and simply was not able to for 9 months).
Why annul instead of divorce? Note 1: This question is supposed to be a lemma here: Why is it not that a state divorce is actually an argument AGAINST a church annulment petition rather than a necessary condition for such petition? I am hoping to claim: Whenever annulments are possible, there are incentives to getting an annulment (a civil/secular annulment) instead of a divorce, even if divorce is cheaper. Question: If you're not in the Philippines or Vatican, why would anyone seek an annulment (as in a secular/civil annulment of course) instead of a divorce? My understanding is that divorce is cheaper, so even your (secular/civil) marriage is invalid, why not just say it's valid and divorce to save money? I guess we can take cases: Case 1. The invalidity of your marriage can be proven beyond reasonable doubt. Case 2. You're not sure the invalidity of your marriage can be proven beyond reasonable doubt. So, maybe there's a risk of wasting money or time in applying for an annulment, when you'd just be told to divorce instead. Also, since this is Legal SE, I guess the answer would be in terms of judicial economy, legislative intent, legal consequences (alimony, custody, etc), state interests, etc. Note 2: replace 'reasonable doubt' with 'preponderance of evidence'/'balance of probabilities' or whatever (wow I'm actually so intrigued about all the levels that I'm discovering just now), if need be. Depends on whatever is the burden of proof standard here. Also maybe related: How do Filipino Catholics get a church annulment when their state marriage is valid, considering the Philippines doesn't have divorce? Marriage invalid. Would a church annulment require a state annulment or state divorce?	There are several reasons people wish to get a marriage annulled. I'll try to list them in order of frequency -- though I'm unaware of any statistics that confirm that my ordering is correct. Money. As per Nij's comment, when people are divorced, their property is subdivided 50-50. If one person can get away with an annulment, and keep the property which he earned, then it will be in his interests to do so. Religious reasons. As per SJuan76's comments, several churches, including Catholic, Mormon, and Russian Baptist, do not allow a person to marry if his previous spouse is still alive. An annulment is a way around that. Fraud marriages. This is rare, but under Trump it happens more often then you might think. People (usually women) come to the US illegally, marry someone (generally significantly older), and after the wedding day they are never again seen by their spouse. They use their marriage certificate to ensure permission to stay in the US -- but, they were never interested in marrying that person in the first place. When found, often such people are living with another illegal alien "as a boyfriend", with kids born before the fraud marriage even took place. It is in such cases, that their new spouse often tries to attain an annulment of the marriage -- to make sure that the illegal alien doesn't get rewarded for cheating them. Personal reasons. For some people, having never been married means it's easier to get a spouse who also has never been married -- and being able to check the "Single -- Never married" box on a form is always a plus in such cases. Now, don't ask me why people prefer to marry someone who's never been married, over someone who's been divorced. :) Incest. Under the US law, if you marry someone who's your close relative, then you are guilty of a felony -- even if you didn't know they're your close relative at the time of marriage. However, if you annul the marriage, then you can avoid prosecution.	I'm just going to talk about the US. The First Amendment to the US Constitution codifies that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;... What is clearly prohibited by this Amendment would be Congress (or any inferior legislature via the 14th Amendment) restricting the ability of religions which refuse to marry same-sex couples from marrying opposite-sex couples, or in general outlawing any kind of religious law about who a particular church is willing to marry (e.g. only marrying if both parties are of the religion). However, legislatures are generally allowed to influence action via government inducements (I'll just use inducements to describe subsidies, tax breaks, etc). The current precedent for determining whether a particular legislative action violates the Establishment Clause is the "Lemon Test," from Lemon v. Kurtzman, which has the following test: Government action violates the Establishment Clause unless it: Has a significant secular (i.e., non-religious) purpose, Does not have the primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion, and Does not foster excessive entanglement between government and religion. On the first point, I think the law fails - inducing religious establishments to perform same-sex marriage does not have a "significant secular purpose" because ultimately the government doesn't care whether or not you have a marriage ceremony, just that you sign a marriage certificate with an appropriate witness, which can be a government official. The law could survive on the second point if it could be shown to have at least the preponderance of being for social good, if it is argued that the law's purpose is to make church marriage ceremonies more accessible for same-sex couples by inducing more churches to perform them, and not to harm churches that don't perform them. However, this would probably be an uphill battle, since the law has the practical effect of promoting some religions' beliefs over others. The law probably fails on the third point as well, going back to the previous point that it effectively results in the government choosing one religious practice to promote over another. However, the Lemon Test often criticized or entirely disregarded by the current Supreme Court, for example in the case American Legion v American Humanist Association (a case decided by the current Supreme Court): This pattern is a testament to the Lemon test's shortcomings. As Establishment Clause cases involving a great array of laws and practices came to the Court, it became more and more apparent that the Lemon test could not resolve them. It could not "explain the Establishment Clause's tolerance, for example, of the prayers that open legislative meetings, . . . certain references to, and invocations of, the Deity in the public words of public officials; the public references to God on coins, decrees, and buildings; or the attention paid to the religious objectives of certain holidays, including Thanksgiving. Even without the Lemon Test, we can look at Walz v. Tax Commission of New York for an idea of when tax breaks for religious establishments is allowed (emphasis mine): The legislative purpose of the property tax exemption is neither the advancement nor the inhibition of religion... New York, in common with the other States, has determined that certain entities that exist in a harmonious relationship to the community at large, and that foster its "moral or mental improvement," should not be inhibited in their activities by property taxation or the hazard of loss of those properties for nonpayment of taxes. It has not singled out one particular church or religious group or even churches as such;... The State has an affirmative policy that considers these groups as beneficial and stabilizing influences in community life and finds this classification useful, desirable, and in the public interest. This paragraph seems to provide some argument both ways. First, the bolded section would seem to prohibit using government inducements to promote one religious practice over another, and that the government can only assist religious institutions when the assistance is applied equally. On the other hand, states are allowed to grant tax relief to religious organizations "that foster..."moral or mental improvement,"..." A legislature could argue that the law promotes "moral improvement" by encouraging acceptance of same-sex marriage, rather than a particular religious belief. However, I don't think that such an argument would prevail over the general prohibition on promoting any religious exercise over another. Government assistance for religious organizations is very thinly held to be permissible only when it is equal. In my opinion, the Supreme Court already has to use twisted gymnastics to argue in favor of any government assistance of religious organizations granted because of their religious status, so they are unlikely to allow something this far (especially since it is usually the conservative justices arguing in favor of these policies, and they are less likely to do same-sex marriage any favors). On the other hand, a permissible policy may be to have government grants for any organization that performs same-sex marriage ceremonies, whether or not that organization is religious. Whether or not that is allowed is likely going to depend on what proportion of the receiving organizations are religious in nature, but there may be enough hotels and other non-religious venues that would qualify that such a law might survive.	If a law is struck-down as unconstitutional, but all the precedent used to find it unconstitutional gets reversed; what becomes of the law? In U.S. law, the law has effect again, unless it has been amended or repealed in the meantime. Is it totally dead, needing be passed anew? In the U.S., no. It is not totally dead. It is merely dormant. It stays on the books and legislators may decide not to repeal it as a political statement. It also might be considered for interpretive purposes when construing another part of the same law. For example, the meaning given to a phrase in an unconstitutional part of the law might be applied to a different part of the law that is constitutional. Can the judiciary be asked to reinstated, after which point it can be used again? In the U.S., any court can determine that a law is unconstitutional, but the extent to which that ruling is binding precedent on other courts or other parties than those to the case before it depends upon the court in question and upon the doctrine of collateral estoppel (a.k.a. issue preclusion). For example, the legal fight in the U.S. to hold bans on same sex marriage to be unconstitutional was fought in and resulted in ruling in dozens of courts at the trial court and state appellate court, and federal intermediate appellate court level before a uniform ruling was established by the U.S. Supreme Court. Further, even if the issue arises in another case where there is a controlling precedent, attorney ethics permit an attorney to make a good faith argument for a change in the law to any court, so if there is some good faith argument for doing so, the attorney can push that the issue be reconsidered. Of course, usually the answer from the court will be "no." Or can it just be enforced again without any formal process; so long as nobody sues and gets it killed again by a lower court? Sometimes government officials enforce laws that have been held unconstitutional, either because they aren't aware of the relevant court decisions, or because they think that their facts are distinguishable from those under which the law was held unconstitutional (which sometimes happens on an "as applied" basis rather than on a "facial" basis that applies to all cases), or because they think the judge before them might rule differently despite the precedent. Also, would the answer differ according to country? If so, could you please give me some examples of countries handling this differently. Yes. Many countries with legal systems based upon the legal system of countries of continental Europe like France and Germany and Spain, which are called "civil law" countries have a very different process of handling unconstitutional laws, as does the European Court of Human Rights and the highest court of the European Union. In Germany, for example, questions of the constitutionality of a law may be raised only in the Constitutional Court and not in other courts. This ruling is usually final. And, unlike U.S. courts, the Constitutional Court can rule a law unconstitutional during the legislative process, rather than in connection with an actual case or controversy relating to the law taking effect (in which case the law never gets on the books in the first place). I don't know what happens when the Constitutional Court declares a law unconstitutional. I do know, however, that in the case of the European Court of Human Rights and the highest courts of the E.U. that one of the usual remedies will be an order directed at a member state to amend its statutes to remove the offending law, with sanctions imposed if the member state fails to do so. Obviously, once such a law is repealed in this fashion, it would have to be re-enacted to take effect even if the precedent holding that the law was unconstitutional was undermined.	You will have to litigate this issue anew in the divorce. When there has been a major change in circumstances, issues related to custody can be relitigated, even if there isn't a remarriage. In this case, both the marriage and the fact that nine years have passed since the original order constitute a substantial change in circumstances. At the time the order was entered, there was an 18 month old with parents who didn't live together. The child is now 10 years old and has lived with both parents without regard to any custody order for at least seven years. These are completely different circumstances so custody issues must be revisited. As @mkennedy notes in the comments, it is even likely that the court or someone acting on behalf of the court would consider the opinions of the child at this point, which obviously wasn't possible the first time around. Generally speaking, the way that the "best interests of the child" standard that applies in a case like this one is interpreted is to come as close to maintaining the pre-divorce status quo as possible in light of the separation of the parents. The most relevant section of the Missouri Revised Statutes to this issue is as follows: § 452.410. Custody, decree, modification of, when Except as provided in subsection 2 of this section, the court shall not modify a prior custody decree unless it has jurisdiction under the provisions of section 452.450 and it finds, upon the basis of facts that have arisen since the prior decree or that were unknown to the court at the time of the prior decree, that a change has occurred in the circumstances of the child or his custodian and that the modification is necessary to serve the best interests of the child. Notwithstanding any other provision of this section or sections 452.375 and 452.400, any custody order entered by any court in this state or any other state prior to August 13, 1984, may, subject to jurisdictional requirements, be modified to allow for joint custody in accordance with section 452.375, without any further showing. If either parent files a motion to modify an award of joint legal custody or joint physical custody, each party shall be entitled to a change of judge as provided by supreme court rule.	I am guessing that you are asking this because you are interested in being an officiant at a marriage ceremony. There are many options, including the Church of Universal Life, for example. The legal question is what ordination is acceptable for the purpose for which you intend to use it. Different states have different laws about who may officiate a wedding ceremony. It is important that you be certain you are permitted to do so with whatever ordination you are seeking. Although I believe there will be more litigation about this in years to come, not all states allow "internet ministers" to perform wedding ceremonies. You may need to contact an attorney in the state to be sure, and this is advisable because marriages have very significant legal and property implications. You do not want a couple to have their marriage deemed void because you were the officiant in a state that does not allow that. This could affect everything from taxes to property ownership to the right to make medical decisions for each other. As a general rule, tourist destinations and states with more secular populations are more likely to allow these marriages. I believe Pennsylvania also allows the couple to self-solemnize the ceremony, growing out of the customs of the Society of Friends. The bottom line is that the answer is state-specific.	Marriages are controlled by state law, immigration is governed by federal law. In no state is a marriage automatically "cancelled" for committing a crime, much less for violating an immigration regulation. So you will remain married until you or he changes that.	There are a lot more differences than this, but if your teacher sums up what he/she means by that sentence. Here, specifically, in Civil Law, the decision of the courts must comply with the laws as enacted, which means there are specific statutes required to make something illegal. Common Law features Stare Decisis which basically means that if Case A is decided in one way, and Case B is a similar Case to Case B, Case B must yield the same decision for all cases in that jurisdiction and lower courts below that court. This means that while statutes (laws) can be made by a legislature, the courts can "make law" by deciding cases. For example, some States in the United States and England and Wales only recently (within the past 30 years) adopted an actual law that made murder illegal? Prior to that murder was illegal under Common Law Murder that had been based on precedence from bazillion cases before that said it's illegal. Nobody bothered to write it down in an actual law. There are several other big differences such as Inquisitorial vs. Adversarial nature of courts, how and when punishments are decided (The famous "Just following Orders" Defense was given in part because of this difference and a lack of understanding over it.), who is the trier of fact vs. who is the trier of law, but as far as what is "Law" this is a good single summation of the difference in a single sentence. But it really shouldn't be condensed to a single sentence.	Do I have to pay child support if we are just dating and not married? We are not planning on having a child, but what if by some odd chance she gets pregnant? Does it depend on where I live? Like Toronto? The Modern Rule In Most Developed Countries It does depend upon where you live. No jurisdiction of which I am aware has ever distinguished between a planned child and an unplanned pregnancy in making a child support award. The vast majority of countries that have a category of obligation called "child support" apply it without regard to whether the parents are married. This would include all jurisdictions in Canada and the United States. But, in those jurisdictions, liability for child support in the case of an unmarried couple requires a mother seeking child support from a father, to establish the father's paternity by any of a variety of means, within the time allowed by law. Given the availability of cheap and highly reliable DNA tests to establish paternity, this step is now almost trivial and often waived by fathers who simply admit paternity instead when paternity seems clear. In contrast, paternity is presumed rather than something that has to be proved in cases involving a married couple. There is an exception to this general rule in most jurisdictions that have child support at all. This is because the husband of a married woman who has a child is presumed to be the father. Therefore, a man who is the biological father of the married woman's child is only obligated to pay child support if the father's paternity is established within the time allowed by law by the husband, the mother of the child, or a third-party on behalf of the child with standing to do so. Also, in most jurisdictions that have a concept of child support payments, a termination of parental rights (generally for abuse or neglect, but also in connection with a legal adoption by someone else) also terminates obligations to pay child support payments that arise after parental rights are terminated, although this rule is not universal. Generally that exception would not apply in the fact pattern that you describe. Historical and Comparative Context Historically, the concept of child support was unknown, illegitimate children and their mothers had no rights with respect to their fathers (and fathers had no rights with respect to their illegitimate children in most circumstances), and only married people were entitled to post-divorce support from an ex-spouse that was known as alimony and alimony served to provide support to both the ex-spouse and their children. The harshness of this historical rule was mitigated somewhat by the concept of common law marriage that had the practical effect of declaring an unmarried man who caused an unmarried woman to become pregnant to be declared husband and wife despite not having actually having gone through a marriage ceremony in many cases. At that time, there was an incentive for the man to re-characterize the nature of the relationship retroactively, because if the woman was not a prostitute, it would often be a crime or tort for the man to have had sex with the unmarried woman, enforceable by the state or by her father or guardian. But, if the couple were deemed to have been common law married, then all of these sanctions could be avoided. At this time, in areas where the state was not powerful enough to enforce these kinds of sanctions for premarital sex giving rise to a pregnancy, social pressure and sometimes even a literal "shotgun" marriage would be used to force the father to marry to mother. Prior to the 19th century in Western predominantly Christian countries, the only way to get a divorce was by special legislation in which the legislature passed a law specifically ending a particular couple's marriage. In the 19th century, bit by bit, Western countries started to allow judicially decreed divorces under a general statute on a proof of fault basis, with alimony awarded to the not at fault spouse under a breach of contract damages styled analysis that did not involve a separate child support component. Bit by bit in various Western jurisdictions during the 20th century, child support began to be recognized as a separate obligation from alimony and property division in a divorce, as partnership theories of family law, and parent-child relationship based theories of family law, began to replace the contract based theories of family law in earlier divorce actions. Non-marital relationship entitlements to child support also arose around the same time. Many U.S. states have both civil and criminal penalties for failing to provide financial support to your child. Japan only recognized child support as a separate type of relief in family law in the late 20th century (multiple decades after World War II), and has never had post-dissolution of marriage alimony after a divorce, although it has had temporary support not clearly distinguished between alimony and child support, during the pendency of divorce proceedings (which tend to be much shorter than in the U.S. and Canada). The primary relief to a spouse upon a divorce in Japan historically was property division and complete allocation of each child to one parent or the other, with no child support or alimony post-decree, until these late 20th century reforms allowing for limited child support payments (which are still rarely actually received even when ordered by a court) were adopted. The analysis in countries where the parents of the child are subject to Islamic rules of family law are beyond my competence, but quite different. Unlike Western jurisdictions, Islam has recognized non-legislative divorce since its inception in the early 600s CE as did prior pagan communities in places where Islam arose. One of the main reasons that child support and alimony were rare or non-existent at the time in almost all countries was that the legal systems and economic systems in existence at the time made intangible monetary obligations to pay child support in regular installments over a long period of time, and to enforce custody arrangements, was effectively impossible for former spouses to enforce in all but a very small fraction of cases.
I'm giving my landlord an oven. How do we word the next lease? I rent an apartment in Anchorage, Alaska. I applied for covid relief rental assistance. I was approved and the assistance I will be receiving is much more than I expected. My landlord has no objections to me making some improvements and replacing the oven with a better one. What phrasing is appropriate in my lease for this? Basically, I want all future rent and rent increases to be commensurate with the rent I am paying now, before I make the improvements?	We don't give specific legal advice and one might VTC, but I think your phrasing is not quite right, and you are just curious about the possibility of binding the landlord to a term across leases. The first thing that a term in a contract has to so is say exactly what must be done by whom (or not done). You need to describe more precisely what it means for all future rent and rent increases to be commensurate with the current rent. You can think of conditions like "no more than 2% per annum" or "no more than 15% per annum", and then you can figure out what number is acceptable to the two of you. I would be surprised if you could come up with an agreeable number. Second, you'd have to make this limit "perpetual", which is pretty much impossible. You could negotiate the terms of the next lease today which would prevent an increase of rent by more thay you're happy with, but until governmental controls say exactly what a legal rent increase is, the property owner has the right to raise the rent by a million dollars, and you have the right to move elsewhere. It's as hard to permanently lock a landlord into an arrangement as it is to lock a tenant into renting a specific residence. Every year, you have the right to terminate the lease if the rent goes too high for you, and every year the landlord has the right to raise the rent if the current arrangement isn't sufficiently profitable. Incidentally, you might want to check with AHFC to see if you can actually do this. Your expectations don't determine what relief they provide, just make sure that you provided accurate answers to their questions and reported all income that you're required to report.	As Paul Johnson says, this is a planning permission thing. The parking places your landlord has leased you are real; they exist. They just don't have planning permission for all of them. It's no different to if the landlord got planning permission for a building of four flats, and built a block of six flats. Building those two additional flats would illegal, and the planning authority could take enforcement action against the landlord for it; however, letting those two additional flats out is perfectly legal. Similarly letting those parking places is legal; it's just that the planning authority may take action against the landlord to force two of the parking places to be removed. At that point the landlord would have to break the contract with the tenants of the parking places, and would be liable for damages. In practise, unless there are some activist neighbours, the planning authority won't take any enforcement action (spending money on legal action for two parking places is not high on their list of priorities). Even if there are some activist neighbours, they probably won't bother. Finally, any development becomes lawful after ten years, and if the development is used as dwellings, after four years. It is not clear to me whether the parking spaces would be considered as a separate development to the flats (and hence have a ten year limit), or whether they are ancillary to the dwellings (and hence have a four year limit). My suspicion is that the landlord was asked to sign an application for a Lawful Development Certificate (which essentially just certifies that the development is out of time for planning enforcement). If so, that means that ... the development is out of time for planning enforcement, so you have no need to worry. Incidentally, if I am right, your friend doesn't have any need to worry either, and is probably being put off the purchase by an overly cautious conveyancer. (Note: I am not a lawyer, and in particular, I am not your friend's lawyer.)	If a contract does not say what one of the parties wishes it would say, before signing it they should renegotiate the lease. Once the parties have an agreement as witnessed by signatures, a party cannot change the terms of the contract by declaring that some provision of the lease is a "typo". If they want to renegotiate the terms of the contract after the fact, they can, if the other party is willing to give in on the particular point. So as it stands, it seems that the landlord is in breach of contract. This section of Maryland's landlord-tenant law is relevant to this situation. (b) In general. -- A tenant may deduct from rent due to a landlord the amount of payments made to a utility service provider for utility service if: (1) An oral or written lease for an affected dwelling unit requires the landlord to pay the utility bill; and (2) (i) The tenant pays all or part of the utility bill, including payments made on a new utility service account; or (ii) The tenant pays any security deposit required to obtain a new utility service account. (c) Waiver not permitted. -- A tenant's rights under this section may not be waived in any lease. There is no provision under the law whereby the landlord can be penalized for the inconvenience that you've suffered. This section of the public utilities law addresses the problem of the landlord's debt, in particular: (c) If utility service at an affected dwelling unit is subject to the threat of termination or actual termination, a tenant residing in the affected dwelling unit: (1) may apply for a new utility service account in the tenant's name; and (2) may not incur liability for charges due on the landlord's account. In particular, (d)(3) says A utility service provider may not refuse or otherwise condition a tenant's ability to establish a new utility service account in the tenant's name because of arrearages on the landlord's account. So the utility company is wrong, and so is the landlord.	The closest you will get is the first-in-time ordinance passed by the city, but that was overturned in court. That law required accepting the first qualified applicant for a rental: it did not say anything about sales. If there is a specific provision to that effect in your lease agreement, that would be applicable, but there is no general legal mechanism that forces a seller to accept a particular offer.	This guide from Shelter lists the steps you should take. It can be summarised as: if the landlord fails to arrange the repairs, contact your local council. If they can't help, you can arrange the repairs yourself and request that the landlord reimburse you. If the landlord still refuses to co-operate, then you can pursue legal action. It's important that you document everything you're doing, and keep the landlord fully informed at every step. The guide states that you can deduct the cost from future rent. But it also says: You do not have the right to withhold your rent if your landlord refuses to do repairs. If you don't pay rent, the landlord could take steps to evict you. ...so you may want to get expert advice before going any further.	I am not from Denver, so it may be different there, but I would think most people would take that to mean the appliance meets UL standards or other safety standards and has been certified. Each governing body, be it a town, county, state, or country, gets to decide who can certify an appliance.	The emails both are and are not hearsay If the landlord seeks to use them as evidence that you did the things stated in the emails, that’s hearsay. However, if he seeks to use them as evidence that he received complaints about you, that’s not hearsay. Notwithstanding, this is no doubt a hearing in a tenancy tribunal or small-claims court - strict rules of evidence generally don’t apply in those. The emails are therefore likely something that will be admissible even if they are hearsay.	Firstly, your "apartment" doesn't prohibit anything; Your tenancy contract does. A terminology nitpick, but one that can shed some light on what is actually happening. TLDR: Your right to bear arms isn't being infringed, its being traded away. An unreasonable trade may be invalidated by the courts. Firearms restrictions are far less likely to be voided than speech content limitations. Yes, you have the right to bear arms(whatever exact meaning of that is). You also have the right to voluntarily agree to a binding agreement limiting that right, in exchange for a consideration. Compare a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). You have the right to freedom in your speech: you also have the right to agree to binding limits on your freedom of speech, in return for consideration (such as money or access to information). Every contract is structured in the same general way: Party A agrees to do or avoid doing certain things, in exchange for Party B agreeing to do or avoid doing certain things. So, in essence, what the apartment contract says is, that you agree to do or not do some things (including paying rent), in return for your landlord temporarily granting you some rights(such as the right to reside(generally exclusive), the right to control the space, etc. ), and imposing some obligations on themselves (which vary from place to place). In your case, one of the things that you are trading is a limitation on your right to bear arms(note that you can still bear arms, just not on the property in question). Now one thing to note is that courts have the power to enforce contracts; they also have the power to void contracts, in part or in full, if they are illegal or "unconscionable". In general, restricting (the content of) speech is not reasonable (e.g. having a general noise level restriction is reasonable), so is more likely to be struck down than one restricting firearms on the rented property.
Why don't licensing requirements, for retailers of fireworks, restrict the EU Freedom to Provide Services? Here are the facts of a hypothetical case. A is an Austrian wholesaler that imports and distributes party fireworks to retailers. A set up stalls in several Christmas markets in Ireland where A sells its products directly to consumers. In a raid in November 2018, the Irish police seized all A’s products, shut down its stalls, and arrested A’s staff selling its products. In January 2019, A was prosecuted under sections 1-3 of the fictitious Pyrotechnics Act. s 1 requires retailers of pyrotechnic products to possess a licence, but A did not possess one. s 2 requires all fireworks to be stored in government-approved storage facilities, but A stored fireworks in a rented barn which the government never approved. s 3 prohibits individual customers from buying more than one firework at a time, and the police video-recorded A selling multiple fireworks to the same customer. How can EU law assist A’s defence? I noted what my law teacher said — s 1 doesn't restrict the EU Freedom to Provide Services. But she didn't explain. Why not?	Because the Austrian has equal rights to an Irish wholesaler wrt fireworks The freedom to provide services means that a national of any EU country has the same rights as a national of any other EU country including the home country. However, they all must still comply with local law.	It is likely that the law applying will be both that of the USA and your country. If you went to court this would be one of the things you argued over. For example, Australian Consumer Law applies to any goods or services sold to a customer in Australia irrespective of where the vendor is located. Your jurisdiction may have similar laws. At first blush you must comply with the term of the contract preventing reverse engineering. They would be within their rights to terminate the licence if you don't. However, they probably have an obligation under your equivalent to the ACL to supply a product that: is merchantable is fit for purpose does what it says it will do If it doesn't then you have a right to terminate and get your money back, sue for damages and your country's government may prosecute.	Its just free enterprise, right? Well ... except when there is a law that says its not allowed. I am unfamiliar with Indian law but the relevant law in Australia is the Trade Practices Act which deals with this under the category of Misuse of Market Power. In a nutshell: A business with a substantial degree of power in a market is not allowed to use this power for the purpose of eliminating or substantially damaging a competitor or to prevent a business from entering into a market. By preferring their products over a competitor's in their search engine they are "... eliminating or substantially damaging a competitor ...".	In German Law you need to give your agreement ("Willenserklärung") to a contract or in this case terms of service. This is done by telling the other part. In some cases this can also be implied by an action (example: putting your bottle of beer onto the cashiers table is an offer to buy this bottle). As a second criteria a "Willenserklärung" needs to be the exact will of the part that declares its will (the website user in this case) §§ 133, 157 BGB or that the other side (you) could only see so (not the case here as this mainly speaks of content). If you visit a website and there are terms of services, the "Willenserklärung" is only given when the user read and agreed to the terms. If he did not, the terms of service are not applied until the user agrees to them. So I would recommend to block the website until the user agreed (overlay) as you need to proof he did when in court. Additionally there are so called AGB's in Germany. Those are contracts that are used or planed for many (more than 3) uses and set by one side (you). This may apply here, so you need to follow a lot of other rules like making sure the user had access and agreed, then there are many content restrictions and so on... I recommend consulting a German Lawyer specialized on this topic as this is very complex and includes other German laws for Media too, depending on the content of your site and terms. Also note that everything said is only based on my own knowledge and can not be used as safe legal source.	Private prosecution is allowed in New Zealand, so one possibility would be to conduct the prosecution yourself. You could either do that as a case of destruction of property, or under the Animal Welfare Act. It is not guaranteed that your charging document will be accepted (for example, if your document lacks the required content). An alternative would be to apply political pressure to the Crown Law Office, to persuade them to pursue the matter.	There are a number of issues here. The question mentions: Taxes, which I presume must be authorized and regulated by the US Constitution, but I don't know the details Not exactly. The states existed before the Federal government. They are not created by the Federal Constitution, nor authorized by it. A number of restrictions on state powers and actions are specified by the Federal Constitution, and a number of others are imposed by Federal law. (the Federal courts have found implied restrictions beyond the explicitly stated ones.) But there is no Federal provision granting states the power to impose taxes, only restrictions on that pre-existing power. States cannot impose taxes so as to violate rights federally guaranteed, or to place unreasonable burdens on the exercise of those rights. For example, states cannot impose different taxes or tax rates on a racial basis. States cannot impose different taxes on residents of other states temporarily present in, or doing business in the state. States cannot impose different taxes on people newly moved there from other states, compared to long-established residents. State taxes must not violate the Equal Protection clause. However, states may choose the type and amount of taxes to impose. They can use sales tax, VAT tax, property tax, income tax, excise tax, flat tax, or any combination that their legislatures pass. Different taxes may be imposed on different professions or kinds of businesses. Does the US Constitution guarantee all citizens have the natural right to conduct their own business affairs? Not as such, no. The Due Process and Equal Protection clauses limit to some extent the ability of a state to prohibit a particular business on a whim. But when a state asserts that a particular business is harmful, and demonstrates a plausible basis for that view, so that the law passes "Rational basis" review, the state can prohibit it, or heavily regulate it, or license it. If so, does a citizen lose the right to legally own and operate a business if they cannot afford requisite state or local business license fees? A state may require a license to engage in a particular occupation, and may require a fee, one-time or recurring, high or low, for that license. In addition, a tax may be imposed on those in a particular business or profession, which is not imposed on other kinds of business. For example, in many states, lawyers must pay an annual license fee, or they are not allowed to practice. So must many other regulated professions, such as hairstylist. One who cannot afford the fee may not engage in the business or profession. The state may waive or reduce fees for those too poor to afford them, but need not do so, and many states do not so so. Similarly, the state may charge a fee for a driver's license, and one who cannot pay it may not legally drive. Likewise, does a citizen lose the right to utilize the court system to petition for a redress of grievances, if they cannot afford the requisite court fees? Many states have provisions waiving or lowering court fees for those who cannot afford them, but in most cases this is applied only in severe cases, say where a person would have to go without food to afford court fees. There have been a few federal cases requiring fee waivers for those who cannot afford court fees, mostly in connection with criminal defendants. There is not currently a general federal rule requiring court access for those who cannot afford court fees. Perhaps there should be. A case could be made that Equal Protection requires this, but Federal Courts have not so held. Federal courts have held that holding people in jail or prison because they truly cannot afford fines, bail, or court fees is an unconstitutional denial of Equal Protection. But states need not waive such fees; they can be deferred and charged should the person earn enough money to (just barely) afford them. Even this rule is not yet invariably enforced, and many state courts routinely ignore it. By the way "petition for a redress of grievances" doe snot normally refer to bringing a court case, but to asking a legislature to change a law, or asking an administrator or executive to exercise permitted discretion in a particular way. And lastly, if a citizen is convicted of a crime or infraction, and the sentence requires the convict to utilize government services (e.g. prison services, probation services, registration services, etc.); under the US Constitution, can state government agencies providing these services legally require the convict to pay fees for these services (e.g. prison service fees, probation service fees, registration service fees), if these fees were not explicitly included in the sentence as fines? Yes it can impose such fees, but usually only when neither the convict nor his or her dependents will be impoverished by such fees, as I understand it. If a state attempts to pass or enforce state legislation dictating such fees, should this legislation generally be struck down as unconstitutional? Such laws will not be held unconstitutional by US Federal courts under the Federal Constitution, unless they are found to violate Equal Protection, Due Process, or other specifically imposed restrictions on the state. For example, fees which were in practice imposed on people of one religion, but not those of another, would be struck down. But a fee imposed on everyone will not usually be overturned. "The law in its majestic equality forbids the rich as well as the poor to steal bread from shops, beg in the streets, and sleep under bridges." -Anatole France	You are not bound by any contract. You bought a physical good that the seller was barred from selling outside of the listed countries by his supplier. You did not enter a contract with the seller's supplier. Let's look the stream of commerce: Supplier of the item (Printing press) offers it. Sale with a sales limiting contract to resellers. Sale by reseller to customer without limiting contract. The first sale doctrine says, that without a form of contract, the rights of the supplier are exhausted in step 2. Even with a contract limiting the reseller's rights, step 3 exhausts any right the supplier has in the item, unless he too explicitly signs a contract. Selling an item in normal commerce is not satisfying this requirement. There already were no rights in the physical copy of the book when whoever bought the book first sold it to the second-hand seller you bought it from, and there can't be any more rights in the selling of this book gained by the original supplier unless he bought the book back from you.	In the UK, no offence is committed, however many public locations cite the Data Protection Act 1998 as a reason to stop people taking pictures. DPA does not mention this topic at all, and is a red herring (however informing the location of this is unlikely to help, I have discovered) In fact, in the UK, the only laws that appear to exist cover either specific locations and properties (eg military installations) or using photography to take pictures of individuals in areas where they have an expectation of privacy. The Photographer's Rights Guide published by digitalcameraworld in 2012 is still current as far as I can see. It has this specific guidance: Photographers Rights: Taking Pictures of People in Public Are you breaking any law when you’re taking pictures of people in public? Probably not, but the position under UK law is uncertain. There are currently no general privacy laws under UK law, but the UK courts must take into account the European Convention on Human Rights, which gives everyone the right to respect for their private and family life. As this is an area of law that has been developing rapidly over the last few years, it is hard to be certain what will constitute an infringement. The key issue is whether the place the image is taken is one where a person would have a reasonable expectation of privacy. For example, it has been suggested that the right of privacy of a child could be infringed by publishing a photo of them with their parents in a public street. It is therefore advisable to be careful when taking photos intended for publication, even where the subject matter is in a public place. Failure to obtain a model release for the use of an image will certainly make it harder to sell the picture to stock libraries. Photographing children The same laws apply to adult and child subjects, but a child does not have the legal capacity to consent and a parent or guardian must therefore do so on their behalf. Be aware that schools, leisure centres and places where children and adults gather usually have their own photography restrictions. Although decent photos of children (see our tips for better pictures of babies, children and teenagers) taken in a public place may be fine for non-commercial use, seek permission from the child’s parents or guardians and don’t shoot covertly with a long lens. For commercial images, you’ll need to get a model release signed by the parents. Also read the section on the powers of police and security guards.
Can a Minor Carry a Knife in Kansas? I'm 13, and I am wondering if it would be legal to carry a karambit knife for self defense – in a sheath or folded? If laws for both are different, I would appreciate policies on both. If so, would I be allowed to conceal it? Or would it have to be in plain sight? Any specific blade length limits?	Knife laws in the United States are notoriously ambiguous, often vary at the municipality level, and enforcement can best be described as capricious. I can't put it better than this eye-opening answer I found on Quora: Don't ask anybody what the law is about knives. Not even the police. There's so much misinformation floating around out there. ... Check the law yourself. Not just state law, but local law for any county or city you stop in or pass through. I was tasked with writing a weapons policy for my security department, my former employer. I checked the Code of Maryland Regulations and found a mess. Knives are considered tools, not weapons, unless and until one uses or intends to use a knife as a weapon; knives are legal regardless of blade length; folding knives may be carried concealed, but fixed knives must be carried open; switchblades and balisongs are not OK, but no mention of gravity knives, locking mechanisms, or assisted-open mechanisms. I carried my S&W assisted-open knife everywhere, including into Baltimore City several times. Then Freddie Gray was arrested for carrying one and died in custody. A whole lot of people thought the arresting officer had made an unlawful arrest, based on the state law, including the Baltimore City prosecutor … until someone bothered to check the city law and found that assisted-open knives are illegal in Baltimore City. The arrest was a good one. And I left my knife in my car from then on whenever I went into that town. (I have on occasion asked police about knife laws. In every case the officer has declined to answer whether a particular knife or carry practice was legal.)	This web site has collected up a number of state anti-mask laws. It is useful to know that the purpose of the tactical balaclava is face protection. The anti-mask law of California prohibits mask for escaping identification in the commission of a public offense; Florida likewise limits it to criminal-like conduct and some sketchy "equal protection" situations (presumably anti-Klan legislation). Georgia generally prohibits masks but takes the tack of listing exceptions, including "traditional holiday costumes" and "for safety reasons". In Louisiana it is prohibited to wear a mask to conceal identity, but there are enumerated exceptions, including Halloween and Mardi Gras (no surprise), or for religious reasons; we can assume that if Lousiana SWAT teams wear tactical balaclavas, the legal basis is face-protection. It would appear that in Minnesota, SWAT team members cannot wear a mask until winter: A person whose identity is concealed by the person in a public place by means of a robe, mask, or other disguise, unless based on religious beliefs, or incidental to amusement, entertainment, protection from weather, or medical treatment, is guilty of a misdemeanor In New York, the anti-mask law seems to be subsumed under loitering, which includes Being masked or in any manner disguised by unusual or unnatural attire or facial alteration, loiters, remains or congregates in a public place with other persons so masked or disguised, or knowingly permits or aids persons so masked or disguised to congregate in a public place; except that such conduct is not unlawful when it occurs in connection with a masquerade party or like entertainment if, when such entertainment is held in a city which has promulgated regulations in connection with such affairs, permission is first obtained from the police or other appropriate authorities; which could be narrowly construed to outlaw wearing of balaclavas by SWAT teams (they are masked, they congregate and remain in public with others masked men, it is not in connection with entertainment.	Yes, this is illegal. If by "across the state" you mean some distance away but in the same state then the exact law will depend on which state you are in, but as a rule any "conversion" of property to the use of another counts as theft. In this case your aunt has "converted" the property to the use of your Nan (funny legal phrase). The fact that the people doing this are your relatives makes no difference. (When asking about the law here you should always say which state you are in.) Although theft is a crime, you could also start a civil case to get your property back without involving the police. The details depend on where you are, but try googling "(your state) small claims court". Many states have a process for collecting low-value debts or other property without needing lawyers. You need to have a firm conversation with your aunt about this. Tell her that you want your property back, and don't back down. Also call your Nan and explain this to her as well; she may not have realised that she is in possession of stolen property, which is usually a separate crime. If you want more advice on how to get your property back without starting a family row then you might ask on the Interpersonal Skills SE, but it might be better to start with "When are you planning to return my property?" and leave "You are a thief" as a last resort. Edit: As Eric Nolan points out in the comments, you may be a minor. If you are under 18 then your aunt has authority over you that she wouldn't have if you were older. For instance, if she is concerned about your use of video games impacting school-work then confiscating your console and putting it out of your reach would be perfectly legal.	IMO this is a perfectly reasonable question, amenable to a common law analysis: (1) indicates that A has committed the tort of false imprisonment (Restatement of Torts, 2d, §35). Because of 2-4, we can see that A intends to confine B (though vide infra). The confinement is complete (§36), this being a single aisle plane although the same would be true if this was a 5-aisle plane. A has no authority to confine B (§ 41) and is not otherwise privileged, and is accomplished with a physical barrier (§38). B knows that he has been confined (§42). B is "privileged to use any means of self-defense to protect himself against confinement which he is privileged to use to protect himself against a harmful or offensive contact or other bodily harm" (§68). B uses reasonable and minimal force not likely or intended to cause death or serious bodily harm (§63), force which is privileged and thus protects B from being subject to liability (§10). A commits the tort of battery (and a second round of false imprisonment) by taking B down (§13). A is not privileged to use force in self-defense. There is no reasonable belief that B will spontaneously turn on A and use further, unprivileged force – A is simply punishing B for his minimal use of force in self defense, so A's final act is not privileged. There is a related but distinct scenario that adds a material fact, which could change the analysis: C calls out "Excuse me, my flight flight leaves in 15 minutes, may I pass?" whereby A allows C to step ahead of him in the queue. A has no obligation to let anyone jump the queue, but may consent to inconsequential contact which might constitute battery. It is reasonable to conclude that there is apparent consent (§50) given to anyone (§52) when A makes way ("making way" is a publicly-available fact, but "for C to pass" is a private fact of A's state of mind which B cannot reasonably infer: except, B has heard the "May I pass?" request). So the analysis really hinges on how to interpret 2 and 4. Coupled with 6, we (jurors) have a preponderance of evidence showing that A intended to confine B, and battered him when his confinement failed.	I'm not sure what jurisdiction you're referring to, but here are the state involuntary manslaughter laws. Broad brush, the elements tend to be: Someone was killed as a result of act by the defendant. The act either was inherently dangerous to others or done with reckless disregard for human life. The defendant knew or should have known his or her conduct was a threat to the lives of others. However, you're really backwards planning from a jail vs. army decision, so you might actually be after something like felony hit and run, which can most certainly result in incarceration. The elements of felony hit and run generally include leaving the scene of an accident regardless of fault (hit and run typically becomes a felony when someone was injured in the accident). Since the elements vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, it makes sense to look them up wherever the accident will take place in the book. If it takes place in the U.S. this is a state-by-state compendium. Then you can tweak the story to satisfy the applicable elements and induce the jail vs. army decision (even if army policy prohibits it, it's still pretty common fiction!).	I do not know the particular legal environment in France, but in general the shop is private property and the owner decides who may enter and who may not. You have no right as such to enter somebody else's property against their will. Doing so would at least be classified as trespassing, possibly more serious considering you mention using force to enter the premise.	A teacher could not instruct students in how to build explosives for use in Federal crimes: It shall be unlawful for any person to teach or demonstrate the making or use of an explosive, a destructive device, or a weapon of mass destruction [...] with the intent that the teaching, demonstration, or information be used for, or in furtherance of, an activity that constitutes a Federal crime of violence (source) This Federal statute creates a law preventing the teaching (in any context, including schools) of bombmaking for the purpose of committing a federal crime. So "bombmaking" is one subject that cannot be taught, although I don't think that there have been any prosecutions of regular K12 teachers under this law.	Note that "pedophilia" is a psycological or social term, and not a legal term. What laws prohibit is the creation, distribution, and possession of child pronography Under 18 U.S.C. § 2251- Sexual Exploitation of Children: Any person who employs, uses, persuades, induces, entices, or coerces any minor to engage in, or who has a minor assist any other person to engage in, or who transports any minor in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, or in any Territory or Possession of the United States, with the intent that such minor engage in, any sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing any visual depiction of such conduct or for the purpose of transmitting a live visual depiction of such conduct, shall be punished as provided under subsection (e), if such person knows or has reason to know that such visual depiction will be transported or transmitted using any means or facility of interstate or foreign commerce or in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce or mailed, if that visual depiction was produced or transmitted using materials that have been mailed, shipped, or transported in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce by any means, including by computer, or if such visual depiction has actually been transported or transmitted using any means or facility of interstate or foreign commerce or in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce or mailed. This means that there is no offense if no real child is involved, and this is also true of the various other US laws on child porn. Since the case of Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234 (2002) erotica which appear to depict a minor engaging in sexual activity, but which are not depictions of any actual child are protected speech under the US First Amendment and are therefor not criminal. So called "furry cub porn" might include modified images of actual minors, in which case it would seem to be covered under US laws against child porn. But if the character is totally invented, or is based on an adult rather than a minor, then it would seem to come under the rule of Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition. Note, the law in other countries is significantly different. In particular in the UK a realistic drawing may be considered to be a "pesudo-photograph" even if not based on an actual person, and may be punishable in the same way as an actual photo of an actual minor. Note also, the making, distribution, or posse ion of 'child porn' is a very serious criminal offense. I am not a lawyer, and one should not rely on this post to determine what acts are and are not legally safe. If there is any question, consult a lawyer. Note also that under the above statute (18 U.S.C. § 2251), something may be "child pornography" if the person involved is a minor, even if that person is old enough under local law to consent to sexual activity, and even if the person did in fact so consent, and even if there was no intent to distribute the image or video. So a person taking, say, a cell-phone video of him- or herself having sex with a 17-year-old, intended for personal watching only, in a state where the age of consent to sex is 16, can still be found guilty under this law, and such cases have occurred.
Are any permits required for an unofficial learning pod of homeschooled children? A relative of mine lives in Washington and would like to start a "learning pod" for their children which would work as follows: One parent contracts a teacher to work for them full time All the other parents pool in money to help pay the salary Kids from 8-10 households gather in someones home (they're lucky to live in a rural area so there's tons of space) and learn as they would in a normal school No contracts would be signed and no one except the teacher is profiting from the arrangement. If required the parents can wire the money directly to the teacher to avoid the organizer having control over finances. Likewise the space is being provided free of charge. No one will officially call it a "school" or advertise it as such (in fact, there would be zero public advertising). On paper all the kids will be homeschooled and not enrolled in any educational institution whatsoever. Would any permits be required for such and arrangement? If yes, would anything change if one of the parents play the role of a teacher and no one is paying any money whatsoever for any services?	Parents Can't Legally do That To count as "homeschooling in the state of washington it must consist of a parent (or parents) instructing his or her own children. If another parent, much less a hired teacher, is doing the teaching this is a private school and must be licensed and approved. Thew Washington laws are summarized in the page "Home Based Instruction" from the Washington State office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. This Says: RCW 28A.200.011 states that each person whose child is receiving home-based instruction under RCW 28A.225.010 (4) must file annually a signed declaration of intent that he or she is planning to cause his or her child to receive home-based instruction. current school year. This data is used to maintain student enrollment statistics and project enrollment statistics and trends. This page also links to The Pink Book: Washington State Laws Regulating Home-Based Instruction (PDF) This provides some greater explanation and frequently asked questions around home-based instruction. The Pink Book says: compliance with the law? RCW 28A.225.010 requires all parents of any child 8 years of age and under 18 years of age in this state to cause such children to attend the public school of the district in which the child resides for the full time when the school is in session, unless: The child is attending an approved private school or is enrolled in an extension program of an approved private school. The child is receiving home-based instruction. The child is attending an education center. The school district superintendent has excused the child from attendance ... RCW 28A.225.010(4) defines instruction as home-based if it consists of planned and supervised instructional and related educational activities, including curriculum and instruction in the basic skills of occupational education, science, mathematics, language, social studies, history, health, reading, writing, spelling, and the development of an appreciation of art and music provided for a number of hours per grade level established for approved private schools (see question 3 below) and if such activities are provided by a qualified parent. RCW 28A.225.010(4) requires that the instructional and educational activities be: a. Provided by a parent who is instructing his or her child only and is supervised by a person certificated under Chapter 28A.410 RCW. The supervision consists of and includes planning of objectives by the certificated person and the parent, a minimum each month of an average of one contact hour per week with the child being supervised by the certificated person, and evaluation of such child’s progress by the certificated person. The number of children supervised by the certificated person shall not exceed 30. b. Provided by a parent who is instructing his or her child only and who has either earned 45 college-level credit hours or the equivalent in semester hours or has completed a course in home-based instruction at postsecondary institution or a vocational-technical institute. c. Provided by a parent who is deemed sufficiently qualified to provide home-based instruction by the superintendent of the local school district in which the child resides. The actual laws, linked above, confirm that home-based instruction can only be provided by an actual parent to his or her own child. Instructing a child of some other parent, much less hiring a teacher, moves this out of the category of home-based instruction, and into that of a private school. And to be valid for school attendance, a private school must be approved and licensed, and offer a minimum of 180 days per school year, or 1000 hours of instruction, with an approved curriculum, and certified teachers, and various other requirements.	That is a very broad clause, broader than the default US rule for copyright, for example. (I know the question asked about the UK, I just happen to know the US copyright rule.) It would seem on the face of it to include independent research on a subject totally unrelated to the person's employment, done off the company's premises and not during normal work hours, but while the person was an employee.. Indeed it would arguably include the copyright to a novel written off premises and during off hours. Use of "course of employment" (instead of "term") would improve the provision. so would "as a part of his or her employment" or "closely related to the subject of his or her employment". Another possible restriction would be "Using the Company's facilities and/or equipment, or during normal working hours". However, my experience is that an employer will have drafted whatever language it uses through its company lawyer, and will be quite unwilling to alter it in any way. A prospective employee will probably be faced with a take-it-or-leave-it choice unless that person is a nearly indispensable figure to the company. One could send the company a certified letter saying, "When i signed the contract agreeing to {company language} I did not intend to include any developments made off company premises, not using company equipment, and unrelated to the subject or scope of my employment. I retain full rights to any such developments." Such a letter would help establish that there was no meeting of the minds to assign such non-employment-related developments or IP to the Company. How much weight it would have if the rights to such developments were the subject of a court case I am not sure.	tl;dr: no, they're not law yet. Background The two bills are different. A5217 proposes to create a juvenile alternative to the current community service program, and A1969 proposes changes to the state's anti-bullying law. It looks like they've reassigned the number "5217." The correct version of A5217 is at this link. A bill becomes law when signed into law by the governor. To be delivered to the governor, the bill has to pass both houses of the legislature. In order to pass in one house, the bill has to survive a full vote there. To be voted upon, a bill typically has to clear its committee. Sometimes that entails getting adequate support (like sponsors). Bills include the language "Be it enacted" because each house has to vote on the precise language the governor will eventually sign. A5217 is still in progress, meaning that it has yet to pass the Assembly. It has been introduced, referred to the Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee, and got a third prime sponsor (on May 24 DiMaso joined Lopez and McKnight as a sponsor). The companion bill, S3447, has been introduced and referred to the Senate Law and Public Safety Committee. A1969 has been introduced and referred to the Women and Children Committee. It does not yet appear to have a Senate companion.	The issue is not exactly with minors, it is with FERPA and COPPA. This assumes that you have some indication of what students are connected to the web page. If you have students under 13 (surely you do), you need verifiable parental consent. The FTC approves or disapproves particular methods of verification, here is their page on that. One approved and patented method is ChildGuardOnline Technology (it;s a business, not a free service). The other concern is that you have to scrupulously protect "student records". You already know that you can't disseminate "student records" without parental consent, what this adds is possibly new concerns with online security. However, many schools are exempt from the COPPA requirements. Here are some "exceptions" to the rule, and nonprofit organizations are not subject to Section 5 of the FTC Act.	As a terminological matter, I assume that by "public school" you mean state-operated K-12 systems. As a part of the government, public schools cannot be sued unless the state has allowed a suit on such grounds. Issues such as negligence and violation of rights are not litigated under contract-law theories. Because the public school is required to accept and teach students, parents are required to send their children to school, and parents are not obligated to pay anything, the opportunities for a contract to exist are highly limited. I set aside popular fake contracts between student and teacher which simply recites the teacher's pedagogical vows and expectations, since these are not enforceable contracts with new obligations and consideration. IEP (Individualized Education Program) "contracts" may be advertised as being agreements, but they are mandated (of the school) by law. The contract would be between the parent and the school because the student as a minor lacks capacity to form contracts. The parent cannot be "forced" into an enforceable contract since state law already mandates that the school must provide an education, and the parent never faces the "sign or no schooling" choice. Public schools can, of course, contract with a business, for example a pest-control service, or employment in general. The person whom they contract with can naturally be a parent of a child in the district, but the business contract is incidental to the person's being a parent.	You're under 18, so you're viewed as a minor under the law, and as such, you can't agree to and sign legally binding contracts. The TOS for the applications are agreed to by your parents by default, because your parents are responsible for you and have no choice in parental guardian-type duties, such as education. Agreeing to the software TOSs may also be done for all student users by the school with their software site license(s) and under an agreement with your parents; ask for and read any written policies the school has. And, you don't have a say in data handling at your school; that will be another school policy for data and network security, and hopefully a policy exists. If a policy exists, it will set by the school board and it will respect a variety of local, state and federal laws. That said, you can approach the school board and outline your concerns and ask to take tests and assignments with pencil and paper. But they are not obligated to change policies for you or make accommodations, other than established accommodations required by law, such as under the ADA act. Once you're 18, you can fight the power. Until then, you're a minor.	There is no general law making it illegal to lie about debts, or anything else. It is illegal to lie to a law enforcement officer in the course of an investigation. (And of course it is illegal to lie in court testimony or when otherwise under oath.) But it is in no way unlawful to decline to answer, unless a proper court order has been obtained, or other lawful means of compelling an answer. I would expect any law office to respond to such a question with something like "Am I/we being investigated? If so, send the appropriate notice and our lawyer will consider what we should tell you. If not, tell us what information you want, and we will consider and provide a written response in due course." If a taxpayer has been found to be delinquent in paying taxes, in some cases a court order may be obtained seizing assets, including unpaid debts. But no IRS agent can make such a claim on the spot, and indeed for a client to make such a payment without such a court order, or the order of an IRS tribunal (or the creditor's written consent) would itself be unlawful and would subject the lawyer to a suit by the PI (Private Investigator). When the lawyer pays a service provider, a 1099 must be filed with the IRS. If the PI is a corporation, a different form is used, but a record of payment is still required. As failure to timely file such a form is a violation of the tax code, an accusation of paying without filing would permit the lawyer to decline to answer under the Fifth amendment. If the lawyer did pay and did file a 1099 or other documentation, the IRS would know what had been payed, and would not need to confront the PI. Also, as the comment by Hilmar points out, a PI would be likely to use the cash accounting method, and so would own no tax on work performed but unpaid (as yet). So unless the IRS agent thinks the PI was paid "off-the books" and is intentionally failing to report the payment, there would be no point to such a question. And if that were he case, the lawyer would be very likely to decline to answer. I find the story quite implausible.	As the quote in your question notes (albeit in contrapositive form), Asimov's fiction may be made legally available for free download on the net with the permission of his estate. It is either that case that Princeton University's physics department (or whatever individual person or agency put up the story online) has obtained permission from Asimov's estate to distribute the story on their website, or they simply distribute it without legal permission, and Asimov's estate has not taken legal action to have it removed, which they may or may not choose to do in the future. Consider also that the Princeton distribution does not appear to have been meant to be in any way public: looking one directory level up (Princeton University Physics 115A and B: Physics for Future Leaders) shows a course overview with syllabus and lecture notes, without any apparent link to the story. Probably, it was put online for use exclusively by students taking that particular class, and the professor(s) just didn't put any controls to stop it from being accessible to anyone who knew the URL. This doesn't really change that fact that its public accessibility is, strictly speaking, copyright infringement, but it may be a favorable factor toward a finding that distribution outside of the class was innocent infringement, which can lessen (or, rarely, nullify) the penalty. (And it may be quite possible that distribution within the class was defensible under fair use/dealing, which considers educational context as a favorable factor.)
Liability if someone is hurt on my property My neighbor sometimes mows a ditch on a far side of our property without asking. The ditch is steep and I'm concerned he may tip over the mower and get hurt. I have 2 questions: If this does happen, am I liable, particularly since they didn't ask permission to do this and What can I do to limit liability if this were to happen? I'm certain state laws differ. FWIW, I live in KS. Edit : The ditch is next to a road, which was added later. It is part of an road, utility and drainage easement that I can't change, or would be difficult (and likely pricey) to do.	Kansas evaluates these kinds of cases, known as premises liability cases, under the general law of negligence (which is a common law claim governed by case law in Kansas, rather than a statute, except as modified by specific statutes in some respect or other). When you own or control a piece of property, you are responsible for making reasonable efforts to ensure that visitors are safe. If you fail to identify safety risks that you should have reasonably known about, or if you fail to correct potentially hazardous conditions, you could be held liable for any injuries that result. The law is just that vague and is interpreted by judges and juries on a case by case basis. When that happens Kansas uses a comparative negligence system that evaluates the percentage of the fault attributable to everyone who is alleged to have been negligent including the person injured. Damages are allocated based upon those percentages (unless the person injured is more than 50% at fault, in which case the person injured recovers nothing in the lawsuit). Kansas is not among the states that make a formalistic distinction between the duties owed to "invitees", "licensees" and "trespassers" as the common law historically did. If a risk is foreseeable and you could have taken affordable precautions (relative to the value of the activity the not taking the precaution made possible) to address it, and you didn't, you could be held liable. Trespassing is just one of an infinite number of factors that the jury considers in assigning comparative fault. The main pro-active actions that you can take are to purchase homeowner's insurance with reasonable liability policy limits and ideally umbrella insurance as well (which increases your policy limits at a modest additional cost), and to communicate in writing to the neighbor (in a way that you can prove if anything happens later) warning your neighbor of the risks that you foresee and urging your neighbor to take care to avoid those risks. The statute of limitations in these cases in Kansas is usually two years although exceptions apply.	user662852 has a good point -- whoever own the property has the right to make the rules. Is the property, land+construction in fact your's or does it belong to the HOA who just grant you access as a lease holder? Different states has different rules, but in my state it is illegal to maroon a property and there must be a access to public streets even when this necessitate passing over somebody else land. However that is irrelevant if the HOA owns the land your house is build on. I think you will have to look at your HOA agreement and see what it says.	You have been told that the other person's insurance may not be valid. Why it may not doesn't really matter, perhaps the other person didn't pay premiums or lied on an application. So the situation is much the same as if the other person is uninsured or under insured. Your p[olicy must cover things. And your policy has a deductible. So you have to pay the deductable amount. That is what a deductible is, the amount that you must pay before your policy coverage kicks in. The lower it is, the higher your premium is. You don't have any choice about that. Depending on your jurisdiction, you may be able to sue the other person involved in the accident, and get that person to pay. Your insurance company might do this for you, but if they won't you would have to hire a lawyer yourself to do that. Such a lawyer could get all the details of your case, and advise you of your options.	It depends on what state this is. In Washington state, there is a form that sellers must fill out, and section 3 addresses sewer connections. This matter could have been disclosed – the allowed answers are "yes; no; don't know" (or NA). These are sellers disclosures, and Zillow / Redfin are free to be unreliable (I personally know that they are wrong about square footage). A real estate agent also doesn't become liable for being misinformed. Assuming your state has this or analogous question, "No" means that you were told (doesn't matter if you didn't notice it), and "Don't know" means you're gambling. Let's say that the answer was "Yes". Still, you can't necessarily sue (and win): you would have to prove misrepresentation (fraud or negligence) and not innocent error. You could do this by, for instance, proving that seller had the septic tank cleaned out some years earlier. Perhaps an action against buyer's inspector is possible, since that's nominally what they might have been hired to find out. But that is only true if checking the sewer connection can reasonably be considered part of the deal, so you have to look at the contract with the inspector (and the inspector's report).	This depends on the law of the specific jurisdiction, but there is non-trivial similarity in those rules across the US. The general rule is that the person who owns the property must maintain the property. There are often local ordinances that explicitly say that, for example this which is the legal mechanism behind this guidance on tree-trimming. A municipality can do the trimming, or they can send official letters to property owners telling them to trim the bushes. It does not matter whether the sign is on your property via an easement, what matters is where the tree is. You are not responsible for trimming your neighbor's tree if the stop sign is on your property.	There are both statutes and customs aimed at preventing "Malicious Prosecution" and "Abuse of Process." (In Pennsylvania, for example, the 1980 Dragonetti Act allows the victim of a frivolous lawsuit to counter-sue for compensatory damages.) One can also buy insurance against this type of risk: Umbrella liability policies will generally provide a defense against civil lawsuits and any damages awarded, as will many business insurance policies. Of course, none of this is to say that a skilled legal team can't avoid all of these countermeasures and, in practice, take up a significant amount of your time and trouble. We do not have a perfect system of justice.	Direct civil suits are not the only way to obtain remedies for property violations. Other options: Ask. You can send them a simple letter describing the violation and asking them to compensate you appropriately. Complain to authorities. If they engaged in any behavior that constitutes a crime (e.g., criminal fraud) then the state (via district or state attorneys) is responsible for any criminal prosecution. If the state prosecutes and you are considered a victim, the state generally takes that into account if they are able to prevail against the defender. Even if they didn't commit a crime, but they have a sufficiently outrageous pattern of abusing individuals' civil rights, state attorneys may decide to threaten or take legal action. Seek a "litigation investor." If the size of damages likely to be recovered via lawsuit is high enough, then law firms will sometimes take cases "on contingency," which typically means the plaintiff does not front any money, but gives up a significant share of any winnings. There are also independent litigation investment companies that perform the same function based on a similar calculus, but often for even larger cuts of any winnings.	Overview This is a somewhat complex issue. The presence of "No Trespassing" signs would make anyone who enters the property without a specific invitation a trespasser. So would the presence of a fence, even if there was a closed but unlocked gate. An "Enter at your own risk" sign probably would not make such people legally trespassers. In West Virginia, a landowner or lessee or other lawful occupant owes a duty of "reasonable care" to invitees and other non-trespassers. No such duty is owed to trespassers. However, the owner or lawful occupant is expected to avoid dangerous conditions and reckless hazards, as well as intentional causes of harm (such as booby-traps). If through recklessness or serious negligance a dangerous condition exists and a person, even a trespasser, is injured or killed because of such a condition, the owner or lawful occupant is likely to be liable. However, if the danger is "open and obvious" or is as well known to the injured person as to the owner or occupant, there is no liability. A warning sign might make a danger "open and obvious". I do not see that video cameras will be relevant to the matter at all. Cameras do not warn a pedestrian not to enter, nor do they warn of any danger, nor do they prevent a pedestrian from being injured. They may help in detecting or even preventing crime, but will not affect liability for injury to a pedestrian. Sources West Virginia Code Code Sections §61-3B-3. (Trespass on property other than structure or conveyance.) of the West Virginia Code provides that: (a) It is an unlawful trespass for any person to knowingly, and without being authorized, licensed or invited, to enter or remain on any property, other than a structure or conveyance, as to which notice against entering or remaining is either given by actual communication to such person or by posting, fencing or cultivation. §55-7-27. (Liability of possessor of real property for harm to a trespasser.) (a) A possessor of real property, including an owner, lessee or other lawful occupant, owes no duty of care to a trespasser except in those circumstances where a common-law right-of-action existed as of the effective date of this section, including the duty to refrain from willfully or wantonly causing the trespasser injury. (b) A possessor of real property may use justifiable force to repel a criminal trespasser as provided by section twenty-two of this article. (c) This section does not increase the liability of any possessor of real property and does not affect any immunities from or defenses to liability established by another section of this code or available at common law to which a possessor of real property may be entitled. (d) The Legislature intends to codify and preserve the common law in West Virginia on the duties owed to trespassers by possessors of real property as of the effective date of this section. Articles from Law Firms The article "West Virginia Legislature reinstitutes “open and obvious” doctrine" from the law firm Farmer, Cline, & Campbell discusses how the case of Hersch v. E-T Enterprises, Ltd. P’ship. in which a WVa court abolished the "open and obvious" except to liability, imposing dameages for an "open and obvious" hazard, specifically an open stair without guardrails. The legislature then amended §55-7-27. (a) to restore the exception. The article also reads: West Virginia state law requires property owners remove hazards from their property to reduce the risk of these injuries. The expectation is dependent on the type of person that is on the property. Previously, visitors were broken into one of four categories: invitee, licensee, social guest or trespasser. The duty of care owed to the visitor depended on the category under which the visitor qualified. Today, there are only two categories: trespasser and non-trespasser. The West Virginia Supreme Court, in Mallet v. Pickens, abolished the four categories mentioned above, and held that “landowners or possessors now owe any non-trespassing entrant a duty of reasonable care under the circumstances.” The article "Property owners may be liable for injuries to trespassers" from the law firm Farmer, Cline, & Campbell reads: West Virginia homeowners are not obligated to protect those who trespass upon their property. However, they should be aware that they cannot willfully cause injury to any who do trespass. This law can become an issue for homeowners with frequent trespassers as they may find themselves liable for injuries any people, even the uninvited ones, sustain if their properties are left in an unsafe condition. For example, homeowners and landowners could potentially face lawsuits if they purposefully made their properties unsafe. They may also be held liable if the condition of their properties could cause serious bodily harm or death. Further, landowners can also potentially face legal consequences if they fail to warn potential trespassers that there are hazards on their properties. The article "Determining Duty in West Virginia Premises Liability Cases" from Colombo Law reads: Most states use three categories to determine whether a duty is owed to individuals who enter the property of another. These three categories are business invitee, licensee, and trespasser. In the past, West Virginia was one of the many states that followed this standard. However, in 1999 West Virginia abolished and replaced the three specific classifications with a new, more general standard of determining whether the individual is a trespasser or a nnon-trespasser Trespasser. A trespasser is an individual who enters the property of another without the permission of a landowner. An individual will be deemed a trespasser if they do not have either express or implied permission from the owner. In West Virginia, the courts offer little protection to those who are trespassers. As a trespasser, a landowner must only refrain from intentional or reckless conduct. Non-Trespassers. Contrary to trespassers, landowners owe a duty to anyone that is permitted to be on the property. If an individual enters private property with the express or implied permission of a landowner, the landowner must ensure that the premises are reasonably safe for those on the premises. To ensure you are meeting the standard of care, the landowner must inspect the premises to determine whether there are any dangerous conditions present on the property and repair and/or warn individuals of the danger. Premises liability is the legal premise for which landowners are responsible for harm caused by unsafe conditions existing on the landowner’s premises. Premises liability is a broad concept that may be raised for a variety of harms present. One main reason for personal injury actions stemming from premises liability include slip and fall accidents as a result of: Slippery floors Uneven sidewalks or pavement Objects protruding from carpeting , floorboards, or store shelves
What is required for a slander lawsuit? Suppose there is a group of people being contacted by an outside agency at the business they are working at. The outside agency is lying about a particular employee's behavior and convincing this group the person is not mentally well. Would the outside agency be slandering the employee's reputation? Thus altering opinions and behavior of other employees against the individual? Even encouraging the group of employees to take action against the particular employee. Would this constitute a slander lawsuit against the group of employees and outside agency?	Partial answer (other parts of an answer would be jurisdiction specific): Would this constitute a slander lawsuit against the group of employees and outside agency? The employee falsely alleged to be mentally ill would be the plaintiff who would be the only person who would have standing to bring suit. The person allegedly making a false statement to someone other than the employee alleged to be mentally ill (an action which is called "publication" of a false statement) would be the defendant(s). Listening to an allegedly false statement about someone is not slander, nor is believing it to be true. In the U.S., in most cases, knowledge of the truth or reckless disregard for the truth (or at least negligence in getting the facts wrong in private persons cases not involving a public interest) is necessary to establish liability. Someone who doesn't know that a statement is false and has some basis to believe it is true, can't be guilty of slander. In many non-U.S. jurisdictions, slander liability is possible without knowledge that the statement made is false (and without reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of the statement). Also, it matter who the "outside agency" is in this case. Governmental agencies are typically immune from liability for slander for statements made in the course of their official duties. Without a fuller understanding of who is saying something and why, it is hard to evaluate the claim appropriately.	If I understand your question, you're asking the difference between something like this: "You shouldn't do business with Bob; he's a child molester. Raped a whole bunch of kids. Everyone knows about it." and this: "You're thinking of doing business with Bob? Huh. That's your call, of course. I won't say anything against Bob. But Bill is in the same business, and I happen to know that Bill has never molested any kids." or this: "There are three people you could do business with. There's me. I've never molested any kids. There's Bill; he's a little expensive, but he's never molested any kids either. Then there's Bob. I don't have anything to say about Bob." I don't know the answer under German law, but under U.S. law, it's surprisingly complicated, and varies by jurisdiction. Here is a thorough but somewhat dated article on the subject. New York has recently established an explicit test for defamation by implication: To survive a motion to dismiss a claim for defamation by implication where the factual statements at issue are substantially true, the plaintiff must make a rigorous showing that the language of the communication as a whole can be reasonably read both to impart a defamatory inference and to affirmatively suggest that the author intended or endorsed that inference. Stepanov v Dow Jones & Co., 2014 NY Slip Op 03940 (App. Div. May 29, 2014). That opinion also discusses the other approaches used in other U.S. states. Under that standard, it seems clear that my example statements would be defamatory; any juror would immediately understand both the factual implication and that it was 100% intentional. In practical terms, I doubt any court in the United States would not consider them defamatory. In general, defamation is harder to prove in the United States than in other jurisdictions, because of the strong protections afforded to speech under the First Amendment--but I don't know enough about German law to speak to that issue.	Suborning perjury is a criminal offense, at the federal level under 18 USC 1622, and is especially bad for a law firm to do. An attorney has a duty to not allow a client to lie in a legal proceeding, so instructing a client to lie is worse. Legally speaking, you are not compelled to turn them in to the (local US) authorities, unless your country has some odd law requiring citizens to report crimes in foreign countries. Two things can possibly come out of forwarding such an email to the authorities. One is that they will gain access to privileged communication, which they may not be able to use against the client. The other is that they will have evidence of the attorney committing a crime, which is not privileged. See Clark v. United States, 289 U.S. 1: There is a privilege protecting communications between attorney and client. The privilege takes flight if the relation is abused. A client who consults an attorney for advice that will serve him in the commission of a fraud will have no help from the law. He must let the truth be told. We take no stance on moral questions as to whether you should or should not.	We're missing a lot of information that we'd need to offer a full answer. Here are some of the things that will probably drive the analysis: the type of counselor we're talking about; the types of information the counselor disclosed; the reason she disclosed it; the job functions of the people to whom she disclosed it; the reason the client is bothered by the disclosure. Generally speaking, a mental-health counselor has a fiduciary duty to maintain the confidentiality of patient information, but my understanding is that in most cases, the counselor would be allowed to discuss a case with colleagues for the purposes of advancing the patient's treatment. So discussing the facts of a tough case with a supervisor is not going to be as problematic as idly gossiping about clients with custodial staff. Beyond the permitted disclosures, there are also situations in which counselors are required to disclose confidential information, including cases where the counselor suspects child or elder abuse or where the counselor believes the client poses a danger to herself or others. If the disclosure was truly not permitted, then it may be that the client has a claim for breach of fiduciary duty. In Georgia, proving that case requires evidence that: That the counselor had information relating to the client that she knew or should have known was confidential; That the counselor communicated the client’s confidential information to third parties; That the client did not give informed consent to the counselor’s conduct; That the confidential information was not a matter of general knowledge; and That the disclosure harmed the client. As you noted, the client could also file a complaint with the state licensing board. I don't know of any federal laws or regulations that would come into play in the situation you've described.	You can be fired in Canada for criticizing the employer, or even complaining about the weather. There is a distinction between Termination Without Cause and Termination With Cause. In the latter case, which requires a serious reason related to the employee's conduct, you can be fired without advance notice and with no severance pay. If the employees actions are fundamentally inconsistent with their obligation to the employer or are substantially prejudicial to the business in a way that damages employer's business or reputation, they may be terminated with cause. Examples of cause would include insubordination, theft, or abusing customers. If you want to fire a person without cause (and assuming that this is an indefinite employment contract as opposed to a fixed-term contract), you have to give "reasonable notice". There is a statutory minimum, but the courts usually apply a higher common law standard which means that you need to hire a labor lawyer to know what that period is, though 24 months is apparently a relatively safe figure (not always safe). The factors entering into that decision are described here (kind of job, length of service, age, availability of similar jobs; plus, how the termination was handled). You may also owe severance or termination pay, related to length of service and wages. Here is a calculator for Ontario. This article covers some instances in Québec where social media criticism did result in successful suspension, indicating that the employee's duty of loyalty is not entirely null when it comes to social media. In the BC case of Kim v. ITU, the court found that the dismissal over social media posts critical of the company was not for cause. However, part of the company's failure in this case was that they failed to respond immediately to what they saw as inappropriate behavior (boorish Twitter behavior). Assuming that the statements made are accurate and expressed respectfully, the prospects for Termination With Cause are significantly diminished. The prospects for some disciplinary action (suspension for a period of time) remains high -- multiple terminations were modified to long suspensions.	The question read: I am thinking it doesn't matter if it's a lie or not and you're allowed to voice your opinion, ... Under US (and I think also Canadian) law, it very much does matter if such a statement is a lie, the truth, or an opinion (which is neither). If a statement is a statement of fact, and is false, it might be grounds for a defamation suit (in this case probably slander, rather than libel, in those states that have preserved the distinction). A statement of opinion is not a statement of fact, and is not taken as either true or false. However, sometimes a statement framed as a statement of opinion is treated as a statement of fact. "I think it is clear that Joe murdered Fred" would be treated as a statement of (purported) fact in a defamation case. To prevail in a defamation case, the plaintiff must show harm to his or her reputation, unless the defamatory statement falls into one of the categories considered defamation per se Traditionally these are: statements or suggestions that a person was involved in criminal activity; statements or suggestions that a person had a "loathsome" contagious or infectious disease (normally a sexually transmitted disease); statements or suggestions that a person was unchaste or engaged in sexual misconduct (in some jurisdictions this applied only if the person was a woman); statements or suggestions that a person was involved in behavior incompatible with the proper conduct of his business, trade or profession; Specific legislation has modified these categories in some jurisdictions. A statement asserting that a co-worker was incompetent might fall under the fourth of these categories. A statement that a co-worker cheated his employer almost surely would fall under the fourth category. In the absence of defamation per se a successful defamation suit would need to prove specific damage to reputation, which would include proof that the person defamed had a reputation above rock-bottom before the defamation occurred, and it was harmed by the statement. Negative statements of opinion about a co-worker would not be grounds for a defamation lawsuit, but might violate the employer's policy and be grounds for discipline or even dismissal. In the US, the First Amendment's protection of expression now makes defamation harder to prove than in many other countries.	Can a statement of one's beliefs constitute defamation if those beliefs can't be proven true? You might think that it is impossible to prove what's going on in your mind. But this is done all the time. Thoughts can be inferred from words and actions. For example, theft requires an intent to permanently deprive someone of property. If someone hides merchandise under their shirt and proceeds to the exit, there's generally not a reasonable doubt about whether they intended in their mind to steal it. Defamation laws vary by state. However, the First Amendment sets a baseline that all states must follow. Defamation requires a false fact. Pure opinion is not defamation. However, it is possible to defame via a statement which is an opinion, if that opinion implies undisclosed facts which are false. If you say that you "believe" the companies are deceptive, this clearly implies you know something that makes you believe that. You can get around this by disclosing the entire factual basis for your opinion. If you say that the New York Giants are deceptive because their stadium is actually located in New Jersey, that's not defamation, because people can judge for themselves whether that's actually deceptive. But if the team was actually located in New York, you could be liable. Would we still have some potential burden of proof The burden of proof is on the plaintiff, but it's only preponderance of the evidence in most cases, meaning the jury just needs to find it 50.001% likely that you are liable. But if the plaintiff in a defamation case is considered a "public figure" the standard of proof is raised, and they must prove by "clear and convincing evidence" that you acted with "actual malice" (which more or less means that you didn't actually believe what you were saying.) According to this paper it's an open question as to whether a corporation can be a public figure (although I don't know if their analysis is still valid since it's from 2001); the answer might depend on which circuit you are in, and even if you know how your circuit has decided the matter, the Supreme Court might rule the other way. And if your case goes all the way to the Supreme Court, you're going to be paying a lot of legal fees over the course of many years. You should also know that even if it's not defamation, you might not be off the hook. There's something called "tortious interference of business". If you're going to literally have people stand in front of businesses to try to drive their customers away from them and to you, I would highly suggest you get a lawyer from your area to determine whether and how you can legally do this.	Is it legal to publish a cease and desist letter that I have received? Generally speaking, yes. My interpretation of your post is that you published your opinion about a business or businessperson, and the businessperson now is trying to intimidate you or deter you from sharing with others your opinion. The phrase "the actionable statements listed are clearly statements of my opinion" is otherwise unclear. Under defamation law, only false statements of fact are actionable whereas statements of opinion are not. The businessperson is not entitled to your silence. If your criticism is about the business, the cease and desist letter sounds in unfair and misleading practices to the extent that the business is trying to conceal from the public some inconvenient information that you as actual or potential customer possess. Even if you published as a competitor, your statements would have to be untrue and misleading for these to constitute disparagement. See the Black's Law Dictionary definition of disparagement [of Goods]. For the reasons stated in the other answer, copyright issues are not a matter of concern. It is preferable to publish the letter as is. Transparency preempts confusion as to "I said, he said". By contrast, paraphrasing the letter for the purpose of avoiding an imaginary violation of copyright creates a risk of you inadvertently giving him grounds for a claim of defamation.
Can Hollywood discriminate on the race of their actors? Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and later addenda, employers in the US "cannot discriminate" on race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity), national origin, age, disability, and genetic information. However, the quotes are there because there are a number of cases that cast a murky fog over this otherwise straightforward principle. If an employer is hiring for a customer service agent who needs to be able to communicate with Latino customers, the employer can require the agent to speak Spanish, but cannot require Latino heritage. Similarly, a position for a chef at an Indian restaurant can require extensive experience with Indian cooking, but the manager cannot legally discriminate against a white chef who trained in Indian cuisine. Hollywood gets an even more subtle trick in the toolbag. Because the ability to perform the job of an actor is naturally tied to appearance, specific visual features can be required of a candidate, even racial features ("must be black in appearance"). Recently, a trend has emerged of replacing actors whose race does not match that of their character with race-matched actors. This does present a brand new question to the law. Given that the public now expects black characters to be played by black actors, asian characters to be played by asian actors, and so on, it could easily be argued that the fundamental requirements of the job now include being of a specific race, rather than simply having an appearance indicative of that race. Given this, were a casting director casting a Latino character, and were a southern European or Middle Eastern actor with a Latino appearance but no Latino heritage to make it to the final steps of the casting process before being revealed to be non-Latino and rejected, would this be in violation of the law?	Yes this is legal. Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, there is an exemption under Title VII - Equal Employment Opportunity that allows for discrimination based on a protected trait when there is a Bona Fide Occupational Qualification (BFOQ). The wording is such that it can cover a slew of jobs that have just cause to discriminate against someone in their hiring process including certain roles for actors. However, it does not allow for wholesale discrimination. In order to qualify, an employer must prove three things: A direct relationship between the trait and the ability to perform the job the BFOQ's relation to the "essence" or "central mission of the employer's business" That there is no less restrictive or reasonable alternative As an example, a film about the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have a BFOQ in hiring a man of African descent to portray Dr. King, given that he is trying to accurately portray a historical person (direct relationship) to further educate the public about that historical person's work (Central Mission) and that a "White MLK" would offend audiences. While many roles in the hypothetical film would also qualify for the BFOQ, this doesn't give the production a blank slate... there is no need to discriminate against a set designer or a camera man, so a studio deciding to hire an all black production crew would face some legal troubles. The restaurant chain Hooters, famous for it's amazing chicken wings they served, has a sometimes noticed habit of hiring very attractive women as their wait staff, almost to the point of exclusively. All joking aside, they do get away with this by making a distinction that they are "casting" not "hiring" waitresses and their brand identity is entirely attractive ladies and not really the wings they serve. This is a BFOQ (and they often come up in discussions about this matter of law). With that in mind however, only Hooter's hiring of wait staff has a BFOQ. The person in the kitchen cooking the wings could be a middle-aged balding man with a noticeable gut and managers at stores can be men or women who aren't as attractive as the standards used for wait staff (or were former wait staff but are not as young looking). Works adapting books and comics may have a little more leeway as certain characters may be portrayed as one race but have had their race switched for various reasons and with different success. No one batted an eye when Lawrence Fishburne portrayed Perry White, Clark Kent's editor in Man of Steel or Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury in the various Marvel films (an unusual example as traditionally white Nick Fury was depicted as an African American in Marvel's Ultimate Marvel line). His first appearance in August of 2001 in Ultimate Marvel Team Up, and a second appearance in Ultimate X-Men were of a non-descript African American, before his appearance as a regular in The Ultimates in March 2002, where his look was not only modeled after Jackson, Jackson was specifically "cast" as the visual model for the character, which he leapt at the idea (reportedly his initial pay was quite low given his standing as an actor with the difference made up for by a request of some exclusive artwork and an opportunity to play the character in a then not planned film.). There are even some fictional works where the change in race might be the point of the work itself (for example, in William Shakespeare's play Othello, the titular character is explicitly of North African descent and many consider the work a very early rebuke of concepts of racial superiority (it's very much the subject of debate as to whether Othello being black was an important concept to the play or the Bard just added it for something a little different)). During a 1997 Shakespeare Theater Company's 1997 adaptation, to hammer the "it's about race" side of the argument home, cast very much white Patrick Stewart to play the part of Othello, while the rest of the cast played by African American actors/actresses, a flip of the traditional depiction to highlight that Othello's race separates him from the rest of the characters in the play, regardless of what his actual race was. This play would have a BFOQ to discriminate against white actors seeking to play the villain Iago (IMO, one of the best villains ever written.) because it's important that Iago and Othello not share racial traits for the entire story to work. While acting is usually where this comes up a lot, there are other places where it might be useful to discriminate against a protected class. For example, when hiring a pastor for a church, it would be very important to make sure the Pastor or other spiritual leader was not only of the correct faith, but correct sect within that faith to minister to the flock. A Seventh Day Adventist would be just as successful preaching to Catholic Church as a devout Muslim. For start, all three differ on which day is "the sabbath": Catholics say Sunday (the day of the week Jesus rose from the dead), Seventh Day Adventists say Saturday, the day that those of Jewish faith like Jesus would have observed as the Sabbath, and Muslims say it's Friday (I don't know why off the top of my head). More practically, one might have a BFOQ for not hiring male therapists if one is working at a women's shelter (while gender has no bearing on being an effective therapist, many of the patients at a women's shelter might have problems discussing their situation with a man because most women's shelter's clients were abused by men in their lives, which might cause a delay in healing if the therapist working with them was also a man.).	In the US at least, discrimination is legal (and sometimes even required) unless it is discrimination against specific, protected characteristics, and even then it is sometimes allowable if it is "necessary". Income, whether of an individual or that individual's family, is not in any list of protected characteristics. As such, discrimination upon it is fully legal.	This policy would appear to have a disparate impact on workers age 40 and older, given that most workers obtain degrees in their 20s and few obtain a second degree later. Workers age 40 and older are protected from employment discrimination under the ADEA. Policies with a disparate impact may be considered discriminatory, but not necessarily. The EEOC rule as of 2012 is that such a policy is not illegal if it is based on a "reasonable factor other than age". It is not clear to me whether the 10-year degree policy would pass this test, and it might depend on how the employer justified the rule. Here is the discussion from the EEOC's FAQ: 8.What determines whether an employment practice is based on Reasonable Factors Other than Age? An employment practice is based on an RFOA when it was reasonably designed and administered to achieve a legitimate business purpose in light of the circumstances, including its potential harm to older workers. Example 1: If a police department decided to require applicants for patrol positions to pass a physical fitness test to be sure that the officers were physically able to pursue and apprehend suspects, it should know that such a test might exclude older workers more than younger ones. Nevertheless, the department's actions would likely be based on an RFOA if it reasonably believed that the test measured the speed and strength appropriate to the job, and if it did not know, or should not have known, of steps that it could have taken to reduce harm to older workers without unduly burdening the department. The rule emphasizes the need for an individualized consideration of the facts and circumstances surrounding the particular situation. It includes the following list of considerations relevant to assessing reasonableness: The extent to which the factor is related to the employer's stated business purpose; The extent to which the employer defined the factor accurately and applied the factor fairly and accurately, including the extent to which managers and supervisors were given guidance or training about how to apply the factor and avoid discrimination; The extent to which the employer limited supervisors' discretion to assess employees subjectively, particularly where the criteria that the supervisors were asked to evaluate are known to be subject to negative age-based stereotypes; The extent to which the employer assessed the adverse impact of its employment practice on older workers; and The degree of the harm to individuals within the protected age group, in terms of both the extent of injury and the numbers of persons adversely affected, and the extent to which the employer took steps to reduce the harm, in light of the burden of undertaking such steps. Here is the full text of the rule, 77 FR 19080.	Yes. But it isn't illegal discrimination in many places. Laws against discrimination prevent the discrimination based on forbidden categories. Take the national Olympic team: They are allowed to discriminate based on athletic performance, obviously. They are allowed to discriminate based on gender. There are men's teams and women's teams, and men cannot simply apply for a slot on the women's team. They are not allowed to discriminate based on sexual orientation. Discrimination based on a minimum age might be legal, discrimination based on a maximum age probably not. For an employer, it is legal in many places to discriminate based on (formal) qualifications, but not to discriminate based on sexual orientation or race. (It may be legal to discriminate based on nationality, however ...)	Yes as wearing (or not wearing) a mask is not a protected trait so there is nothing protecting a patron from being removed. While you make reference to religious garb a mask is not religious garb and should not be compared to that. https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/restaurants-right-to-refuse-service.html While there are a few exceptions under some state laws, the answer is usually no. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 explicitly prohibits restaurants from refusing service to patrons based on race, color, religion, or national origin. In other words, restaurants do not have a constitutional right to refuse service. However, this law does not protect those from discrimination based on sexual orientation. This means restaurants can prevent gay people from entering their restaurant and it is not against federal law. There are up to about 20 states, including New York and California, that have enacted that prohibit discrimination in public accommodations based on sexual orientation. However, it gets even more complicated when factoring in local city ordinances within states that allow certain discrimination laws. Listed below there several legal reasons for a restaurant to refuse service, some of which include: Patrons that act in a certain way that is rude or disrupting other guests Patrons that overfill the capacity of the restaurant can lead to safety hazards Patrons that enter the restaurant after the restaurant is closed and no longer serving food to customers Patrons accompanied by large groups of non-customers looking to create rowdy behavior after hours For patrons lacking adequate hygiene or cleanliness, discrimination for this purpose is acceptable because it puts the health and safety of others in the restaurant or establishment at risk Patrons who bring their dog to your restaurant, which is a violation of local health ordinances. When this happens it is okay to tell the patron to leave because of their dog. One exception would be if the dog is a service dog and protected by the American Disabilities Act. Patrons looking to enter a private establishment that requires a certain dress code for etiquette purposes	Almost certainly not. The closest case I can think of is Conisbee v Crossley Farms in which is was decided that vegetarian was not capable of satisfying the requirements and definition of being a philosophical belief as protected under the Equality Act. It would seem that the belief that "businesses that hire more consultants achieve better performance" is a much weaker belief than vegetarian, and so would be expected to not be given such protection.	Discrimination in employment is legal For example, you can discriminate to hire the more qualified or experienced candidate over less qualified ones. What you can’t do is discriminate on the basis of a protected category: The Alberta Human Rights Act (AHR Act) prohibits discrimination in employment based on the protected grounds of race, colour, ancestry, place of origin, religious beliefs, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, physical disability, mental disability, marital status, family status, source of income, and sexual orientation. If it’s not on the list (or a proxy for something on the list), you can discriminate on it.	Yes and no. While there are no general laws that ban the display of offensive symbols, they are prohibited in certain circumstances. Significantly, this is in the workplace. It is illegal to discriminate on the following bases in the workplace: Race Sex Pregnancy Religion National origin Disability (physical or mental, including HIV status) Age (for workers over 40) Military service or affiliation Bankruptcy or bad debts Genetic information Citizenship status (for citizens, permanent residents, temporary residents, refugees, and asylees) For instance, in Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth, 524 US 742 (1998), the majority found: a plaintiff claiming employment discrimination based upon race could assert a claim for a racially hostile work environment, in addition to the classic claim of so-called "disparate treatment." Since you haven't been specific about the nature of the offensive symbol, some examples might be: displaying a swastika displaying sexually offensive material displaying racially offensive material These are likely only to apply if the employer ought to have known, or did in fact know, that an employee (or in some cases, the customers) of a business would be offended, or it would amount to discrimination. Of course, a single display of only the symbol is not likely, on its own, to create a hostile work environment - it would need to be considered with the rest of the facts - but it can certainly be a contributing factor. It's a bit difficult to list all the situations where similar laws might apply, but this is one of the most prominent (and, to be honest, one of the ones that I'm personally interested in).
What is the principle that children can consent to other children of the same age, but not to an adult, called? Two three year old children that agree on "playing doctor" and examining each others bodies, including genitalia are not committing a crime (but if one three year old child forces another three year old it is a crime, although it will be a case for the parents/psychologist/school counsellor not the police). Two 13 year old children/adolescents that consent to have sex are not committing a crime (there are some weird exceptions, particularly in America, where holding a nude photo of yourself is considered child pornography but that is an exception). Furthermore, two 13 year olds can enter a contract if it is "reasonable" for their age, e.g., maybe €/$ 30-50 or so. However, if one party in all those situations was 25, it would be illegal because children can't consent or enter binding contracts with an adult (for substantial amounts of money). Is the principle described above called something? How old is it? Did the Romans apply a similar concept? The medieval Catholic church?	The exception is often called a Romeo and Juliet exception colloquially when applied to statutory rape laws. See, e.g. here. It is an exception to the age of capacity to consent to sexual conduct, not an exception to the capacity to consent to a contract. When children are very young (typically in the range of 7 to 12 as set by statute of common law, it is 6 in North Carolina) they lack the capacity to commit a crime, which has to do with the age of the offender and not the mutual ages of those involved. Is the principle described above called something? How old is it? Did the Romans apply a similar concept? The medieval Catholic church? The principle that you described is a misunderstanding of the law and is incorrect. No jurisdiction has adopted it in the sense that you articulate. When these instances are not punishable as crimes they are not punishable for different reasons. So, the question of "how old is it?" is a category error that has no answer. The medieval Catholic church did not have any criminal or contract jurisprudence. Both of those domains were handled by secular officials, usually either feudal lords or the officials of a "free city". In the medieval period, feudal secular law was often arbitrary and often came down to the personal whims of the individual holding the title. As @hmvsm appropriately notes, however, it did have doctrine about when a child was morally responsible for sins, but final adjudication of whether you sinned or not was ultimately determined in the afterlife, and the church doctrine of forgiveness of sins made the issue moot to a great extent. The Roman Empire, of course, did have secular laws, but its laws in the area of contractual capacity, which are largely replicated by modern European civil codes, didn't contain the principle that you propose. To the best of my knowledge, the modern concept of statutory rape was unknown in the Roman world. The lack of hard age based cutoffs was, in part, because vital statistics record keeping was nowhere near universal, so many people did not even know their exact age in a legally provable manner. Approximate age in the very late Roman Empire would often have been determined based upon time elapsed since an infant baptism as recorded by church officials, but Christianity went from being very rare to universal between about 275 CE and 450 CE, and Rome fell not long after that point.	The "Right to Party" as defined by the organization known as "The Beastie Boys" is not defined in any portion of their discourse on the matter of the "Right to Party". Rather, the entire discourse poetically describes a youth, presumably under the legal adult age of 18 (given restrictions on smoking cigarettes and owning adult literature in the second verse), who faces restrictions upon his or her rights by his legal guardians, in this case a mother, father, and teacher. Whereas the dictionary definition of the verb form of "Party" is defined by Oxford Dictionary as "Enjoying oneself at a party or other lively gathering, typically with drinking and music." As established, the subject of the proposed treaty on this right is legally barred from drinking, though a party may exist without alcohol and thus would not prevent the subject from engaging in an act of partying. A party or lively gathering would meat the definition of "Freedom of Peaceful Assembly" under the First Amendment Rights of the United States Constitution as well as "Freedom of Association" under the same amendment. Said party may additionally be for any purpose so long as it is peaceful. The state may impose reasonable restrictions on the party, such as noise ordinances, age based restrictions on minors including "Adult Contents", cigarettes and alchohol, as discussed. While typcial, they're absence does not prevent the assembly from rising to the level of "party" as previous defined. Beastie Boys contends that the restrictions place upon the subject of their discourse on the Right to Party is unreasonably restricted by the confiscation of several items, enforced school requirements, and dress code as defined by the legal guardian in their right as authority of the youth's rights. Beastie Boys offers little evidence that these restrictions are unreasonable or prevent the subject from "partying" as defined above. Beastie Boys do propose that the authority known as the father can not restrict the use of cigarettes by the youth as the father "smokes two packs a day". While Beastie Boys is correct that this meets the definition of hypocritical, the father is assumed to be of legal age to purchase cigarettes and is legal allowed to restrict access to them based on reasonable age restrictions and possible heath risks the father wishes to prevent in the youth that he may or may not be suffering from. As there are no formal requirements for a peaceful assembly to rise to the level of party, it can be presumed that these restrictions would not affect the party as defined. It should also be noted that in the Beastie Boys discourse, that the authority figure referred to as mother did not restrict the youths ability to listen to the content of the discourse, nor were any restrictions described tailored in such a fashion as to restrict the discourse specifically. While there is no amendment defining the right to party in the United States Constitution, the 9th Amendment does clearly state that citizens rights are not enumerated in the constitution and other rights not discussed in the constitution may exists and be claimed by the individual. From an originalist standpoint, it is widely accept that a good number of The Framers of the Constitution quite frequently met the accepted definition of the phrase "Drunk off their Ass" and thus, would not reasonably be against what can be defined as a "party". Additionally, many were participants in an event that was known as the "Tea Party", which was agreed by many to be quite the lively gathering at its time and was still viewed as quite the "radical" affair of the day, many wearing costumes such as those who attended in clothing traditional of Native Americans. They were also most likely not drunk during the course of this party. Thus, the intent of the framers was never to restrict or deniegn such a right Thus, a reasonable court in the United States would hold that the Right to Party does exist for all U.S. citizens and is inalienable. Beastie Boys also argues that it is acceptable to fight for one's right to party. This does not conflict with the First Amendment Right to petition government for grievances so long as it is again a peaceable affair. Given the poetic nature of the discourse, we can presume that "Fight" would mean to defend or struggle in a non-violent manor for such a right. This is backed up through originalism as the restrictions placed on many citizens of Boston for their actions during the Tea Party were subsequently fought against for many years, culminating in the Constitution. Thus, it can be assumed that the United States does recognize the right of the people to party and the right of the people to fight for the aforementioned right. This right would still be subject to reasonable time, manner, and place restrictions so long as said restrictions are content neutral to the message of the party.	Firstly, this is actually a really good question - The Australian Constitution grants few explicit protections or rights to people, and it does not protect you from discrimination on the basis of age. In any case, you'll find that it is not a violation of the Age Discrimination Act 2004 (Cth) - see s39. This makes an exemption, amongst others, to the Act when acting in compliance with specified Commonwealth laws, or with State or Territory Acts or Regulations, which typically enact minimum drinking ages. In general, governments are able to legislate within the bounds of their powers, usually as enumerated in a constitution, and sometimes limited by a bill of rights. Even where the power to legislate with respect to age is not specifically granted, governments are generally empowered to legislate with respect to other matters where age may be a factor: employment, sale of goods, gambling, etc.	Yes. In a civil case, there are two parties and the case is about finding out who has which obligations to whom. In a civil case, the plaintiff has to prove that they actually incurred damage through the actions of the defendant. A criminal case is the state vs. the defendant. The "wronged party" is the society as a whole, usually represented by the prosecutor. The victim, if there is one, just plays the role of yet another witness to find out if the defendant needs to be punished and how. There are also examples of crimes which are completely victimless but still punished by some societies. For example, in many places sexual intercourse between two consenting adult siblings is a crime (incest), even though there is no victim. Also, for some crimes it is even a crime to attempt to commit it. So one can be punished in a criminal court even though they didn't actually succeed in causing any damage to anyone. Example: I throw a rock at your car. When I hit, you can sue me in a civil court and force me to pay for the repairs. When I miss, I caused no damage to you, so there is nothing you could sue about. But what if I throw a rock at you and miss? That's attempted assault, maybe even attempted murder. When law enforcement finds out about it, I could be arrested, prosecuted and convicted to a prision sentence, even though you are perfectly fine.	It may depend on what offences are suspected of being committed. One example is: In the united-states under 18 U.S. Code § 2258A an Electronic Service Provider (ESP) is required to report apparent violations of sections: 2251 [Sexual exploitation of children] 2251A [Selling or buying of children] 2252 [material involving the sexual exploitation of minors] 2252A [material constituting or containing child pornography] 2252B [Misleading domain names with intent] 2260 [sexually explicit depictions of a minor etc] The report is made to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) who in turn forward the information to the relevant domestic or foreign law enforcement agency. The ESP is protected from commiting distribution or related offences when making the report by virtue of subsection (g)(4): Permitted disclosure by a provider.— A provider that submits a report under subsection (a)(1) may disclose by mail, electronic transmission, or other reasonable means, information, including visual depictions contained in the report, in a manner consistent with permitted disclosures under paragraphs (3) through (8) of section 2702(b) only to a law enforcement agency described in subparagraph (A), (B), or (C) of paragraph (3), to NCMEC, or as necessary to respond to legal process.	Ignorantia juris non excusat You can say I didn't know: it won't keep you out of jail. Rather than delving into the specifics of your question, I will keep my answer general. If you break the law, you break the law. It doesn't matter if: you don't know what the law is, you didn't think the law applied to you, you thought what you were doing was in accordance with the law. "Break the law" is an objective fact - there is no subjectivity involved. The state of mind of the person is, in most jurisdictions, irrelevant; the common law doctrine of mens rea or "the guilty mind" has almost universally been done away with. Now specific offences have specific defences. Generally, in underage sex cases genuine ignorance of the age of the person is one such defence. A court may decide that ignorance that the person was underage under US law may qualify for this defence.	It's probably due to GDPR. You will see that around 2018-05-25 when GDPR came into force, many US-based websites changed their terms of service to increase the age requirement from 13 (age below which the U.S. COPPA law applies) to 16 for European users. For example, here are Stack Exchange's terms of service from 2018-05-02, mentioning 13 years, and here is the version one day later mentioning 16 years. The GPDR allows companies to process personal data under a variety of legal bases, such as “legitimate interest”, “necessary for performing a contract”, or “consent”. But children are not able to give consent in this context. If a website wants consent from a child for some data processing, Art 8 GDPR requires the service to make “reasonable efforts” to check with the parents first. This reasonable effort is more effort than just banning children from using the services. The GDPR itself does not define exactly when someone is a child for these purposes – it lets individual EU member states define the exact age limit, which may be anything between 13 and 16 years. Thus, websites that definitely do not want to have to comply with Art 8 GDPR take the upper bound of that limit and mention in their terms of service that the service is only intended for persons aged 16 or older. The text of Art 8 GDPR is: (1) Where point (a) of Article 6(1) applies, in relation to the offer of information society services directly to a child, the processing of the personal data of a child shall be lawful where the child is at least 16 years old. Where the child is below the age of 16 years, such processing shall be lawful only if and to the extent that consent is given or authorised by the holder of parental responsibility over the child. Member States may provide by law for a lower age for those purposes provided that such lower age is not below 13 years. (2) The controller shall make reasonable efforts to verify in such cases that consent is given or authorised by the holder of parental responsibility over the child, taking into consideration available technology. (3) Paragraph 1 shall not affect the general contract law of Member States such as the rules on the validity, formation or effect of a contract in relation to a child.	It depends on the jurisdiction and particular facts. The long history of not counting marriage as prostitution under law because of its social and religious legitimacy makes the transaction-related aspects of marriage fall outside the definition of prostitution in most cases that are not the explicit sale of a person for consideration, which is obviously forbidden as slavery today and could probably also be charged as prostitution in most jurisdictions. In your particular example, the girl is also saying what things will influence how she feels, and no reasonable person would say that she gives up her ability to withhold consent after marriage based on any alleged contract. A contract to lose the ability to withhold consent would also be void as against public policy, regardless of whether prostitution is involved. Bitcoin is a form of virtual currency. It is regulated by money transmitter law and trading it to obtain goods or services that cannot legally be traded for is still illegal. It's not that there is a defined "limit." It's that some things will fit into the definition and others won't. It's about categories, not quantities.
I noticed I'm overcharged for my internet in Australia. Where to complain? I have subscribed to an internet service in Australia and they overcharged me. They are not following laws. I have found a few resources to prove they are in wrong. https://www.business.gov.au/products-and-services/fair-trading/displaying-prices https://www.accc.gov.au/business/pricing-surcharging/displaying-prices I contacted them, and they offered me a refund for my payment. But I want more, I want them to give me the promised price and I want them to stop the misleading advertising. Can you please give practical advice? When I know their action was illegal: What can I do? Where should I complain?	I want them to give me the promised price ... You can’t make them do this. A business that has posted an incorrect price is not obliged to sell for that price. See https://law.stackexchange.com/a/4466/344 ... and I want them to stop the Misleading advertising You can’t stop them yourself but you can report them to the relevant authorities. These are the ones you linked to: NSW Fair Trading for state law breach and the ACCC for Commonwealth breaches. Misleading pricing is a breach of both state and Federal law. Can you please give a practical advice? No. If you want legal advice, hire a lawyer. What can I do? Where should I complain? See above.	When dealing with recalcitrant agencies, governments, businesses or otherwise who move very slowly or refuse to deal with genuine consumer issues - like refunds they have agreed to - one thing to do is carefully up the ante. You need to get them to take you seriously, and one way is to potentially get some third party help. Call the hospital billing department and say if they don't resolve this issue - which they admit exists - you're going to file a complaint with a consumer advocate, like Nevada Consumer Affairs .gov and/or get legal help from a non-profit or pro-bono legal aid firm, like Pro Bono Legal Services - State Bar of Nevada. I say carefully because you don't want to say I'm going to sue! or get angry and threaten anything. Just tell them you're looking at all your options. And that may resolve the matter right there; they don't want to deal with the extra work of a complaint from the state government or a letter from an attorney, and you may have your refund quickly. If it doesn't, look at filing a complaint with the online form at Nevada Consumer Affairs, or call a free or pro bono legal clinic and see about getting help. Sometimes a formal complaint or a letter from a lawyer will quickly resolve things.	It is the use of a "menace" which creates the crime, not the nature or validity of the demand. That's not correct. You've inadvertently missed the other element of the offence: that it's an "unwarranted demand". A person is guilty of blackmail if, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another, he makes any unwarranted demand with menaces; and for this purpose a demand with menaces is unwarranted unless the person making it does so in the belief— (a) that he has reasonable grounds for making the demand; and (b) that the use of the menaces is a proper means of reinforcing the demand. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/21 For example, I may have reasonable grounds under the Consumer Rights Act to demand a refund for a faulty good. It might be sensible to moderate one's language, e.g. "If I do not receive a satisfactory response from you within 30 days of the date of this letter, I intend to issue proceedings against you in the county court without further notice. This may increase your liability for costs." vs. "If I do not receive the money from you within 30 days of the date of this letter I'll take you to the f***ing cleaners, sunshine." But the language doesn't make the demand unwarranted.	If anything, I think posting it for sale and notifying you is more evidence of bad faith. File a claim - it can't hurt, and the quicker you let ICANN know there's a dispute, the better. It doesn't cost anything to file. https://www3.wipo.int/amc-forms/en/udrp/eudrpcomplaint.jsp (It costs a hearing fee of $1500 - $4000 if it gets that far, but file the claim as soon as possible.) https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/	This doesn't sound like fraud (against you, at least), but it does sound like an unfair or deceptive trade practice, which is outlawed by Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act and perhaps the Pennsylvania Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law, both of which prohibit unfair and deceptive trade practices. I don't know about Pennsylvania, but the FTC has on many occasions taken action against companies for engaging in just this kind of behavior. To find out whether you would be able to take action against the other company, you'd want to find a good competition lawyer in Pennsylvania. For some more basic background on the FTC's rules, check out this primer.	You could do that online, this website will help you with that: http://www.online-strafanzeige.de/ Also, just go to the police... They must accept your complaint and will check it. Also they can tell you wether it is likely that the complaint will lead to a lawsuit or not.	No, you cannot sue When you signed up to Uber you agreed to their Terms and Conditions. In Section 6, you agreed that disputes should be settled first by Mediation and, if that fails, by binding Arbitration - both under the respective International Chamber of Commerce Rules. These will be have their seat in Amsterdam and be conducted under Dutch law. This does not mean that you will need to travel to Amsterdam - you will be able to participate remotely. Notwithstanding, the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) cannot be excluded by contract or choice of law clauses and will still apply. Of direct relevance here is the consumer guarantee (Part 3-2) that services will be provided with "reasonable skill and care" and that this is a 'consumer contract' and subject to the unfair contract provisions of Part 2-3. The dispute resolution clause 6 is not unfair - Australian law supports alternative dispute resolution and a term is not unfair if it is allowed by law. The Disclaimers; Limitation of Liability; Indemnity Clause 5 is problematical for Uber as, while limitation of liability clauses are not ipso facto 'unfair', when the seek to limit liability for a breach of a consumer guarantee, they must be limited to what can be excluded by s64A. As written, these are far broader and, notwithstanding the savings clause about 'applicable law' they would probably be held to be misleading. A misleading term is ipso facto unfair. You may be able to approach the court to have Clause 5 declared an unfair term under s250 before proceeding to arbitration - the court may defer that decision to the arbitrator of course. You can, of course, sue the driver. Uber maintains that their drivers are contractors and not employees (which may or may not be true). If Uber is right, you have no contract with the driver and are free to bring a negligence suit.	Most games have a TOS to playing that include provisions such as sales of in game items through out of game currencies (i.e. real world money changes hands for digital product or account). I believe Pokemon does have this as part of the TOS which could get you and potential customers banned from competition and possibly the modern online trade features, but am unable to look at the current TOS to verify. It should not be hard to find such a document and read for yourself.
Can a bail enforcement agent be assigned as a bodyguard? So I looked it up and google did a great job... of not answering my question. I am helping develop this game. It is going to be a very realistic game, however what I want to know is, can a bail enforcement agent be assigned as a bodyguard since bail agents are trained in the similar skill set as a bodyguard?	Most jurisdictions don't require special licensure for bodyguards and don't regulate it as a profession or occupation. Body guards in those jurisdictions don't have any special legal authority or any special legal responsibilities other than a fiduciary duty to protect the client. They have the same rights to make citizens arrests and carry weapons that any ordinary citizen would. If a jurisdiction does regulate bodyguards, the answer depends upon the law of the jurisdiction which varies considerably. Only a minority of jurisdictions in the world even recognize the concept of cash bond, or the concept of a bail enforcement agent. Logically, it is unlikely that the regulation of bail enforcement agents in places where bail bonds exist is unlikely to be the same as that of a bodyguard. A bail enforcement agent's authority flows from the adjudication of a court that a particular person has diminished rights while on bail, and that the bail bonding company through its bail enforcement agent, has extraordinary authority (analogous to that of a parent or legal guardian) over that particular person for whom the bail bond agency has taken responsibility. A bail enforcement agent doesn't have special authority over anyone else as a general rule. In contrast, a bodyguard is generally seeking to protect one person from the entire rest of the world, when the entire rest of the world is not subject to any court orders temporarily diminishing their rights. So, it wouldn't make sense for a bail enforcement agent to have the same legal treatment as a bodyguard, even if both were regulated occupations or professions. A body guard is more analogous to a private security guard for a business, or premises, or vehicle, which a minority of jurisdictions regulate as a licensed occupation or profession. Of course, if the skills and qualifications for both bail enforcement agents and bodyguards are similar in a jurisdiction where both profession or occupations are regulated, nothing would prevent the same individual from obtaining both kinds of licenses. In your fictional world, however, you can do whatever you want.	1. I want use a friend who has no legal training as my "counsel," do the police have any legal recourse from allowing me to talk to him prior to interrogation? E.g., can they insist that my counsel be a member of the bar in the state where I have been arrested? Yes. If they don't want you to, you cannot talk to a friend, only a lawyer. If you got an OUI, and you're not being a jerk, they will probably let you talk to whomever you want (within reason – it's not social hour). However, they can keep you from speaking to anyone but a lawyer as that person could gain information from you that can corrupt their investigation. (E.g., they arrest you with 10 lbs. of methamphetamine. They know it's "fresh" and likely came from a local lab that they suspect you of running. You cannot be allowed to talk to just anyone, as they could help get the lab broke down, moved, destroyed). In TV shows you see attorneys doing this type of illicit thing, but in reality that is very rare. When you enter the police station to speak with a client, you must present your bar card (license to practice). Friends are not allowed in, even if you value their counsel – they are not counselors! 2. I want to consult a "team" of qualified counselors. Are there legal grounds or regulations to limit the number of individuals I consult prior to interrogation, and who I have present during interrogation? No. You can have your entire legal team with you, while preparing for court, or while being questioned, within reason. They do not need to rent a conference room to fit your 30 person legal team, but if you want 3 or so lawyers in with you, and you can afford paying each $250-$500 per hour, then have at it. Most lawyers would counsel you against this, as it creates an undue impression of limitless (hence likely illegal) funds. (But if you're a hedge fund manager, and you can show your money is legally earned, it's really your choice.) I have had occasion to go in to meet a client with co-counsel numerous times (especially in early years of practice when there is a lead attorney and second chair, so to speak, even for interrogation (which means silence by the client). They can "impede" access to some extent, though they typically don't. They can play games with your lawyer and make them wait and make you wait, but not while they are in with you, and only for so long. Once your lawyer arrives they should leave you alone. (Some courts say once you ask for counsel they need to leave you alone, but this only really matters if they get a confession from you (or any evidence) before you've (and this is what they're hoping for) recant your request for counsel and your right to remain silent.) 3. Can my contact with counsel be proscribed in any way? E.g., can the police limit the duration or schedule of contact with counsel? Can they impede or delay access to me by someone who claims to be my counsel? Once you've called your lawyer, they need to to let him or her meet with you for a reasonable amount of time before questioning. This is typically a quick meeting, just long enough to make sure you will not say a word. Even completely innocent people should keep their mouth shut – innocent people do occasionally get arrested and convicted! No matter what the police say, there is no benefit, ever, from talking to them. Some police, who know it's their last shot to get a confession and know once your lawyer gets there will never talk to you again (and they have enough to go forward without your confession in the event you just start blabbing "you did it" before they can get you to invoke your rights) will keep talking to you and tell you not to comment, just to listen, even while your lawyer sits outside. They can say you're being processed, or there's a security issue, any number of reasons for short delays if they need it. They will then go on and on about "how they can maybe help you out if you talk now, but once your lawyer arrives all bets are off." These are just tricks to get you to recant/revoke your rights and to obtain your confession. You will usually see your lawyer shortly after arrival. Can they impede or delay access to me by someone who claims to be my counsel? Yes, if your lawyer doesn't have adequate ID or cannot verify he is licensed in that state, or in another state and with local counsel. The police do not have a duty to research your lawyer's credentials, and don't have to go online and look your attorney up in the bar directory to make it easier for him or her to get to you. However, if they know the attorney, and he or she forgot his bar card, they would probably lose the confession if you confessed while they make him go get it. Most lawyers carry their bar card in their wallet, so this is not a typical problem. 4. What do police have to do to facilitate my access to my desired counselor(s)? E.g., how long can I be held after requesting an attorney without being allowed to attempt to contact one? You have a right to contact a lawyer. There is no explicit right to a phone call, although some form of contact is implied. Hence, you can usually be held 3 hours before they have to let you "contact" someone, and this is after processing. You can be held until your lawyer gets there or until your arraignment, whatever comes first. If your lawyer doesn't show up, you will be given another opportunity by the court to get your lawyer of choice there for arraignment. If you can't, and you don't want to go forward, a public defender will move to waive your right to a speedy trial and seek a continuance until you can get your counsel of choice there. If this happens, consider getting a new lawyer. What means must I be granted to find and contact the counsel of my choice? This actually differs depending on where you are and what you did. Again, you have a right to counsel but they can determine how you get this done. Sometimes there are local laws that say you get any number, or 3, or 1 completed phone call to reach your counsel of choice. If there is an overriding risk that you will call someone to communicate information that could put the investigation in jeopardy or would be adversely impact their evidentiary value in some way, even when these laws exist the police can refuse you direct contact with anyone and may implement a strict "they call" policy, where they will call the lawyer and tell them, or call your family to let them know, and they can call the lawyer. They cannot hold you for a protracted amount of time without giving you some way to get word to a lawyer; it must be reasonable. There is not a lot of law out there about what is not reasonable, because the police know, and for the most part accept, that once right to counsel has been invoked they are done. There is case law saying that 3 hours is reasonable. What is not reasonable? That is fact dependent.	18 USC §912 provides that: Whoever falsely assumes or pretends to be an officer or employee acting under the authority of the United States or any department, agency or officer thereof, and acts as such, or in such pretended character demands or obtains any money, paper, document, or thing of value, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both. I do not think that in the context of a movie, play or game the person portraying an FBI agent or other LEO is "acting as such", and surely this does not involved obtaining "any money, paper, document, or thing of value". The Wikipedia article on Police_impersonation says: Dressing up as a police officer in costume (e.g. for Halloween), or pretending to be a police officer for the entertainment purposes or a harmless prank toward an acquaintance is generally not considered a crime, provided that those involved recognize the imposter is not a real police officer, and the imposter is not trying to deceive those involved into thinking they are. Nevertheless, replica police uniforms sold in the UK must not be identical to the uniforms currently used by the police, and traders have been jailed in the past for selling on genuine uniforms. Many films and TV shows have portrayed FBI agents, in some cases actual agents by their real names. This goes back as far as the 1935 moviw G-Men starring James Cagney. Many examples are listed in the Wikipedia article Federal Bureau of Investigation portrayal in media, and many of them used realistic badges and depictions. They were not treated as criminal impersonations, even when the FBI or its officials strongly disapproved of particular movies. The somewhat similar US federal law 10 USC 772 prohibits wearing military uniform by persons who are not authorized, but paragraph (f) provides that it is permitted: While portraying a member of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps, an actor in a theatrical or motion-picture production may wear the uniform of that armed force if the portrayal does not tend to discredit that armed force. A Vietnam-War-era court case held the restriction "if the portrayal does not tend to discredit that armed force" to be an unconstitutional restriction of speech, and held that unauthorized wearing of a uniform was only punishable if there was charged a proved an "intent to deceive". I would expect a similar limitation of 18 USC §912. That said, if the email was such that a reasonable person might well be deceived into believing that it really came for an actual FBI agent or other government employee, there might be a problem. The suggestions on that point in the answer by user hszmv seem reasonable to me. An imaginary "Confederal Department of Interrogation" say, keeps things firmly in an alternate reality.	tl;dr According to the ACLU, who are experts on this… yes, it is perfectly legal for you to refuse to provide documentation or ID to border patrol, and your refusal cannot be used as a basis for reasonable suspicion of an immigration violation. The ACLU has a very helpful guide to your rights when questioned at Border Patrol checkpoints, whether fixed or random. Emphasis in these excerpts is mine: Refusing to answer CBP’s questions may result in the agent persisting with questioning. If this occurs, you should ask if you are being detained. Another way to ask this is to say, “am I free to leave?” If the agent wishes to actually detain you — in other words, you are not free to leave — the agent needs at least reasonable suspicion that you committed an immigration violation to do so. As I understand it from other legal sources, this means that the agent must have a reasonable suspicion that you are: not a US citizen and that you have violated immigration law And furthermore: You do not have to answer questions about your immigration status. You may simply say that you do not wish to answer those questions. If you choose to remain silent, the agent will likely ask you questions for longer, but your silence alone is not enough to support probable cause or reasonable suspicion to arrest, detain, or search you or your belongings. … As before, when you are at a checkpoint, you can remain silent, inform the agent that you decline to answer their questions or tell the agent you will only answer questions in the presence of an attorney. In the YouTube videos of checkpoint refusals, you'll see lots of folks declining to answer questions or stating that they will only answer questions from law enforcement in the presence of an attorney. If you are held at the checkpoint for more than brief questioning, you can ask the agent if you are free to leave. If they say no, they need reasonable suspicion to continue holding you. Lots of this in the checkpoint refusals too. The drivers ask if they're being detained and/or if they're free to leave. If you watch closely you'll probably see that many of the Border Patrol agents avoid answering these questions — because they know that they don't have sufficient suspicion to detain the drivers. You can ask the agent to tell you their basis for probable cause, and they should be able to articulate their suspicion. This is also seen in some of the videos. There's a very important caveat about when you are required to provide documentation (other than at the border): A limited exception does exist: for people who do have permission to be in the U.S. for a specific reason and for, usually, a limited amount of time (a “nonimmigrant” on a visa, for example), the law does require you to provide information about your immigration status if asked. While you can still choose to remain silent or decline a request to produce your documents, people in this category should be aware that they could face arrest consequences. If you want to know whether you fall into this category, you should consult an attorney. … If an agent asks you for documents, what you need to provide differs depending on your immigration status. U.S. citizens do not have to carry proof of citizenship on their person if they are in the United States. If you have valid immigration documents and are over the age of 18, the law does require you to carry those documents on you. If you are asked by an immigration agent to produce them, it is advisable to show the documents to the agent or you risk being arrested. If you are an immigrant without documents, you can decline the officer’s request. An agent may likely ask you more questions if you decline a request. No matter what category you fall into, never provide false documents to immigration officials. If you are a citizen you have no obligation to provide documents to establish this; it is not illegal for you to refuse. If you are undocumented, you do not have any obligation to provide documents; it is not illegal for you to refuse. If you are a non-citizen and do have valid documents, you are required to provide them — apparently, it is illegal for you not to do so. So if you're a non-citizen who's legally present in the USA for a temporary term (e.g. tourist, student, business trip, etc.) then you are required to show documents proving this. But if you're undocumented you can — and should!! — do what you see in the videos, and refuse to provide documentation. The Arizona ACLU has a helpful printable sheet with additional pithy points: You may be asked where you were born, how you entered the U.S. or how long you’ve been here. You don’t ever have to answer those questions. Your responses may be used to detain and deport you. … NEVER FLEE A CHECKPOINT!	The term "law enforcement officer" is defined in different jurisdictions in different ways and is defined in different ways for different purposes. For example, a criminal code might define law enforcement officer in reference to arrest power, while another statute might used the term for H.R. and licensing regulations, and a third might use a functional definition for eligibility for a certain kind of tax deduction under state law. Not every jurisdiction has every kind of law enforcement officer either. The term "law enforcement officer" would almost never include a judge or prosecuting attorneys, but would sometimes include a law clerk for a judge. This is because law clerks, especially in rural areas, often have a dual appointment as a law clerk (basically a lawyer acting as a research assistant for a judge) and as a bailiff who is an officer of the court charged with maintaining order and security in the courthouse, or at least in an individual judge's courtroom. A bailiff would often be classified as a "law enforcement officer." Law enforcement officers would ordinarily include Municipal police. Town Constables. County sheriffs and deputy sheriffs. Bailiffs. Marshals including U.S. Marshals. Some Park Rangers. State police. Mounties (i.e. Royal Mounted Police in Canada). Texas Rangers. College or university security officers. Transit system security officers. FBI agents. Secret Service agents. DEA agents (i.e. drug enforcement agency). ICE Agents (i.e. immigration and customs enforcement) General services administration officers (i.e. federal building security). There would be differences from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and based upon the context in which the term was used over whether some of the following persons would be law enforcement officers for particular purposes: Coroners and deputy coroners. Military police. Parking enforcement officers. Ordinance and building code enforcement officers. Crossing guards. Law enforcement forensic lab employees and CSI officers. Diplomatic protection corps employees of the State Department Justices of the peace (who historically had both judicial and law enforcement duties although now this is mostly the title of a non-law enforcement judge). Confidential informants under contract. A Florida statute cited as an answer to a previous question you asked about impersonating a law enforcement officer included the following list, from which I have marked in bold those that would often not be considered law enforcement officers: firefighter sheriff officer of the Florida Highway Patrol officer of the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission fire or arson investigator of the Department of Financial Services officer of the Department of Financial Services officer of the Department of Corrections correctional probation officer deputy sheriff state attorney or assistant state attorney statewide prosecutor or assistant statewide prosecutor state attorney investigator coroner police officer lottery special agent or lottery investigator beverage enforcement agent watchman any member of the Florida Commission on Offender Review and any administrative aide or supervisor employed by the commission any personnel or representative of the Department of Law Enforcement a federal law enforcement officer as defined in s. 901.1505 Some of bolded categories are marked that way because some people identified would count as law enforcement officers, but clerical and administrative personnel in those offices would ordinarily not be considered law enforcement officers. Correctional officers are frequently considered law enforcement officers for some purposes and not others.	Some kinds of companies (e.g. freight shipping companies and banks) often do have those policies. The real issue is not whether those policies are permitted, but what the consequences are for breaking them. The fact that a company forbids its employees from exercising a legal right doesn't mean that the employee ceases to have that legal right. It simply means that if the employee exercises that legal right, then the employee has breached the contract and may suffer the consequences for breaching that contract. Violations of those policies are grounds for termination from employment, and this would probably not be void as a matter of public policy. For an employee at will this is really pretty meaningless, although it could conceivably affect unemployment benefit eligibility. But, for a unionized or civil service employee who can only be fired for cause, this is a big deal. But, in theory, a company policy does not impact the tort liability or the criminal liability of the individual engaging in legally privileged self-defense to anyone. This is because two people can't contractually change their legal duties to third parties with whom they are not in privity (i.e. with whom they do not have a contractual relationship). And two people also can't contractually change the terms of a country's penal laws. The policy may be a defense of the company from vicarious liability for the employee's use of force in violation of the policy that gives rise to civil liability for the employee because the grounds for authorizing self-defense were not present. If the employee using force did so wrongfully and was sued for negligence rather than battery, the existence of the company policy might also go to the issue of whether the employee was acting negligently since a reasonable person in the employee's shoes might have been less likely to wrongfully use force in purported self-defense if there was such a policy than if there was not such a policy (and instead there might arguably have been a legal fiduciary duty as an agent to protect the property and workers of the principal in the absence of the policy).	Everyone physically present in the US is protected by the US Federal constitution. (In some cases persons not physically in the US also have protection from the US constitution. When that applies is too complex for this answer.) Most of the rights protected by that constitution are available to anyone present, whether citizen, lawful immigrant, lawful visitor, or a person in the US without lawful authority. A few rights, such as the right to vote and to run for public office, are limited to citizens. If a person was arrested but not informed of his or her Miranda rights, then statements made to the arresting officers (or later interrogating officers) would not be admissible in court, unless an exception to the Miranda rules applies, which is unlikely. I can't say if this happened in the particular case mentioned in the question. In general, in the area of criminal procedure, there is no difference between citizens and others subject to US jurisdiction (accredited foreign diplomats normally have immunity). A few crimes can only be committed by citizens (or others owing allegiance to the US) such as treason. A few crimes, such as unlawful entry to the US, can't be committed by citizens, as citizens automatically have a right to enter. But criminal procedure and constitutional rights affecting criminal procedure, are the same for all in the US, citizen or not. (Oh, there are special laws for minors, but that isn't a matter of citizenship.)	I have not read the news report so cannot comment on the alleged offences and police conduct, but what I can say is that the information to given on arrest may be found at section 28 Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE): (1) Subject to subsection (5) below, where a person is arrested, otherwise than by being informed that he is under arrest, the arrest is not lawful unless the person arrested is informed that he is under arrest as soon as is practicable after his arrest. (2) Where a person is arrested by a constable, subsection (1) above applies regardless of whether the fact of the arrest is obvious. (3) Subject to subsection (5) below, no arrest is lawful unless the person arrested is informed of the ground for the arrest at the time of, or as soon as is practicable after, the arrest. (4) Where a person is arrested by a constable, subsection (3) above applies regardless of whether the ground for the arrest is obvious. (5) Nothing in this section is to be taken to require a person to be informed— (a) that he is under arrest; or (b) of the ground for the arrest,if it was not reasonably practicable for him to be so informed by reason of his having escaped from arrest before the information could be given. Note the provisions at subsection (3) do not require anyone else to be told the grounds (reasons) at the time of arrest - including members of the public, protesters, bloggers or the press. Kerb-side debates can seriously or significantly distract the officer from ensuring e.g. public safety or preventing e.g. an escape from custody. Also, depending on what else is going on e.g. say in a dynamic and volatile crowd control or public order situation, the person under arrest does not need to told immediately if it would be impractical to do so. The operative phrase being as soon as is practicable, which is not defined by statute as each case needs to be considered individually according to its own set of circumstances. The relevant case law is DPP v Hawkins [1988] 1 WLR 1166, but the only detailed commentary I can find online is behind the PNLD paywall1. Succinctly, the magistrates initially dismissed the case against Hawkins for assaulting four police officers who kept him under arrest without giving the grounds as required by s.28(3) PACE. The DPP appealed, and the Court of Appeal sent the case back to the magistrates saying, inter alia, although there is an obligation under s.28(3) to tell a prisoner of the reason for his arrest as soon as possible (sic) after his arrest, a constable was also under an obligation to maintain that arrest until it was practicable to do so. 1Or free to law enforcement officers
Is it possible to be in violation of 18 USC 2339 accidentally? During its military operation to reduce Hamas' military capabilities, Israeli airforce destroyed an office complex in Gaza. Israel has claimed that it had absolutely certain information that Hamas' military targets were housed in that building. The building was an office building with a number of tenants. Among them were offices of the Associated Press news agency. This has caused a controversy. While AP acknowledges that they have been warned of the impending attack on the building and have been given time to evacuate, they maintain that they have had no knowledge of any Hamas properties or personal in the building. Because Hamas is a designated terrorist organization, 18 USC 2339 may be applicable. From my reading of 2339 (Harboring or concealing terrorists), AP may be exposed unless they have had firm knowledge that no part of the building was used by Hamas. The problem is that, as a news agency reporting on military activities around the entire globe, it strains credulity to suggest that they would not be aware of Hamas operating in the same building with them. If Israel can provide evidence, which can be certified as genuine by the FBI, that Hamas did operate out of that same building, would that lead to a criminal exposure for AP? Would the issue of whether they actually knew have to be decided at trial or would it even matter?	Mere co-occupancy as a fellow tenant of a building owned by a third-party, without more, does not amount to harboring or concealing, the action that the statute in question criminalizes. Mere inaction does not establish criminal liability under this statute. The statute does not require the AP to actively gather intelligence for the U.S. government, or to engage in conflict with the neighbors of its offices.	california It's legal, because the pentester doesn't have the intent to defraud. California Penal Code Section 470 governs forging documents, signatures, handwriting, etc. All of its provisions making actions illegal begin with "Every person who, with the intent to defraud..." Because the company itself is aware of and has authorized their actions, the pentester isn't attempting to defraud the company whose premises they are attempting to enter. They are providing forged documents to the guard (who isn't aware of the test), but a real attacker doing that would be attempting to defraud the company, not the guard. Of course, as with any otherwise-illegal action taken during a penetration test, this assumes that the agreement with the company granted the pentester permission to take that action (i.e., that it was in scope for the test).	The show ignored the existing legal framework. Almost all U.S. police officers are employed by state and local governments and do not report directly to the President, even in an emergency. A small number of law enforcement officers are federal employees with a direct line of command to the President (e.g. the Secret Service and the security guards in the General Services Administration and TSA officers), but a law enforcement officer, unlike a member of the military or a CIA officer, does not simply follow the orders of the civilians to whom his superiors are responsible without the intervention of their law enforcement superiors based solely upon that civilian's whims and directions the way that a soldier would. The Secret Service has some limited authority to direct and even deputize local law enforcement officers in pursuit of their missions, but that would probably not extend to the kind of national security kill order contemplated in this episode. This said, lots of law enforcement officers are ex-military, most law enforcement agencies has a quasi-military organizational structure, and in the extreme circumstances of Designated Survivor, it wouldn't be shocking for law enforcement officers to follow their natural military chain of command intuitions rather than the law that actually applies in these situations. Law enforcement officers are personality types that are very deferential to authority which is a natural counterpart to support for their hierarchical view of the world that endows them with their own authority. There is no one in the loop to play devil's advocate for the suspected terrorist. But, strictly speaking, the proper protocol within the U.S. would be to have a CIA agent make the strike (because the military is prevented by the posse comitatus act from doing so, unless these events counted as an "insurrection" which they very well might in which case the military could be involved), rather than a law enforcement officer. Incidentally, the U.S. Supreme Court has basically held that the citizenship of the suspected terrorist is irrelevant, even though policy makers in all of the Presidential administrations since 9-11 have not been very comfortable with that state of the law and have sought to distinguish U.S. citizens from non-U.S. citizens in their own policies.	This is a pretty good example of "Contributory Negligence". Depending on the precise details of the case, both (or multiple) parties may have contributed to Karen's injuries. She certainly had some role by ignoring posted signs and wearing inappropriate footwear. But the shop may have made access too easy. Maybe they didn't have a front-desk person posted in a safe-area, causing her to go seeking an employee. The shop had a dangerous bin of metal shavings without a lid on it, and at a height and location where a single misstep means someone could fall into it head-first. They had dangerous crane-control mechanism in easy reach that didn't need a Key or other Lock-out mechanism. Ultimately, the details will matter. But it should be straightforward for mediation or a trial to determine each parties contribution to the overall unsafe situation and injuries. Taking the description above at face-value, I think Karen and the shop might both be found partially responsible for the injuries. It may not be a 50/50 split, but Karen likely acted unreasonably, and the shop, despite OSHA compliance, may well have created more hazards than appropriate.	Absolutely not. Lack of authority Law enforcement officers do not have the authority to grant immunity from prosecution. The decision to prosecute lies with the district attorney's office. Courts have sometimes held that a promise of immunity by a police officer can make resulting statements inadmissible, but that's it -- the state is not bound by the police officer's promise to not prosecute, except in exceptional cases. They can gather other evidence and prosecute anyway. Prospective immunity The contract claims to provide immunity against prosecution for future crimes. Contracts against public policy are void, and I'm having trouble thinking of something which is more against public policy than a license to commit crimes. No one can offer that immunity through contract. In a recent trial of a Boston mob boss, he attempted to claim that a federal prosecutor had given him immunity for any and all future crimes for some time period; the court did not accept that, because a license to break the law is not a valid contract. Public authority There is a situation in which certain officers can grant authority to break certain laws: to catch bigger criminals. However, for fairly obvious reasons, there are extremely strict rules on when this is valid, both on the government procedure side and the claiming-the-defense side. The defense can only work if the defendant honestly believed the government had authorized his actions, if the government actually had authorized them, or if he followed official government legal advice. In this case, the defendant has no idea if government officials have agreed to the terms; he would have approximately no chance of convincing anyone he legitimately thought that the government approved of his actions. They certainly wouldn't be actually properly authorized, and he hasn't sought advice from the government. Other issues Police aren't the only people on this site. An investigation tends to involve one or more non-government agents who provide testimony in court. No contract with a private party can stop them from testifying in a criminal trial; certain relationships mean testimony isn't allowed (e.g. a lawyer can't testify about dealings with their client without client permission), but regular users could be required to testify against the site operator (possibly on the basis of actual immunity). Sources Public authority stuff: this Justice Department page, plus some discussion in this order. Prospective immunity: that same order. Lack of authority: myriad readings.	There is no public place to “file” that. When privilege is claimed and the other side challenges it then the person claiming privilege needs to establish somehow that the attorney client relationship exists and is pertinent to the question. In the normal course of things there would be an engagement agreement in the attorneys files. And not everything communicated between a client and attorney is protected by the privilege. It only covers legal advice and specifically does not cover discussions planning criminal activity.	There is, of course, no way to tell how the Court would deal with such a case today. This is not a frequently litigated issue, with lots of case law. I note that in the case you link to, the court limited the statute to false claims made "with a fraudulent purpose". This normally means that the claimant is attempting to secure an improper financial or materiel advantage. In the United States v. Tandaric case, the person convicted had falsely claimed to be a US Citizen on an employment application for a company which did not hire non-citizens, and so gained a job through this false statement. He could have been convicted of ordinary Fraud. The court has not been as protective of Fraud under the First Amendment as it has been of speech generally, or even of false but non-fraudulent speech. I am not at all sure if the court would overturn this law in a similar case today. Edit: In the United States v. Achtner case, the court wrote: But we agree with the District Court that the representation of citizenship must still be made to a person having some right to inquire or adequate reason for ascertaining a defendant's citizenship; it is not to be assumed that so severe a penalty is intended for words spoken as a mere boast or jest or to stop the prying of some busybody, ... This seems to dispose of the example in the question of a neighbor who is merly inquiring as to the character of the area, or perhaps from simple curiosity, and a false speaker who seems to get no direct benefit or advantage from the falsehood. Both linked cases involved false statements made to employers or potential employees, during wartime at that, with the false speaker's employment apparently at stake.	I can't comment on what the legal situation would be in your home country, but as a matter of U.S. law, the hypothetical scenario you've described is not illegal. First, because you aren't a U.S. citizen and because you aren't operating in the United States, the U.S. government probably has no jurisdiction over you, your website, or your conduct. Even if it did, the most relevant statute, 18 U.S. Code § 1017, would not apply. The statute prohibits the "fraudulent or wrongful" use of the FBI's seal. But "fraudulent" and "wrongful" generally refer only to conduct where one uses deception or other means to obtain money, property, etc. to which they have no lawful entitlement. United States v. Enmons, 410 U.S. 396, 399 (1973). Because you aren't using the seal to obtain anyone's property through deception, this use would not fall within the statute's proscriptions. Even if the government sought to prosecute you, you would have a valid First Amendment defense. The First Amendment protects the right to free speech, and it does not allow statements to be criminalized merely because they are false. United States v. Alvarez, 132 S. Ct. 2537 (2012). This outcome should be unsurprising to most U.S. observers. I think most people would agree that the U.S. obviously cannot prosecute a Hollywood producer for making a movie dramatizing the FBI's efforts to shut down the Pirate Bay, even if it displayed the FBI's seizure message on a monitor in the course of the movie, and even if it showed the seal being used on a completely fictional website. The hypothetical you're describing is not materially different. In both cases, the seal is being used to falsely create the impression -- for entertainment purposes -- that the FBI has shut down a website. Saying false things for entertainment purposes is not a crime in the United States.
Can our HOA require us to help purchase unused properties in our subdivision? Our HOA held a vote to buy 3 unused parcels of land in our neighborhood. The purchase requires us to pay an additional $763 on top of our annual fee. Am I required to help purchase this property for the HOA? If so do I have any land and title rights to said property?	Am I required to help purchase this property for the HOA? Your HOA (homeowner's association) can do what it governing documents permit it to do. It is highly unlikely that there is a statutory prohibition against it doing so. It is quite common, for example, for an HOA to temporary take ownership of units. when the owner of the units had defaulted on their HOA assessment payment obligation, and the HOA forecloses on its lien for unpaid assessments (especially when the units is low in value, like a separately owned parking space or storage unit). Typically, an HOA might want to own vacant lots so that it can control how that vacant lots are developed to prevent an undesirable use of those lots, or to reserve space for the construction of common areas such as community gardens or lawns or HOA facilities, in the future. Normally, such a power would be expressly stated, or would be expressly prohibited, in the governing documents. If the HOA governing documents are silent, typically one would look to the general statutes governing organizations of its type (e.g. non-profit corporations, if that is how the HOA is organized). Most general statutes of this type would permit such a purchase (and a subsequent sale of the lots) if the vote required by the governing documents to purchase (or sell as the case may be) of real property have been complied with by the board. If so do I have any land and title rights to said property? This would normally be spelled out prominently in the governing documents of the HOA. As a practical matter, the HOA would be in exclusive control of the property and would have exclusive responsibility for maintaining and paying for obligations arising from the property, all of which would be paid out of HOA assessments along with any revenue that the land generates. In some HOAs land and title of common areas and other real estate and property of an LLC is legally vested in the HOA entity as a corporate owner of it, and you own membership interests in the HOA. This usually increases the economic value of your membership interest, but has little other direct impact. In some HOAs (which are called "condominiums" when using that term in the strict rather than in the colloquial or broad sense) land and title of common areas and other real estate of an LLC is held as an undivided tenancy in common interest of all HOA members in proportion to their assessment percentage, with the HOA having an irrevocable power of attorney to manage it on behalf of its members, although, in practice, the differences between these and corporate ownership of common areas and other HOA real estate is almost nil. Sometimes, rather than an irrevocable power of attorney, the HOA is a trustee over the common areas and other real estate which are beneficially owned by the members as tenants in common, instead.	You need absolute written buy in from the landlord. His agreement is with you, not this new person. If the new person stops paying for whatever reason, then landlord is coming after you.	Is there a way for us to prevent the sale of the house until they have moved the fence? For example, it seems that filing suit against the current owners doesn't necessarily prevent the sale, and that the suit would be pointless after the sale is complete. You can't prevent the sale, but if you file suit to adjudicate the boundary dispute and file what is called a "lis pendens" giving notice that the suit is filed in the real estate records, the buyer will taken subject to the lawsuit and realistically, won't close in the first place. The prospect of an impending sale is unlikely to be something that would cause the court to take expedited action or issue a temporary restraining order, because you can preserve your rights with a "lis pendens" which doesn't take a court order. The absolute minimum amount of time in which you could get a court order on the merits without a temporary restraining order is perhaps three to four months, which is almost surely too long to prevent a sale of a house. The suit isn't pointless after the sale is complete. You can still enforce the boundary against the new owner. And, often, a new owner, having no ego in the placement of the fence, might settle the case sooner than the old owner would have. But, better practice in terms of neighbor relations would be to file suit first, so that the new buyer, if the buyer goes forwards with the sale, is aware of the defect. The old owner is also more likely to have evidence useful in the lawsuit you bring. Short of filing suit, send a letter to the realtor and the neighboring property owner with a copy of the survey advising them of the problem. If you could somehow figure out who was handling the closing, you could tell them too. This will impose upon them a legal duty to advise the new buyer before closing, and if they fail to do so, they expose themselves to the risk of a fraud lawsuit from the new owner. But, while this is cheaper, it also presents a risk that they won't warn the buyer who will then not have notice and the risk of being sued for fraud may cause the seller and the seller's realtor to resist your suit more aggressively and to be less prone to settle it. If you wanted to be really aggressive, you could give the neighbor notice that the fence is over the line and that you will destroy it if the neighbor doesn't act, and then tear down the fence, which is strictly speaking within your rights if you can do so without a breach of the peace, because it is on your property. I wouldn't recommend this approach, however, as it could lead to violence or police involvement that depending on the policeman who isn't trained in real estate law, might get you arrested which is not good even if the charges are later dismissed.	Can landlord backbill 4.5 years worth of utilities that were never billed to us bimonthly as directed in the lease? Yes, since the bimonthly billing issue appears to be within the LA statute of limitations for claims of breach of contract: 10 years (see here). But you might want to check the actual legislative language of the statute referred therein and the prior or consecutive ones --all pertaining to statutes of limitations-- so as to ascertain the accuracy of information in the first link (navigating through the bunch of LA two- or three-line statutes for this and that gets annoying). They are desperate to get me to move out since it is a rent-controlled unit and I feel like they have done this to cause issues and force me to default on rent. Is this a legal practice? I am not knowledgeable of state legislation particular to rent-controlled units, but I highly doubt it is lawful for them to proceed that way. Other details you describe reflect that the company has been --or is being-- malicious or grossly negligent. If so, strictly speaking, the company's conduct (1) ought to weaken its position or merits in trying to force you out, and (2) tends to contravene the contract law covenant of good faith and fair dealing (see below). If your lease mentions any statutes regarding rent-controlled units, you may want to search for case law at leagle.com to see how the statutes are applied. Without knowing the terms of your lease, I think your priority should at all times be the rent itself so as to avoid eviction. Does the "billing every two months" in the lease have any hold on this issue if they breached their own lease? Maybe not. The repeated, yet sole, failure to send you the bimonthly billings falls short of landlord's breach of contract. For your argument on breach of contract to prevail, you would have to prove that the landlord knowingly/deliberately let the water bills pile up prior to demanding you to pay everything at once. That would prove that the landlord is not meeting the covenant of good faith and fair dealing that is prerequisite in contract law.	We don't want this issue to adversely affect our credit and got legal consulting which suggested we should pay the debt collector to protect our credit score, and then sue the landlord for the money back in small claims court. I'm a little worried about this strategy since it requires to hand away the money first, and am trying to get second opinions. The debt collector is probably either the owner of the claim against you, if it is an assignee of the claim, or an agent of the landlord for purposes of collection. Thus, payment to the debt collector is equivalent to payment of the landlord. The law varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction regarding whether payment constitutes of waiver of a right to sue over the debt. Sometimes it is necessary to designate the payment "under protests" or "reserving all rights", but that is not a uniform rule of law that applies in all jurisdictions, and I do not have the time and familiarity with that state's law to research Massachusetts case law on that point accurately.	It is unusual, but not unheard of, to do a quiet title action in connection with an arms length, non-related party sale of real estate. The far more customary practice is for the seller to do the quiet title action (at the seller's expense) if it is necessary for the seller to have what is called "marketable title" to the property, before it is even listed for sale. It would also be more customary for the closing to be extended to a date after which the quiet title action can be completed, and for you to lease rather than buy the property prior to closing. This way, if the quiet title action fails to quiet title to the seller, the closing with you doesn't have to be undone, and you can just move your stuff out with reasonable notice from the landlord-seller, and you can look for somewhere else to live or can try to cut a deal with whoever is determined to be the true owner of the property. Also, as a practical reality, it would be quite unusual for a mortgage lender to agree to provide you with a mortgage without title insurance in place. I very much doubt that the deal can go forward as planned, even if the you and the seller agree, if you need mortgage financing to buy the house. This said, there is nothing particularly unusual about a title insurance company's requirement that a quiet title action be completed in a case where the current owner took title via a tax sale from a deceased owner's probate estate. Any irregularity in the tax sale process could vest the property back into the estate of the deceased owner, the tax sale buyer likely paid less than fair market value, and there are probably special notice requirements involved in a tax sale from a deceased owner's estate that don't apply (and extend the statute of limitations for contests of the tax sale) that wouldn't apply in the case of a tax sale from someone who is alive. Some of the potential irregularities wouldn't appear in the public record or in any other documentation that you could demand (e.g. a forged signature or an error in crediting payments of taxes to the wrong account). The likelihood that a quiet title action will vest title in the name of the seller is high, but the fact that the title company is not willing to insure title in its current state is strong circumstantial evidence that the risk that the seller does not have good title to the property is real. Your concerns are not unreasonable, and the safer course of action would be to restructure the deal so that you do not take title unless and until the title is quieted in the seller in a lawsuit conducted at his sole expense and risk, even if you move in pursuant to a lease pending that process. The existence of an (amended) real estate contract between you and the seller should be sufficient to protect your interest in the deal that you have struck between now and closing. It is possible that your financing could fall apart between now and closing, but often the circumstances that would make that happen are circumstances that would cause you to wish you never did the deal in the first place anyway. When I represented some heirs of a decedent in a similar case (involving a fraudulent sale to avoid a tax sale, rather than a tax sale itself, from a probate estate), the deal ultimately struck was to have the heirs sell the house to the buyer who was under contract, with proceeds split between the nominal owner of record and the heirs who might have had a claim to undo a prior sale. Such a resolution if there is a contested quiet title litigation, in lieu of taking the quiet title dispute to trial, is another resolution that would be fine with you if the closing is postponed until after the title dispute is resolved.	I know this is not what you've asked (I will get to that too), but I figured I would take the opportunity to state that the owner of the well cannot send you an invoice for the water unless you agreed to a price and entered into a binding agreement. They cannot just decide their water is worth X and then tell you that the amount is due. Just as you cannot send them a bill, in the same amount, for the use and maintenance of the pump. While the well may be located on one parcel of land, with the pump on the other, chances are, the properties were linked at one point and that is why there is a separation of the two (unless you bought it as one and divided it yourselves). This should have been dealt with on the deed, with easements appurtenant to the neighboring land regarding water rights. A contractual agreement could have been attached by reference that dictated the land with the well would maintain the well, while the landowner with the pump would maintain the equipment (or whatever you both agreed to regarding upkeep and the like). Depending on the state you live in, the property itself may not even "own" the well. For instance, in Colorado, water rights typically come by way of 100 or 200 year leases, as the native american tribes of the area "own" the water rights. Other states have laws that declare that nobody owns the water table, hence land is only owned as far down as the water table and then it is owned by the county, or state, with easements running with the deed. Other states, (I'm wondering if this is your issue) the water runs in veins and does belong only to the property that it is below – as there is no water table, so to speak. Regardless, I would talk to your title insurance policy company and ask why this easement was not addressed in the deed. I'm assuming that you did not divide the land yourselves, post purchase, and the land with the pump cannot access the water table without going onto the land of the other. Otherwise, it would be very easily solved by drilling your own well (and much cheaper), whereby you already own all of the equipment to run the water to the dwelling. You just divert your equipment to the running of your own well. It's only a few dollars a foot to drill a well, unless you live in the Granite State! Likewise, you should check with your land assessor's office, or registry of deeds, and see how the title ran back regarding water. Again, depending on jurisdiction, you may be able to drill down and over. You cannot divert, but you can access, in most jurisdictions. I say to contact your title insurance company, because the water issue should have been dealt with at title examination, and further, if your land is inaccessible to any water, it would not be sub-dividable for dwelling purposes under almost any zoning law I have ever heard of. A property that is land locked, or utility inaccessible, cannot be zoned for dwellings, without irrevocable easements or rights of ways, respectively. Just because you purchased near family doesn't have anything to do with any of this analysis. They could be anyone, or you could end up at odds, the water cannot be relationship dependent and you cannot be held hostage over natural resources. If so, I would sue the title insurance policy for a refund of the purchase price or the negotiation of the purchase price of an easement to the well/water table, assuming you have none under your land and have no existing right to it. If you just happen to have the pump, and they have the well, you own the pump and they own the well. Simple as that. You do not have to allow the pump to be used for their well. Assuming you can drill your own well, but may not want to, you can just rent them the use of the pump at the same rate they are charging you for the water. You can agree to split the cost of maintenance of each, since you've invested in the upgrade of the pump.	I know that in many countries, including the US, the UK, and most, perhaps all, of Europe, it is common for houses to be sold while still under construction, so no such legal prohibition exists (or at least is enforced) in any of those countries. I have never heard of any country which has a general law against such a practice, but I cannot be sure for all countri8es in the world. There are other was to "prevent contractor delays and/or construction malformations and even constructions deformations". Many counties have building codes, which make improper building techniques unlawful. In some countries failure to adhere to proper professional standards in such matters is unlawful, and it is usual for the purchase of an unfinished building to involve a contract, in which performance standards and dates are spelled out. Failure to adhere to such requirements would give the purchaser grounds for a lawsuit for damages.
Can a landlord charge everyone for one tenant's misbehavior? Part of my lease agreement is to cooperate in keeping the communal trash area tidy. Someone in my building, unknown who, is putting trash directly in the can outside rather than bagging their gross food trash. Animals are getting into the cans, and the city (Wheeling, WV) has sent a notice to the landlord saying they will be fined if trash is not properly bagged. The landlord has now told us that if they are fined by the city, they will split the fine between the 6 units in our building. What do I do? I’m not the one making the mess, and despite this warning, people are still putting unbagged trash in the bins. Can the landlord charge everyone like this without proving who is causing the problem? What am I supposed to do? I haven’t done anything wrong, I actually just moved in, and now I will probably be charged a fine of unknown amount, possibly every week? Short of going into the trash bin and cleaning up after my neighbor, do I have any options to avoid paying this fine?	Short Answer Generally, a landlord could validly have a term in a lease requiring the tenants collectively to indemnify the landlord for any fine, penalty, or expense arising from the conduct of the tenants, their licensees or invitees. If there is such a term, your only remedy may be to sue the co-tenant engaged in misconduct for contribution. When Can Landlords Be Indemnified? Usually, a provision indemnifying the landlord against the landlord's own intentional acts, reckless acts, willful and wanton acts, gross negligence, or bad faith is void as against public policy, but a provision indemnifying a landlord for the act of another for which the landlord has only vicarious liability as a landowner, and for strict liability offenses and torts, is usually valid. The municipal fine in question appears to be one for which the landlord has only vicarious liability will not proof that the landlord or even an agent of the landlord who is not an agent of a tenant took that act to impose liability. There is a split of authority over when the tenant may be held responsible for (either by waiving liability or indemnifying the landlord) for merely simple negligence by the landlord or an agent of the landlord who is not an agent of the tenant. Some states allow it. Some do not. Many allow it in some cases (e.g. private party landlords), but not in others (e.g. public entities). A 50 state survey of the law of indemnification in the U.S. with statutory and case law citations can be found here. There is no indication, however, in this OP that the landlord engaged in any conduct that caused the landlord to incur the fine. The conduct was apparently engaged in by one of your fellow tenants. This Is Not A Prohibited Contractual Penalty In general, a private contract may not impose an arbitrary penalty or fine that does not meet the standards necessary to be considered a form of liquidated damages. But, indemnification of a third-party imposed penalty or fine, does not violate the public policy against having such penalties or fines imposed by a private contract. An indemnification provision is a compensatory contractual provision as between the landlord and the tenant, not a fine or penalty created by the contract. Many government imposed penalties or fines, however, do require that the person fined engaged in an intentional act, or reckless act, or willful or wanton act, or grossly negligent act, or engaged in bad faith conduct that cannot be indemnified by a tenant. But that does not appear to be the case in the OP. Collective Responsibility Lease Terms Are Usually Valid More generally, a lease may impose collective responsibility on all co-tenants combined. This is the default rule when all tenants are on a single lease. But it is unlikely that it would violate public policy even if applied to multiple tenants in the same building or complex with separate leases. Partnerships and joint ventures allow joint and several liability, and the circumstances, e.g. units that are part of a single HOA or co-operative apartments, often do so implicitly, so public policy arguments against this kind of much less common arrangement are weak. Anywhere that joint and several liability is permitted, a fortiori, proportionate liability should also be permitted. The Necessity Of A Lease Term For These Remedies Furthermore, none of these obligations can arise unless the lease says that these remedies are available to the landlord. If the lease doesn't create the obligation to indemnify the landlord for trash bagging fines on a joint and several or proportionate basis with tenants on other leases in the same building or complex, then the landlord can't impose this amount upon you. I've interpreted the language below from the OP to mean that; Part of my lease agreement is to cooperate in keeping the communal trash area tidy. But, in the absence of lease language to the contrary specifying a broader remedy, the landlord can only impose liability on you for personally (or through your guests) for failing to do so. Remedies Against Co-Tenants Your remedy, if you are blameless and know who is at fault, would be to seek compensation in the form of contribution from the at fault party in small claims court from an offending co-tenant, or via a cross-claim against a co-defendant if the landlord brought suit to enforce the term against the tenants.	Not even real roaches are an emergency. The event was foreseeable and scheduleable. According to the terms of your lease, you are entitled to a 2 day warning. From your description, the landlord did not violate the lease, but he came close to it, perhaps to the point that the courts would consider it as good as a breach. In Chicago, §5-12-050 of the municipal code mandates 2-day notice, and the following section says that If the landlord makes an unlawful entry or a lawful entry in an unreasonable manner or makes repeated unreasonable demands for entry otherwise lawful, but which have the effect of harassing the tenant, the tenant may obtain injunctive relief to prevent the recurrence of the conduct, or terminate the rental agreement pursuant to the notice provisions of Section 5-12-110(a). In each case, the tenant may recover an amount equal to not more than one month's rent or twice the damage sustained by him, whichever is greater.	The landlord may be confused about what is legal. Growing pot without a license (they do not have one: it cannot be grown at home, and certainly not if there is a minor present) is not legal, not even in Seattle (medical marijuana now requires a general marijuana license, and home-grown is not legal – some Dept. of Health pages don't reflect the new law). Under RCW 59.18.065, the landlord must provide a copy of the executed agreement to each tenant, and a replacement copy on request. Under RCW 59.18.150, the landlord may enter the unit in case of an emergency, and otherwise shall give the tenant at least two days' written notice of his or her intent to enter and shall enter only at reasonable times. The notice must state the exact time and date or dates of entry or specify a period of time during that date or dates in which the entry will occur, in which case the notice must specify the earliest and latest possible times of entry. The notice must also specify the telephone number to which the tenant may communicate any objection or request to reschedule the entry. The tenant shall not unreasonably withhold consent to the landlord to enter the dwelling unit at a specified time where the landlord has given at least one day's notice of intent to enter to exhibit the dwelling unit to prospective or actual purchasers or tenants A lease cannot be terminated without cause and a legal process (eviction hearing), rather, it runs out at a specific time (the end of July). The situation with dog-washing is unclear, since normally a landlord can't decide to use a person's apartment for a dog-washing operation (the common law right to quiet enjoyment). If there is such a clause in the lease then that would be allowed, but they can't now decide that they have this right (the terms of a lease can't be changed in the middle). They can restrict the cats from areas outside your unit. You may however have some (legal) misunderstanding about what exactly "your unit" is, specifically, is the dog wash part of a "common area" that isn't actually part of what you have an exclusive right to.	The key language to be taken notice of in that code is 'by fraud or deception'. If the property manager has provided reasonable notice of a clear-out, then the code doesn't apply due to lack of fraud or deception. But at the end of the day, just go and check the mail room on a Thursday afternoon and you shouldn't have any problems.	Clauses (a) and (c) are potentially relevant. You have to look in the Rules & Regulations to see what exceptions are permitted. Although firearms and especially shotgun shells are of a "dangerous, flammable or explosive character", it is reasonable to believe that when stored properly, they do not unreasonably increase the danger of fire or explosion, and would not be considered hazardous or extra hazardous by any responsible insurance company. On the latter point, you could ask any responsible insurance company if they would consider such shells to be hazardous. While in ordinary language simple possession of a firearm is not a threat of violence, the wording of clause (c) is open to a wider interpretation, since acts considered to be a threat of violence include displaying or possessing a firearm, knife, or other weapon that may threaten, alarm or intimidate others. The fact is that many people are alarmed by the simple existence of a weapon, so simply possessing a weapon could be interpreted as a "threat" in this special sense. Since you are not in the position of having signed the lease and now need to deal with the consequences of this clause, the simplest solution is to explain your interest, and ask them if having your gear in your apartment would be a violation of the lease. Be really clear about this and get it in writing in some form, if they say "no problem". Then either pick a different place, pick a different hobby, or find a separate storage facility.	Lying in itself ("of course you will get a wifi signal here") is not a crime. However, if you have proof that the lies were intended to benefit your landlord at your expense ("You won't sign the lease unless there's wifi? No problem") and that they actually did so ("You've signed the lease, it's too late to back out"), he may be guilty of fraud, which is a civil wrong and may be a crime. You would be well advised to consult a lawyer before going amy further, since there are probably ten people believing themselves to be victims of fraud for every one who actually is so in legal terms. The lawyer will also probably tell you that the best you can hope for is restoration to the state before the lies (in my example, the lease is cancelled and you get your deposit back), though the authorities will look at prosecuting the landlord.	State law may provide for criminal prosecution for vandalism, which could result in a fine or even imprisonment. The state can prosecute you, private individuals cannot. Fines imposed by a private organization are only enforceable through contracts, where damages could be recovered, but penalties cannot be assessed. ("Late fees" are in the class of "liquidated damages", where the agreement says what the late fee is – they don't just make up a number). Ga. Code § 44-3-223 does require you to "comply with all lawful provisions of the property owners' association instrument", but if it isn't in the instrument, you do not have to comply.	Your landlord has an obligation to allow "quiet enjoyment" of the premises. Essentially this means that, unless they are damaging his or her property, the tenants are entited to act as though it were their own property. Many people take drugs at home. Between the tenants and the landlord this is not something the landlord is allowed to get involved in. If you believe there is criminal activity going on, you can but are not obliged to report it to the police.
What potential lawsuits does the recent Expensify fiasco expose the company to? As some of you may know just by checking your mailboxes, David Barrett, the CEO of Expensify, recently sent out a political endorsement e-mail to all of Expensify's users (supposedly, 10 million people). I'm not interested in discussing the (un)professionalism of such an e-mail or the validity of statements contained therein. I'm interested in the fact that it is an unsolicited political e-mail. As a side note, it is not an e-mail that is a call to vote - it is a call to vote for a specific candidate. The author of the e-mail claims that the First Amendment gives him the right to send it, but this e-mail was sent globally and utilised a database of e-mail addresses of users who have not given consent to receive political messages. It feels illegal to me, but I don't know anywhere near enough about law to know whether it actually is. I'm curious as to what possible liabilities did this expose the company to and in what jurisdictions. Full e-mail content available here	In the United States, at least, this is a pretty easy question. There are of course plenty of reasons not to enjoy the e-mail. Perhaps the reader gets too much spam. Perhaps the reader is a fascist. But no one who accepts the American conception of free speech should have any trouble intuiting whether sending this e-mail was legal. Communications in support of a political candidate are at the heart of First Amendment protection. Any suggestion that the e-mail violated the law because it communicated Barrett's electoral preferences is going to be a loser. Brinkman v. Budish, 692 F. Supp. 2d 855, 861 (S.D. Ohio 2010) ("First Amendment protection is at its zenith for core political speech which involves interactive communication concerning political change.” (quoting Buckley v. Amer. Const. Law Found., 525 U.S. 182, 186–87 (1999)). The question of whether users consented is basically irrelevant. Americans do not need permission from the government or anyone else to communicate their positions on presidential elections, dog-catcher elections, or anything else. Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc'y of New York, Inc. v. Vill. of Stratton, 536 U.S. 150, 165–66 (2002) ("It is offensive — not only to the values protected by the First Amendment, but to the very notion of a free society — that in the context of everyday public discourse a citizen must first inform the government of her desire to speak to her neighbors and then obtain a permit to do so."). Even if consent mattered, Expensify's users have presumably all agreed to its privacy policy, which alerts them that Expensify may send them "electronic newsletters" or "important notices," two categories of communications that are broad enough to include the e-mail in question. This also means that if Expensify is otherwise compliant with GDPR and other privacy obligations, there probably isn't much of an argument to be made that the e-mail violated any of those laws. The fact that the e-mail is technically coming from a corporation does not matter, as corporate entities are allowed to take positions on political questions. Citizens United v. Fed. Election Comm'n, 558 U.S. 310, 342 (2010) ("First Amendment protection extends to corporations."). Nonprofit organizations are generally an exception, as they essentially surrender First Amendment protection in exchange for their tax exemptions. One could attempt to argue that the e-mail is somehow an in-kind donation to the campaign. That argument would fail, but even if it were viable, that would not make the e-mail illegal; it would merely require Expensify to report it consistent with campaign-finance regulations.	The linked Bloomberg story quotes the rule as: The recipient is allowed to keep the funds if they [the funds] discharge a valid debt, the recipient made no misrepresentations to induce the payment, and the recipient did not have notice of the mistake. If the recipient, or somone acting on behalf of the recipient, hacked the sender to induce the payment, that sounds like a form of misrepresentation to me. If the hacker is unconnected with the recipient there seems no way that the hacker benefits financially, although I suppose a hacker might simply want to cause an amusing disruption. As I understand it this rule only applies when the sender in fact owes a debt to the recipient that the transfer pays off. If the hacker were working for one of a large group of recipients, most of whom are innocent, and subsequent analysis establishes that there was a hacker, but not who the hacker was or which of the many recipients the hacker was working for, I suspect, but cannot prove, that the doctrine would not apply, because the transfer was not a valid but incorrect act by the sender, but was a fraudulent intervention in the sender's procedures.	Under U.S. law, this is only actionable is you make this statement knowing that it would not "support the continued creation of X" and that instead, you had already completely abandoned that product and you were, for example, planning to change lines of work and become a lumberjack instead. Even in that case, common law fraud is hard to show, because you would need to show how that statement which related to how the profits will be used, rather than what you are actually receiving, could cause you damages in that narrow transaction. But, many states have deceptive trade practices acts that protect consumers by allowing the attorney general, local prosecutor, or a private individual or class of plaintiffs to sue if representations such as these are made when they are known to be false. Typically, these lawsuits provide for minimum statutory damages, attorneys' fees award, and when cases are brought by a public official, injunctive relief (ordering the advertising with that pitch to cease) are authorized. For example, saying this when it is false would be actionable in California and Colorado. A fairly common fact pattern is that someone will sell stuff at an above market price saying that "profits will help me pay for my cancer treatments" when in fact the person doesn't have cancer. This could even constitute criminal wire and mail fraud, for example. Sometimes, competitors can also sue you under the Lanham Act (which primarily governs federal trademarks), for false advertising about something that could unfairly undermine their sales if what you are saying isn't true and is causing their sales to drop. On the other hand, if you sincerely believe that what you are saying is true when you say it, and your belief is not so unreasonable that no reasonable person could believe that under the circumstances, then what you are saying is legal. Usually this is true, and if it is, ultimately, you will be fine. Although nothing can prevent you from being sued on a non-meritorious basis. In between are cases where this is true (you will be supported, but perhaps only get 5% of the profits while the rest are garnished for a lawsuit), but your statements were still misleading at the time you made them and you knew it. Those cases get resolved on a case by case basis. Outside U.S. law, your mileage may vary. Legal regulation of commercial speech varies significantly from one country to another. These statements might not be O.K. for example in a Communist regime on the Chinese or Korean model.	I very much suspect she is in right to 1) no receive promotion emails anymore, 2) Have them close the account again and 3) have them delete her pictures. No, she does not have those rights. She agreed to a legally binding contract when she signed up for the service when she clicked "OK" to open the account. That contract outlines her "rights," as you call them, and they can be very different from what you assume to be ethical and moral bounds to a business relationship. What you imagine to be fair business practices could be generally regarded as fair and normal consumer relations; but that's not necessarily what may be in the contract. What she agreed to in the Terms of Service (TOS) could be some form of long term licensing of her photos to the service, and that could be why they won't delete the photos and why she can't delete them in bulk. The TOS states the terms of the promo emails she agreed to receive. Read the TOS; everything will be outlined. The company is in no way obligated to make life easy for her or change the contract to appeal to her; she agreed to everything, including downloading all her photos. If she didn't read the TOS and feels they copied all her photos "without her knowing", that's her fault. It's possible that the company is breaking consumer protection laws with some of their practices, but you'll need to read Canada consumer laws and see if they require ease of use, permanent op-out of emails, etc. I doubt the company would be flagrantly violating consumer law.	This article is a useful introduction to restrictions on political advertising in the EU, where §3.4 (p 33) covers Italy. Silenzio elettorale is covered by art 9. of Norme per la disciplina della propaganda elettorale. The statutory situation is not entirely clear to me, but the main controlling fact relevant to the internet question is that AGCOM issues rules. An English legal analysis (from an Italian law firm) is here. Their undernourished analysis of the silence period is Finally, Italian legislation prohibits political propaganda on election day and on the day before. Although AGCOM is not competent for ascertaining infringements of said prohibition, it considers important to call everyone to turn the attention on these provisions. Indeed, they are important to guarantee effective protections of the constituents. As such, in the Authority’s opinion, the prohibition applies to all media. Clearly, the law applies to internet platforms. What is not clear is whether the prohibition as applied to web pages is against "adding content", or does it require the elimination of previously-distributed content and scrubbing of links to such content. Perhaps the matter will be clarified in court one day.	I am assuming you are not the councilor. Civil matter you have no standing. The councilor does. Maybe the hotel bar does. I can’t think of anyone else who does. Criminal matter If a crime was committed in DC, the DC prosecutor is under no obligation to prosecute it. As a political matter, if you were a citizen of DC you could complain and try to get the prosecutor voted out next election. Political matter As a citizen of your city, it is a political matter: You call your councilman* or any city councilman really and ask them to begin impeachment or whatever similar action you have there. Then next election to try to get the mayor voted out. If you are unsatisfied with the council, try to get them voted out also. The cost of investigation is a cost of running a government. Someone could have chosen not to spend seven grand investigating a hundred bucks, but they did it. *Note this is called petitioning for redress which is the right that the current SCOTUS nominee could not recall off the top of her head.	In this specific case and location, the precise location of the incident was explicitly made a public space via state law not too long before this actual event. They therefore most certainly have no right to privacy. What is interesting to me though is the other side of this, does someone have the right to record others in public spaces, or is it simply not illegal? For instance if I non-destructively and non-violently "jam" your camera by shooting a low-power IR beam at your lens, have I abridged a legal right of yours? I don't think it would be illegal to do this. I am not even positive its against the 1st Amendment. The 1st Amendment relates only to the dissemination of information, not the collection of it. The Constitution doesn't seem to compel the gov't to make information available, or even to make things/events/spaces observable. The various "sunshine" laws after-all had to be enacted, it wasn't part of an interpretation of the 1st Amendment. To put a finer point on it, is recording events in public spaces legal or merely lawful?	For Mr. Petersen, the questions in general should have been elementary. The fact he did not know them is actually quite deplorable. To your questions specifically: Should Mr. Petersen, as a Juris Doctor, know of those things in his sleep? This is the wrong question. The question is: should an individual who has accepted a nomination to serve as a federal judge on the U.S. District Court know of those things in his/her sleep? The answer is unequivocally yes. One could almost argue - one would likely be scoffed at, but one could - that an appointment to a higher court, the U.S. Circuit, could get away not knowing those things 'in his/her sleep,' because appeals courts would not deal with, e.g., abstention doctrines or whether to admit expert scientific testimony, as often as a trial court does. Simply put, lawyers should at least have heard of those things (he looked/sounded absolutely dumbfounded at the words that were being said to him), litigators should know them, and federal trial court judges absolutely need to know those things to do the job. Is his excuse valid when he says that he has no background in the field(s) (he mentioned litigation once) the terms are corresponding to? If he was just some lawyer talking to some guy at a bar, sure, totally valid. If someone is a corporate M&A or project finance attorney, sure, don't expect him to win any trial court vocabulary contests. However, when sitting before a panel of U.S. Senators carrying out their Constitutional duties of "advice and consent" on presidential appointments, not knowing those things can, should, and indeed did end in complete humiliation for the person ignorant enough to try and go through with that. I'm sure his hearing was scheduled some time in advance. The fact he obviously made zero attempt to know anything is actually insulting to everyone involved. For context, I wrote a motion in limine at my first internship. If I live to be 1,000 and never step foot in a court room, I'll still be able to say more about a motion in limine than "I would probably not be able to give you a good definition right here at the table."
Protection in international law against employment termination following mass political strike? The "High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel" has called for a general strike today, a call which has been heeded widely - but almost entirely by Palestinian Israelis, and even among them not universally. Some employers have warned their employees that if they do not come to work today, their employment will be terminated immediately. Now, this is likely unlawful termination by Israeli labor law - but that's usually not enough to get you reinstated; rather, the courts usually award compensation/damages to the employee. I was wondering, though - regardless of Israeli labor law - is there any relevant part international law - e.g. in the forms of treaties or agreements - under would help such employees keep their workplace? I'm specifically interested both in law that is binding in Israel and law which is non-binding in Israel (e.g. a treaty it hasn't signed).	The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights agrees in Art. 8 that The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to ensure...(d) The right to strike, provided that it is exercised in conformity with the laws of the particular country. "Exercised in conformity with the law" does allow some restrictions on striking. In the US, the NLRB sets rules governing legal vs. illegal strikes, for example a strike in the face of a no-strike contract provision, or a strike to compel an employer to fire an employee who doesn't pay union dues when no union-security agreement is in effect. So you would have to look at the labor law of Israel to see what strikes are legal vs. illegal, and that also requires looking at individual union contracts. Theoretically, a nation could enact a law authorizing any one-day strike as a form of political protest, but there is no such law in Israel as far as I can tell (this article introduces the various relevant laws of Israel). The point is that international law on this point requires corresponding national law, as state above. ICCPR does not create a special right to conduct political strikes against a third party.	All employees in Australia are covered by state-based Worker’s Compensation insurance. This is the workers’ guide for NSW. In theory, your loss of income and medical expenses should be claimable. However, as it seems that you did not follow the required procedures, in practice, you may find it a bureaucratic nightmare. First, you needed to have been seen by a registered Australian doctor and receive a Workers Compensation certificate to get the ball rolling. Do you have evidence that the injury occurred at work? Second, benefits are suspended if you leave the country. There may be exemptions for temporary workers but I am unaware of them. Contact the authority responsible for workers compensation in the state you were injured.	Is a firm required to arbitrate disputes arising after the expiration of employment contract? The wording of this question is problematic. From your description it is doubtful that the contract truly expired at the end of the first year. It is valid for a contract to encompass multiple phases with different provisions specific to each phase. Providing that "[a]fter the first year the employee may continue working for the company, until terminated, as an at will employee" is different from expiration of the contract at the end of the first year. The contract simply outlined what happens before and after that point in time. The employer's allegation that the contract expired at the end of the first year is inconsistent with outlining in that same contract the nature of the parties' continued relation after the first year. Said nature of the employment relation should have been outlined in a separate contract in order to preempt an interpretation of there being one same/ongoing contract. The employer's allegation is vague and untenable also in a scenario where the employer terminates the employee within the first year. The employer's allegation seemingly implies that the employee's deadline for arbitration proceedings expires at the end of the first year. That would give the employer the opportunity to evade the arbitration clause by choosing a timing that de facto prevents its employee from enforcing the clause. Questions regarding arbitration are unanswerable without knowing the exact terms of the relevant clause(s). Just like the contract provides a transition from fixed term employment to at will employment, it is possible --but not necessarily the case-- that the arbitration provision is applicable only to some of the phases that the contract encompasses.	It probably depends on whether the employer is covered by a relevant non-discrimination statute. Most employers in the United States are covered, but some are small enough to be exempt. Federal law exempts employers with under 15 employees and religious organizations. There might also be a relevant state law. It also would depend upon whether the EEOC or a court found that "be blessed" was a compelled religious statement in violation of a worker's beliefs, and whether allowing the worker not to say it would be a "reasonable accommodation." This is a strong case, and I suspect that the worker would win on both counts but it isn't a completely open and shut case. There is arguably a secular meaning to the word "blessed" and a court could conceivably find that there is a legitimate and indispensible business purpose for insisting that every single person in the worker's position need to make this statement, although I doubt that a court would do so.	Unfortunately, you are probably not entitled to the redundancy / severance money since you weren't technically ever made redundant / laid off - there was no point in time where you were willing and able to work where they refused you, and I presume you were paid for all time worked. If you're concerned that they only changed their tune because they knew you had a better job already lined up - well, you can call their bluff or just use it as a learning experience. In what jurisdiction do you work? If the US, you could call their bluff, say you'd rather stay and see what they do. You would then keep the option of simply walking away with your stuff in a box any time you felt like it (assuming at-will employment and no contracts that state otherwise).	Does this mean that if the employee leaves the company, and then creates or gain an intellectual property right, does the company own that right ? No. The reference to "the future" pertains only to the IPRs of inventions that ensued in the course of his employment. Even if the employer alleged that the clause also encompasses post-employment creations and/or post-employment acquisitions of IPR, such extension would be unconscionable (and therefore null and void).	I am not a lawyer. I am not your lawyer. The Labour Program has issued an interpretation on the definition of "wages", and specifically includes commission. In section 166: “wages” « salaire » “wages” includes every form of remuneration for work performed but does not include tips and other gratuities; and in Section 183: “vacation pay” « indemnité de congé annuel » “vacation pay” means four per cent or, after six consecutive years of employment by one employer, six per cent of the wages of an employee during the year of employment in respect of which the employee is entitled to the vacation; And assuming that the employer and employee are, in fact, in an employee-employer relationship, it is likely that he/she will be entitled to 4% of the wages during the year of employment, including commission.	Federal law isn't yet settled on whether employers can discriminate based on sexual orientation (see the other answer), so instead let's take a look at Michigan state and local laws: Based on my reading of this Wikipedia page, it appears that the 1967 "Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act" (pdf) has, as of 2018, been interpreted by the Michigan Civil Rights Commission to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. So, yes, if the company qualifies (looks like there are some exceptions for certain "private clubs" and religious organizations), it appears to be a violation of Michigan law to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation for hiring and/or employment decisions. I'd also encourage you to take a look at this list of Michigan cities/municipalities that have passed additional protections for gender orientation. If your business is any any of those areas, you might be subject to more restrictive laws. Regarding an employee who refuses to work with a gay coworker, I'd strongly recommend consulting with a local attorney; my suspicion is that taking action against the gay coworker would be illegal, firing or disciplining the complaining employee would not. (I'm not an attorney, this is not legal advice, I'm just a dude who knows how to read Wikipedia, don't taunt Happy Fun Ball, etc...)
What would be the fastest way to sue someone in a traffic accident? Post Accident Legal Strategies (In America), when there is a traffic accident, it is generally a civil matter that can be resolved between the parties. Several courses of action are available to the parties to resolve the dispute which generally involves property damage and or injury to the parties or to other third persons or property. An insurance company plays an important part in resolving the disputes but that alone does not preclude the parties from litigating in the court, in addition to filing an insurance claim. The party who moves the court may have some advantage in negotiating or sometimes have the opportunity for a default judgement which makes the option of SUING IMMEDIATELY a valuable tool to achieve or expedite settlement. Taking some general assumptions in mind such as jurisdiction, value of car, who is at fault or not at fault,the questions presented are:- What is the fastest way to sue someone in the event of a traffic accident ? What sort preparation can a driver make to move swiftly. Whatever time or day of the week accident takes place, summons served to defendant by next court day 9 AM. (assuming court opens at 8 AM). This will requires much planning and advance prep. Once complaint filed, would there be greater chance that an attorney will be willing to represent for a lower cost or a limited scope representation with lowered fee than to process the case from scratch ? What would you estimate as the cost difference in % for one traffic accident case for full scope from scratch compared to the described situation where moving party files, serves summons and then shops.Would you say the cost could be more than 50% less or less than 50% less that full scope ? In your personal experience, has moving the court provided any benefits in achieving settlement / justice over simply letting the insurance process drive the matter ? Would you be "shocked" if you received summons by the time you woke up next day following the day of the accident ? What would your reaction be and how would you plan the response ? Would you counter sue or just run to the nearest attorney ? ( perhaps your car is still in the workshop causing additional distress) Finally, what kind of documentation,artifacts can make the moving party prevail ? Photographs, accident witnesses, police reports are all known. Are there any specialized approaches to propel judicial process,negotiation advantage or cause the other party to throw in the towel ? E.g Accident reconstruction report, Expert witness, GIS analysis, other drivers driving history subpoena,proving other driver as negligent/reckless using sources of information other than the accident ? ( How about evidence that driver was distracted using cell phone - compel forensic exam of drivers cell phone) or use car black box report. A well pre-planned strategy could include obtaining subpoenas addressed to some 10-20 parties to discover and open up the other parties such that the party will be compelled to settle.	Short answer The general approach and attitude that you propose is a horrible one that would bring an unfavorable result. It would add many months or years to the time when the case would mostly likely be resolved and would reduce the economic value of your case by a substantial percentage, perhaps cutting it in half or more. Your instincts towards the litigation process in a simple car accident case are all wrong. Lawsuits are poker games, not wars, and lawyers are good poker players.The way to get a good result in a case like this one is to act like you are in no rush, to marshal all relevant facts in a non-flashy matter of fact way that makes the result seem pedestrian and predictable, and to build enough of a level of trust with opposing counsel to make a settlement easy for everyone to sell to their respective clients. The winning tactical approach in an automobile accident case is MEGO ("my eyes glaze over"), and not "shock and awe". The only people who are impressed by "shock and awe" in an automobile accident case are the jurors, and if you have gotten to a jury, you have defeated your goal of getting a quick result and have probably also failed to get the maximum possible recovery net of legal fees in the case. This because the court process takes a long time to get to a jury and because the defendant has a limited settlement budget and it takes a considerable amount of money to litigate a case to trial that could otherwise have been used to compensate you more fully in an earlier settlement. Long answer The party who moves the court may have some advantage in negotiating or sometimes have the opportunity for a default judgement which makes the option of SUING IMMEDIATELY a valuable tool to achieve or expedite settlement. You are wrong. This is a very bad idea for reasons explained at greater length below. Also, automobile accident cases rarely produce default judgments because defendants with an ability to pay a judgment can hire attorneys for free as part of their car insurance. Usually default judgments are obtained only in cases where you have wildly undervalued your case and are asking for a judgment that is too small. What is the fastest way to sue someone in the event of a traffic accident? What sort preparation can a driver make to move swiftly. Whatever time or day of the week accident takes place, summons served to defendant by next court day 9 AM. (assuming court opens at 8 AM). This will requires much planning and advance prep. In many courts it is possible to efile a complaint 24 hours a day. But, one might be wary of filing suit when the nature of the harm (especially physical injuries) was not fully known which could take more time, because if the other side defaults and you don't know the full extent of your damages at that point, you could recover less than the full value of your claim. Also, this is often too fast to determine if there are other parties who are liable of whom you were not aware (e.g. a defective product implicating a manufacturer, an employer who is vicariously liable, family members under a family car or negligent supervision theory, etc.). Acting like you are in a hurry conveys the impression that you are weak and will settle for a low or nuisance offer. This bad first impression will work against you for the entire time until the case is resolved and is not easily remedied. Once complaint filed, would there be greater chance that an attorney will be willing to represent for a lower cost or a limited scope representation with lowered fee than to process the case from scratch? What would you estimate as the cost difference in % for one traffic accident case for full scope from scratch compared to the described situation where moving party files, serves summons and then shops.Would you say the cost could be more than 50% less or less than 50% less that full scope? I would charge significantly more to anyone who tried to do it themselves, potentially damaging their case with rookie mistakes. If it was a contingency case, I might insist on a 50% contingency with a larger advance for costs than in a usual case, rather than the usual 1/3rd. On an hourly basis, your legal fees could easily double. Many lawyers would refuse to represent you at all if you had already filed a case. Also, don't forget that the prevailing party does not get attorneys' fees in an automobile accident case. If a plaintiff spends too much on litigation, that reduces the amount the plaintiff will have left, net of litigation costs, as compensation. In contrast, a typical defendant's automobile insurance policy provide (theoretically) unlimited defense attorney services without reducing the amount of coverage available to pay an eventual judgment (if any) to the plaintiff. There is no added value from pro se work in a personal injury case. Pro se efforts significantly reduce the value of the case in the eyes of an attorney. Anyone who wants to represent themselves pro se in any half way serious automobile accident case is a fool. In your personal experience, has moving the court provided any benefits in achieving settlement / justice over simply letting the insurance process drive the matter? The two are not necessarily tightly linked. Often using the insurance process without going to court can lead to a faster resolution. Would you be "shocked" if you received summons by the time you woke up next day following the day of the accident? Yes. What would your reaction be and how would you plan the response? I would suspect that the whole accident was a pre-planned intentional insurance fraud and would take extreme and unusual measures in discovery and investigation to rule out that possibility. I would be extremely reluctant to settle with you and would not make offers nearly as reasonable to you as I would in an ordinary case because I would not be able to trust you. Your desire for a quick resolution on favorable terms would be spoiled. Would you counter sue or just run to the nearest attorney? (perhaps your car is still in the workshop causing additional distress) I would contact my insurance company which would provide an attorney at their expense. Finally, what kind of documentation,artifacts can make the moving party prevail? Photographs, accident witnesses, police reports are all known. All of the above. Auto accident cases are won with facts, not law. Are there any specialized approaches to propel judicial process,negotiation advantage or cause the other party to throw in the towel? E.g Accident reconstruction report, Expert witness, GIS analysis, other drivers driving history subpoena,proving other driver as negligent/reckless using sources of information other than the accident? (How about evidence that driver was distracted using cell phone - compel forensic exam of drivers cell phone) or use car black box report. The more clear liability and damages are, the more likely someone is to settle. But, it usually takes months to achieve that clarity and there is no magic bullet. Some cases justify intense discovery, others do not. It depends upon the facts and circumstances and the severity of the harm. In a lot of cases, liability is clear at the outset and damages are the primary issue. A well pre-planned strategy could include obtaining subpoenas addressed to some 10-20 parties to discover and open up the other parties such that the party will be compelled to settle. This is generally allowed only in the middle part of a lawsuit once there has been a preliminary exchange of pleadings and certain other case management matters and disclosures have taken place. Normally, 10-20 subpoenas at the outset would be quashed as unreasonable and disproportionate to the amount in dispute. If someone came on that strong early in litigation, I would assume that they had no case on the merits and were trying to bluff me the same way that someone with a weak poker hand might. I would be disinclined to offer even a nuisance settlement, and would do everything possible to slow down the case because your urgency would indicate weakness. It is much easier to slow down a lawsuit than it is to speed one up. Also, no one is ever compelled to settle. A defendant can always take the case all of the way to a trial by jury, followed by an appeal, which could easily take two to three years. If you want a quick resolution, you need the other side's cooperation. Postscript I spent several years practicing in an insurance defense law firm and several more in a firm that brought personal injury claims on a regular basis. So, I am more qualified than most people to answer questions on litigation tactics such as this one which don't have neat, clean answers that can be found in rule books or appellate case law.	tl;dr Hitting the pedestrians is a separate crime, even if they shouldn't be there. Background On a highway, you might have a legal right of way and therefore a claim against the pedestrians for failing to yield. Since the states (and not the federal government) own and operate the interstate highway system, your specific answer depends on the state law. In North Carolina, for example, pedestrians walking along or upon a highway have a statutory duty to yield the right of way to all vehicles. So you could probably videotape and press misdemeanor charges against them individually. That said, contacting the police and waiting (or taking an alternate route) is the best recourse. Having the right of way (or feeling ethically justified) doesn't allow you to commit an offense like hitting a pedestrian. The fact that the pedestrians aren't supposed to be in your way is of little consolation in the charges you'll face if you injure or kill one. The court will see this as a legal/ethical problem, but one that won't go in your favor. In particular, you deliberately directed your vehicle into the crowd with the knowledge that the action might cause harm. One doesn't have to imagine the Austin Powers steamroller scenario to know that injuries are possible when cars go through crowds. That will pull all of the "involuntary"-flavored mitigations off the table. In particular, driving a car into a crowd might be considered "an inherently dangerous act or omission, done in such a reckless and wanton manner as to manifest a mind utterly without regard for human life and social duty." In the worst case scenario, where someone died as a result, a North Carolina prosecutor might push for second-degree murder (which operates on a "recklessness-plus" standard and might not be as crazy as it sounds since driving into the crowd is likely reckless, and driving in slowly with them yelling at you to stop could push a jury over the top). In that case, as a defendant, you'd hope your charge could be mitigated down to something like death by vehicle (which is similar to "vehicular manslaughter" in other states), and you'd shoot for the misdemeanor version of death by vehicle since you weren't driving under the influence. However, a key element of proving death by vehicle is that you unintentionally caused the death---and the fact that you deliberately drove into the crowd might ruin your defense. In the case where you just hurt someone, you'd likewise hope to mitigate intentional charges to unintentional ones. A claim for false imprisonment is unlikely to succeed. False imprisonment is called a variety of things---like felonious/misdemeanor restraint, unlawful detainment, etc.---depending on where you live. To prove it (and generalizing a bit since this varies by state), you typically have to show (1) detention or restraint against your will, and (2) unlawfulness of the detention or restraint. A big challenge here is that courts often interpret this to mean detention or restraint by exercise of force or threat of force, as in Harris v. Stanioch, 150 Wash. 380 (1928) for example. The protesters are just in the way, so it's unlikely this would hold up. Self defense almost surely won't be a viable excuse. The idea of driving the car slowly through the crowd relies on the notion that you should be able to escape the alleged detention. The escape you're considering in driving through the crowd likely comes at the expense of making contact with members of the crowd. Making unprivileged contacts might be allowable in self defense. However, self defense probably hold up either. Setting aside notions of proportional defense, you have to be defending yourself against something: force or threats of it by the protesters. So if they don't use force, or threaten it, against you, then your defense is going to be really shaky.	It isn't 100% clear from the question if a case has been filed in court, or someone was just planning on filing a lawsuit, which is an important fact. It seems like the ex filed a court case and you hired attorneys who responded. If there is a court case filed, that can't just be abandoned until all the i's are dotted and t's are crossed in the eyes of the court. The lawyers can't quit unless the court gives them permission to do so. Usually, lawyers are entitled to be paid for all of the work they do and out of pocket charges they incur in a case, until it is wrapped up, even if some wrap up work happens after the event that determines the final outcome of the case like your ex deciding to abandon his arguments. But, otherwise, if there isn't a pending court case, you normally have the power to tell your lawyers to stop everything and give you the moment left (if any) in your retainer. At first read, it almost sounded as if your lawyers are willing to do that, but are warning you that your ex might continue to be a problem after the lawyers quit and that if that happens, it will be more costly and time consuming to start all over dealing with the threatened lawsuit that your ex made, than it would be to get it over and done with now. But, upon closer inspection, it seems that there is a pending lawsuit and that this is the issue.	There have been cases in the UK where paying someone's legal bills was interpreted as joining their case. So when A with no money libels someone, and B with deep pockets pays A's lawyer, then B risks being held liable for damages if A gets convicted. So B should be very careful. Just giving you money is probably the safest. But attorney-client privilege is between attorney and client. I have been laid off twice with my company asking me to take an employment lawyer and paying for it. (Interestingly each time the bill was exactly the maximum amount the company was willing to pay :-) It would have been absurd if my company could demand information that is under attorney-client privilege just because they paid the bill. Why did two companies pay the lawyers bill? Because that way they ensure that the separation is without problems. The lawyer explained the settlement contract and what it meant exactly. They also checked that the contract didn’t contain anything unacceptable which the company would have fixed. So if I had tried to sue them later I would have no chance to win (but there was no reason to sue). Another reason not to sue was that the company offered I settlement that was very significantly more than was legally required, but if you sued them you would only get what you got in court - most likely less than you would get without suing. So basically they paid to make sure I would have no reason to sue them later.	Generally speaking, ex parte communications with a judge (i.e. communications to which all parties to a case are not notified) are prohibited, both by law and as a matter of judicial and attorney ethics, subject to some narrow exceptions (e.g. applications for arrest warrants prior to the arrest warrant being carried out). Generally speaking, communications with the court (which is to say with judges or their subordinates) are made a matter of public record, and if the communication is about a particular case, all attorneys in the case must be given notice of it (if someone is not represented by an attorney, the notice goes to the defendant rather than their non-existent attorney). The attorney may then communicate the communication to their client, and generally speaking should communicate it to the client. I don't see anything in the question that suggests that this proposed communication would fall outside the general rule. But, the question isn't very specific and I wouldn't rule out the possibility that an exception might apply in a case with very unusual facts. Also, usually, a request to reconsider a sentence has to be made by a formal motion filed by the prosecutor or the defendant. Generally speaking, a third-party cannot file that motion unilaterally. A third-party or victim would usually only have input into the decision through the prosecutor's office. Third parties and victims are not generally permitted to file motions to reconsider sentences that have been imposed even in states with "victim's rights" statutes, but can publicly provide input to the court before a sentence is imposed, usually at the behest of either the prosecutor or the defendant. Furthermore, generally a criminal defendant has a constitutional right to not have a sentence made more severe after being sentenced the first time around. Reconsideration of a sentence once it is imposed may only be in the direction of leniency. Once a sentence is imposed, it can't be reconsidered to be made more harsh.	I will assume that your question pertains to the United States. In other jurisdictions, different rules could apply. Context matters. The usual penalty for spoliation of evidence (the technical term for what you describe) in a civil case is a judicial determination or jury instruction that the evidence destroyed would have established the relevant part of the other side's case had it not been destroyed. In all of these cases, your failure to take affirmative action to preserve the evidence once you knew that there was a bona fide likelihood that you would be sued could be held against you by making an adverse determination that the evidence would have been unfavorable to you and possibly also money sanctions. You could not be held in contempt of court for this if these events happened before a case was commenced. In a criminal case, where you are a defendant, you have an absolute right to not incriminate yourself and do not have to take affirmative action to preserve evidence, although this right is limited to criminal cases and your failure to preserve evidence can still be held against you in a civil case. Certainly, in situation 4 you are a potential criminal defendant, so the 5th Amendment protection would apply. In situations 1 and 2, where the precautions were not put in place to facilitate a crime, the 5th Amendment would protect you if you were a potential criminal defendant, but suppose that you are a bystander like a third party ISP representative. If you were a third party, at a minimum you would have to be put on notice of the police need for the evidence, would probably have had to have had the police ask you for the evidence, and of course, would have to be aware that the destruction was imminent and have the power to prevent that destruction. If all those conditions were present, you might be guilty of obstruction of justice (there are precedents for inaction knowing of the consequences in the fact of a police question amounting to obstruction of justice). In situation 3, this kind of action pretty much amounts to being an accessory to some crime before the fact (unless someone was successfully deceived by a very elaborate story) and would likely make anyone involved part of a conspiracy to commit the crime that the destruction of the papers would facilitate. While the papers themselves might have been evidence of a crime or civil wrong, the destruction of the papers might itself be considered part of the crime, regardless of what could be established regarding the actual content of the papers.	Not necessarily. Your own statements and the statements of the officer would be legally sufficient to convict you. Also, your statement that you don't believe you are at fault is strongly at odds with a widely held interpretation of the traffic laws (not stated in the formal language of these statutes). The prevailing interpretation of the traffic laws is that you are always at fault if you rear end someone because you failed to maintain a safe distance, pretty much as a matter of strict liability and regardless of the circumstances, because a safe distance is almost by definition a distance that it is possible for you to come to a full stop from if the care in front of you suddenly comes to a stop for any reason. The only situation I can imagine where there wouldn't be liability for rear ending someone would be if you were at rest behind them at a stop light and they actively backed up into you. In practice, almost any judge and almost any jury, would convict you of failure to maintain a safe distance if you rear ended someone absent the most extraordinary of circumstances. I honestly don't know any lawyer or likely potential juror who wouldn't convict you under these circumstances with only the testimony of the police officer and your own testimony (which you would have to offer to have any shot at avoiding a conviction) to establish that you did indeed rear end someone. Police are allowed to lie to suspects of crimes, and often simply do not have an accurate understanding of how the legal system works. So, you are not entitled to rely on a statement made by a police officer. Of course, it is also certainly possible that his statement is consistent with local practice in your neighborhood traffic court. So, showing up to contest the charge might still make sense, and it wouldn't be uncommon to receive a plea bargain with fewer points against your license, just for showing up to court.	https://www.mwl-law.com/how-to-sue-yourself-and-win/ Yes, and there can be cases this is profitable. You negligently killed someone in a car accident. You need to sue yourself to use your insurance. The victim is dead so their estate goes to you. So you sue yourself on the estates behalf, the estate wins, and you get the estate. Directly suing yourself is impossible however.
Is purchasing a tank legal? I have looked up if it is legal to buy a tank, and I found that you need a FDDL (Federal Destructive Device License). Is that all one really needs, or would one need to get a gun permit as well?	Since no jurisdiction is specified, I decided to search in maryland in the united-states As far as I can tell, there is no state or federal law which prohibits a private individual from owning a decommissioned military tank. Most public highways and roads have weight limits, and many tanks would exceed them. Most tanks, or at least most older tanks, are not in any case "street legal" not having required headlights, brake lights, air bags, and other safety devices. Treads must be modified to avoid road damage. None of this would be relevant if the tank was kept on private land and not used on public roads or streets. If somehow the main gun or a mounted machine gun were still in place, and not disabled, permits would be required that are almost impossible to obtain. Specifically: "State Laws and Published Ordinances – Maryland Statutes current through chapter 18 of the 2020 session lists Code section 4-401 which provides that: (c) Machine gun. "Machine gun" means a loaded or unloaded weapon that is capable of automatically discharging more than one shot or bullet from a magazine by a single function of the firing device. Section 4-402: (a) Evidence of possession. The presence of a machine gun in a room, boat, or vehicle is evidence of the possession or use of the machine gun by each person occupying the room, boat, or vehicle. ... (c) Registration of possession. (1) A person who acquires a machine gun shall register the machine gun with the Secretary of State Police: (i) within 24 hours after acquiring the machine gun; and (ii) in each succeeding year during the month of May. Section 4-501 (b) Destructive device. (1) "Destructive device" means explosive material, incendiary material, or toxic material that is: (i) combined with a delivery or detonating apparatus so as to be capable of inflicting injury to persons or damage to property; or (ii) deliberately modified, containerized, or otherwise equipped with a special delivery, activation, or detonation component that gives the material destructive characteristics of a military ordnance. (2) "Destructive device" includes a bomb, grenade, mine, shell, missile, flamethrower, poison gas, Molotov cocktail, pipe bomb, and petroleum-soaked ammonium nitrate Section 4-503 (a) Prohibited. A person may not knowingly: (1) manufacture, transport, possess, control, store, sell, distribute, or use a destructive device; or (2) possess explosive material, incendiary material, or toxic material with intent to create a destructive device.	In South Carolina for example the law says A permit holder must have his permit identification card in his possession whenever he carries a concealable weapon. When carrying a concealable weapon pursuant to Article 4, Chapter 31, Title 23, a permit holder must inform a law enforcement officer of the fact that he is a permit holder and present the permit identification card when an officer: (1) identifies himself as a law enforcement officer; and (2) requests identification or a driver’s license from a permit holder. In Washington, on the other hand, the law simply requires a permit (or the gun must be locked in the trunk), and you have no obilgation to volunteer such information. Some states allow local options, e.g. NY generally has no duty to inform law but apparently Buffalo, Rochester and NYC do. It's pretty complex, because there is variation in exactly what laws say depending on whether the gun is loaded, or whether it is concealed, or in the trunk.	You could almost define a country as, "an entity that can defend itself against invasions." Non-sovereign entities are indeed generally prohibited from deploying lethal autonomous defense systems like booby-traps. But governments and state-like actors, as a matter of practice, choose their own rules. laws-of-war and international-law are not like "regular" law: When it comes down to it, states only follow international conventions and treaties to the extent that they consider it to be in their own interest to do so. If you start mining your property, you will probably be forced to stop by local law enforcement. If a warlord starts mining his borders, he's going to get away with it until someone with more power convinces or forces him to stop. Was it "illegal" for Turkey to shoot down a Russian military aircraft? One could cite all sorts of laws and conventions to answer that question. But in practice the consequences of that act are limited to whatever Turkey allows, or to what Russia and its allies can impose on Turkey.	The law was first promulgated on June 8, 1940 By the 76th Congress. The original text is here. It doesn’t seem to be a particularly important piece of legislation and I can find commentary on it and I’m not going to read the debates - if you do, please get back to us. Two points to note, it was passed at a time when most of the rest of the world was at war and the US was quietly preparing to be at war and it seems to be intended to fill a gap in state law since conviction under state law is a defence under Federal.	The legal definition you are probably looking for is machinegun rather than automatic weapon. It can be found in 26 U.S. Code § 5845, which in relevant part says: The term “machinegun” means any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person. Historical notes; TLDR The core of this definition dates back to the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA) . The legislative history of that act includes testimony of Karl. T. Fredrick in front of the house ways and means committee. Mr. Fredrick, then president of the National Rifle Association (NRA), had devoted years to the study of earlier firearms legislation. He criticized earlier legislative attempts to define machine guns, calling them wholly inadequate. The earlier legislative definition was: "Machine gun", as used in this Act, means any firearm which shoots automatically more than twelve shots without reloading. Mr. Fredrick expressed several concerns with this definition, particularly with regard to the phrase more than twelve shots without reloading. His propoed language was substantially broader: A machine gun or submachine gun, as used in this act, means any firearm by whatever name known, loaded or unloaded, which shoots automatically more than one shot without manually reloading, by a single function of the trigger. Note that neither of the later two quotes is current. Thus the core of the definition used today, was in fact provided by an officer of the National Rifle Association, but that definition has been changed in the process of clarifying and codifying the law.	I can't see anything to say this is a state-wide ban. Do they have to give an opportunity to return unused fireworks for a refund? The ban imposed by Portland Fire and Rescue appears to relate to the use, not possession, of fireworks so I assume that the stores' / State's regular refund policies would apply. Due to unusually hot temperatures and dry conditions, PF&R is announcing an immediate ban on the use of all legal and illegal fireworks...	Legally, yes, if you get a license from Blizzard (unlikely, and if so, they'll probably want either money or a portion of your profits). Otherwise, not legally. This is exactly the situation that IP law (e.g. copyright and trademark) was created to address. Blizzard created the game and so they have rights to control and benefit from derivatives there of. There are some exceptions, but prints, buttons, and keychains are not likely to meet the requirements for those.	There is a potentially infinite regress of questions regarding the constitutionality of restrictions imposed under these "emergency" circumstances. The basic legal principle is clearly established: laws restricting fundamental rights are subject to strict scrutiny. The specific details of a particular law and surrounding circumstances have yet to be discovered by the courts. If it is necessary to the purpose of saving lives that meetings of more than 10 people be prohibited, then the "compelling interest" test probably has been satisfied. That is basically a medical question, and the courts have a limited interest in scientific controversies, instead they are interested in whether people who make legal decisions do so rationally (is it reasonable to think that such limits would accomplish that compelling government end). Is it reasonable to think that restrictions lasting two months are necessary? The Black Death lasted at least 4 years. In the current circumstances (very limited hard knowledge this disease), it's hard to say what government actions could not be excused based on necessity. Summary execution is, at least in the current knowledge context, probably not going to pass strict scrutiny. As already explained in other thread on the topic, there is no "churches are above the law" constitutional provision. The appropriate question in the Florida case is not about the First Amendment, it is about the Due Process clauses – is the arrest lawful? We will, no doubt, see. On the face of it, he violated the law, so he can be arrested. I understand that there is a team poking holes in the order.
Is allowing kids to leave their bike out on their lawn an example of attractive nuisance? I know plenty of friends who have allowed their kids to leave their bikes in the front yard. I'm wondering what would happen if a random child were to steal a bike left out and get hurt playing with it. Would the parents be liable due to the attractive nuisance doctrine?	According to Cornell's LII page on "Attractive Nuisance Doctrine" the doctrine or concept is: A doctrine in tort law under which a landowner may be liable for injuries to children who trespass on land if the injury results from a hazardous object or condition on the land that is likely to attract children who are unable to appreciate the risk posed by the object or condition. The injury or danger must be reasonably foreseeable to the property owner, but not apparent to a child likely to be attracted to the dangerous object or condition. The object or condition must be such as to attract children likely to be put in danger. An uncovered swimming pool or a disused refrigerator are classic examples of an attractive nuisance A bicycle would not usually constitute an object of danger to a trespassing child that the child was unable to understand or foresee. A child able to climb on and operate the bicycle is probably aware enough to foresee the ordinary dangers of riding a bicycle. But much would depend on the exact facts of the case. If there was some circumstance that made use of a bicycle more risky than usual, that might alter the decision. History According to the Wikipedia article The attractive nuisance doctrine emerged from case law in England, starting with Lynch v. Nurdin in 1841. In that case, an opinion by Lord Chief Justice Thomas Denman held that the owner of a cart left unattended on the street could be held liable for injuries to a child who climbed onto the cart and fell. The doctrine was first applied in the United States in Sioux City & Pacific Railroad Co. v. Stout 84 U.S. (17 Wall.) 657 (1873), an 1873 case from Nebraska in which a railroad company was held liable for injuries to a child who climbed onto an unsecured railway turntable. The term "attractive nuisance" was first used in 1875 in Keffe v. Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Co., a Minnesota case. The doctrine has since been adopted in some other common law jurisdictions, such as Canada, but not universally. Conditions According to the Wikipedia article listed above, quoting the Restatement of Torts (second) §339, an attractive nuisance is an artificial hazard which meets all of the following conditions. Natural hazards, such as lakes, do not fit the rule: The place where the condition exists is one on which the possessor knows or has reason to know that children are likely to trespass, and The condition is one of which the possessor knows or has reason to know and which he realizes or should realize will involve an unreasonable risk of death or serious bodily harm to such children, The children, because of their youth, do not discover the condition or realize the risk involved in inter-meddling with it or in coming within the area made dangerous by it, The utility to the possessor of maintaining the condition and the burden of eliminating the danger are slight as compared with the risk to children involved, and The possessor fails to exercise reasonable care to eliminate the danger or otherwise to protect the children. Some US jurisdictions, such as Maryland, do not follow this rule.	Probably not In order to establish negligence as a Cause of Action under the tort of negligence, a plaintiff must prove that the defendant: had a duty to the plaintiff, breached that duty by failing to conform to the required standard of conduct (generally the standard of a reasonable person), the negligent conduct was the cause of the harm to the plaintiff, and the plaintiff was, in fact, harmed or damaged. What standard of conduct do you think your employer failed to conform with? Owning a tree or a parking lot is not, of itself, negligent. Further, the branch fell "during high winds" - the wind is not within your employer's control. Now, if you can prove that your employer knew that the particular tree was ill and likely to drop branches in high winds and failed to do anything about it, that might be considered negligent. I know of a case where a council who had refused permission for a tree to be removed because it was "healthy" was found negligent when that tree latter (in calm winds) dropped a branch on Jaguar.	I'm based in England, but I'm sure the principle is similar in Canada. The night club or concert venue is private property. When someone owns or rents private property one of the main things they are buying is the right to control who is present on that property, and generally they can use reasonable force to remove people who are not authorised. Security guards generally act as agents for a property owner, tenant or similar.	There's the question whether something is lost property or abandoned property. You'd be allowed to keep abandoned property, but keeping lost property without looking for the owner is in many places considered theft. A car on your land is quite likely abandoned by the last driver (people don't usually lose cars). But the question is whether it is abandoned by the owner; if the car looks like it has some value then it is unlikely to be abandoned by the owner and more likely that it has been stolen. I'd report the car to the police; then it's up to them to find the owner or not. If they can find him, and the car was not abandoned, but actually lost (unlikely) or stolen (more likely), you have the satisfaction of being an honest person helping either a very stupid car owner or a crime victim to get their property back. If they can't find him, usually the property will then belong to the finder.	You did not state a jurisdiction, but this sign is of the style specified by the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) which is used throughout the United States, so I will assume a jurisdiction which follows the MUTCD. The "Share the Road" sign is numbered W16-1P. (The MUTCD version just has the words and not the car/bike symbols; the latter might be a recent update or a local variation.) Its description reads: In situations where there is a need to warn drivers to watch for other slower forms of transportation traveling along the highway, such as bicycles, golf carts, horse-drawn vehicles, or farm machinery, a SHARE THE ROAD (W16-1P) plaque (see Figure 2C-12) may be used. So, as is generally the case for yellow warning signs, it does not have any effect on the laws which apply. (It is generally only white regulatory signs that do that.) Whether or not it is a "good idea" to share a lane, it is legal. Both cars and bikes are entitled to use the road, and if it's a road with only one lane in this direction of travel, then necessarily they must share it. Of course, they wouldn't typically travel side by side indefinitely, but they will be abreast briefly when a car passes a bike. California law, as an example, requires only that the car stay at least three feet away from the bicycle as it passes, when possible.	I would assume that the seller ('Transferor') still owned numbers 7 and 11 at the time of the sale. If so, this clause means that the owners of 7 and 11 (now and in the future) have a right of way on the path coloured blue on the plan. The land still belongs to number 9, but the owners cannot build on it so as to block the path. (As mckenzm comments, "on foot only" is an important qualification; the neighbours do not have a right to install utilities under the path, and the owner can put in obstacles that prevent bringing cycles down it).	Ducks are ducks, not people. It might surprise you, but even a hypothetical duck that could talk is a type of bird and is considered a waterfowl and wild game but not a person or human. As such, you can not commit any crime such as assault against it. In fact, provided that the lemonade stand owner has a hunting license and this is not in a zone where you can not hunt, such as inside a town, he could have shot the bird without repercussions - because a duck can be hunted. Threatening game birds is not covered by any law. Only would the lemonade stand owner have glued the bird to a tree he would have committed a crime, because gluing birds somewhere would be considered animal cruelty in most jurisdictions. As the duck is a bird and not a person, it can not commit any crimes, such as harassment. If a duck is a person... Assuming that there is such a place where duck is a slang term for a person, or where ducks are considered people, then the pattern is different: Such as duck would indeed perform a repeated action that is very much aimed at annoying the lemonade stand owner. But that is not necessarily legally harassment: In Germany, § 238 StGB is aimed at stalking and requires the aim of inciting fear, § 185 StGB is for insulting speech, including harassing speech, § 186 StGB is for defamation, and § 240 StGB for coercion through harassment. A charge under those would be tedious. In the United Kingdom, the English Protection from Harassment Act 1997, does not define harassment as any specific pattern. Scotland's variant reads a little simpler, and makes harassment for harassment's sake illegal. These laws might be applied to the duck. Many of the United States federal laws will simply not apply to the situation. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is about sexual harassment in the workplace, Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 is for schools, and the Fair Housing Act does deal with home purchases and renting. All seem inapplicable. If the threat of gluing someone to a tree is a real threat under the law depends very much again. In Germany, it might be interpreted as too hilarious to be considered a true threat, but humiliating enough to constitute one of the insult laws, but the lyrics do not offer enough facts to make a proper analysis for this part.	Under Canadian law, causing the death of human being is homicide. If the homicide is "culpable", it is an offense (crime). In the described scenario, it might be culpable homicide if the death was due to "criminal negligence". That would be the case if in doing a thing, the person "shows wanton or reckless disregard for the lives or safety of other persons". We've now reached the end of what statutory law has to say about the question. Court cases take us a bit further in understanding criminal negligence. The wisdom of the courts is distilled to ts essence in jury instructions, which say The Crown must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused's conduct showed a marked departure from the conduct of a reasonable person in the circumstances; and that a reasonable person in the same circumstances would have foreseen that this conduct posed a risk of bodily harm. R. v. Tutton is an example: the court finds that The phrase "wanton or reckless disregard for the lives or safety of other persons" signifies more than gross negligence in the objective sense. It requires some degree of awareness or advertence to the threat to the lives or safety of others or alternatively a wilful blindness to that threat which is culpable in light of the gravity of the risk assumed. Ultimately, though, the fact-finder must evaluate the behavior against a highly subjective standard as to "what a reasonable man would do". I cannot imagine a scenario where shoving a person realistically could lead to them falling into traffic and getting killed but there the shoving was ordinary horseplay. Pushing a person in the direction of oncoming traffic is abnormal behavior that shows shocking disregard for the probable harm caused to another. But perhaps there is some innocent scenario where this was really just a tragic outcome. So the answer is, it could be culpable homicide, or not, depending on the facts. To be classed as murder (rather than manslaughter) the person has to intend to cause death (§229), which is missing from this scenario.
Can a website only publish good reviews? My mate was buying a car from AutoTrader UK and heavily relying on reviews in their website. When I mentioned it to a relative of mine who owns a car supermarket he said that to post a review in AutoTrader you need to contact the dealer and ask them for a link. This obviously means only good reviews would go online unless someone is shameless and determined to post a negative review. Slightly related to this question, but still different- is it OK for a website to only post positive reviews for their sellers?	There are no laws requiring that any company must publish all opinions from its customers. I'll admit it's fundamentally dishonest to only publish the positives, but there's no prohibition against it either. Look at movie advertisements, for example. They'll paraphrase or selectively quote a review, citing only what seems to be positive, yet if you read the review and quote in context, you'll understand the review quite differently. How exactly would you police it if you were to require companies to publish all reviews? Would you have some kind of litmus test to determine whether the critique is justified and fair? How often do people post false reviews (good or bad), and how would you account for them? Company web sites offering reviews form their own customers are doing nothing more than using the web as an extension of their marketing, so one has to expect some manipulation of the information in order to present products and services in their best possible lights. Why, for example, would I tell you how much someone hates my product when my goal is to sell it to you? This is why it would be better to use independent third-party review sites that have no dog in the hunt when it comes to honest feedback about the companies they cover.	Could a phrase "Don't buy from X" with indirectly implied material be considered defamatory? No. The phrase is only an order, wish, or instruction, which is different from making a direct or veiled statement of fact. Even in jurisdictions where a statement of opinion could be actionable, a stated wish of that sort cannot be construed as defamatory. anyone that reads the marketing material would indirectly have a false picture about company X. It depends on the contents of the marketing material, on which you did not elaborate. Persuading the customers on the basis of truthful representations as to why X's product is better than A's does not mean that people have a false image about X. The context and exact wording of someone's statements could amount to omitting and/or juxtaposing facts in a way that conveys some falsity, but your description gives no indications of that being the case here.	Point three should include "to the best of my knowledge and belief", or be modified to state that none of those "house or the adjacent shop" have informed the affiant of any such delivery, or delivered any such package to the affiant. It might add that the affiant had questioned such persons and they denied receiving such a delivery. The point here, of course, is to prove that the package was never properly delivered, no doubt in support of a claim on the delivery service. The ordinary assumption is that if a person in the "house or the adjacent shop" had accepted a package, it would normally have been given to the addressee at an early opportunity.	It is actually because "this is important". Under US law, disclaimers must be "conspicuous" (UCC 2-316). So you can talk regularly when you're just stating the terms, but if you're disclaiming liability, YOU MUST BE CONSPICUOUS ("to exclude or modify the implied warranty of merchantability or any part of it the language must mention merchantability and in case of a writing must be conspicuous, and to exclude or modify any implied warranty of fitness the exclusion must be by a writing and conspicuous"). There are many ways to make text conspicuous, so bold or larger type would do, but all-caps is pretty bullet-proof from a technological perspective. Thanks to ohwilleke for salient citations: invalidation of a plain-type buried indemnification clause, all-caps clause held to be sufficient, law review article on the conspicuousness requirement.	You mean like this? Of course, a website can charge you to access its pages; many do. And yes, clicking on an "I agree" button can form a valid contract (just visiting the website can't). Historically, the law has adopted the position that if you sign it (including by clicking "I agree") you read it, you understood it and you agreed to it. It's hard to imaging how it could be otherwise because allowing people to get out of contracts by saying "I never read it" is problematical as well. However, there are two things that mitigate against the type of term you suggest; one practical and one legal. Practical: How do they get your money? They can ask for your credits card details and, if they do and you give them a court will probably come to the conclusion that you knowingly and willingly agreed to pay for the service. However, if they don't have any method of getting money from you, they would have to take you to court to do so. There are a number of practical problems with this like: who are you? where are you? Which court can they sue you in etc. Legal: At common law, there exists the doctrine of unconscionability that describes terms that are so extremely unjust, or overwhelmingly one-sided in favour of the party who has the superior bargaining power, that they are contrary to good conscience. Such terms are legally unenforcable. Further, in many jurisdictions, consumer protection law often give additional protections up to and including not enforcing terms that are merely unfair not just unconscionable.	Their code, their rules A copyright holder is free to offer their work under none, one or many licences. They can, at the same time, use their own work however they see fit without regard to the licences they have given/sold to others (except, they can only give one person an exclusive licence). As an analogy, let’s say I own a fleet of cars. I can drive my cars anytime I want. I can let Jim drive my cars anytime he wants for free. I can let Mary drive a specific car on Thursdays and only within 10km of the depot. I can let Joe drive my cars providing he pays me $50 a day. And I’m not going to let Fred drive them at all because Fred’s a jerk. Each of those is a different licence.	Both the police and the courts are likely to look at the situation as a whole, rather than adopting any policy specifically in relation to drivers or owners. For example, it's unusual for people to rent cars to their friends for months on end. That might suggest there is something untoward about the arrangement. Is there evidence of the commercial arrangement, or is the owner pretending to have rented the car out for months, when in reality they had stashed the drugs then let a friend borrow the car for a day? It would also be unlikely for a drug dealer to stash a large amount of drugs in a car then lend the car out on a long-term basis, so if the car is out of the owner's hands, that would tend to suggest the drugs belong to the person in possession of the car (and not the owner). But if the amount of drugs were small, typical of personal use, then it becomes more credible to imagine they could be forgotten by the car owner before lending the car to a friend. Police intelligence might also have a bearing. Does one party or the other have known links to the drugs trade? Also, is the lifestyle of one or the other, in particular, inconsistent with known sources of legitimate income? My point with all these questions is to highlight how sensitive the issue is to the fine details of the circumstances, and that it's impossible to give a strictly general answer.	After some more research, I found several german retailers like Frankonia and Brownells, which do ship firearm magazines to Austria. My reasoning is as follows: If they were regulated in any way, they would either be confiscated or sent back to the store. In either way, the customers would get in contact with the store, and the store would stop shipping magazines to Austria. Since I was unable to find a german store which specifically mentioned that they would not ship to Austria, I am going to assume that they are not regulated and can be purchased freely.
Technical Standards and Papers - Can the equations be copyrighted This question is very similar to Licensing Issues of Methods for software and Copyright of technical standards however, the answers are, likely quite rightly unclear as it may depend on a specific case. With this in mind I've asked the question more specifically to my requirements and expand on it a little. I want to develop a computer program that can undertake engineering calculations. In the first instance it would be used internally at the company I work for, but if possible, I would also like to sell it to third parties. Many of the equations will be based on British Standards that are owned and copyrighted by the BSI Group. I would therefore need to: Copy and use the equations Copy and use their constants (some are publicly available such as constant for gravity, but others are based on experimental outputs, which may or may not have been developed for the British Standard document) Copy and use their constant and variable descriptions For guidance I can refer back to the original documentation. I have been in touch with the BSI Group and they have advised that for internal use, My proposals are acceptable on the basis that the documents are licensed to the company and not an individual. I have not been offered an answer form them whether this permission can extend to selling the software to third parties. Grateful for thoughts. Edit I eventually got a response as follows which echos the accepted answer: You can reproduce factual data such as equations, numerical values and formulas. However you cannot reproduce a table that includes the data. In other words you must extract it and present it in your own work. Text, figures, tables and diagrams would require our permission.	I'm assuming that you are in the UK, as you are talking about the British Standards Institue. In general the truth cannot be copyrighted but an expression of that truth can be, provided that it is creative or original to at least some extent. In this case the equations and constants you want to use are descriptions of scientific truths. If you translate them into another form (e.g. a computer program) then you are not copying the creative bit (the layout and arrangement of those equations and explanatory text), so you are not violating the copyright. Edit: I should also have said for (3) that their descriptions of the constants and variables will be copyright. You would have to avoid copying their words. However given that these are going to be terse descriptions of facts your words can still be pretty similar without infringing on copyright, because there are only so many ways of describing the acceleration due to gravity, or whatever. Take a look at some alternative references to see what words they use.	No, it does not fall under fair use: It is commercial use in nature It is a copyrighted work It is hard to say what portion of the copyrighted work you'd be using based on your description, so test three is inconclusive It could be argued in your favor that the infringement would not have an impact on their potential market, but it could potentially impact the value If discovered the owner of the copyright could pursue action against the company you work for.	Course assignments, like practically every other piece of written content created in the past 100 years or so, are copyrighted. You cannot copy or redistribute them without the permission of the copyright holder. In most cases that would be the course instructor, but it could also be the university, or the publisher of a commercial book or other resource where the questions came from. The instructor might be happy to give you permission if you ask - many professors would be pleased to have their creations reach a wider audience. In any case, it is perfectly legal to talk about the assignment you were given, as long as you do not copy or replicate the text of the assignment itself. Reading it verbatim or with trivial alterations would be a problem, but describing it completely in your own words doesn't infringe copyright. A separate issue is what is allowed by your university rules. University rules aren't laws, but you can still be punished academically if you break them (grade penalties, suspension, expulsion, etc). The university might have a policy against sharing, or even discussing, assignments without permission. This might include forbidding actions that the law itself allows. In particular, they might forbid you from talking about your solutions to the assignments, which copyright law would have no problem with (your solution is your own creative work, and the copyright on it belongs to you). So again, ask your instructor what they would allow. Also, academic ethics (which again is not a law, but might be enforced by your university) would generally require that you give proper attribution to the author of the assignment you are discussing. Note that there are plenty of online collections of so-called "open courseware", where the university deliberately makes their course materials public, under some sort of open license such as Creative Commons. MIT's repository is one of the most famous. So if you can't get permission to use the materials from your Penn State courses, you could always make videos about MIT's assignments instead.	All computer programs are not just copyrightable, they are protected by copyright as soon as they are put into fixed form (for example, as soon as I type it on my computer which will save it as a file on a disk). The copyright owner doesn't have to take any actions whatsoever to have a computer program protected by copyright. It’s not just computer programs, even many fonts are copyrighted because they are essentially computer programs. BTW. What I just wrote is also protected by copyright. There are some licenses involved that I agreed to when I submitted it to this website, and which allow the website to publish and you to read this text, but I'm the copyright holder. PS. There is a comment saying “computer programs are not literary works and therefore not copyrightable”. That may have been true or arguable in the 1980’s. It’s not true now. PS. No, stack exchange doesn’t own the copyright to my post, I do. Unless I was an employee of the company and posted on their behalf. Stack exchange needs and has a license to publish this post.	You are required to provide a copyright notice on your work, such as putting (c) rhino 2016 in the liner notes. Nothing precludes you from licensing that copyright in any way you want, such as Creative Commons. As long as you aren't in violation of the last sentence (your work is not primarily the samples, and you actually made a song with them), then others should be able to use your work with no restrictions other than what you yourself place on the work. The purpose of requiring a copyright notice on derivative works is to give notice of who the actual author is and distance the original author from the derivative work. If you take their samples and make a song that is later at the center of a lawsuit (copyright, defamation, etc), the the copyright notice will hopefully steer people first to the derivative author and not the original author. That is the purpose of the clause in the copyright grant above.	The Organization Does Not Own the Copyright As you were clearly not an employee of the organization, and did not have a specific contract with them, this was not a "work-made-for-hire" (WFH). Therefore, the copyright initially belonged to the author, in this case the programmer, that is you. That being so, it would require a written document to transfer the copyright to another during your lifetime. In future there should be a written agreement in such a case, spelling out just what rights are to be retained by whom. It can save lots of trouble. The organization would have an implied license to use the software. The terms of this would be defined by the conduct of the parties, and might be a matter of dispute. Probably there would be a non-exclusive license without any fee or ending date. Probably there would be no license to distribute to others unless you explicitly grant one. Specific US Laws 17 USC 101 defines a WFH: A “work made for hire” is— (1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or (2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire. For the purpose of the foregoing sentence, a “supplementary work” is a work prepared for publication as a secondary adjunct to a work by another author for the purpose of introducing, concluding, illustrating, explaining, revising, commenting upon, or assisting in the use of the other work, such as forewords, afterwords, pictorial illustrations, maps, charts, tables, editorial notes, musical arrangements, answer material for tests, bibliographies, appendixes, and indexes, and an “instructional text” is a literary, pictorial, or graphic work prepared for publication and with the purpose of use in systematic instructional activities. (emphasis added) 17 USC 201 provides that: (a) Initial Ownership. — Copyright in a work protected under this title vests initially in the author or authors of the work. The authors of a joint work are coowners of copyright in the work. (b) Works Made for Hire. — In the case of a work made for hire, the employer or other person for whom the work was prepared is considered the author for purposes of this title, and, unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise in a written instrument signed by them, owns all of the rights comprised in the copyright. ... (d) Transfer of Ownership.— (d) (1) The ownership of a copyright may be transferred in whole or in part by any means of conveyance or by operation of law, and may be bequeathed by will or pass as personal property by the applicable laws of intestate succession. (d) (2) Any of the exclusive rights comprised in a copyright, including any subdivision of any of the rights specified by section 106, may be transferred as provided by clause (1) and owned separately. The owner of any particular exclusive right is entitled, to the extent of that right, to all of the protection and remedies accorded to the copyright owner by this title. 17 USC 204 provides that: (a) A transfer of copyright ownership, other than by operation of law, is not valid unless an instrument of conveyance, or a note or memorandum of the transfer, is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner’s duly authorized agent.	If any elements of the game are protected by copyright, then you cannot reproduce those elements (17 U.S.C. §106) unless your reproduction falls under a fair use exception (17 U.S.C. §107). Elements that may be protected by copyright include: artwork specific language on each card the aggregate effects of the cards (i.e. copying a single card's effects might not infringe copyright, but if you copy the effect of a bunch of the cards, such that you are taking expression of the original author's creativity, that might infringe, even if you change the words used) Whether an element of the game is protected by copyright is a fact-intensive question that would depend on the specifics of the game. Whether your copy infringes is likewise a fact-intensive question that would depend on what you copy. Fair use is also a fact-intensive, case-by-case analysis, but in my opinion, it is likely that creating a computer program derivative work (17 U.S.C. §101) of the game for your own personal education would be considered fair use. From a practical standpoint, even if it were not fair use, it would be near impossible for the copyright owner to discover. Posting the code on GitHub tips the scales away from fair use because of (17 U.S.C. §107(4)): "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." But, none of the factors are determinative on their own. You ask: I likely cannot simply change all the names of the various cards to something else, right? I agree. In my opinion, the selection and arrangement of the effects attributed to each card is an expression of the author's creativity, and no matter what you call the cards, copyright in the game would be implicated if you retained the effects associated with each card. If I start changing the rules of the game, does that make it legal for me to share my source code, for instance? At some point, it will be an entirely different game, so certainly, in the limit, your work would not be infringing. We can't answer where that line is, but in general, the less of the original author's creativity that you re-use, the less likely a ruling of infringement. Also, in general, the more transformative your work is, the more likely a fair use exception would apply.	As you've presented them, I doubt the functions are protected by copyright in the first place. Originality is one of the threshold requirements for copyright protection, and it demands that the work in question be independently created by the author, and that it possess some minimal degree of creativity. If you're talking about programming at a level so basic that the function truly must be created in a particular way, there is no originality in simply following the instructions. And even if there's some wiggle room, but the language you used has likely been independently replicated by many programmers, that's still not original enough to be copyrightable. What you want to watch out for, though, is the possibility that they've been combined into an original arrangement that is protected. I don't know enough about how copyright law is applied to code to say where or how that line is drawn, but my instinct would be that it could be a fairly low threshold.
Can I sell a computer game that is based on a real board game? As a group of friends we started coding a computer game based on a board game called A (insert a board game, like monopoly). There are already digital forms of the game around made by the original owners (like hasbro). Are we legally allowed to sell (or giveaway, since we don't know if we actually want to sell it or release it as a free game) copies of our game which basically has the same rules/mechanics of the board game it is based on. If we can, what do we need to look out for when releasing the game? I heard names are subject to copyright/trademark, that means if we name our game A the Digital Version we'll get in trouble. We want to know what not to do when releasing our implementation of the game. Why we are asking if this is copyright infringement is because we are only "copying" the rules/mechanics of the game, while all the art/music/code are done by us. Does this count as transformative? Is this allowed? If simply "copying" the mechanics do not count as transformative, is adding or removing to/from the said mechanics count?	You need to check if the original game developers patented the mechanics/rules of the game. For your example, Monopoly was patented, but expired in the 50s and while it would not be a copyright violation to mimic the rules/mechanics, it would be a different intellectual property violation (patent infringement). Spry Fox vs LOLAPPS is also relevant as it extends copyright protection to the implementation of an idea, but ideas (like rules/mechanics) cannot, by themselves, be copyrighted. This means that there is an avenue for the original developer/company to sue even if the visual/audible aspects are different, but the overall gameplay is the same. Also see Tetris Holding LLC vs Xio Interactive Inc. as it relates to the visual aspect of the game.	If the "Pokeball" image is copyrighted and/or a trademark of Nintendo/whoever makes the Pokemon games, then whoever put that image out there under CC 3.0 BY is in violation and can be sued and will probably lose, and you would be in violation and can be sued and will probably lose. Your penalty would almost certainly be less since your violation was "innocent", that is, you had no way of knowing that the "Pokeball" imagery was somebody's protected intellectual property. ... Except you kind of maybe should know that, unless whoever made the Pokemon games (Nintendo or other) put the image out there and you can verify that, that maybe this license could be bogus and you should consult with who you imagine the owner of that IP may be or an impartial professional who could tell you for sure. I'm thinking if it were me I would do a little more research - and maybe get a paid opinion - if I was really thinking about using this for any but private purposes.	Does a situation like this constitute breach of contract and/or a violation of advertising laws? No. There is not enough information that would lead to a finding of either. It is unclear how customers would be allegedly affected (if at all) by the release of a product at a different store, let alone where the goods or services at issue are digital and require no physical presence at a venue or premise. Except for very specific factual circumstances, a change of sales venue would hardly be cognizable as deceptive or unfair practice. Also, prior to purchasing or reserving a game, there is no contract between the public and the developer/supplier. Potential customers typically are not entitled to a specific performance by the developer. Even if [Phoenix Point] supporters' decision were provably based on the prospect of release at Steam, your description nowhere reflects that there was a mutually conscious exchange (or promise of an exchange) of considerations involving the parties' support of a game and the counterparty's release of the game at a specific venue. Absent that meeting of the minds, either party's reliance or expectation on the other is irrelevant. Generally speaking, the sole cruciality of either party's motives does not create legal obligations.	united-states The license won't let you sell the .stl file. Probably you have created a derivative work, which means you can't sell it without a copyright license (and the CC-A-NC won't do). If it were licensed under CC-A you could sell it without problems (you'd have to give attribution, of course). You could also sell it under the CC-A-SA, but once you do you have no control over the result -- anyone you sold it to could give it to someone else under the terms of the license. This could work, though, if it were (say) a commission and you only expected to sell one copy. I don't know what the situation would be with the physical objects printed under any of these licenses.	It is legal Because of the first sale doctrine a person may freely sell a copy that they legitimately own. Copyright preserves the owner's right to make copies - Copy-right; once they have made (or authorised) a copy then the physical embodiment of that copy (record, CD, DVD, book etc.) is personal property and can be bought and sold like any other piece of personal property. The prohibition on copying its contents remains.	Copyrights don't apply to the names used. You mean trademarks. You copyright your game and you trademark the name. http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/11v69k/using_a_guns_name_in_your_video_game/ Basically, it wouldn't be wise to use trademarked names in your game. Even though it's unlikely you would be sued and even if you were, you could possibly fight it under Fair Use, but do you want to take the chance? If some gun company decided they didn't like how you used their name, even if they have little to no grounds for a case, they can STILL sue. Anybody can sue for pretty much any reason where there is doubt. If they have enough money to throw around, they can drag you through the mud, ruin your business and then just lift their lawsuit. They don't need to win in court, just destroy you. Keep in mind that even if you don't use the name, if the gun in your game is an accurate replica of the real thing, it could still be a trademark issue. EDIT: Something you could consider though is asking permission. You never know. They may simply not care. You might even try propositioning them to pay YOU to have their gun showcased in your game. It's not entirely uncommon for companies to be willing to pay for a bit of endorsement advertising.	Your issue is trademark, not copyright. If these other guys use their mark (product name) in commerce but did not register it, they have an unregistered trademark which you could be infringing. Between two users of the same trademark, the first to use in commerce wins. (There is a territorial component but with the Internet, meh.) If the trademark is registered that gives them a presumption of validity. Trademark infringement is concerned with consumer confusion. If someone uses someone else's trademark in a way that confuses consumers as to the origin of the goods, that's a problem. What this means is that if I make tires with the name Sportie and someone else makes soap also with that name Sportie there is not a high likelihood of confusion. Likewise a hotel in Washington called Runner's Cove probably doesn't infringe a shoe store in Florida with the same name. Fantasy games and fantasy books sold over the Internet? Sounds like a potential problem that you might want to clear up before the second book.	Cheating in video games is not against the law. (If it's not for profit) IANAL The legality of cheating in video games has already been challenged in a court of law. You see, Nintendo didn't want people to cheat. Fearing it would lower the financial value of their games if you can beat them in just a few minutes. It was argued in court that a video game is no different than a book. If you want to read the end of the book, skip to your favorite chapter or skim quickly through a boring part you can. The conclusion is the game is yours to enjoy in anyway you want. Nobody can tell you how to play your game. There's an interesting and short documentary about the legal history of cheating in video games by the gaming historian. Also it doesn't matter what the TOS says. TOS is not legally binding Good news: another federal judge has ruled that violating a website terms of service is not a crime. But there's bad news, too — the court also found that bypassing technical or code-based barriers intended to limit access to or uses of a website may violate California's computer crime law. However, I've read you can be sued for breach of contract, if the site can prove any damages based on your cheating. I found that answer here on Law.SE and they didn't provide a source so I can't verify if it's true.
Why is there no US federal crime of interstate forgery? Suppose someone uttered a forged document across state lines with fraudulent intent. This looks like (attempted) fraud and (completed) forgery in both states, as well as (attempted) mail/wire fraud federally. However, 18 USC Ch 25 clearly applies only when the intended victim or misrepresented party is the United States/agents/etc itself. Since attempted fraud is basically a predicate offense of forgery, presumably the latter is more serious. Given that federal statute treats "interstate commerce" very liberally (the reach of mail and wire fraud is extremely broad), why didn't congress create a separate crime for interstate forgery? (Start with a copy of 18 USC Ch 25 with all references to "the United States/etc" replaced with "any person, across state lines" and adjust from there.)	The only real answer is that Congress hasn't (to the best of my knowledge) chosen to pass such a law. But the kinds of forgery that Congress might plausibly and constitutionally prohibit, such as forgery of checks, forgery of legal documents, and forgery as part of a fraudulent scheme are already crimes under state law, and the states handle such prosecutions perfectly well. There is really no need for a separate federal law on such issues. The kinds of forgery covered in the answer b grovkin would probably not be covered by a federal forgery statute, if one were to be passed. But that is speculation.	It would be a violation of 18 USC 1001, which is the law against making false statements to the federal government. Paul Mozer, who was a Salomon Brothers trader, received a four month sentence for doing something along those lines in 1994. Bidding on something implies an intent to pay for the thing, which in this case is a falsehood: in so doing, one "falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact" (that you don't intend to pay for the thing).	It might possibly be illegal. For criminal law, usually you need to obey the laws of three countries: The country you are a national of (by personality principle) The country from where you make the sale (by territoriality principle) The country that hosts the attacked interest (by territoriality principle) Then it depends on the jurisdiction (and other factors) whether the sale is legal or not. I'll use the example of my country, Czech Republic. There is a crime called "Unauthorized access to a computer system or data storage device". For example, you commit this crime by exploiting a vulnerability in a web application and copying the web owner's data on your computer. It is also codified that whoever wilfully facilitates the committing of a crime by providing the criminal with resources (such as the exploit) is considered to have also committed the crime. For this to apply, you must have known or expected that the exploit will be used to commit a crime. The courts would decide this.	Yes. This is legal, even though it is highly unlikely. There were very few, if any, instances of the federal pardon power being used this way historically, but it could happen, and President Trump, while he was in office, intimated that he might use the pardon power in this fashion. Realistically, it would be easier for the President to prevent someone from being prosecuted in the first place if the crime took place during his term, but he might pardon someone who committed the crime under a previous administration. The fact pattern in the question: “don’t be surprised if I pardon anyone that puts to death repeat heroin and fentanyl dealers dealing in amounts larger than 50 pounds” doesn't sound very morally palatable. But consider a slight variant of it which is much more plausible. Suppose that while running for office a Presidential candidate says: don't be surprised if I pardon someone who was convicted of homicide in a previous administration for killing someone who had been using them as a sex slave in a human trafficking network, or killing someone who was in the process of raping them shortly before their divorce became final but was not allowed to assert a self-defense argument at trial because marital rape was legal at the time. Now arguably that's different, because it doesn't induce someone to commit a future crime. But the President has broad discretion to make policy to de-emphasize certain kinds of criminal prosecutions in any case while in office even without the pardon power, and generally, this is not a basis for having a special prosecutor appointed at the federal level since there is no individualized conflict of interest. Of course, the U.S. President can only pardon someone from a federal crime and can't pardon state crimes or criminal convictions from other countries. So, even if the President pardoned someone of a federal crime in this situation, the state in which the murders took place could prosecute the individual for murder unimpeded (constitutional double jeopardy considerations would also not bar a state prosecution following the federal prosecution). Indeed, the vast majority of murder prosecutions are made under state law, and there are very few murders that take place which are beyond the jurisdiction of any U.S. state and any foreign country, that are in the jurisdiction of the U.S. government and covered by a federal homicide statute, in any year. As noted by @hszmv in a comment to another answer: Federal Murder charges are a thing and can be prosecuted, but are normally reserved for murders that either involve federal government employees (especially if they are murdered because of the duties the performed in the course of their duty or the status as a federal employee) OR murders that occur on Federally Owned Property OR the Murder involved crossing state lines OR is in U.S. Jurisdiction but not in a territory or state jurisdiction (usually applies to some uninhabited territorial islands or U.S./International Waters). Further, a pardon would not prohibit the victim's family for suing the murderer for wrongful death, and indeed, probably wouldn't prohibit them from using the murder conviction that was pardoned to conclusively establish liability in a civil case under the doctrine of collateral estoppel (I haven't researched that highly specific and technical civil procedure issue, however, but even if that wasn't possible, the murder trial transcript would be admissible in the civil case). A civil judgement for wrongful death was famously obtained against O.J. Simpson by the victim's family after O.J. Simpson was acquitted in a criminal murder trial. This tactic would really only be helpful to a prospective defendant with respect to cases where there is not a parallel criminal offense under state law.	This is a developing area within the law. In the United States, 18 U.S.C. § 1030 (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) governs. However, the law is broadly written. This means creative prosecutors can and do win federal criminal cases by arguing the law should apply. Whether violating a website's terms of service should be considered a federal crime subject to the Act has been a subject of hot debate. In United States v. Nosal, 676 F.3d 854 (9th Cir. 2012), the 9th Circuit decided violations of use should be considered breaches rather than crimes. However, the district court refused to dismiss some charges against Nosal when the case was returned, and a jury conviction resulted in a prison sentence. At least three different circuits have arrived at other interpretations of the CFAA. Draft legislation (H.R. 2454 and S. 1196) would limit the scope of the CFAA by excluding TOS violations, however, it hasn't been adopted as of this writing. That CAPTCHA breaking violates website terms of service isn't really in question. For example, see U.S. v. Lowson, 10-cr-114, U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey (Newark) in which the judge brought a criminal case to which two defendants plead guilty to wire fraud, one plead guilty to misdemeanor computer crimes, and a fourth went on the lam. But does for-profit CAPTCHA solving violate U.S. law? Given the state of the law, one could make a case either way. Given the industry's reputation, serious questions about intended use, and questionable labor practices, that's a significant risk.	Is odometer fraud a felony or a misdemeanor? It's both: a felony under federal law, and a misdemeanor under Colorado law. There's no conflict; each of those sovereigns can enforce its laws independently. Someone who tampers with an odometer could be prosecuted in federal court, and convicted of a felony; or prosecuted in Colorado court, and convicted of a misdemeanor; or even both. In practice, it sounds like the federal authorities are most interested in prosecuting large-scale odometer fraud schemes, and would generally leave one-off cases to the state authorities. Are there exceptions where this may not be enforceable? This site (https://www.nhtsa.gov/equipment/odometer-fraud) indicates that the requirement for a written disclosure of odometer roll-back is not applicable for vehicles over 20 years old (also pre-2010 models, which seems a bit more restrictive). I'm having a hard time nailing this particular restriction down in the Colorado Statutes. Can anyone point out where this law is defined? As far as I can tell, Colorado law simply incorporates the federal requirement: CRS 42-6-202 (5): It is unlawful for any transferor to fail to comply with 49 U.S.C. sec. 32705 and any rule concerning odometer disclosure requirements or to knowingly give a false statement to a transferee in making any disclosure required by such law. 49 USC 32705 (a)(5) permits the Secretary of Transportation (i.e. the federal Department of Transportation) to make regulations that carve out exemptions from the mileage disclosure rules, which can be found at 49 CFR 580.17 and include the 20-year and 2010 rules. So these same exemptions apply to the state requirement. (Incidentally, the Colorado title forms do not mention this exemption.) Note, however, that this is only an exemption from the disclosure requirement. There is no exemption from the general law against odometer fraud. It is illegal to tamper with an odometer no matter how old the car is. What is the statute of limitations to pursue crimes of odometer fraud? I think this is answered in Colorado Statute 13-80-102(j) (https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/images/olls/crs2020-title-13.pdf). This seems to indicate this type of fraud has a 2-year timeline. Does this apply from date of purchase or date of discovery? 13-80-102 is a statute of limitations for civil actions, and it does indeed cover actions for odometer fraud (see (1)(j) which references CRS 42-6-204). This would apply if the buyer wanted to sue the seller in civil court. But that's unrelated to the criminal statues we discussed above, which would be prosecuted in criminal court by the state or federal government. The limit is two years "after the cause of action accrues", which is defined in 13-80-108(3): A cause of action for fraud, misrepresentation, concealment, or deceit shall be considered to accrue on the date such fraud, misrepresentation, concealment, or deceit is discovered or should have been discovered by the exercise of reasonable diligence. For criminal prosecutions, the Colorado statute of limitations for misdemeanors is generally 18 months, from the time the offense was committed (CRS 16-5-401). For some crimes, it is defined to start instead when the offense was discovered, but odometer fraud doesn't appear to be one of them; still, it could conceivably be prosecuted under other fraud statutes. As for federal law, the statute of limitations is generally 5 years from commission (18 USC 3282).	I believe that you have misinterpreted the case, not least because the Hudgins v I.R.S case involves this only peripherally. The original case Diviaio v Kelly was dealing with a request for the number of photographs taken of the plaintiff and if these had been disseminated outside the CIA. This is in no way shape or form a request for records (the records were found to be legitimately exempt). I see no problem in your FOI request. In fact, I can foresee the response: These, http://www.maine.gov/legis/ros/meconlaw.htm, are the laws we use to justify these actions. In a common law jurisdiction, a person (including the government) does not have to prove they are abiding by the law. The onus is on you to prove they aren't; they do not have to help you make your case.	Surely such a well meaning albeit naive driver wouldn't stand a chance in court if they said that it's because they've a section 230-like protection. Because Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act explicitly protects computer service providers from such charges. A driver is not a computer service provider, and the US legislature has never voted to offer similar protection to drivers picking up hitchhikers. You say that an email can easily be classified as fraudulent, but that's not true. Spam detection has gotten pretty sophisticated, but they still get plenty of false positives. They were a lot less sophisticated back in 1996 when the Communications Decency Act was passed.
Under what laws did Israel evict Palestinians from their homes? According to the BBC news last night, the latest violence in Israel / Palestine began after Palestinians were evicted from their homes in favour of Israelis. It seems highly draconian. What laws does the Israeli government have (or use) to evict people from their homes?	Short answer A pro-settler organization called Nahalat Shimon is using a 1970 law to argue that the owners of the land before 1948 were Jewish families, and so the current Palestinian landowners should be evicted and their properties given to Israeli Jews. Long answer	The police are never permitted to break the law. However, the law that gives them their powers may make other laws not applicable to them in the course of their duties. If a law is not applicable to them; how can they break it?	Laws are different around the world and you didn't bother to state your location, but typically no- this is not how the system works. What would be the point? There's no defendant. You, the plaintiff would argue against thin air and then what? The court rules in your favour, declares this illegal, and nothing happens because there's no defendant. Is it so you can use this ruling if you find out later? Pretty sneaky. Let's look into how this would actually work. You bring up a case- Jackson vs a mannequin or something. You make your arguments. The defense makes literally no defense. The judge rules in your favour, with a result of nothing as there is no defendent. Next, you find the culprit and bring a case against them. You point out that this is illegal because we came to that decision last week. What's that defendant? An argument against it being illegal? Too bad, the decision has been made. When I posted this answer, it was before the "Nyah, I was ranting about government spying but was deliberately vague- aren't I clever?" comment and I assumed it was against, say, a neighbour but it doesn't really matter. You cannot have a system that makes a judgement without a defendant so it can be applied later.	Inferring from the question, it appears that: The tenancy is an Assured Shorthold Tenancy. The tenancy agreement started on 16 December 2014. The initial fixed term was for 12 months. (Please comment below if any of this is incorrect). A Section 21 order gives notice that, unless the tenant leaves by the date given in the document, the landlord will begin legal proceedings against the tenant, in order to obtain a court order forcing the tenant to leave. To answer the OP's questions: Does it mean that she wants to use her right to cancel the contract after 2 months? It looks like that to me but I am not 100% sure. Yes - but if this is before the end of the fixed term (which I'm assuming is 15 December) there must be a clause in the tenancy agreement (normally called a "break clause") allowing the fixed term to be terminated early. If there is no break clause, then you cannot be asked to leave before the end of the fixed term. What does it mean "after 16/11/2015"? After can mean anything... even end of contract in December. Yes. The landlord would like you to leave before the date shown - but if you don't, the landlord can begin legal proceedings any time after that. Is this a legal document or just something she made up? It is a legal document. Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 allows a landlord to ask a tenant to leave without having to give a reason. The landlord must meet certain conditions in order for the notice to be valid. What happens if I want to leave the house later because I don't find alternative? You'll need to discuss that with the landlord. However, if you don't leave by the end of the fixed term, you are entitled to stay (and pay rent!) until a court (not the landlord) orders your eviction. EDIT: This website goes into a lot more detail about the whole Section 21 procedure.	There was a case like that in 2010 in germany tl;dr synopsis of the German article: The police raided the private home of an alleged member of a criminal gang. This was performed as a no-knock raid. The police officers did not announce themselves as such when they started to break open the door. The suspect had reason to believe that a rival gang was planning an attempt on his life. So the suspect believed that the people trying to break into his home were actually members of said gang trying to murder him. The suspect used a firearm to shoot at the intruders through the door, lethally injuring a police officer. When the police officers then identified themselves as such, the suspect surrendered immediately. A court later ruled that killing the police officer was self-defense, because they were reasonably convinced that the defendant was unaware that he was dealing with police officers, believed to be in a situation where his life was in danger and where lethal violence was the only way to save his life. Here is the verdict. [In German, of course]	Generally, if someone asks you to leave their property you have to leave. Just because a place is owned by the public, doesn't mean anyone can go there any time they wish. Military bases, firehouses, and jails are owned by the public, but many of these have limited access to the public. It may be open to the general public, but that does not mean restrictions cannot be put into place, either on times, or activities, or individuals. For example, public parks often have time and activity restrictions; schools have the power to restrict individuals from their premises, either specifically or by general category. As a general point of law, the owner of any property, or their agent, can order anyone without the right to stay (e.g. not a co-owner or tenant), and that person must depart, otherwise that person is tresspassing. The Social Service Administrator is almost certainly an agent of the controlling entity that owns the property. Thus their demand that you leave the premises is enforceable, unless you have a non-revokable right to be in that space. As user Justaguy points out there are some exceptions. Most notably, police can some times enter a property uninvited or against the owner's wishes (such as under emergency circumstances or with a warrant).	Actually, neither the council nor a private owner are responsible for illegal actions by unauthorised people on their property. This is obvious: if an intruder enters your property and, while there, shoots someone you cannot be held responsible. However ... Since you have made them aware that there are intruders on their property acting illegally and causing a nuisance to the neighbours and they have done nothing they are quite likely negligent, even recklessly negligent. Rather than sue them, consult a lawyer and get them to write a letter that if they do not take action by X date you are going to sue them.	In the United States, you can always choose to (try to) flee police. If the police subsequently assert that they tried to detain you, then they can choose to charge you with a number of crimes (which vary by jurisdiction). The assertion that you did not (or could not) in fact hear or perceive a lawful order to stop is a defense that you could raise in response to such charges. It is up to the triers of fact to determine whether, given the specifics of the case, they accept that defense.
Legally binding digital signature Hand signature on a document is legally binding if not forged. And apparently, digital signature is also legally binding. But in cryptographic digital signature, such as PGP, you can revoke your signing key if for any reason you believe that it has been compromised. Say you have signed a document, and then revoke your key at a later date, is your signature still legally binding? Say your key has been stolen, and you revoke your key, but the thief uses your key to sign documents anyway, are you legally bounded by the signature that has been made by your impersonator?	A contract is binding if it has been agreed by both sides and is otherwise legal and freely entered into. A signature (handwritten or otherwise) is not required. However if a dispute arises, either party can use the presence of a signature as evidence that the contract was agreed to. The signature is evidence of the agreement, and the agreement is binding, not the signature. If your handwritten signature is on a contract that you have not agreed to you would need to explain to the court how this happened: "I was forced to at gunpoint" or "It wasn't written by me but by a forger", for example. The court would then have to decide, on the balance of probabilities if they believe you or not. It is much the same with digital signatures. The court has to decide if you made an agreement or not. If your digital signature appears on an electronic document that you haven't agreed to, you would need to explain to the court how that happened: "my key was stolen" would be your explanation. If the revocation came after the contract was signed, you would have a much weaker case than if it came before. But the court would need to weigh the balance of probabilities. But the "key" point here (pun absolutely intended) is that it is the agreement that is binding, and not the signature. If you agree to a contract (and indicate that agreement by digital signature using a key that you later revoke) then you are bound. If you don't agree to a contract (which is signed without your consent using a key stolen from you that you have revoked) then you are not bound.	Your confusion might be caused by the fact that even with a contract, only the data necessary for that contract is covered under the GDPR. So yes, while there might be an "execution of contract" under the T&C, this would only cover necessary data. That means you can't ask arbitrary signup data under the guise of a contract. If you need to deliver a physical product, you can store a physical address. If it's an online service, you can store an email address or similar handle. But you can't mix the two. A physical address is unnecessary for the execution of a contract that's not physical in nature. Now, you mention "consent". Under GDPR, this is a distinct justification besides "execution of contract". You might have consent to store a physical address in addition to an online address, e.g. if you offer a customer to physically mail a password request form. This consent is additional to the contract. Also note that the bit above only covers the lawful reasons for the processing of personal data (article 6). You also have to obey the other GDPR rules, e.g. fully inform the user, make sure that consent is freely given, etc.	No for the U.S. There is no criteria for graphic complexity in the United States. A signature can still be the historical "X". If it is some representation of your name, as it ordinarily is, it not need to be remotely legible or a representation of your full name. From FindLaw Usually, a signature is simply someone's name written in a stylized fashion. However, that is not really necessary. All that needs to be there is some mark that represents you. It can be -- as many signatures end up -- a series of squiggles, a picture, or historically, even the traditional "X" for people who couldn't read and write. As long as it adequately records the intent of the parties involved in a contractual agreement, it's considered a valid signature.	Is shredding a Document included in Forgery? You don't give a jurisdiction, so for england-and-wales: NO s.1 of Forgery and counterfeiting Act 1981 defines forgery as: A person is guilty of forgery if he makes a false instrument, with the intention that he or another shall use it to induce somebody to accept it as genuine, and by reason of so accepting it to do or not to do some act to his own or any other person’s prejudice The unlawful shredding of documents would probably be criminal damage, theft or perverting the course of justice depending on the circumstances.	If two parties agree to the terms of an exchange, then there exists an enforceable contract. A signature is not needed to create a contract. However, an intent to negotiate a contract is not, per se, a contract. Absent some specific and explicit measures (which for major deals may be codified in an MOU or LOI that itself contains contractual terms), if you can't reach an agreement on terms then there is no contract. It's up to the particulars of "the verbal agreement to start the hiring process" whether an agreement on exchange has been reached, or merely proposed. E.g., "You and I agree that I will pay you $X in exchange for Y due Z" is a contract. "You and I agree that we'd like to work together, and we'll hammer out the terms X, Y, and Z by the end of the week" is merely a proposal to contract, not an actual contract. Of course, this doesn't mean you're immune to liability for failing to reach a contract in this hypothetical: you can always be sued!	There are not enough facts to draw a conclusion First, it’s not clear that the document you signed amounts to a contract. For example, what consideration did the school give you in return for the permission you gave them? Providing you with an education doesn’t count - they were legally obliged to do that already. If it is a contract then whether and how it can be revoked would depend on the terms of that contract witch I’m guessing you don’t have a copy of. Notwithstanding, as a minor, you have the right to void the contract until a reasonable time after you turn 18. Even if it is now many years since that happened, it might be reasonable since you only just discovered the website. If it isn’t a contract, then it would be revocable at any time. Practicalities Make a fuss and they may take the photos down even if they are not obliged to. They presumably have plenty of photos of kids who aren’t you and aren’t complaining and if you make it so it’s easier to change the website than to deal with you, thy’ll change the website. I suspect their inertia is because they once paid a web developer to create the site, it has never since been updated, they don’t know how to do it, and they don’t want to have to pay someone to find out. Otherwise, why would they have photos of ex-students rather than current students? If so, an offer by you to cover the costs, might solve your problem.	it's not illegal to sign a contract that demands illegal things, however, such a contract, in general, is called an illegal contract. Illegal contracts are null and void. Contracts that violate public policy never have force in the first place. A contract can't force people to declare lies under oath or demand them to murder someone. Thus, a contract demanding such is illegal. As a result, such a clause would not just be unenforceable, it might void the entire contract wholesale if it is not severable. In the least, any clause demanding illegal acts was null and void ab initio, and never was valid. void contracts in law germany explicitly makes contracts void that are "Sittenwidrig" in § 138 BGB and also illegal ones in § 134 BGB Declarations to the Agentur für Arbeit are made under threat of perjury, and thus lying is illegal. It is also Sittenwidrig. This makes the provision void. Murder is illegal, inciting to murder someone is illegal, and so a contract to murder someone for pay is void. Such a contract also is Sittenwidrig. Selling the right to ask to marry your daughter per see isn't illegal, but it is Sittenwidrig and as such the contract is void. california judges refer to such contracts as illegal contracts, defining this as a test where making non-enforcement of such a contract something of public interest: It is in the public interest that people tell the truth to the unemployment office, so a contract demanding you to lie is illegal. It is illegal to lie on the stand (perjury), and thus the contract is illegal. Conspiracy However, the contract can also be evidence of criminal activity in itself: It manifests the will of two parties to commit an illegal act. That is the core of a conspiracy charge. Conspiracy is illegal and usually a felony. germany: Conspiracy to commit a crime is §30 STGB	It turns out that there is no difference between the ethical answer and the legal answer, in this case. The law recognizes the property right which a person has when they create a thing, such as a font, and that right is encoded in the law of copyright. The relevant US federal code is contained in Title 17, which you can read (essentially identical laws exist in virtually or perhaps actually all countries). The important thing to understand is that there is not a distinction between "privately" trespassing on a person's property and "publicly" trespassing on a person's property. The violation of the owner's property rights comes from taking the material without consent. There is a legally-recognized exception to the owner's rights, in the form of "fair use", which is widely misunderstood to mean "if it's not for profit, the property owner has no legal protection". Simply taking and using someone else's IP non-commercially is not "fair use".
Under what circumstances (other than defamation) is "truth an absolute defense" against prosecution? My understanding is that "truth is an absolute defense" against a "defamation" charge, in the U.S. (Although you could be charged with something else such as "publication of private facts.") If you shouted "fire" in a crowded theater, and there really was a fire, would "truth be an absolute defense"? If so, under what heading would this doctrine fall, since we are not dealing with "defamation"? On the other hand, "truth is NOT an absolute defense" against "defamation" in the United Kingdom. (At least as I learned UK law in the 1990s.) Are there any other instances in the UK where "truth is not an absolute defense"?	The original phrase "falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic" came from the opnion by Justice Holmes in Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919) where it was a metaphor for speech that might validly be prohibited under he First Amendment. It served to introduce the famous "Clear and present danger" test. The issue in that case was whether distributing fliers urging people not to submit to the draft could be the reason for a conviction under the Espionage Act, or whether such action was protected by the First Amendment. Holmes held it was not protected. The case was not about any actual shout of "fire". The Court has generally held that true speech may not be prohibited, and for this reason some legal scholars argue that the "private facts" tort is unconstitutional in the US. But in many cases the Court has held that false speech is also protected, so truth is not the primary criterion. In Brandenberg vs Ohio 395 U.S. 444 (1969) the "Clear and present danger" test was replaced by a rule that only speech "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action" may be prohibited under the first amendment, and this is now the test for any crime of "incitement". Under this test Schenck would hav gone the other way. This test says nothing about the truth of the speech, and a perfectly true statement may nevertheless be incitement if it seeks to arouse lawless action, and is likely to succeed. Near vs Minnesota held that bare truth must be a defense in any prior restraint case (unlike truth published "with good motives and for justifiable ends" which the saturate at issue in Near allowed as a defense), but went on to greatly restrict any prior restraint, even if the content was false. Defamation is really the primary situation in which falsity is a vital element of the offense, and so truth is a defense. Falsity is an element of perjury also, and so truth would be an absolute defense there as well. Falsity is also an element of the common-law tort of fraud, and of most statutory versions of fraud, but in some of those a true but misleading statement can still be held fraudulent, so truth is not an absolute defense. I cannot think of another such legal situation. Updatew: A comment asked: What if I inform all of Joe's neighbours that Joe had been arrested for murder - when I fully know that he was completely exonerated and the real murderer is in jail right now. It's literally the truth, but completely misleading. In that case the law takes you to have made by implication a statement that Joe is currently under suspicion for murder, or perhaps a statement that Joe is actually guilty of murder. As those statements are false, and apparently knowingly false, they can be the basis of a defamation action. There is a lot of caselaw on defamation by implication, but in general one is taken to have made statements that are clearly implied by the statements one did in fact make. I don't think this is very different in UK and US law, but I am not sure about the UK. Anyway truth is not a defense here because the implied statement is not true.	It's hard to say, given how little we know about the case and the information, also what you mean by "corrupted" and what your evidence is. Here are two hypothetical cases that illustrate different possibilities. 1: The accused instructs the lawyer to tell the judge "My client has an alibi against the robbery charge: at the time, he was murdering his brother". Lawyer deems this to be a bad argument because murder is punished more severely than robbery. The lawyer is doing his job, protecting the interest of the client. No crime or civil wrong. 2: The accused instructs the lawyer to tell the judge "My client has an alibi against the robbery charge: at the time, he was in church". The lawyer doesn't understand that this is exculpatory evidence, thinking "they never asked about church, there's no point in me raising this issue". The client can probably sue for incompetence. There are possible criminal charges possible, for example if the lawyer is working for The Mob he might be involved in an actual criminal conspiracy.	england-and-wales Alice's defence will be that she had an honest belief, given the circumstances, that force was necessary and the force she used was reasonable in defence of John (and possibly Alice). John's consent is irrelevant unless it had some bearing on that. Why did John oppose the use of force? Did John tell Alice not to shoot because he would rather die than cause a death? Irrelevant. Did John tell Alice not to shoot because he believed Bob was not a real threat due to circumstances X, Y and/or Z that he wanted Alice to heed? Relevant.	When it can be “reasonably read both to impart a defamatory inference and to affirmatively suggest that the author intended or endorsed that inference.” Which is the standard the New York appeals court endorsed in 2014 for “defamation by implication”. So, on the face of the statements, they have to imply fraud and they have to show that the speaker intended to imply fraud. Whether they did that is up to the jury.	Defamation is a suit that can be brought by anyone, however, there are extra hurdles if the plaintiff is an official. Following New York Times Co v Sullivan, the plaintiff must prove actual malice: that the defendant knew the information was untrue or acted with reckless disregard for its truth.	It seems generally uncontroversial that in examining a witness at trial, a lawyer may not ask questions implying that the witness has engaged in some wrongdoing, unless the lawyer has some basis for asking those questions. This is not true. A lawyer is allowed to guess and ask such a question, although if it assumes a fact not in evidence it could be objected to for lack of foundation. For example, the opposing counsel could object if the lawyer asked, "After you drank twelve beers at BigTown Sports Bar, isn't it true that you got into a car and drove away?", because there would be no evidence in the record at that point that he drank twelve beers at BigTown Sports Bar. For instance, in the absence of any evidence indicating that alcohol was involved, I would imagine that a plaintiff's lawyer in an accident case could not cross-examine a defendant with leading questions suggesting that he had been drunk at the time of the crash. Sure he could. He could ask, "Isn't it true that you were drunk at the time of the crash?" There is nothing objectionable about that question. If the answer was "no", however, and the lawyer had nothing else to back up that suggestion, the question might not help the case, but the question is proper. Sometimes a lawyer just has a hunch and goes with it, and sometimes the hunch is right. Is this rule codified in a rule of evidence or is it just rooted in the courts' ideas of decorum and propriety? I can see how it might implicate the Rules of Professional Conduct, but that wouldn't seem to provide a remedy to a party who was prejudiced by such behavior. I'm more interested here with civil cases than criminal, where a defendant's Sixth Amendment rights might be complicate the question. It isn't codified because such a rule does not exist. There are some special rules that apply to prosecutors, who are ethically required to bring criminal cases only when they believe that the cases are supported by probable cause. But, that rule applies at the case level and not at the question by question level. Lawyers are also prohibited, especially in criminal cases, from making statements asserting personal knowledge of the credibility of a defendant or witness. This is because this transforms the lawyer from an advocate to a credibility witness. But, the lawyer can ask a judge or jury to find that someone is not credible in closing argument based upon X, Y and Z evidence presented at trial.	There is no magic about the word "allegedly". "Rob allegedly killed Alice" simply means "Someone said that Rob killed Alice". It implies that the person reporting this is not claiming that it is true or false, but just reporting what someone else has said. If in fact some person did say that, such a statement is true, and quite probably not defamatory. However, if the original claim is unreliable, and it is being repeated in a way that serves to lend it credibility, it could still be considered defamation by implication. If Rob has been charged, or accused by a credible source, or multiple such sources, reporting on that accusation will normally not itself be defamation. Saying "I allege that Rob killed Alice" is just saying that "I claim that Rob killed Alice" and might well be defamatory if Rob did not in fact do so. Again there is nothing magic about any particular word here. It is the overall meaning of the statement that makes it defamatory or not, as that meaning would be reasonably understood by readers or listeners. Any statement that will be understood as carrying a defamatory meaning may be an act of defamation. There is also nothing magic about Rob having been formally charged. Such a charge is a fact that can be freely reported on. Widespread or credible claims that Rob is the killer are also facts, and can also be reported. But if the only source is an anonymous vid on YouTube, with no supporting evidence, that is not a credible claim. Reporting it in a way that makes it sound far more credible than it is may cause people to believe the false accusation, and thus be defamatory. Again the overall meaning of the statement is important.	That really depends what they lie about In the United States, there's no general law against lying. The fact that a statement is false doesn't inherently strip it of protection under the first amendment. Public figures lie to the public all the time. That's why news companies have fact checkers. Was it defamatory? It is, however, illegal to defame someone. If someone makes a false statement of fact (that is, not an opinion) about a person or company, they may be liable for that. Whether they are liable for that depends on a number of factors, including whether the target is a public figure (see New York Times Co. v. Sullivan), the speaker's knowledge of its falsity, and whether the target was damaged by it. Was it part of some other criminal scheme? False statements to the public could be part of some sort of fraud, for instance. Pump and dump schemes, for instance, are illegal. Was it under oath? Lying under oath (such as when testifying in court) would constitute perjury, which is a crime. There are many other situations in which lying could be a crime (such as lying on your taxes), but these are the main ones I can think of that would be about lying to the public. In this case (I'm unfamiliar with the details of what he said, so I'm just going off your description), I can't immediately think of any reason that could lead to liability. Mocking and calling something a "nothing burger" is pretty clearly an opinion, not a false statement of fact. I'm not aware of any securities law against saying you don't like something you're actually invested in (though I'm not especially familiar with securities law).
Copyright on building renovations Prompted by David Siegel's answer, specifically his final sentence: if a building is old enough that it is not protected by copyright, there is no protection. Would this apply when the building has recently been altered in some way? I assume that a substantial alteration, such as a new wing, might have its own copyright but what about a fresh lick of paint on the front door or having wooden window frames replaced with uPVC ones? I appreciate that it is highly likely to be fact-specific and although I've added the united-states tag for consistency, I'm interested in people's thoughts from any jurisdiction.	The key to limits on protection of architectural works in the US is the definition of the term in 17 USC 101: An “architectural work” is the design of a building as embodied in any tangible medium of expression, including a building, architectural plans, or drawings. The work includes the overall form as well as the arrangement and composition of spaces and elements in the design, but does not include individual standard features. The US Copyright office explains what this means in Circular 41, saying The authorship in an architectural work includes the overall form of the building — the exterior elevations of the building when viewed from the front, rear, and sides — as well as any arrangement and composition of walls or other permanent structures that divide the interior into separate rooms and spaces. Copyright does not protect the following elements: Individual standard features of the architectural work, such as windows, doors, or other staple building components. Standard configurations of spaces, such as a square bathroom or one-room cabin. Purely functional features of an architectural work, such as innovations in architectural engineering or construction techniques. Interior design, such as the selection and placement of furniture, lighting, paint, or similar items. This explicitly excludes paint. Chapter 300 of the Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices and especially ch. 900 goes into further detail of things excluded, such as "Common architecture moldings, such as the volute used to decorate Ionic and Corinthian columns", "Common patterns, such as standard chevron, polka dot, checkerboard, or houndstooth designs".	Copyright almost certainly exists in the images, since presumably someone took those pictures and so they would own the copyright of those images. However, that doesn't mean you don't own the film, you just that don't own the copyright. You can have it developed to see what's there without copying the images. Just tell the developer you only want the film developed and for no prints to be made. If there's child pornography you could end up in a lot of hot water. While you'd be innocent of any crime, if the developer reports the images to the police you'll have to convince them that you had no idea what was on the film. It's extremely unlikely that there's anything untoward on the film however. I'd note however that unless the film is only a couple years old then it's likely the pictures have faded significantly. If it's ten or more years old, there might not be anything recognizable.	What do you mean by "a public building"? Just because a place is owned by the public, doesn't mean anyone can go there any time they wish. Military bases, firehouses, and jails are owned by the public, but many of these have limited access to the public. It may be open to the general public, but that does not mean restrictions cannot be put into place, either on times, or activities, or individuals. For example, public parks often have time and activity restrictions; schools have the power to restrict individuals from their premises, either specifically or by general category. As a general point of law, the owner of any property, or their agent, can order anyone without the right to stay (e.g. not a co-owner or tenant), and that person must depart, otherwise that person is tresspassing. Assuming that the Senior Center is owned by the town, it is probable that the Administrator is empowered to act as the town's agent in this matter. Now, since this "No Trespass order" is specifically directed at you, there is a reason behind it. It may be something you've done. It may be that complaints have been received about your behavior. It may be an actual abuse by someone who doesn't like you. We have no way of knowing. It the order itself doesn't give you a hint as to why, you can ask the town administrator for the reason. As for being against your rights, there is nothing inherently illegal about this situation(that is, an agent of a property owner exercising the latter's right to prohibit an individual from said property), but some of the details, especially why it was specifically applied to you as an individual might be a civil rights violation.	One can certainly remove a trademark from an item that one owns, whether it be a car, cell phone, blender, or computer. Using some other firm's mark would not be trademark infringement if one did not try to sell the item. If the logo was complex enough to be protectable by copyright, copying it might be copyright infringement, but for such personal use it might fall under an exception to copyright, depending on the country. In any case a copyright infringement suit in such a case seems unlikely. For a car, registration is generally required, and must accurately specify the make and model. The same is true for insurance coverage, a falsely stated make or model would be fraud. If one were to sell the "rebranded" item, one would have to make the situation clear to any potential buyer, otherwise this might be some form of fraud.	Who knows. It doesn't matter. 17 USC 102 lists the kinds of things protectable by copyright under US law. These are: (1) literary works; (2) musical works, including any accompanying words; (3) dramatic works, including any accompanying music; (4) pantomimes and choreographic works; (5) pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works; (6) motion pictures and other audiovisual works; (7) sound recordings; and (8) architectural works. A landscape feature is none of these and is not subject to copyright protection under US law, nor I think under the law of any other country. The "copyright notice" has no legal effect. 17 USC 120 Specifically prohibits copyright being used to prevent the taking of pictures of a building from a public place. In many countries Freedom of panorama (FOP) specifically permits publication of photos taken from public places. Se also this article on FOP. FOP is an exception to copyright protection, which applies to copyrighted architectural works and publicly posted works of art, such as sculptures. Since landscape features are not copyrightable at all, FOP does not strictly apply to them, but all the arguments for FOP would apply to them even more strongly. In US Law, particularly under the Fiest vs Rural case, only works with original content, created by a person, are protected by copyright. (Other countries generally have similar limits on copyright.) But a feature of the landscape is not the original creation of any person. (If someone carved the landscape into a designed shape, it might be protect able as a sculpture.) 3 and 4. If it were a building, you could take pictures of it from a public place or a private place where you have a legal right to be, under 17 USC 120 . But since a part of the landscape is not protected by copyright at all, this is not really relevant. No under the US First amendment there is generally a right to say even false things. But if the landowner attempts to enforce this "copyright" it would be considered frivolous and any court proceeding would be promptly tossed out. The sign gives the landowner no rights s/he would not otherwise have.	Why do you think Oracle have not been protecting their trade mark? Using a trade mark to describe the product (“Written in JavaScript”, “Seeking JavaScript developer”) is not an infringement and the trade mark owner is under no obligation to, indeed, cannot stop this. Where they are required to defend their trade mark is when it is being used in such a way that there is the risk of confusion that the goods or services could be confused with the trade mark owner’s goods or services. Further, they are not required to defend all breaches, only enough to show that they are actively doing so. Also it is not important that the trade mark be associated with the trade mark’s owner. Do you know who owns the trade mark “Ben & Jerry’s”?	Ideas are not subject to copyright protection. See 17 USC 102: In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work If you want protection, keep your ideas to yourself and create a concrete expression in the form of a program, which is protected by copyright.	The store is, as far as i can see, not using the trademarked image to sell their cake. Your family does not intend to sell anything at all. This photo, from the description, could not reasonably be confused with an official image from the trademark holder. (all of this is based on your description, of course). Therefore, the trademark holder probably won't sue for trademark infringement, even if they somehow heard of this event, and if they did sue, they would quite likely lose. You would be making a copy of a presumably copyrighted image. You might have an active defense, but that is very hard to be sure of in advance. (Note that "fair use" is a very specifically US legal concept, and would not apply in the UK. The roughly comparable concept is "fair dealing" but that is more restrictive, and follows somewhat different rules.) In any case, it is possible that the rights holder would sue, and if the situation were a bit different (the was only one person pictured, making the shirt with the protected image very prominent, for example) there might be a larger chance of such a suit being successful. No business is going to want a bakery department manager deciding whether a particular use of a particular image does or does not infringe IP rights, and whether it does or does not expose the business to significant risk. Just to get an opinion from their lawyer on whether this image infringes would probably cost them several times the price of the cake with image printing. The store has no doubt written its guidelines to err well on the side of caution, because one suit, even if they won, would cost far more than the profits of many cakes, and if they lost, could have a very negative effect on their bottom line indeed. The store is entitled to restrict what business it does to keep itself safe from lawsuits. It is going to keep well on the cautious side, in all likelihood, and so it should. I fear you will have to find a store with a different policy, or use a different picture.
Talent consent withdrawal in film in Europe Consider the following scenario of right to erasure in film-making in Europe. Person A makes amateur live-action films, for example theater performances. Person B is in one of those performances and consents to recording and publication verbally or in writing. Later, for whatever personal or professional reason, person B would like to withdraw consent under the GDPR right to be forgotten. Does person B have the right to erasure and would face and voice count as personal information under GDPR? Does person A have to edit the film to remove, blur, or distort the voice of person B?	… would face and voice count as personal information under GDPR? Absolutely. Does person B have the right to erasure … No. The right to erasure only applies in certain circumstances. While the initial reason for collecting personal data was consent, once it has been incorporated into a film, the processor now has a legitimate interest in the data. The right to erasure does not apply when there is a legitimate interest.	It is not possible for someone to forfeit their rights because the GDPR is compulsory law. In the EU, laws can be regulatory or compulsory. In case of an agreement, regulatory laws can be set aside, if both parties agree on that. But compulsory laws cannot be set aside. Of course laws can also be partly compulsory. For example provisions which cannot be changed in disadvantage of a consumer. So there is freedom of contract, but it's freedom is reduced by law for the common good or for example to avoid misuse of bargaining power. In particular consumer related laws are often compulsory because it has little power against the other parties. Companies can have their negotiations done by lawyers, so they can make a well informed an well negotiated decision. As an extreme example, you cannot kill someone, even if that person has given you written permission. See also "Peremptory norm" on wikipedia for international law examples.	These documents constitute personal data and - in principle - you, as the subject, have the right to get a copy of them by issuing a "subject access request". The controller shall provide a copy of the personal data undergoing processing. For any further copies requested by the data subject, the controller may charge a reasonable fee based on administrative costs. Where the data subject makes the request by electronic means, and unless otherwise requested by the data subject, the information shall be provided in a commonly used electronic form. (Art. 15 (3) GDPR) GDPR applies to controllers of any kind, including government organisations. The subject access request can usually be a simple email. The ICO has a template for this: https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/your-right-of-access/ (but keep it simple, you can literally just ask for "all personal data" they have on you; no need to speculate on what kind of data they may have). The subject access request is sent to the actual controller, but if you don't get a response to your request after 30 days, you can file a complaint with the supervisory authority (see here for Germany; note that federal institutions are supervised by the BFDI, not the data protection authorities of the Länder). Also note that you may have to go through some trouble to be properly authenticated by the controller. They do need to be certain that you are the data subject. There are also reasons why a controller can refuse to provide some or all of the information (e.g. if your request is clearly excessive or unfounded, if it's impossible to comply without violating another data subject's rights), but I would be surprised if any of those applied in your case. Your rights can also be restricted depending on the legal basis for processing. This includes rights that are illogical as well as some that provide special protection for processors: You can't object to processing based on consent (but you can revoke your consent), fulfilment of contract (but you can cancel your contract), a legal obligation on the part of the processor, or a vital interest (but you still have the right to erasure) Your right to portability and right to erasure does not apply if processing is based on a legal obligation or a public task (justice, parliamentary or government functions, statutory functions etc.) your right to portability also doesn't apply if processing is based on vital interest (e.g to protect someone's life) or legitimate interest of the processor. It is possible that processing all or some of your data was based on the performance of a public task, in which case they will refuse your request.	No, GDPR does not apply here — but other laws might . The General Data Protection Regulation only concerns itself with the following: This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data wholly or partly by automated means and to the processing other than by automated means of personal data which form part of a filing system or are intended to form part of a filing system. per Article 2. Furthermore, there is a specific exemption (Art. 2 (2)(c)) which would seem to apply to you (emphasis mine): This Regulation does not apply to the processing of personal data: (a) in the course of an activity which falls outside the scope of Union law; (b) by the Member States when carrying out activities which fall within the scope of Chapter 2 of Title V of the TEU; (c) by a natural person in the course of a purely personal or household activity; (d) by competent authorities for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, including the safeguarding against and the prevention of threats to public security. You are sharing the conversation in a purely personal capacity and are not processing it wholly or partly through automated means nor are you intending it to form part of a filing system. Additionally, depending on the contents of the conversation and what you share, there may not be any personal data involved at all. For example, if you only share the messages themselves (and they don't contain any personal data that could identify someone) and censor/black out any names or photographs/avatars from the senders. Either way, GDPR does not appear to apply to you in this context. However, it appears that Article 18.1 of the Spanish Constitution grants the right to "personal and family privacy", as does the Organic Act 1/982 on Civil Protection of the Right to Honour, Personal and Family Privacy, and Self-Image. It's possible that, depending on the contents of the conversation, the other party involved in the conversation may have a case for action against you in the civil or criminal courts (for example, if the information invades their privacy or is defamatory in some way) if you share the contents of the conversation with someone else. I am not familiar with Spanish law so cannot comment further on this matter.	Do I need to inform the user about storing the score locally? No, there is no need as long as you don't transmit, store or process any personal info. It's doubtful that the score could be considered personal info, but you're not sending it to your servers in any way, so you don't seem to be processing it anyway. Do I need consent for using non-personal AdMob? You have to check this with AdMob, but usually, if it is non-personal, they shouldn't be processing any PI, so you're clear without informing. Do I need to ask for the age? How should I handle kids? Again, you're not processing any PI, so regarding GDPR there isn't any problem. Can I disallow a user from using the app if consent is not given? If you needed consent, no, it would be unlawful to block a user for not giving consent, unless it is impossible to provide the service without it. See recital 43: Consent is presumed not to be freely given if [...] the performance of a contract, including the provision of a service, is dependent on the consent despite such consent not being necessary for such performance.	In the question, you write: The GDPR requires consent of the subject for collection or storage of personal data (in this case, IP addresses in a log file). No, it does not. To quote Miss Infogeek: GDPR DOES NOT MAKE CONSENT A MANDATORY REQUIREMENT FOR ALL PROCESSING OF PERSONAL DATA. Consent (Article 6 (1)a) is indeed one of conditions that can be used to comply with the GDPR requirement that processing must be lawful, but it is not the only condition available to the controller to ensure lawful processing – there are alternatives (before the list of conditions it says that "at least one of the following" must be satisfied). All the conditions for lawfulness of processing are spelled out in Article 6 of the GDPR. One of alternatives are Article 6 (1)f. It says says it is legal to process personal data if processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller or by a third party, except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject which require protection of personal data, in particular where the data subject is a child. (my emphasis) As noted in the question, logging IP addresses for the purpose of security is an extremely widespread practice. It is a legitimate interest to comply with standard security practices. It is the default, and most (all?) web-sites do this. I.e. it is legal to do this without consent (if this is not the case, I am pretty sure the outcry had been heard all over the Internet by now).	As I understand it, the GDPR does not permit sending of personal information (which includes the IP address) without prior consent by the user. That's not exactly true, consent is merely one of six possible legal basis for processing (article 6). For example, processing of personal data can also be lawful if it necessary to perform a contract, legally mandatory, or in the public interest. The court decision acknowledges that but rules out another basis in this case because it considers that it is possible to serve fonts without relying on a third-party ([…] der Einsatz der Schriftarten auch möglich ist, ohne dass eine Verbindung von Besuchern zu externen Servern hergestellt werden muss). Confusingly, it only refers to article 6(1)(f) when it seems to me that (b) would also be plausible but maybe this wasn't raised during the proceedings? If the data controller cannot invoke any other basis for the lawfulness of the processing then yes, the only thing left is asking for consent, i.e. invoking article 6(1)(a). But that doesn't mean that you should expect to be asked for consent each and every time your personal information is being used. The consent form on the site also implicitly assumes consent, which I thought was also a violation. Yes, implying consent doesn't really make sense under the GDPR definition (article 4, see also article 7): ‘consent’ of the data subject means any freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject's wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by a clear affirmative action European data protection authorities have issued guidelines that detail what that means and clearly reject “bundling” different data processing. The regulation also makes it clear that data subjects should be able to withdraw consent at any time, which does not seem possible with the fonts on golem.de My reading of all this is that assuming consent because you are using a service (or even created an account or checked a box at some point) simply isn't valid consent. Either you don't need consent at all in the first place or what you need is freely given, specific consent and “implying” consent or bundling it with a registration process achieves exactly nothing. But this is still extremely common and it might take some time before enforcement and case law definitively settle this question. Smart data controllers trying to avoid collecting consent (like Meta) have abandoned any claim that signing up to the their services would constitute consent (because that's transparently not the case) and try to bypass the issue entirely using another basis like contractual necessity. This is also being litigated. I know that a EU regulation can be implemented and interpreted differently from country to country, and that a single court ruling in Germany doesn't even mean that the national law was correctly applied. From what I've read, I get the impression that this particular ruling was not unlikely to be overturned by a higher instance, if it came down to it. So my question probably both pertains to German law specifically and the EU regulation itself. That sounds more like the way EU directives work. Regulations are supposed to be immediately applicable (no implementation in national law necessary) with minimal differences between countries (except when they explicitely provide for that). Of course, enforcement would still mostly be in the hands of national court systems and (in Germany) provincial data protection authorities but there are mechanisms to ensure consistency (the European Data Protection Board, prejudicial questions to the CJEU, infringement proceedings from the European Commission…).	You've tagged this as both united-states and european-union, so this answer is about the United States. Before you can "license" someone to do something, you must first have the legal right to prevent them from doing it. Otherwise, your purported "license" is just a worthless piece of paper (technically, you might be able to sell those pieces of paper notwithstanding their lack of validity, so I suppose they wouldn't be completely worthless). If we imagine that the subject of a biography or autobiography wants to control the publication of that biography, there are a number of legal grounds that might be cited, depending on the circumstances: Copyright: The person who actually wrote the biography (who may or may not be the subject!) can prevent others from making copies or derivative works of it, as well as several other rights enumerated in 17 USC 106. Most publication agreements involve signing an exclusive license with the publisher. If the author has not signed such a license, then the biography is not going to be published in the first place. Regardless, copyright only exists once the work is "fixed in a tangible medium" (e.g. saved to a hard drive, written down on a piece of paper, etc.). If it's still "in your head," then you don't own anything. If the subject and author are different people, then the subject does not have any rights here at all; copyright belongs exclusively to the author. Furthermore, copyright only protects the individual work. It does not prevent someone else from writing a different biography from scratch, so long as this second biography is original and does not reuse any content from the first biography. The underlying facts belong to no one. Privacy rights are generally handled as a tort under state law. If the subject is a public figure (i.e. the sort of person who's likely to have a biography written about them) then privacy rights tend to be rather limited. However, they are not nonexistent, and invasion-of-privacy claims are occasionally raised, usually in cases where highly personal, sensitive information is disclosed against the will of the subject. This may also become relevant if the author of the biography obtains information in an illegal fashion such as by hacking or physical trespass. However, in most cases, the content would need to be pretty far beyond the pale before this would have a realistic chance of succeeding. Personality rights are usually considered an extension or variety of privacy rights. In general, they allow the subject to prevent their name from being associated with a commercial endeavor without their permission. However, it is likely that the First Amendment would bar the application of personality rights to a biography, unless the publisher tried to misrepresent a ghostwritten work as an autobiography without the consent of the subject. Libel is a tort under state law. Libel laws in the US are extremely limited, and the subject would need to establish at least all of the following in order to succeed (or else the claim is barred by the First Amendment): The defendant published a statement. A reasonable person would interpret that statement as factual (and not an opinion, puffery, etc.). The statement is materially false (i.e. the "gist or sting" of the statement is false, regardless of whether it is technically 100% accurate). The statement harmed the reputation of the plaintiff. The defendant knew the statement was false, or made no serious effort to verify it ("actual malice"). Not required unless the plaintiff is a public figure, but the subject of a biography probably will be a public figure. There may be additional requirements depending on the state, and the defendant will probably try to file an anti-SLAPP motion if state law allows for it. Of these four rights, copyright is by far the most commonly "licensed," followed by personality rights. Nobody gives out licenses to commit libel or invade their privacy. That leaves us with two ways of licensing your (auto)biography: Actually write it yourself, and sell it to a publishing company. You will give them a copyright license as part of the process (in exchange for royalties and an advance). Convince a publishing company to hire a ghostwriter for you, and then license your likeness to them. The public will be told that you "wrote" the book, and you will promote it in exactly the same way as if you did write it. Neither of these options will prevent someone else from coming along and writing their own biography about you, of course.
How to get a parent to pay child support? A mother (now on probation for a financial felony) has not paid child support for years. The state child support agency checked and said she has no employment income, but she drives a new car. What are the possible steps to enforce child support payments? (This is in the state of Georgia, USA.) I prefer approaches that do not involve paying an attorney, since that fast becomes expensive and counterproductive.	What are the possible steps to enforce child support payments? (This is in the state of Georgia, USA.) I prefer approaches that do not involve paying an attorney, since that fast becomes expensive and counterproductive. Child support generally either is, or can be reduced to, by court process, a money judgment. The money judgment can then be enforced by writ of execution and levy attaching tangible personal property of a debtor, to the extent that the asset is not exempt from creditors claims. The money judgment can also be used to garnish bank accounts. If someone has a manifest ability to pay child support, but has willfully failed to do so, a court can incarcerate the child support debtor for contempt of court until such time as the child support debt voluntarily turns over the assets that the debtor has an ability to pay the child support debt with. In theory, however, an inability to pay child support is a full defense to a contempt of court proceeding. All of these kinds of legal child support collection proceedings are technical, and it would be very challenging to accomplish these goals through the court process without a lawyer. The going rate for contingent fee collection of child support debts is usually 50% of the gross amount recovered, plus out of pocket costs for filing fees and process servers out of your half, if you can find an attorney willing to take on a child support collection case at all. Sometimes collection agencies will agree to collect child support for a similar fee. Collection agencies can make negative credit reports, and nag the child support debtor regularly, but otherwise have the same remedies available to them as a lawyer. Many states have procedures for the state child support collection agency to seize tax refunds, to revoke occupational and professional licenses, and to revoke driver's licenses if child support is not paid. Usually, state child support collection agencies either exclusively serve, or prioritize, cases where child support is owed to someone who has received state welfare benefits, and it applies some or all of the proceeds received to the welfare payments made to the child support beneficiary. Not paying child support might be a probation violation that could be reported to the child support debtor's probation officer. But, causing the child support debtor to be incarcerated for failing to observe probation terms doesn't naturally or easily translate into providing the child support creditor with money. Ultimately, you can't get blood out of a turnip. If someone doesn't have an ability to pay child support, they won't. A new car is suspicious and probably indicates that there was some under the table work done. But, by the time it is seized, it is a used car, and its fair market value at auction may be quite modest. Whether or not it is cost effective is for you to decide. I once tried to collect a money judgment of about $100,000 from a drug dealer which presented similar problems. It wasn't easy. It rarely is. There is no quick, inexpensive way of doing it.	You will have to litigate this issue anew in the divorce. When there has been a major change in circumstances, issues related to custody can be relitigated, even if there isn't a remarriage. In this case, both the marriage and the fact that nine years have passed since the original order constitute a substantial change in circumstances. At the time the order was entered, there was an 18 month old with parents who didn't live together. The child is now 10 years old and has lived with both parents without regard to any custody order for at least seven years. These are completely different circumstances so custody issues must be revisited. As @mkennedy notes in the comments, it is even likely that the court or someone acting on behalf of the court would consider the opinions of the child at this point, which obviously wasn't possible the first time around. Generally speaking, the way that the "best interests of the child" standard that applies in a case like this one is interpreted is to come as close to maintaining the pre-divorce status quo as possible in light of the separation of the parents. The most relevant section of the Missouri Revised Statutes to this issue is as follows: § 452.410. Custody, decree, modification of, when Except as provided in subsection 2 of this section, the court shall not modify a prior custody decree unless it has jurisdiction under the provisions of section 452.450 and it finds, upon the basis of facts that have arisen since the prior decree or that were unknown to the court at the time of the prior decree, that a change has occurred in the circumstances of the child or his custodian and that the modification is necessary to serve the best interests of the child. Notwithstanding any other provision of this section or sections 452.375 and 452.400, any custody order entered by any court in this state or any other state prior to August 13, 1984, may, subject to jurisdictional requirements, be modified to allow for joint custody in accordance with section 452.375, without any further showing. If either parent files a motion to modify an award of joint legal custody or joint physical custody, each party shall be entitled to a change of judge as provided by supreme court rule.	You owe money if there is a contract obliging you to pay. Whether you receive what you pay for (e.g. services) only affects your stance when suing for non-performance/damages; your obligation to pay still stands until the court decides it does not (or there is a mutual agreement to discharge the contract). It is irrelevant whether the original payment method still works or not. If it does not but you still owe money — you have to pay. The ability to turn the credit card off is just a handy feature. It does not affect your contractual obligations in any way except for when the terms explicitly provide for it (like automatic cancelling subscription when payment method fails).	Family court does not hate men, but there have been historical biases in the law that were anti-male. The current standard is to not favor one sex over the other, thus a woman could be ordered to pay a man alimony, a man could be granted sole custody of a child, and so on. More likely, both parents would be given shared custody (meaning rights and responsibilities). The one most conspicuous sex-based legal asymmetry has a well-known natural explanation – the difference in assumptions regarding maternity vs. paternity (I don't know of any jurisdiction that has a provision for contesting maternity of a child).	Yes, the police can give you a ticket for not having insurance/registration in the vehicle, even if they know it is registered/insured. The requirement is not just that you must have it, but you must carry proof of it in the vehicle. California Law (CVC §16058) requires that insurance companies electronically report insurance information to the DMV, which the officer has access to and can verify insurance. From the California DMV Page: Financial responsibility (commonly known as insurance) is required on all vehicles operated or parked on California roadways. You must carry evidence of financial responsibility in your vehicle at all times and it must be provided as specified below when: Requested by law enforcement. Renewing vehicle registration. The vehicle is involved in a traffic collision. The reason it must be in your vehicle is that when you are involved in a collision, you have to be able to provide that to the other party. And yes, you can receive the citation even if the vehicle is not yours. It is your responsibility as a driver to abide by the laws and verify that the vehicle is legal to drive. California Vehicle Code (CVC) §4000(a)(1) requires registration: A person shall not drive, move, or leave standing upon a highway, or in an offstreet public parking facility, any motor vehicle, trailer, semitrailer, pole or pipe dolly, or logging dolly, unless it is registered and the appropriate fees have been paid under this code or registered under the permanent trailer identification program, except that an off-highway motor vehicle which displays an identification plate or device issued by the department pursuant to Section 38010 may be driven, moved, or left standing in an offstreet public parking facility without being registered or paying registration fees. I'm not advocating that you should just "suck it up and pay" this ticket. I would certainly bring proof of registration/insurance at the time of the ticket to your court date and provide that you are not the registered owner of the vehicle (you don't say, but I assume you were borrowing a friends vehicle). The court should look at that evidence and issue a warning or dismiss the ticket.	united-states Upon my death how do I physically write the actual release of debt without an attorney, so my children are not held responsible for my debts. You should hire an attorney for a few hundred dollars, so the job is done right. Even if you do nothing and your children do nothing, your children are not obligated to pay your debts out of anything other than your own assets at death, unless they have personally guaranteed those debts. And, if they have personally guaranteed those debts, you can't release them, only the creditor can do that. If your children owe debts to you, you can release them from those debts. But, you should hire an attorney to do so in order to avoid ambiguity. The biggest question would normally be whether or not the discharge of debts owed by your children to you should count in the process of dividing up the assets you have left after the debts you owe to third-parties at death, or not.	A divorce settlement must be approved by the court. A Judge might well refuse to approve a settlement with such a provision in it, although I do not know of any law specifically barring such a term. But once the settlement is final, one party could certainly offer a separate contract to the other, under which one party would agree to remain outside the state (or metropolitan region, or county, or wherever) in return for an agreed recurring payment. There would be no compulsion to accept such a contract, but if the payment offered was large enough, it might be accepted voluntarily. However, if there was a child involved, and such a move would significantly hinder that child's contact with both parents, and this were not in the child's best interest, such a contract might be attacked as against public policy.	This happened recently in Washington state, when the state Supreme Court ordered the state government to comply with a constitutional funding mandate (McCleary v. Washington, 2012). The state did not comply for 6 years and was fined ($100,000 per day) for 3 years. I don't recall that the state paid a penny, and the courts did not demand payment of fines for that period. Public opinion did not have any obvious effect, but you could take this to Politics SE to get a lot of opinions as to whether public opinion mattered. The federal government can't get involved, unless they (the federal government) first make a federal issue out of it, perhaps because of some law suit. Power of enforcement is essential non-existent, given a sufficiently non-cooperative state government. I should point out that the court's order was a bit vague, that is, it was not "release Smith from custody instantly", it required the government to act to the satisfaction of the court.
Are courts "duty-bound" to enforce Rules of Procedure? In Hunter v. Serv-Tech (E.D. La. 2009) referenced in this answer, the court denied a critical motion on a technicality and explained its reluctant decision saying: [T]he Court is duty-bound to apply the law as it is written, and as written the Rules enact a policy of requiring all 12(b)(2)-(5) defenses to be made by motion, once, prior to filing an answer. [Emphasis added] This statement appears to equate procedural Rules with law. (In this case the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.) Is this consistent with American jurisprudence? To what degree are U.S. courts "duty-bound" to apply rules of procedure? Prior to reading that I thought that courts had broad discretion to waive rules in the interests of "justice" or "equity."	“Like the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are as binding as any statute duly enacted by Congress, and federal courts have no more discretion to disregard the Rules' mandate than they do to disregard constitutional or statutory provisions." Chambers v. Nasco, Inc., 501 U.S. 32, 66 (1991). The civil and criminal rules of procedure are established by the U.S. Supreme Court, which promulgates them under authority delegated by Congress in 28 U.S.C. 2072. Some rules provide the courts more flexibility in their application than others, but the courts may not simply ignore them any more than they could ignore a Supreme Court precedent. For instance, in a case where the trial court dismissed criminal charges based on prosecutorial misconduct, the government appealed, arguing that the misconduct hadn't prejudiced the defendant, and Criminal Rule 52's "harmless error" rule requires the court to essentially ignore errors that don't effect the defendant's "substantial rights." The defendant argued that the court's supervisory authority permitted it to dismiss the case to deter future misconduct. The Supreme Court reversed the dismissal, agreeing with the prosecution that a court has no authority to dismiss the case based on error that the rules of procedure order it to ignore: Rule 52 is, in every pertinent respect, as binding as any federal statute. "Courts have no more discretion to disregard the Rule's mandate through the exercise of supervisory power than they do to disregard constitutional or statutory provisions through the exercise of such power." Bank of Nova Scotia v. United States, 487 U.S. 250, 250 (1988). Other courts have concluded that this standard applies to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, as well. See, e.g., Stone Container Corp. v. United States, 229 F.3d 1345, 1354 (Fed. Cir. 2000) ("[T]he Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, like the Federal Rules of Criminal procedure, are “as binding as any federal statute.”); S.E.C. v. Selden, 484 F. Supp. 2d 105, 107 (D.D.C. 2007); Sieb's Hatcheries, Inc. v. Lindley, 13 F.R.D. 113, 119 (W.D. Ark. 1952); Westland Oil Co. v. Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., 3 F.R.D. 55, 56 (D.N.D. 1943). tl;dr: The Rules are rules of procedure. They must be adhered to.	The CEO, with his lawyer have tried to convince me that this only apply to current client and any past clients that I have work on. Is this true? No. It will be true only if they make that clarification in the clause or a properly added amendment. The clause currently has no indication that it is limited to "current client and any past clients that [you] have work[ed] on". The CEO's & lawyer's refusal to amend the clause so as to make it consistent with their attempts [to persuade you] would be a red flag. Their inconsistent representations to you suggest that they are not planning to honor the covenant of good faith on which all contracts are premised. Should I expect the CEO to offer a fair contract or is this something you read and negotiate? You should require a contract that seems fair to you. And by "to you" I mean that it has to be in line with your expectations regardless of the average conditions in the labor market. Negotiations are not binding. They are merely a preamble to a contract, and that contract is binding. This is why you should reject a contract that falls short of your requirements. Some clauses are unlawful and/or void and unenforceable as unconscionable or for contravening legislation (unlawful clauses can and do arise even if drafted by attorneys). Thus, although you might not have to worry about those clauses in particular, the company's mere attempt to include them in a contract should alert you of the high risk of ending up with other abusive terms & conditions which are binding and enforceable nonetheless.	In my experience, varying jurisdictions can and do differ as to the myriad ways these disputes are resolved. Contract law is one area where the judge has a lot of discretion. This is definitely true in state courts, even from judge to judge, and can even be true in the federal level-The 9th Circuit has some wildly different appellate decisions when compared to the 1st Circuit, and so on. I say this not to be argumentative, but to highlight the importance of careful and concise drafting that fully explicates the bargained for exchange, as there can be a vast amount of judicial subjectivity that goes into determining which rules pertain to certain situations. "Conflicting or competing clause" cases are now some of the most commonly litigated contract disputes. This is largely because the last 20 years has seen a huge influx of people "drafting" (more like piecing together) contracts without benefit of qualified counsel. This is particularly true because lay people do not generally create a specific insturment like an attorney would - from scratch, with definitions and terms specific to the transaction. Rather, they go online and find "form" or model contracts that they feel are close enough (which are almost always missing key components), and then they type in their own terms, or even write them in. Because this is so common, most jurisdictions follow the rule that hand written terms supersede pre-printed terms; likewise, type written terms will take precedence over pre-printed terms. Specific terms also carry more weight than general terms. Specific terms will usually be given precedence over general terms, as these are seen as creating a specific exception to the general terms. For example, if Clause A in your scenario said: Written notice must be provided at least five days in advance of (any) change... (leaving out "to price"), then clause B would prevail because it would be more specific than the more general term (A), which in my scene would pertain to any change whatsoever (this is assuming the whole of the agreement did not shed light on the issues more fully). In your hypothetical, these are both specific terms. In that case, the court would first examine the entire contract and all addendum, specs, plans, etc. when interpreting competing or conflicting clauses applying the fundamental principal that a contract should always be interpreted as a whole - not clause-by-clause - and not section-by-section. Contracts will often have numerous parts with portions incorporated specifically by reference, or numerous documents that may be integral to the transaction, If the parties agree to what constitutes the various parts of the contract (even if not incorporated) the entirety of the transactional documents may be considered by the trier of fact (and law). Once examined, if a proposed interpretation makes other portions of the global agreement meaningless, illogical or unenforceable, and another party's interpretation is in keeping with the document as a whole, that is the interpretation that will typically be adopted. Assuming this analysis doesn't work to resolve the issue, then the court would look to see if there is an order-of-precedence clause, which is a clause that lays out what parts of the contract / types of clauses take precedence over others (ex. written requirements take precendee over performance requirements, addendum hold less import than the signed agreement, schematics hold less import than addendum, and so on). Assuming this there is no order of precedence, the court will look first to see if the contract was negotiated back and forth, with terms being modified with each draft. If Yes, then the court will except extrinsic evidence (parole evidence) that goes to the intent of the parties bargained for exchange. If not, the contract term(s) will be construed against the drafter and in favor of the one who signed the others' instrument. So, as you can see, there is no clear answer to what seems to be a simple issue. This just goes to show: Lawyers seem expensive when you decide to hire them - Lawyers are expensive when you have to hire them, because you decided not to in the first place!	There is a special type of law enforcement officer, called a "bailiff" who is charged with maintaining order in a courtroom, and often, a bailiff is a direct subordinate of a judge who must follow the judge's orders. Judges can also issue special kinds of court orders, called "writs" which are a direction to a law enforcement agency generally to take certain action. But, in these cases, the law enforcement agency is effectively an "independent contractor" in relationship to the judge with considerable discretion regarding precisely how and when a writ is carried out. Somebody in the law enforcement agency to which a writ is directed is required to take action, but no individual law enforcement officer is personally compelled to comply with this order. The quote in question is not a statement about the legal authority of a judge, however. It is a statement of "realpolitik". The judge can't physically force or threaten law enforcement to do what they are told to do by a judge. The cops have the guns, not the judges. Instead, the judge relies upon law enforcement obeying the judge's orders because that is what law enforcement officers do. It's right in the job title. But, if law enforcement chose to ignore judges, in general, there is very little that judges could do about that (and in some countries, law enforcement does routinely ignore judicial directions). Some forms of executive branch authority to defy judicial orders is even legally codified, most starkly in the case of the pardon power.	Nothing prevents firms from putting clauses like that in the disclaimer. If you're talking about goods (rather than services), much contract formation is governed by the Uniform Commercial Code, which 49 states have adopted (and which Louisiana has adopted part). However, the real question relates to whether that kind of language will be enforceable in court. A common way to attempt to avoid litigation is to insert a clause that requires arbitration of disputes (instead of litigation). The Supreme Court upheld the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) in Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U.S. 1 (1984), so this can be successful. Contracts that have class-action arbitration provisions are a little dicier, but in AT&T Mobility, LLC v. Conception, 563 US 333 (2011) , the court held the FAA preempts state laws that disallow class arbitration.	Statutes of limitations (hereinafter "SOL") vary from jurisdiction-to-jurisdiction. If it is only one-year in New York (I've not confirmed this) that would not be surprising. SOLs exist for all civil matters and nearly all criminal matters. I'd just like to point out that your question is not really limited to defamation or to the time frame for which the specific SOL runs for libel/slander ... at least as I've read it. It seems you are asking the broader question pertaining to what the philosophical or practical purpose(s) for SOLs in general are, as well as what effect these limits can have on the ability of a would-be claimant/plaintiff to get relief through the courts. So, to answer whether a person who believes they've been defamed can still bring a cause of action after the SOL has passed: the short answer is no. But, that is only the short answer. SOL is an affirmative defense, meaning that it can only be asserted if it is pled in the answer to a complaint. So, if John Doe feels he's been defamed by a libelous statement in the Times, and he files suit 4 years after the statement was made (and the SOL is 1 year), the court will still accept the filing of the complaint and Times must still be served. You do not lose the right to file your claim, when the SOL has passed, which is a very common misconception of the law. And, Times must still file an Answer to avoid defaulting. However, in that answer Times (no doubt by and through qualified counsel) will most likely assert a variety of affirmative defenses pro forma, which will include the passage of SOL (the claim is stale). If, in fact, the SOL has passed and the affirmative defense is pled, the next thing the Times will do is file a motion to dismiss. The judge will view the complaint in a light most favorable to Doe, the plaintiff, which will lay out all the facts (including when the libelous statement was published). If the cause of action accrued (this just means when the injury was sustained) and the claim was not filed prior to the expiration of the SOL, Doe's case will be dismissed. If the Times does not assert SOL though, it is deemed to have been waived for that and any subsequent related proceedings. There are ways to toll (extend) the statute of limitations. There is a discovery rule (this does not mean Doe didn't read it until after the SOL, even though he was able to). It means that the SOL can be tolled in cases where one could not have discovered the tort occurred. In these instances, the SOL doesn't begin to run until the discovery was either made or should have been made. This is most typically seen in medical malpractice cases (e.g., a surgeon leaves a sponge or instrument in your abdomen, and after years of failed treatments for IBS your doc sends you for an x-ray and an MRI and it's discovered) or in asbestos cases (you don't know you breathed it until you have asbestosis) – those types of scenarios. In cases like that, the SOL begins to run when you find out the tort occurred. This has also been successful in recovered memory cases where childhood sexual abuse occurred but was suppressed. Incapacitation is another way the SOL can be tolled. So, in Doe's libel case, the SOL can be tolled if he is incapacitated (in a coma and didn't wake for 4 years, in a mental hospital in a break from reality for 5 years) – in such circumstances you can still file a claim and have it survive a motion to dismiss based on SOL once you are rehabilitated. Also, Absence due to military service is reason to toll in some jurisdictions. Lastly, (at least the last one I can recall) is that minors can often toll the SOL however long the statute is (say 1 year) after they turn 18. As for why there are SOLs: That is more public policy than anything else. It is one of the oldest rules of law known to modern man, dating back all the way to early Greek and Roman law. Statutes of limitations are a fundamental part of EU and US law, as well as most other modern legal systems. They function to prevent fraudulent and stale claims from arising after all evidence has been lost or after the facts have become dubious and unclear due to the progression of time, which can lead to lost or uncertain memories, death of witnesses (for each side), or disappearance/inability to locate witnesses. The policies behind SOLs are also for judicial economy and to protect defendants from having a never-ending potential suit looming over them. Often, the seriousness of the crime or the tort, or some element of it, dictates the time frame of the SOL. It is a means to ensure that plaintiffs pursue their claims with reasonable diligence: I.e., if it matters to you, file it. Also, as I touched on above, time disadvantages defendants. Plaintiffs are the "injured" party, so they tend to retain evidence much longer than a defendant, who might not even realize he has done wrong – especially in civil matters. So, in a libel case, the whole basis of the claim is the irreparable damage to your reputation. If more than a year has passed and you didn't know about it, one could assume the damage never rose to the level of having sufficed to make a valid claim in the first place. That is why they run fast in those cases. They run fast in medical malpractice claims too, but this is a result of tort reform – the public policy that litigation against doctors/hospitals causes increased health care costs for everyone. So, policy suggests it's best for society to dispose of these claims quickly (not so much if you're the plaintiff). Whereas most regular negligence claims can have SOLs as long as six years in some jurisdictions where I have practiced. So there are clearly policy determinations going into these legislative acts. The Golden Rule of Law that I tell all of my clients is this: If you think you have a claim, talk to a lawyer right away, because if you don't you can lose the right to pursue relief, much, much quicker than one may ever imagine! I know this is a long answer, but I get asked this (type) of question all the time. Plaintiffs feel the SOLs run too fast, while Defendants cannot believe they can still be on the hook!	When it comes to the obligation to tell the truth, there isn't all that much difference between a lawyer's obligations and those of a pro se litigant -- at least as far objective truth. But not every question has a single truthful answer. Professionalism rules impose some higher standards on lawyers in cases that are a bit murkier than just asking, "Were you at the Capitol on January 6?" In the United States, the analogous rule lays out some bright-line rules. Rule 3.3: Candor Toward the Tribunal (a) A lawyer shall not knowingly: make a false statement of fact or law to a tribunal or fail to correct a false statement of material fact or law previously made to the tribunal by the lawyer; fail to disclose to the tribunal legal authority in the controlling jurisdiction known to the lawyer to be directly adverse to the position of the client and not disclosed by opposing counsel; or offer evidence that the lawyer knows to be false. If a lawyer, the lawyer’s client, or a witness called by the lawyer, has offered material evidence and the lawyer comes to know of its falsity, the lawyer shall take reasonable remedial measures, including, if necessary, disclosure to the tribunal. A lawyer may refuse to offer evidence, other than the testimony of a defendant in a criminal matter, that the lawyer reasonably believes is false. (b) A lawyer who represents a client in an adjudicative proceeding and who knows that a person intends to engage, is engaging or has engaged in criminal or fraudulent conduct related to the proceeding shall take reasonable remedial measures, including, if necessary, disclosure to the tribunal. (c) The duties stated in paragraphs (a) and (b) continue to the conclusion of the proceeding, and apply even if compliance requires disclosure of information otherwise protected by Rule 1.6. (d) In an ex parte proceeding, a lawyer shall inform the tribunal of all material facts known to the lawyer that will enable the tribunal to make an informed decision, whether or not the facts are adverse. Subsection (a)(1) gives a good example of where the duties of honesty diverge for lawyers and pro se parties. If a plaintiff tells the court honestly -- but mistakenly -- that he lost $1 million in profits, but later discovers that he only lost $100,000, his lawyer has a clear obligation to correct that statement for the court; the pro se plaintiff's obligation is not clear. Similarly, if a plaintiff tells the court that he is entitled to those lost profits if he can prove elements A, B, C, and D, but later learns that the Supreme Court has also imposed a requirement that he prove E, the lawyer has an obligation to notify the court of this development; the pro se plaintiff does not. On the "overriding" language: I don't read it as generally having any effect on a lawyer's duty to be honest to his client. Instead, it means that the lawyer's duty to the court overrides the lawyer's duty to the client. In either of the above hypotheticals, for example, the lawyer acted honestly and ethically in presenting his evidence and argument, even though his statements turned out to be false. Correcting the record on either point would reduce or possibly eliminate his client's likely recovery and be against his client's best interests. Once the lawyer discovers the error, he is therefore faced with a conflict of interest: he has a duty to act in his client's best interest, but he also has a duty of honesty to the court. Chapter 13 says that his duty to the court overrides his duty to his client.	A summary is here: see for example Section 35 of the Judiciary Act of 1789: 'in all the courts of the United States, the parties may plead and manage their own causes personally or by the assistance of counsel'. In the same vein, Adams v. United States ex rel. McCann, 317 U. S. 269 held that "an accused, in the exercise of a free and intelligent choice and with the considered approval of the court, may waive trial by jury, and so, likewise, may waive his constitutional right to the assistance of counsel". In Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806 it is held that this extends (via the 14th) to state courts. As to the expression "practice law", maybe the meaning of this expression is taken to be self-evident, though clearly it is not. Statutes that prohibit that act for non-lawyers generally specify things such as "for another person" or "holds himself out as entitled to practice law".
Did the prerogative writ of prohibition ever have a Latin name? Four of the five prerogative writs are known by their Latin names (habeas corpus, mandamus, quo warranto, certiorari), but I have never seen the fifth referred to as anything other than 'prohibition'. Did this writ ever have a Latin name, and if so, what was it?	I've seen prohibito used in a few places, but never by any source that I'd use as a model for my writing. As I understand it, the Latin names for the other writs were adopted in medieval times, when Latin was much more heavily used in the English courts, while the writ of prohibition developed centuries later. In that case, I think it would have been natural to simply give it a standard English name.	Signing a will, as with any other document, is intended to represent a voluntary choice to assent to the document. In the case of a will, a valid signature by the testator expresses the testator's intent that his or her estate be governed by the provisions of the will. Signing using the hand of an unconscious testator (or an unwilling one) would be an act of forgery. It would certainly not create a valid will. In addition, since the witnesses generally certify that it was signed by the testator in their presence they would have committed an act of perjury. Whether either act als constituted fraud I am not sure, but these are clearly not legal acts. (There are cases where a will can be signed without witnesses, most commonly a holographic will, but they do not seem to apply here.)	The Fifth Amendment, in pertinent part, reads: "nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb;" which suggests that Crime B is still fair game under double jeopardy. However, if B is a lesser included offense under Blockburger, i.e. A is Aggravated Robbery and B is Robbery, then a prosecution could be barred by Double Jeopardy. Barring that, and jurisdiction specific law, the State isn't barred by the Double Jeopardy clause of the 5th (and 14th) amendment. That does not foreclose Person C from finding an ethical, equitable, statutory remedy or controlling case enforcing a plea bargain. As far as I can tell, commutation is the equivalent of a conviction while a pardon is equivalent to an acquittal. I also imagine if the prosecution isn't barred and tried C for B, the Executive may just pardon/commute C again. Edit to add: Under Santobello, it would appear C may have an additional remedy enforcing a plea bargain. Santobello didn't involve a case dismissed in a plea bargain, nor commutation or pardon. A court might find that commutation or pardon are essentially a breach of the agreement.	There seems to be no current applicable prohibition state law in Iowa in Iowa Code 39A, the Election Misconduct and Penalties Act. It is also not at all clear that precinct caucuses count as "elections" as applicable to the sections with criminal prohibitions (the precinct caucus does not appear to constitute a "primary election" under Iowa law).	Yes, why not? It happens all the time. Usually the witness will just say, "I am not sure" or "I don't remember, exactly". Also, if Bob is the only witness, how would anyone prove that he was committing "perjury"? In the case of an uncooperative or dissimulating witness, Judges sometimes can hold them in contempt of court, but it is pretty rare. In general, the court has to find "beyond a reasonable doubt" that the witness is refusing to testify honestly. (See "Federal Grand Jury Practice and Procedure" by Paul Diamond) It depends very much on the situation. Note that just trying to act "drunk" would not be a good idea, because that is contempt of court.	Testing the law means running a case under that law and having a court rule on it. In common law jurisdictions, the judiciary does not give opinions on whether a bill proposed or an act passed by the legislature is legal or not - they decide controversies that arise under those acts. The executive is obliged to follow the law so if they do something the law prohibits or don’t do something the law requires then someone with standing (usually someone affected by that act or omission) can take them to court and seek an order for them to stop (an injunction) or to do what they are required to do (a writ of mandamus). In the present situation, it’s my understanding (and I may be wrong) that Parliament has enacted a law that requires the Executive (in the person of the relevant Minister of the Crown) to request an extension from the EU if Parliament has not approved a Brexit deal. Testing the law would mean the Minister not doing that or stating an intention not to do it. A person with standing can then petition the court for a writ of mandamus requiring the Minister to do it. If the Minister still refuses they would be in contempt and subject to being gaoled until they did.	How to refer to Supreme Court cases by just one name In general, subsequent references to a decision can be the first name in the caption of that case. As an example, you will notice that in the decision Rucho v. Common Cause, 139 S.Ct. 2484 (2019) the court makes an initial reference to Gill v. Whitford (at 2492), and thereafter most of the references to that decision are simply Gill (see, for instance, at 2498, 2501, 2507). Nate Elredge makes a good point in that there are exceptions. Where the general rule may result ambiguous, another main party in the caption would be mentioned. Using Nate's example of United States v. Nixon, the court's subsequent references to that case in Calley v. Callaway, 382 F.Supp. 650 (1974) is Nixon. There might be other, harder to find, instances where ambiguity persists. For instance, several unrelated decisions issued by the same court might involve the exact same parties. In those scenarios only the suffix (that is, the numbers following the caption) would distinguish among decisions.	I've retracted and replaced my previous answer. It is a citation to legal authority. It is probably a reference to the book "Hale, The History of the Pleas of the Crown Hale PC" (originally published 1736 with later editions also printed) (see 4.2.3) with Hale abbreviated "Hal.", "pl." being an abbreviation for "plea" (see 4.2.2) and "cr." being an abbreviation for "crown". Standard citation form is to spell it out, but if it is cited repeatedly later instances might be abbreviated. The link is to a scanned version of the out of copyright historical legal treatise on criminal procedure and substantive criminal law. Wikipedia also discusses it as does a law library Wiki.
Receiving a certified letter and the contents is not address to you I am in the United States and I have recently received a certified letter that was addressed to me (name and address). It's about 80 pages actually. The cover sheet has a confidentiality notice, and the notice is the standard "you shall not read this unless you are the intended recipient". The cover sheet also specifically states the contents are for someone else; therefore, I have not read anything beyond the cover sheet. A note: I have no idea who/what the sending party is, and I have no affiliation that I know of with them. So the question: What is the most legally prudent path forward here? As I'm assuming this is a mistake, is the burden on me to contact the sender?	If the envelope had someone else's name and not your name, you should in theory not have opened it, and should instead have marked it "Not known at this address. Return to Sender." and handed it back to the postal service to be returned. If you were asked to sign for the letter, ideally you would check that it is not addressed to you (or anyone else now at your residence) and refuse to sign, but it is easy to overlook that at the moment a letter is presented to you. And sometimes certified mail is delivered without obtaining the signature of any resident. If, however, the envelope had your name on it, you were entitled to open it, and are not bound by any confidentiality statements in the cover letter, assuming that you had no previous relationship with the sender. You may well choose to respect them, but you cannot be legally bound unless you accepted such an obligation at some point, usually in a contract of some sort. If you did have a confidential relationship with the sender, then its terms would normally control, whatever they might be. You could prepare an envelope addressed to the sender, enclose the document, and mail it back to the sender. You could optionally add a short cover letter explaining how you received the document. If the envelope was addressed to some other person, this would, I think, be the best thing to do. If the document was addressed to you, this is totally optional, you could legally just discard the document and forget about it, and you can probably legally read it and do whatever you like about the contents. But as the answer by gnasher729 points out, returning it would be the nice thing. As the comment by Makyen points out, you may wish to retain evidence of what was received. One sided confidentially statements on letters or faxes are not legally effective in the absence of some prior or current relationship or agreement to be bound in confidence.	What factors might a court consider in these circumstances? Is it true that anyone can just walk up and file a document in any case, with no requirement to identify themselves? If nobody admits to filing a document, it is likely that the court would grant a motion to strike the document and disregard it (revising a past ruling if the issue was raised within the six months allowed for reconsidering rulings under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) or the state equivalent). A court document must, on its face, indicate a filing person and be signed to be accepted by the clerk of the court pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 or the state equivalent. But, if the document appears on its face to be legitimate, the person filing it will not generally be required to prove their identity. This happens even less often now than it used to (in the past, fake filings were often made by members of "sovereign citizens" movements to harass governmental officials), because in both the state courts were I practice and in federal court, documents must usually be filed with the court by lawyers via e-filing using a password protected e-filing account. Usually, only parties without lawyers and out of state lawyers who are still in the process of setting up their e-filing account file court documents in person. When documents are filed in person, they are also often delivered via courier rather than by the person who actually signed the documents. And, as a matter of practical reality, third-parties almost never file fake documents in court (in part, because there is usually someone present who is in a position to call attention to the fraud to the court). Still, this can happen, although it is very rare. I've only seen a situation like this come up once in twenty years of practice. (My account below oversimplifies some of the technical details of what happened to get to the gist of the points relevant to this question.) In that case, a lawyer was representing an ex-husband in a post-decree alimony modification case that had been appealed filed a bill of costs that she sought to recover on behalf of her client for the appeal, but she filed it in the wrong court (she filed it in the appellate court where she had represented her client, rather than, as required, in the trial court where another attorney had represented the ex-husband). When an order awarding him costs was not entered by any court, the ex-husband filed an (untimely) bill of costs in the trial court under his appellate lawyer's name using the appellate filing as a model, without her consent, by forging her name on the document. The lawyer didn't discover this (because she was retained only in the appeal and had never entered an appearance in the trial court and thus didn't have access to the trial court file, and because the court doesn't automatically send you a copy of your own filings) until I responded on behalf of the ex-wife to the forged bill of costs alleging that it was untimely which I served a copy of upon the ex-husband's lawyer as required by the rules. At that point, the ex-husband's lawyer immediately called me and the court to explain that she did not file this document and that it was forged (otherwise should could have been sanctioned for knowingly filing the bill of costs knowing that it was out of time and was frivolous at that point and could have been deemed to be responsible for further trial court proceedings of the ex-husband in the case, like keeping him appraised of deadlines, court rulings and filings by other lawyers in the case, since it appeared that she'd participated in the trial court case). Ultimately, the court declined to award the costs because they were filed in an untimely manner and because they were not really filed by the lawyer as claimed. So, the the court disregarded the bill of costs and denied this relief to the ex-husband. (If I was the judge, I would have hauled the ex-husband into court and held him in contempt of court sua sponte, but in this very busy court where hearings in divorcees are often scheduled two or more years out from the scheduling date, the judge didn't have the time to devote to issues like that.)	They aren’t treated differently In most jurisdictions, law enforcement requires a warrant to intercept/open/read the contents of physical or electronic correspondence. Similarly, in most jurisdictions, a warrant is not required to read the metadata: who is communicating with whom, how and when but not what. That is they can read what’s written on the outside of the envelope or the routing information of the email/SMS. Telephony is not correspondence because it is not the intent of the parties to create a permanent record. It is usually treated as any other conversation - if it carried out in a place and manner that the participants have a reasonable expectation of privacy it’s usually illegal to record it (electronically or by writing it down). If it’s said publicly, it isn’t illegal.	Nobody know what constitutes "scamming", because it's not a legal concept. There is no sense in which receiving a gift itself constitutes "scamming". Since scamming is vaguely about dishonesty, there is an imaginable scenario where you could be liable for a false representation, for example if you impersonated someone else in order to receive something of value, you could be prosecuted in California. You should not assume that a police officer saying "That's not our problem" is proof that you committed no crime or civil tort. Your lawyer can give you advice as to whether you have anything to worry about, legally. The other stuff about being called a scammer or having pictures posted might be a violation of Facebook's TOS, and you can always complain to Facebook central authorities. Technically, uploading a picture that someone took is a violation of copyright law, if you didn't give permission to do so. It might run afoul of some state~provincial or national privacy law, depending on where this takes place.	It depends on the state. In some states the Secretary of State holds the records for business entities and in others, such as Arizona, it's an organization known as the Arizona Corporation Commission. Regardless of the state's organization that keeps the information, one of the pieces of information you will find when you look at a company's records is the "registered agent", "resident agent" or "statutory agent." The agent, whether a person or a representative corporation, must be located within the state where business is conducted. That agent is who or what gets served with papers for a lawsuit. Here's a good explanation at legalzoom. A personal example that may help: I am an owner in a business that does business in Louisiana and Arizona. Our LLC is registered in Louisiana and is registered as a "foreign corporation" in Arizona. However, we are required to have a registered agent in each state. We pay a company to act as our registered agent in each state and the registered agent has a physical address in each state in which we are registered. If someone wants to sue my company then they can look up the name of my company in either state and will find my registered agent along with the registered agent's physical address. Service to the registered agent counts as service to my company. The agent will forward to me any service which is made to them. EDIT: if you don't known the name of the entity, i.e., the name on the door of the business does not represent the name of the company, then you need to find the "doing business as," or DBA record of the company. I don't know what state you're in but all the states in which I've done business maintain a "Doing Business As" system that can be searched. I guess it's possible that you're in a state that doesn't maintain DBA filings or require them. Typically, you can search either way - search by owner or search by the DBA name. Some states, such as Arizona, record DBA names at the county level. I've seen some states allow searching by address also.	Leaving out who the shipper is for a minute, the primary loss would be the seller's (UCC 2-613) in that the loss would be total and the contract would void (so the buyer has not obligation to pay the seller, and the seller's stuff is nevertheless gone). The seller has a remedy against most shippers, so that UPS or Fedex would be liable to covering their loss (assuming buyer has not assume the liability by agreeing to delivery without signature). However, USPS has special immunity: the government is liable to tort claims, but 28 USC 2680(b) states that The provisions of this chapter and section 1346(b) of this title shall not apply to... Any claim arising out of the loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission of letters or postal matter Thanks to Nate Eldredge for raising the case Dolan v. USPS 546 U.S. 481 (2006), where it was held that USPS has very narrowly circumscribed immunity from liability. Under this provision, they are not liable for breaking contents when delivered negligently, but that does not mean that they are not liable for breaking things as a result of their deliveries (they broke Mrs. Dolan, in how they piled stuff on the porch). Although this case does not rule on the meaning of "loss" or "miscarriage", on a plain reading of the terms, theft results in a loss ("loss" is not restricted to "mysterious disappearance"). The court also observes that losses of the type for which immunity is retained under §2680(b) are at least to some degree avoidable or compensable through postal registration and insurance and the court explains that one purpose of the FTCA exceptions was to avoid “extending the coverage of the Act to suits for which adequate remedies were already available” (that is, Congress opened the government to tort liability in just those cases where there were no remedies: but there has long been postal insurance).	A party to a civil suit in a US court generally has wide latitude on discovery. If it is not completely implausible that one of those text messages might contain something helpful to the other side, then they might well be able to demand and obtain them. This would be true even if Jan has no plans to use any of them. If Jane thinks that there is something in some of those messages which should not be disclosed, she could, normally with the advice of hr lawyer, file a motion to limit discovery in some way. Whether there is good grounds for such a motion will depend on very specific details of the facts, and is beyond the scope of an answer at this forum. It is true that Jane is only required to produce the messages if the judge in the case has in fact ordered this. It would be highly unethical for Jane's lawyer Arnold to lie to here about this. If he did so and got caught, it might cost him his license to practice law, plus additional penalties. If Jane seriously suspects that he is outright lying to her, and colluding with the opposing party, she needs to take steps to confirm or disprove this, or if she can do neither, to obtain a different lawyer.	From a German perspective, it would be absolutely normal and expected that you're providing identity & contact information publicly. Per §5 TMG (Impressumspflicht / Anbieterkennzeichnung) this is required for German tele-media offerings, such as websites or email providers, even if non-commercial. Whereas for you as an upstanding and diligent email provider an abuse@... address should be enough, the German context expects a street address where you could be served with a lawsuit… There absolutely are privacy and free speech issues with this compelled self-doxxing. But by running an email service, you're not just acting as a private person. Your privacy interests and the transparency and security interests of other people have to be balanced. Now since you are not in Germany, the TMG does not apply to you. You have no legal obligation to provide this information. However, the ISP also has no legal obligation to to deliver your email. The ISP does have an obligation to apply appropriate organizational and technical safety measures. It seems that one organizational measure they have found appropriate is that they will only deliver emails from providers that provide public contact information, as would be the norm in Germany. I am not entirely sure how the GDPR applies here. The GDPR doesn't really allow or prohibit disclosures of personal data, it just requires that every purpose of processing for personal data has a legal bases per GDPR Art 6. One such legal basis is a legitimate interest, which boils down to a balancing test between your rights and freedoms and other people's interests. I'm also not sure if the contact information should be classified as personal data in this context, because the contact info primarily relates to your role as an email provider. I'm also not sure if the ISP is processing your personal data in the sense of the GDPR when they merely require you to publish it on your own site. They would be processing it as soon as they scrape, store, or otherwise use this info.
What does it mean when a court case is "dismissed"? I've heard a number of conspiracy theorists say that court cases related to 2020 election fraud were "dismissed without looking at the evidence". According to wikipedia there have been 55 court cases related to the 2020 United States presidential election and of those 33 were "dismisssed". What does it mean when a case is dismissed? Is evidence looked at 100% of the time in a dismissed case? If not, how could I determine if a case related to the 2020 election had its evidence looked at before it was dismissed?	A case can be "dismissed" at (most) any time (however, the further along in the process a case is, the less likely a judge will allow a case to be dismissed without very good reason). A case can be dismissed with or without "prejudice", which in this legal context means essentially "finality". A case dismissed with prejudice cannot be brought again, while a case dismissed without prejudice can be refiled. (Compare the criminal law concept of "double jeopardy", though as phoog correctly notes, "double jeopardy" only applies in criminal trials, while prejudice can be applied in both civil and criminal courts). Many cases are dismissed without looking at the evidence (or even having the evidence admitted to the record); this is called "summary judgement" or "judgement as a matter of law". There are generally three cases when this happens: First, if the prosecution or plaintiff (i.e. the party bringing accusations) has "failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted", i.e. asked for something the court cannot grant. Second, is if the defendant can show, that even if everything alledged by the plaintiff is true, that the necessarily elements of the crime or offense have not been proven. Third, is if there are no facts in dispute, and only a disagreement on interpreting the law.	Laws are different around the world and you didn't bother to state your location, but typically no- this is not how the system works. What would be the point? There's no defendant. You, the plaintiff would argue against thin air and then what? The court rules in your favour, declares this illegal, and nothing happens because there's no defendant. Is it so you can use this ruling if you find out later? Pretty sneaky. Let's look into how this would actually work. You bring up a case- Jackson vs a mannequin or something. You make your arguments. The defense makes literally no defense. The judge rules in your favour, with a result of nothing as there is no defendent. Next, you find the culprit and bring a case against them. You point out that this is illegal because we came to that decision last week. What's that defendant? An argument against it being illegal? Too bad, the decision has been made. When I posted this answer, it was before the "Nyah, I was ranting about government spying but was deliberately vague- aren't I clever?" comment and I assumed it was against, say, a neighbour but it doesn't really matter. You cannot have a system that makes a judgement without a defendant so it can be applied later.	There may be two questions sort of embedded in here: How long does the government have before it violates Speedy Trial; and How long does the government have to turn over its evidence? Unfortunately, they're probably both impossible to answer at this point. Question 1 Under the Speedy Trial Act (18 USC 3161): In any case in which a plea of not guilty is entered, the trial of a defendant charged in an information or indictment with the commission of an offense shall commence within seventy days from the filing date (and making public) of the information or indictment, or from the date the defendant has appeared before a judicial officer of the court in which such charge is pending, whichever date last occurs. If a defendant consents in writing to be tried before a magistrate judge on a complaint, the trial shall commence within seventy days from the date of such consent. IRA was indicted on February 16, 2018, so 70 days later would be April 27, 2018, which has obviously already come and gone. But their initial appearance wasn't until May 9, 2018, which pushes the time back to July 18, 2018. That would be the default latest date for a trial to begin, but the Act also allows delays for a variety of factors. Among them are delays "resulting from other proceedings concerning the defendant," which includes time the court spends considering the defendants' motions. So if IRA moves to dismiss the case, all the time spent fighting over that motion would "toll" speedy-trial time, meaning that it would stop the clock until the motion was decided. Another provision of potential relevance is 18 USC 3161(h)(8): Any period of delay, not to exceed one year ... [if] an official request .. has been made for evidence of any such offense and that it reasonably appears, or reasonably appeared at the time the request was made, that such evidence is, or was, in such foreign country. So if there's evidence somewhere in Russia linking these guys to the crimes they're accused of, that might push speedy trial back by a year just to deal with that issue alone. So the short answer to Question 1 is that Speedy Trial requires the trial to begin on July 18, but that practically speaking, that probably won't happen. Question 2 The timing of discovery, the process of each side turning over its evidence to the other side, varies based on the kind of evidence involved, so there are usually multiple disclosures of evidence between the time of indictment and the actual trial. Under current DOJ guidelines, prosecutors are encouraged to provide "broad and early discovery." More specifically: Exculpatory evidence available under Brady v. Maryland should be turned over "reasonably promptly"; Impeachment evidence available under Giglio v. United States should be turned over "at a reasonable time before trial to allow the trial to proceed efficiently"; and Material available under Rule 16 should be disclosed "as soon as is reasonably practical." As you can see, these aren't really hard deadlines. The defense will ask for the documents, the government will turn over documents, and then they'll probably both fight about turning over some other documents, and then they'll wait for the court to decide what to do. So when does Mueller have to turn over his evidence? Probably the best answer we have right now is: "When a judge tells him to."	This was asked and answered by KPD on the Politics stackexchange. This issue came up in a decision from an appeals court, with a judge dying before the opinion was released, leading to the following SCOTUS opinion. The short of the answer: that Judge's vote is voided. If the result of negating the deceased Justice's vote is a 4-4 tie, then the usual procedure for a 4-4 tie is invoked, which is addressed in the Q&A you link. Of course this assumes that SCOTUS will apply this to themselves, but the issue appears to be non-controversial, as it was a fairly recent decision with no dissents noted. So this assumption seems safe.	The order of operations is important I assume that plaintiff filed for a Protective Order. To get this granted, the plaintiff has to allege some kind of wrongdoing and evidence of that. If the defendant responds, then the plaintiff can amend their filing. Then the defendant once more can respond to the allegations. If the plaintiff wants to amend the filing once more, they need to ask the court to be allowed to do so, and that opens the door for the defendant to answer once more. That's all history for the case presented: The court apparently found the evidence lacking and dismissed the application for a PO. Plaintiff can only file for reconsideration or appeal but not bring in new evidence at this point. Dismissed Cases are not automatically evidence A case that did not establish its burden of proof and was dismissed - especially with prejudice - has not established that the evidence in it is good. You have to ask each item to be admitted separately and re-establish that it is good evidence. A bulk filing "I want to bring this case as evidence" is generally denied unless you prevailed in that case. A dismissed case is one you didn't prevail in. Get a Lawyer! It seems like you are in serious need of legal counsel to clear up the situation. Contact a lawyer for at least a free consultation if you even have a case.	Evidence is simply those things (verbal and physical) which are given to the court as evidence. When a witness gives testimony, that’s evidence. When a gun is submitted as an exhibit, that’s evidence. When an expert report is tendered, that’s evidence. Basically, whatever either party in the case submits to the court to prove their case is evidence. There is noting objectionable about the sentence - they are saying the statement is true, as they will be required to do in court and that they intend to submit it as evidence. While it’s not evidence yet, when submitted to the court, it will be. Courts have rules about what is allowed to be put into evidence (e.g. relevance, hearsay) and there may be some parts of the statement that fall foul of these - the other party can object to the proposed evidence on those grounds and the first party can withdraw it, the parties can agree on a modification or the judge rules on it. This can (and should) be done now in order to save time in the hearing. Evidence and proof are not the same thing. The judge will consider and weigh all the evidence and, where it is contradictory decide which to believe and which to reject in order to determine if the party which has the onus of proof has met it.	If a random attorney at the direction of a judge has standing to challenge actions within executive branch jurisdiction, why didn’t a judge prosecute the banks guilty of criminal fraud leading to the 2008 financial crisis when Obama ordered the DOJ to not prosecute? This is a misunderstanding of the issue. Judge Sullivan is not "prosecuting" Mr. Flynn. Judges do not have the power to prosecute people. Instead, Sullivan (argues that he) is trying to decide whether or not to grant the government's motion to dismiss. Normally, this is a very open and shut question: If the government doesn't want to prosecute someone, then it would make no sense to try and keep the case in court, so it's typical for these dismissals to be rubber stamped. The complication in this particular case is that Mr. Flynn has already pleaded guilty. Because he was in federal court, on a federal charge, pleading guilty is a rather involved process. His plea included very explicit statements under oath about the specific conduct he allegedly committed, and that conduct directly matches up with specific required elements of the alleged crime. After Mr. Flynn had already made those statements under oath, the government told Judge Sullivan that it did not believe it had enough evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. Judge Sullivan now wants to hold a hearing to determine whether he can or should believe the government, and if not, what if anything he can or should do about it. Finally, the DC Circuit issued a writ of mandamus ordering Judge Sullivan to immediately grant the dismissal. Sullivan is now appealing that order. In this sense, then, the dispute is not directly about Mr. Flynn's case, but rather about the level of discretion to which Judge Sullivan is entitled in performing his official duties. By issuing the writ, the DC Circuit necessarily determined that Judge Sullivan was not legally entitled to hold the hearing which he wanted to hold. That is what the en banc re-hearing is about.	The short answer is that propensity evidence can only be circumstantial evidence and that it is generally inadmissible. But we should start by clarifying what "circumstantial evidence" means. It is not the opposite of legal evidence, but more like the opposite of direct evidence. Direct evidence is evidence that independently establishes a fact in question, while circumstantial evidence is evidence that gives rise to an inference that a fact in question is true. There is a misconception that circumstantial evidence is somehow inadmissible or inferior to direct evidence, but the truth is that the vast majority of evidence is circumstantial. So if you are on trial for murder, direct evidence would include your confession, an eyewitness account of the murder, and surveillance video of you killing the victim. Circumstantial evidence would include things like the victim's blood on your clothes, a taxi driver's testimony that he dropped you off at the victim's apartment just before the murder happened, or surveillance video of you exiting the cab and entering the apartment. Propensity evidence is evidence that a person is likely to have acted one way in this case because they have acted that same way in the past. It is therefore never going to be direct evidence and always going to be circumstantial evidence, because it never explicitly says "the defendant did it," but rather says "the defendant did it before, so maybe he did it again." The general rule is that propensity evidence is inadmissible. Fed.R.Evid. 404(b). It sometimes comes in anyway, though, for various reasons. If a defendant is facing trespass charges, for instance, a prosecutor would want to introduce evidence that the defendant has previously been convicted of trespassing. The defense will object that it's propensity evidence, but the prosecutor will respond that it's admissible if he's using it to establish something other than the likelihood that the defendant did the same thing again. If the prosecutor needs to prove that the defendant knew he was not allowed on the property, the trespass conviction is very strong evidence on that point. Another common exception is in sexual-assault cases, where some jurisdictions allow this type of evidence. Indeed, Wisconsin is among the states that explicitly permit evidence of the defendant's previous convictions for certain sex crimes to demonstrate that he committed a sex crime again in the current case. WI Stat § 904.04(2)(b). Louisiana likewise allows propensity evidence to establish that the defendant has a history of "sexually assaultive behavior" or a "lustful disposition toward children." C.E. 412.2. Likewise, the defendant may be able to introduce evidence that the victim previously consented to sex and is therefore likely to have consented to sex in the current case. C.E. 412. EDIT: To address your examples, then, I would say that that the first would probably not survive a Rule 404(b) objection, and the second one would stand a better chance. On the second one, the defense should argue that the court should allow evidence of the defendant's interest in Egyptology, but not evidence of the convictions, as that would allow the jury to consider his motive without being diverted into propensity territory. The prosecution should probably counter that the defendant's convictions show more than just the existence of a motive, but also the strength of that motive, as well as perhaps that the defendant had the prior knowledge and skill that would be necessary to pull off a museum heist. The judge could go probably rule either way without being reversed. I would clarify one point on how to analyze and characterize this evidence: Rule 404 deals with propensity evidence, i.e., evidence that is meant to demonstrate that a person acted in conformity with his character. Subsection (a) deals with establishing propensity through "character evidence," which is evidence that the defendant's character or character traits are consistent with the conduct in question at trial; while subsection (b) deals with establishing propensity through "other acts" evidence, which is evidence that the defendant previously engaged in conduct that is consistent with the conduct at question of trial. Both types of evidence -- character evidence and other-acts evidence -- are inadmissible to establish propensity, but they may be admissible to establish motive, plan, preparation, etc. So when your defendant's previous convictions are offered to prove motive to expand his Egyptology collection and not to establish propensity, the court could allow them into evidence not because they are admissible propensity evidence, but rather because they are not propensity evidence at all.
How to enforce an MNDA? If you believe the company you signed an MNDA with is violating the terms by ripping off your IP, what is your first course of action? How about your second and third? Can someone knowledgeable in IP infringement describe the general steps.	It's always going to be a fact-specific situation, but the first step is to conduct whatever factual investigation is feasible to disprove your belief. If your investigation indicates that your belief is correct, you send a cease and desist letter. If that doesn't work, you proceed to litigation.	In German Law you need to give your agreement ("Willenserklärung") to a contract or in this case terms of service. This is done by telling the other part. In some cases this can also be implied by an action (example: putting your bottle of beer onto the cashiers table is an offer to buy this bottle). As a second criteria a "Willenserklärung" needs to be the exact will of the part that declares its will (the website user in this case) §§ 133, 157 BGB or that the other side (you) could only see so (not the case here as this mainly speaks of content). If you visit a website and there are terms of services, the "Willenserklärung" is only given when the user read and agreed to the terms. If he did not, the terms of service are not applied until the user agrees to them. So I would recommend to block the website until the user agreed (overlay) as you need to proof he did when in court. Additionally there are so called AGB's in Germany. Those are contracts that are used or planed for many (more than 3) uses and set by one side (you). This may apply here, so you need to follow a lot of other rules like making sure the user had access and agreed, then there are many content restrictions and so on... I recommend consulting a German Lawyer specialized on this topic as this is very complex and includes other German laws for Media too, depending on the content of your site and terms. Also note that everything said is only based on my own knowledge and can not be used as safe legal source.	Your issue is trademark, not copyright. If these other guys use their mark (product name) in commerce but did not register it, they have an unregistered trademark which you could be infringing. Between two users of the same trademark, the first to use in commerce wins. (There is a territorial component but with the Internet, meh.) If the trademark is registered that gives them a presumption of validity. Trademark infringement is concerned with consumer confusion. If someone uses someone else's trademark in a way that confuses consumers as to the origin of the goods, that's a problem. What this means is that if I make tires with the name Sportie and someone else makes soap also with that name Sportie there is not a high likelihood of confusion. Likewise a hotel in Washington called Runner's Cove probably doesn't infringe a shoe store in Florida with the same name. Fantasy games and fantasy books sold over the Internet? Sounds like a potential problem that you might want to clear up before the second book.	the first two highlighted parts seem to contradict each other. No, in this case they do not. The first highlighted portion refers to works or items produced "for or under the direction of the Company", whereas the second highlight refers to your creations that satisfy conditions (a) and (b). Where contradictions actually exist, the doctrine of contra proferentem entitles you (the non-draftsman of the contract) to adopt the portion or reasonable interpretation that favors your legal position. Also wondering how valid those statements actually are They are valid and become enforceable as soon as you sign the contract or your subsequent conduct reflects your acceptance thereof. it's a matter of privacy. So the question is what I can do or what the reality is of the situation The reality is that you are asked to sign a contract that is abusive and ridiculous. One vulnerability from describing your inventions (presumably in Appendix A) is that the employer gets "irrevocable, worldwide, etc" rights on them as soon as you "use or disclose any [items listed in Appendix A] when acting within the scope of [your] employment". This means that if instead of reinventing the wheel you share or apply any portion of your prior creations so as to enhance your productivity, you knowingly and irreversibly grant to the employer perpetual rights to those items. Legal disputes regarding APIs can become extremely intricate. And, since judges usually have no decent background on IT, even those few judges with integrity are unlikely to grasp the key subtleties that would lead to a correct ruling. "not useful with or related to any Company Interest" is very vague. The company could be interested in literally anything these days. Clauses which are too vague or excessively wide-encompassing are supposedly stricken as unconscionable, unenforceable, etc. However, I personally would foreclose upfront the risk of judicial hassle and decline the abusive contract. Legal issues aside, keep in mind that you are offering your expertise (in terms of supply & demand, you are on the supply side). This fact has a less derogatory connotation than "asking for a job". Accordingly, the relation between the parties should be more leveled.	If you form an LLC, and then someone later obtains a registered trademark in the same name, the registered trademark would be enforceable everywhere except in the markets and places where the LLC developed common law trademark rights prior to their registration. Your LLC formation would also put a bump in the road in their trademark application. You can, of course, do both, although it is unclear to me why you feel such urgency in the likelihood of an infringement, which suggests that there may be relevant facts that aren't revealed by your post.	If I understand correctly, you are asking whether a copyright holder's failure to submit a DMCA "takedown" notice in accordance with 17 U.S.C. § 512 prevents that copyright holder from enforcing their copyright. The answer is no, for multiple reasons. DMCA is an optional process First, a common misconception seems to be that the DMCA creates a mandatory process for anyone. It doesn't. The DMCA takedown process doesn't impose an obligation upon anyone: copyright holders don't have to submit DMCA takedowns, and service providers don't have to honor takedown notices. In fact, all 17 U.S.C. § 512 does is it provides a "safe harbor" for service providers who do follow the takedown procedures. In other words, with limited exceptions, DMCA says that internet service providers can't be sued for hosting content that infringes copyright unless they fail to obey a DMCA takedown first. But if the copyright holder isn't looking to sue the service provider, then filing a DMCA takedown is not a prerequisite. Not enforcing copyright now doesn't prevent future enforcement The broader question that you're getting at is also whether it's possible to lose copyright by failing to take enforcement actions in general, not only as authorized by the DMCA. This is a pretty common question because it turns out there's something sort of like this when it comes to trademarks, which are a different form of intellectual property. It's possible to lose trademarks for a variety of reasons: under 15 U.S.C. § 1127, trademarks are abandoned if they cease to be used or if they become genericized, for instance, so failure to enforce the trademark in one instance might cause problems enforcing it later. But copyrights and trademarks are very different, and copyrights are not abandoned in this way. It is actually fairly difficult to lose copyright protection: in countries that have adopted the Berne Convention (essentially every country), copyright exists from the moment a work is created, and though it is possible to abandon copyright, it must be done intentionally and the intent to do so "must be manifested by some overt act indicative of a purpose to surrender the rights and allow the public to copy". Hampton v. Paramount Pictures Corporation, 279 F. 2d 100 (9th Cir. 1960) (citing National Comics Publications v. Fawcett Publications, 191 F. 2d 594 (2nd Cir. 1951)). As to your question about the rules of other jurisdictions, the Berne Convention's mandate that "enjoyment and the exercise of these [copyright] rights shall not be subject to any formality" (Article 5) would suggest that other countries also do not impose additional requirements for the full exercise of rights under copyright law, but the rules of any given jurisdiction vary and it would be impractical to discuss the steps required to enforce copyright in every jurisdiction in the world.	Note: IANAL Does the placement of a sticker stating, "We accept XYZ credit cards," essentially obligate a business to accept that card? It depends on whether you mean whether they are obligated to provide goods/services to someone who presents the card, or whether, having provided goods/services, they are obligated to accept the card as payment. For the first question, the answer is "no". The credit card brand could theoretically go after them, however, as names of credit networks are trademarks, so claiming to accept a card but not doing so is trademark infringement. For the second, the answer is "pretty much". Since they misrepresented their establishment, there is no mutual assent and therefore no contract. If they try to use "defrauding the innkeeper statutes", those require fraudulent intent. If you fully intended to pay for you meal by a credit card, and it was their choice to refuse payment, then you have no fraudulent intent. The only avenue I can see for them is some sort of equity argument, but that would be problematic, especially if they ask for the retail, rather than wholesale, price, and not worth the hassle of collecting. So, legally, you can just walk out, but in practice if they have a bouncer they might make trouble for you.	This kind of piracy is unfortunately common. When your copyright has been violated, your available response is to sue the infringer. Yes, this costs money, and yes, many infringers get away with it. In the Free Software/Open Source community, a couple of actors including the FSF, gpl-violations.org/Harald Welte, and the Software Freedom Conservancy have sued GPL infringers. But they can only do that for copyrights that they hold themselves. For example, the FSF holds copyright for the GNU userland, whereas Welte and Conservancy hold copyright for parts of the Linux kernel. They do not hold copyright for your software so they cannot enforce the AGPL license on your behalf. What can be done fairly easily is to file a takedown request with platforms that host the infringing content. Under various safe harbor laws including the US DMCA, a platform is not responsible if they accidentally host infringing content uploaded by users. However, the platform has to take the content down if they're notified that the content is infringing. For example, you could file a DMCA takedown request with GitHub to take down their repository, in case they are using GitHub. The drawback is that a takedown notice can be contested by the alleged infringer, in which case the content is reinstated and you would have to sue. The platform is not allowed to make its own determination about whether you or the infringer is right.
Example to clarify "probable cause" for a search In Los Angeles, California, the victim of a robbery identifies his attacker as being one of three identical triplets (and the victim saw nobody but the one attacker). If the three triplets all live in separate homes, can the police get a search warrant for any of their homes (assuming no other evidence/motive)? I would say each has 33% probability of being guilty, so my interpretation is that there is not "probable cause" (i.e., 50%) to search anyone's home...really?	A couple of SCOTUS decisions bearing on this are Texas v. Brown, 460 U.S. 730 and Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, where the courts took pains to deny that "probable cause" is related to a number. From Texas v. Brown, the Court frequently has remarked, probable cause is a flexible, common-sense standard. It merely required that the facts available to the officer would "warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief," Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 267 U. S. 162 (1925), that certain items may be contraband or stolen property or useful as evidence of a crime; it does not demand any showing that such a belief be correct, or more likely true than false. A "practical, nontechnical" probability that incriminating evidence is involved is all that is required. Brinegar v. United States, 338 U. S. 160 From Illinois v. Gates, The task of the issuing magistrate is simply to make a practical, common sense decision whether, given all the circumstances set forth in the affidavit before him, there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place. And the duty of a reviewing court is simply to ensure that the magistrate had a substantial basis for concluding that probable cause existed. The question is framed in terms of probability that a certain individual is guilty, but that is not the basis for issuing a search warrant. Rather, a warrant may be issued if there is a fair probability that evidence bearing on a crime will be found. That would include evidence that exonerates a person (the system is not set up to only favor convictions). It would be highly impractical to assign a numeric value to probability of finding evidence, since there is more to the matter than just declaring "It must have been one of these three people".	was the idea that all searches and seizures, reasonable or otherwise, require a warrant? No. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. This means that unreasonable searches are prohibited. A prohibited search can't require a warrant because the search is prohibited. If a warrant was issued for an unreasonable search then the warrant was issued in error.	The general rule is that a warrant is required to enter private property (absent constitutional case law exceptions to the warrant requirement such as exigent circumstances and consent), and that a warrant is available only when there is probable cause that a crime has been committed. Whether the neglect or abuse of an animal constitutes a crime within the meaning of this 4th Amendment requirement could potentially be seen as a gray area, since historically, in the absence of statutory authority in early common law, an owner of an animal had absolute authority to deal with his or her property (the animal) as the owner of the animal saw fit. The purpose of the statute is to clarify that this conduct by an animal owner constitutes a crime for 4th Amendment search and seizure purposes by making a state law determination that it is a crime, which states can do, even though they can't change the constitutional requirement under the 4th Amendment. Also, just because a state can authorize law enforcement to get a warrant for any search authorized by the U.S. Constitution, that doesn't mean it has to allow law enforcement to do so in every case where it is constitutional for the state to do so. The duty to get a warrant for law enforcement to enter onto private property at all arises not only from other state statutes, but also from the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (as incorporated to apply against state and local governments though the due process clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution). But, the constitutional requirement has case law exceptions, so it isn't required in all circumstances. In particular, exigent circumstances, and the consent to entry exceptions, which are allowed by constitutional criminal procedure case law, could apply to the requirement to get a warrant in the first place. But, law enforcement needs to have the authority to search at all with a warrant under state law, for an exception to the warrant requirement to be relevant. This statute appears to carry out that purpose by authorizing searches for this particular purpose. For what it is worth, it is not the best drafted possible statute to achieve this objective, and it could have been written to be more clear, but it still gets the job done. So, in answer to the top-line question, no, I wouldn't read this statute as requiring a warrant in every possible circumstance in order to go onto private property to check on an animal, although a warrant would be required in every case where an exception to the warrant requirement under 4th Amendment case law does not apply. Section 578. Is an animal related statute rather than people. The people involved are the property owners. The property owner's rights in their real property are potentially infringed if there is a warrantless entry. The human beings owning the animals are potentially violating a law which the State of Missouri wants law enforcement officers to be able to enforce (the relevant laws are the state animal cruelty and agricultural laws expressly referenced in the statute, so, it is irrelevant that "Barry County Missouri has no animal control laws or leash laws"). Among other things these statutes make it a crime if a person "Has custody or ownership of an animal and fails to provide adequate care[.]" As the question claims that: "The definition "Adequate care" is vague as well." But the question also notes that: "The 578 statute has been challenged for being unconstitutionally vague and arbitrary which was overruled but that was serious abuse case." The state has a right to decide what is and is not illegal. It is not prohibited from banning treatment of animals that is not serious abuse. The state has every right to make it a crime to fail to provide adequate care for an animal, even if that failure to provide adequate car does not constitute severe abuse. Also, keep in mind that a lawful search requires only probable cause to believe that a crime was committed and a good faith belief that an exception to the warrant requirement is present. If the law enforcement officer has a good faith belief that the animal will die or seriously suffer or be hidden by the owner in the time that the law enforcement officer reasonably thinks that it will take to get a warrant, the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement applies. The fact that the lawful search later reveals that a crime was no committed does not mean that the search was improper. A mere belief that an animal was abused or neglected and that exigent circumstance were present with a reasonable factual basis (e.g. a tip from a neighbor who seems credible and claims to have personal knowledge of the facts) will usually suffice to establish probable cause. So warrant needed or not? and if so, what legal action can be taken for trespass, rights violations under color of law etc. if any? If there is a search without a warrant or probable cause was not present, and an exception to the warrant requirement does not apply, and the property owner believes that their 4th Amendment rights were intentionally violated by law enforcement in the warrantless search in violation of clearly established law to the contrary, a civil lawsuit against the law enforcement officer under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 can be brought in state or federal court. The employer of the law enforcement officer can be sued as well, under the same statute, if the warrantless search in violation of the clearly established constitutional right was made pursuant to an express policy of the law enforcement officer's employer. But the fact that the law enforcement officer violated someone's rights does not automatically make the law enforcement officer's employer civilly liable for the wrong. In most U.S. states, law enforcement officers are protected by state law governmental immunity from common law trespass lawsuits for their conduct while carrying out their official duties, but I haven't checked specifically to see if that is the case in Missouri. A claim of a 4th Amendment violation can also be a ground for suppressing evidence obtained with an unlawful search when defending a prosecution under some ordinance or statute that relies upon that evidence.	The standard in civil trials is "on the balance of probabilities" or "more likely than not." This is often expressed as "more than 50% likely", but this question is meant to provide an edge case to this standard of proof. Despite one person being provably innocent, could all 3 people be found civilly liable for 1/3 of the damages, since each individual has a 67% chance of having committed the crime? General Rule: No Generally speaking, the answer is "no". A plaintiff must prove liability by a preponderance of the evidence as to each individual defendant. This flows from the basic structure of tort lawsuits (a civil claim alleging damages suffered from criminal acts is a form of tort lawsuit). The Narrow Market Share Liability Exception There is pretty much only one circumstance where something similar to your example. But, it isn't strictly analogous because it only applies when all of the defendants can be proven to have harmed some of the plaintiffs and the only question outstanding is who harmed whom. Defendants may be innocent of harming some of the plaintiffs, but can't be innocent of harming any of them, to face liability in this scenario. This occurs which is when a class action lawsuit is brought against all (or almost all) of the multiple separate defendants who manufactured the products of the same type, all of which were defective. A manufacturer of a defective product is strictly liable for all harm caused by the defective product, but usually a plaintiff must show precisely which defendant's product caused that particular person's injury. But, in the class action context, where (almost) all of the people who made the defective products are sued by (almost) all of the people who were injured by defective products of that type, courts have allowed the class to recover an amount calculated to represent the aggregate economic value of the damages suffered by all members of the class combined. Then, the aggregate damages award is allocated among the defendants in proportion to their market share of the defective product. Then, the amounts paid to the class by the various defendants are then allocated to members of the class based upon the estimated damages suffered by each subgroup of class members (or in separate case by case damages hearings). This is an exception to the usual requirement to prove causation against each individual defendant in the case of each individual plaintiff, because the risk of injustice by the process overall to any given defendant is small, and requiring proof of causation in this situation creates a burden on plaintiffs that lacks the justification that it would have if the injured parties had sued on a piecemeal basis. But, this only works when the defect in the product was shared by everyone who made that kind of product, and was not simply a "quality control" issue in the manufacturing process. For example, this kind of market share causation could be appropriate against all makers of tobacco products or asbestos or lead based paint. But, it would not be appropriate in a product liability case where some cars with built with substandard parts while others were built with parts that met the specifications for the cars and those that were did not cause any harm.	Laws on self-defense vary greatly from nation to nation. Generally, one cannot hunt down a hypothetical threat but one can defend against an actual threat or even a mistakenly assumed actual threat where no actual threat exists. Alice set it up so that Bob would feel threatened. In many jurisdictions, the self-defense defense for homicide rests on the state of the mind of the suspect, insofar as it can be determined, and failing that on a "reasonable person" standard. Presumably Bob genuinely felt threatened by Charlie and says so afterwards. "I thought he/it/whatever was trying to harm me. I didn't know it was a harmless actor." Just how much harm Bob needs to make self-defense stick varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. It could be fear of imminent, serious bodily harm, or fear of being victimized in any sort of crime (stand your ground laws). As the comment by user6726 points out, just protraying a zombie or whatever isn't enough, there has to be threat to Bob. Bob cannot hunt Charlie down because Charlie "is" an evil lich or whatever. Bob can defend himself against attacks by Charlie and (in some jurisdictions) against intrusions by Charlie in his property. So it makes a difference if Bob hunts in his own backyard or further afield. The well-documented and extensive efforts by Alice and Darren to fool Bob should support Bob's statement. Say the court/jury believes that it was reasonable (or at least "not entirely unreasonable") for Bob to be afraid. Since the perceived self-defense would apply even if Bob thought the attacker was human, thinking that it was non-human should make little difference. Except that it would further showcase the degree to which Bob was fooled to see a threat. If the whole endeavor by Alice and Darren broke laws, the death might fall into felony homicide in some jurisdictions. This one could come to technicalities because Bob wasn't their accomplice. Otherwise, Darren's track record might prevent the two from being charged for negligent homicide. Consider the well-publicized cases where either the police or civilians shot unarmed people, and say that they thought the victim was armed and a threat to them. If doesn't matter if the victim drew a gun or a wallet, it matters if the shooter can make his or her fears plausible enough.	No Section 18-1-704.5. (1) says that : The general assembly hereby recognizes that the citizens of Colorado have a right to expect absolute safety within their own homes. (*emphasis added) Subsections (2), (3), and (4) all refer to "any occupant of a dwelling" as the class authorized to use force by this section. An offie is not a dwelling. Section 18-1-901. Definitions says: (g) "Dwelling" means a building which is used, intended to be used, or usually used by a person for habitation. Section Section 18-1-704 provides that: (1) Except as provided in subsections (2) and (3) of this section, a person is justified in using physical force upon another person in order to defend himself or a third person from what he reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful physical force by that other person, and he may use a degree of force which he reasonably believes to be necessary for that purpose. (2) Deadly physical force may be used only if a person reasonably believes a lesser degree of force is inadequate and: (a) The actor has reasonable ground to believe, and does believe, that he or another person is in imminent danger of being killed or of receiving great bodily injury; or (b) The other person is using or reasonably appears about to use physical force against an occupant of a dwelling or business establishment while committing or attempting to commit burglary as defined in sections 18-4-202 to 18-4-204; or (c) The other person is committing or reasonably appears about to commit kidnapping as defined in section 18-3-301 or 18-3-302, robbery as defined in section 18-4-301 or 18-4-302, sexual assault as set forth in section 18-3-402, or in section 18-3-403 as it existed prior to July 1, 2000, or assault as defined in sections 18-3-202 and 18-3-203.of person's authored by this law to use force Under that provision, the use of deadly force does not seem clearly justified. It is highly questionable that "a lesser degree of force is inadequate". Any conclusion that the intruder represents an "imminent use of unlawful physical force" seems dubious, but I can't say what a court might find. This law is fairly recent, there may be no published case law for it.	On the contrary there are hundreds of federal statutes that sanction civil forfeiture, as well as 18 U.S.C. § 983 (and other subsections inter alia) that governs civil forfeiture. What you seem to be more concerned with is the judicial oversight and regulations around civil forfeiture. The burden of proof varies between, and within, states - in some, prima facie/probable cause is all that is required, in others, a preponderance of evidence, or clear and convincing evidence is required. Just three states require proof beyond a reasonable doubt and civil forfeiture is only illegal in New Mexico. Civil forfeiture is subject to judicial review: a list of notable cases in civil forfeiture is available on Wikipedia. Here's some of the more interestingly-named ones: Marcus v. Search Warrant One 1958 Plymouth Sedan v. Pennsylvania Marcus v. Search Warrant held that the search and seizure procedures in that case lacked safeguards for due process, freedom of speech, and freedom of press. One 1958 Plymouth Sedan v. Pennsylvania held because the vehicle was searched without a warrant, and the untaxed liquor found thereby was used to invoke the forfeiture, the forfeiture was illegal (the Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures). So, what is the legal framework? Broadly speaking, 18 U.S.C 983, as well as state legislation. What recourse is there? Judicial review. However, the procedures vary between jurisdictions.	Breathalyzer tests are distinct from blood tests because the former does not "implicat[e] significant privacy concerns" (see Birchfeld v. ND). A cell phone is like a blood test, because it implicates significant privacy concerns, especially the level of electro-snooping that would be required to determine if someone had recently committed a phone-use offense. As the court held, Because the impact of breath tests on privacy is slight, and the need for BAC testing is great, the Fourth Amendment permits warrantless breath tests incident to arrests for drunk driving. A breath test might (but also might not) also satisfy the exigent-circumstances exception (waiting some number of hours for a warrant can easily result in the destruction of evidence), but a cell phone case could not give rise to such an exception. It should perhaps be noted that the "implied consent" laws are misnamed, because consent is not the issue. The 4th Amendment ban is on unreasonable searches, not unconsented searches. If you actually consent, it is reasonable for the police to search. I am not aware of any ruling to the effect that "because the defendant consented, the search is valid". In the context of breathalyzer law and case-law, an essential component of what makes the search reasonable is that it is incident to an arrest. With or without consent, or an implied consent law, Having assessed the effect of BAC tests on privacy interests and the need for such tests, we conclude that the Fourth Amendment permits warrantless breath tests incident to arrests for drunk driving. Extending "implied consent" to cause-unrelated searches of cars, homes, or body cavities might not pass strict scrutiny. The state has a legitimate interest in public safety which justifies some minimal intrusion, but adding a provision that "when you drive, you give implied consent to searches of everything" is not narrowly tailored. But since driving is a privilege and not a right, the state has much more leeway to give you an ultimatum: if you don't cooperate with the search, you can lose your license. On the other hand, SCOTUS has not actually approved of this slogan about driving being a privilege. Something noteworthy from Birchfield is that the court also disapproves of blood tests because a less invasive method of achieving the result is available, and they grant that "Imposition of a warrant requirement for every BAC test would likely swamp courts, given the enormous number of drunk-driving arrests, with little corresponding benefit". There being no less-invasive alternative means of realizing the legitimate state interest in stopping distracted driving, I actually expect that when this comes to pass and the matter ends up at SCOTUS, there will be another important change in search law (but "implied consent" will still be irrelevant).
How can Heroes of Might and Magic 3 feature Beholders when the same thing was banned from Tibia by Wizards of the Coast? Facts that I managed to find: Heroes of Might and Magic 3 features beholders (a monster in the Dungeon town), a flying brain-like blob with multiple eyestalks and one large center eye that shoots destructive beams. Tibia used to feature beholders, a flying brain-like blob with multiple eyestalks and one large center eye that shoots destructive beams. Changed to bonelord after a copyright claim by Wizards of the Coast. D&D universe features beholders - a flying brain like blob with multiple eyestalks and one large center eye that shoots destructive beams. I did not find any reference to D&D, Wizards of the Coast or anything related in the credits and other resources for HOMM3. How can 3DO use beholders while Cipsoft (Tibia creator) cannot, and isn't the fact that WOTC didn't pursue the same with 3DO (afaik) grounds for the copyright being unenforceable?	The "Beholder" was originally invented as part of AD&D (2nd edition IIRC) and copyrighted by TSR (Gary Gygax and associates, essentially). WotC bought TSR and all its assets, including copyrights. There were at least two other RPGs that tried to use Beholders and other original creatures from the Monster Manual of D&D and dropped them after a cease and desist order from the copyright holders. I believe one was from TSR, and one from WotC after they purchased TSR. To the best of my knowledge there was no actual copyright suit, so the validity of the copyright was never tested in court, but it is probably valid. Merely calling a creature a "Beholder" is not enough to violate the copyright, there would need to be actual copying of the description, or a sufficiently detailed similarity to make the use an infringement. That is always a matter of judgement, ultimately for a court in a copyright suit (or an appeals court). So, while all the possibilities mentioned in the answer by @Dale M are valid, it is additional possible that the version used by HOMM3 is not sufficiently close to the one copyrighted as part of AD&D for a copyright claim to prevail, or the WotC fears that it would not prevail, and so does not spend the money to try.	The argument would have to be either a derivative work under copyright, or a trade dress/trademark claim. Neither sounds very solid at all. Neither copyright nor trade dress/trademark protect ideas like a TV format. They can only protect very similar expressions of an idea that necessarily flow one from the other and, for example, the game mechanics can't be protected by copyright.	My question is, because I am not making any income from the distribution of the game, would the use of the copyrighted music fall under Personal Use? There are some "private use" exemptions in Australian copyright law but they have some fairly narrow conditions. These exemptions are fairly narrow because the point of copyright law is not to prevent you from making money with someone else's intellectual property but to protect the other person's ability to make money with it. If Alice writes a song and Bob distributes it free of charge, Alice loses revenue. Similarly, it is Alice's right to decide whether that song should be included in a freely available open-source software product, and her right to decide whether to allow that use without charge or in exchange for a license fee.	Ok, so it looks like there really are many questions being asked. 1) Is it illegal to host / own / operate a private server for games that require a server of such? And why? 2) Is it illegal to host / own / operate a private server for WOW? And why? 3) Is it illegal to join a private server for games that require a server? and why? 4) Is it illegal to join a private server for WOW? Answers 1 & 2) This depends on the game that is being hosted. There are many games that require servers in which this is not only legal, but encouraged by the company. MineCraft is one that comes to mind. You can host MineCraft servers, and even modify the server code. You can even charge for this service. However,for games like WOW, In short, yes if the server is profiting or If the server is running stolen or leaked software or If the server is distributing client files. If the server was recreated from the developers own mind, and was only compatible with the WOW server, then it's a bit more gray and depends on the Judge's level of understanding of technology. 3 & 4) This comes down to the EULA. If the EULA is like MineCraft, then you are good to go. If the EULA is like WOW, which forbids both modification of the client and participation on emulated servers then it is a violation of EULA. If WOW did not have the second part of "participation on emulated servers", then a user could modify on the router level to point to a private server.	Let’s work it through Is the work copyright? Yes. Are you making a copy or a derivative work? Yes. Do you have permission? No. At this point, it is prima facie copyright violation. However, various copyright laws have defences for breach. You don’t say where you are but as the USA is the most permissive in this regard we’ll use the USA. If it’s not legal there, it’s not legal anywhere. If it is legal there, it’s still likely to be not legal everywhere else. is it fair use? Almost certainly not. Wizards of the Coast (the copyright owner) already do this. While this service is free for creatures from the Monster Manual, it does drive traffic to their web site where they sell stuff. They also licence (presumably for money) others to do the same. Your usage would negatively affect the copyright owners market. This counts against fair use. Because it’s already being done, your work has virtually nil transformative value. This counts against fair use. You are copying a substantial part of the work. This counts against fair use. You are not using it commercially but neither is it for educational use. This is unlikely to matter. On balance: not fair use. TL;DR This is copyright violation.	Public domain means that there is no (longer) copyright in the given work. This means that all rights associated with copyright are not controlled by anyone and there is no way to run afoul of copyright laws (note that in some countries a true "public domain" doesn't exist). Assuming you're correct that these works are in public domain, answers to your particular questions are: Does that mean I can play the video's as much as I want to any size crowd I wanted? Could I charge money to watch the videos? Yes and yes. If something is in the public domain does that mean all the parts of that thing are? This kind of begs the question. A work in public domain has no copyright in it. If one of its part has copyright, then it's not really public domain is it? What about the characters in the videos, could I make a new Bugs Bunny or Might Mouse animation on my own? If I wanted to use Popeye or Betty Boop or daffy duck in a video game could I? Copyright isn't your issue here, trademarks are. The characters are most likely trademarked, meaning you generally can't use them in your own works without licensing.	I think you would have difficulty distorting the situation - Pokemon Go is not magic that defies existing laws, and this would be no different to a mall issuing a trespass notice (which is effectively how they would kick you out) for any other reason. I would question the ability of a store to "Arrest" you - that is a job for the police - After they trespass you (ie by giving you notice to leave), if you come back again then they can call the police to arrest you - but its not as clear-cut as someone seeing you playing a game and arresting you. I don't think Pokemon players are a "protected class" of people, so finding a valid cause of action might be tricky. About the best you could do would be to talk with your wallet (ie shop elsewhere with your friends), but for my money that would make me more likely to go to that mall !	When a company stops existing for whatever reason, then its assets (physical, financial, intellectual or otherwise) don't stop existing. When the company dissolves voluntarily, those assets usually go to the owner(s) of the company. When the company got bought up and integrated into another company, the buying company will usually own them. When the company went bankrupt and got liquidated, then they will often get sold off to the highest bidder. And then there is the question of who actually owns the IP rights to a specific game asset. Often there is not just one legal person which worked on a game. In addition to the developer, there might also have been a separate publisher who might or might not own IP rights. There might have been investors in the background who financed the project and now own some copyrights. Sometimes there was more than one publisher. And sub-contractors might have been involved in the development who only licensed their assets but retained copyright. So unfortunately it is often not really clear what happened to IP assets of a defunct company. People who might have the rights will often not care much about them until something happens which gives new commercial value to those assets. So even if you are unable to determine who owns the assets to a game, as soon as you start using them, someone might show up with a plausible claim to the IP rights and demand money from you. Such lawsuits can get really messy and really expensive. For a good example for just how much of a goose chase you might be in for when you want to legally obtain the rights to a game from a defunct company, check out the story of the re-release of No One Lives Forever. tl;dr: multiple game companies said "Maybe we have the rights to the game according to some contract buried in some file cabinet, but we don't care enough to find out. But if you try to release it, we will find out and if we do we will sue you!"
Is pretending to be the owner of a bank account illegal? I'm looking into a job, and I'm trying to figure out if there is a legal issue with it. The role is called "asset investigator." It entails confirming bank info on behalf of credit card companies who want to collect owed money. The job is as follows: the employer calls a bank and impersonates the owner of an account. After providing all sorts of personal info like social security number, address etc. (all provided by the company), the employer then confirms the account and tries to get as much info as possible- current balance, past transactions etc. The employer doesn't actually do anything to the account. No money is transferred, no passwords changed, etc. But the info is then passed on to the credit card companies, who can then proceed to sue the person for debt. I was told by an employer at the company that the credit card companies already have legal right to get this information from the bank, and they just prefer to avoid directly forcing banks to give over such private information (since it causes ill-will between the banks and the credit companies etc.) This doesn't sound so legal to me. However, all of the discussions I found talking about impersonating bank account owners all focused on the transferring of money. I couldn't find anything just discussing the impersonation. I'm trying to figure out: Is impersonating a bank account owner, in the above described situation, actually legal in general? Is it possible that in the specific situation, where the credit card companies (allegedly) have court permission to access the info, it would be permissible to impersonate the bank account owner?	There are professionals who are doing penetration testing in an attempt to find security vulnerabilities with the target company. They will have a clear, written contract with the target company to permit the attack. Professional conduct means making sure that the permission is genuine before starting the attack. Their aim is to map weak points in the security, not to extract personal data. There will be non-disclosure agreements to make sure. Reports go to the target of the attack, not to any third party. As you describe it, it looks as if scammers are setting you up as the fall guy for their schemes. They and the money will be gone, you go to prison.	Is it illegal to ask a company for money in exchange for information on a bug in their software/website? That in itself is legal. Indeed, the company would incur unjust enrichment if it coerced you to disclose your discovery for free. Only if you threatened the company to divulge to others your discovery unless the company pays you, it would be illegal and trigger charges such as extortion (likewise, legislations outlaw the unjustified delivery of programs or instructions for hacking a software/network/etc., although this goes beyond your actual question). Can the company take legal action against me? That seems doubtful, futile, and it could backfire (please note I have not done any research on legal precedents about this). Although the terms and conditions of the website or the End User License Agreement (EULA) of software might prohibit you to reverse engineer (RE)/decompile/etc. the application, anti-RE clauses are unenforceable and the remedies therefor are indeterminate because the sole act of conducting reverse engineering does not subject the company (or third parties) to any losses. The company's decision to take legal action for your discovery could backfire from two standpoints. First, it calls attention to the fact that the software at issue is defective and unsafe. And second, the bug is likely to be detected by someone else anyway, thereby potentially compromising customers' systems.	Note: IANAL Does the placement of a sticker stating, "We accept XYZ credit cards," essentially obligate a business to accept that card? It depends on whether you mean whether they are obligated to provide goods/services to someone who presents the card, or whether, having provided goods/services, they are obligated to accept the card as payment. For the first question, the answer is "no". The credit card brand could theoretically go after them, however, as names of credit networks are trademarks, so claiming to accept a card but not doing so is trademark infringement. For the second, the answer is "pretty much". Since they misrepresented their establishment, there is no mutual assent and therefore no contract. If they try to use "defrauding the innkeeper statutes", those require fraudulent intent. If you fully intended to pay for you meal by a credit card, and it was their choice to refuse payment, then you have no fraudulent intent. The only avenue I can see for them is some sort of equity argument, but that would be problematic, especially if they ask for the retail, rather than wholesale, price, and not worth the hassle of collecting. So, legally, you can just walk out, but in practice if they have a bouncer they might make trouble for you.	No, it is illegal in this case. Article 313-1 of the Criminal Code Fraudulent obtaining is the act of deceiving a natural or legal person by the use of a false name or a fictitious capacity, by the abuse of a genuine capacity, or by means of unlawful manoeuvres, thereby to lead such a person, to his prejudice or to the prejudice of a third party, to transfer funds, valuables or any property, to provide a service or to consent to an act incurring or discharging an obligation. Fraudulent obtaining is punished by five years' imprisonment and a fine of €375,000 In French: L'escroquerie est le fait, soit par l'usage d'un faux nom ou d'une fausse qualité, soit par l'abus d'une qualité vraie, soit par l'emploi de manoeuvres frauduleuses, de tromper une personne physique ou morale et de la déterminer ainsi, à son préjudice ou au préjudice d'un tiers, à remettre des fonds, des valeurs ou un bien quelconque, à fournir un service ou à consentir un acte opérant obligation ou décharge. L'escroquerie est punie de cinq ans d'emprisonnement et de 375 000 euros d'amende.	An employer doesn't have the authority to authorize its employees to violate the law. An employee who personally participates in a crime has both criminal and civil liability for the employee's actions. Private sector employers have vicarious respondeat superior civil liability for the actions of their employees taken in the scope of their duties. In other words, anything that an employee of a private sector employer is liable for, the employer is also liable for. Governmental employers do not have vicarious respondeat superior civil liability for the civil rights violations of the employees. Direct civil as opposed to vicarious civil liability, and criminal liability for an employer (governmental or private) is generally limited to acts carried out by employees of the entity at the direction of senior management or pursuant to a policy, explicit or implicit, of the employer. This said, it is the nature of large employers to break tasks into component parts spread over many employees in different parts of the employing entity. In some circumstances, an individual employee's role may be such that the employee lacks sufficient information about the overall course of action of the employer to know that their actions are part of an overall course of conduct by the employer that constitutes a crime or tort. For example, to retreat to an old school example, suppose that there is an employee who sits in front of a shredding machine all day and feeds paper into and clears paper jams, etc. whose job is to shred whatever documents are put in a bin next to his work station. This guy, who makes no decisions regarding what is to be shredded and has no real knowledge of why documents are being shredded, probably doesn't have criminal or civil liability if his labor is used to illegal destroy some documents. For all the shredder guy knows, he could simply be destroying redundant copies of documents to free up space in the filing cabinets while a single archival copy is retained. Typically, criminal laws require some level of mens rea (i.e. intent) which may be intent to do something in particular, it may be knowledge of certain facts, or what have you. An employee is generally only going to face criminal liability is the employee who carries out the wrongful act on behalf of the employer does so with the requisite knowledge and intent set forth in the criminal statute.	Regarding to your instructions concerning the funds in the account, it's hard to prove a negative. As far as I know there is no legislation that requires a credit balance to be retained. However, there may be some regulations or internal policies regarding the closure of home loans, which may preclude closure without some documentation or other process. But just because you can't cite legislation that requires you to do things, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You don't ask the new bank to support their claims which contradict the old banks, because it works in your favour. With regard to the last instruction regarding your funds, the bank can and will provide you with a list of fees and charges applied to your account - it's called a statement. With regard to your explicit other option - is what the bank's doing essentially theft? - you can call it theft, but it's not. At worst it's conversion, the remedy for which is the recovery of the converted property, or damages equal to the value of the property. If you have attempted to resolve your complaint through the bank's internal dispute resolution processes (usually some kind of complaint process), you can also contact the Financial Services Ombudsman, who may assist with these situations. Finally, as for your further instructions, they are all void and unenforceable. 1. You cannot impose terms on the conduct of another party without their agreement. This is called a counteroffer or variance to their established terms which you will have agreed to at the time that you established the original loan. 3. You can never be compensated just for your time.	There is no intention to commit theft, so there is no criminal act on the part of the customer. Even if there was a criminal act, the ability of the restaurant to detain the cusomer (citizen's arrest) is very limited in most jurisdictions. The restaurant can ask the customer for his name and address, but there is no legal obligation on the customer to provide this. Refusal to do so, however, might be evidence of intention to avoid paying and at that point the restaurant might call the police. The customer can leave, and the restaurant can pursue the debt through the civil courts if they have means to do so - they may have CCTV of the customer and his car registration which can be traced. Petrol stations, where people often fill up and then realise they can't pay, usually have established "promise to pay" procedures where they take the customer's details and the customer has 48 hours to pay before police or civil enforcement action is taken.	There is no misrepresentation by the bank as you describe it, there is negligence by the account holder to comply with the terms of the account. The bank made no representation at all regarding a balance due. If you want the bank to be at fault, they the customer would have to demand a declaration as to the existence of a balance due (choose your words carefully), and the bank would have to have falsely asserted that there is no present or future obligation. This is not going to happen. All the bank can say is that they have no present record of charges. The customer's question might be something like "Do you guarantee that there will be no charges to this account as of now". Of course, the bank cannot know whether there is a forthcoming paper charge that was made at some mountain resort. If case they did make such a promise, you could disavow the debt, using your reliance on their assertion as the basis for denying the debt. There is no law requiring banks to warn people of their contractual obligations when they close an account. I've never encountered a credit card contract that includes such a clause, but I suppose some bank might include a mandatory-warning clause, in which case they could be in breach of contract.
Are websites obligated to explain the Terms of Service? Suppose one submitted a clarification request regarding the ToS, and the website declined to comment for the time being. Is that legal? I understand one, if unsure, can simply not use said site. So I'm only interested in requests for clarification. I'm asking out of curiosity after said request was met with said reply. I'm neither taking, nor considering, legal action.	It is legal, and good policy, because the later explanation could create conflicting policies and notions as to what the "agreement" is. The TOS is probably created by a lawyer who interviewed the website owner to figure out what they wanted, then wrote legal language to do that. If you ask tech support how to interpret the TOS, you probably are not getting a legally-correct statement (assuming that the tech support guy isn't also a lawyer). Rather than take a risk that a customer would defend their action in court by arguing "they said I could!", the website may elect to not make promises that they don't want to keep. Instead, if you want to understand the agreement, you hire your own lawyer, then propose a hypothetical action, to see how the law interprets the language of the agreement. For example "can I rent out my Netflix password so that other people can use it?". The lawyer would then read the TOS and relevant cases law, and would advise you whether this is allowed under the TOS (it is not). Alternatively, you could read up on relevant aspects of the law and figure it out yourself. Website TOS is basically driven by copyright law, the technical necessity of some kind of automatic copying in order to use a web page, and the legal requirement that you can't copy without permission of the copyright holder. The TOS is the set of conditions that you must satisfy in order to be permitted to use the site. So many questions reduce to issues of copyright law and permission to copy *can you legally "permit" the copying of materials you upload?).	Why isn't forcing users to accept new Terms of Service by threatening financial loss, (like denying access to purchased content, or inhibiting or prohibiting the ability to earn an income), considered extortion and therefore illegal? Usually this is not illegal, and even if it is, it usually doesn't constitute extortion (or extortion's civil counterpart, which is called "duress", which is an affirmative defense to contract enforcement). Generally speaking, exercising a legal right someone already has, for a purpose that is not improper, does not constitute extortion. A TOS Rarely Creates A Reasonable Expectation That It Won't Change Most importantly, in the case of terms of service governed information technology services, the firm that creates the terms of service reserves, at the outset, the right to change them at any time. So, the user has no reasonable expectation that the terms of service won't change in a manner that they dislike. There is no implied promise to never change anything material about the service. Terms of service are usually specifically drafted from the outset to avoid creating something that looks like a property interest on the part of the user in having the service continue to work in a particular manner. TOS Terms May Not Be Unconscionable Both the original terms of service and any subsequent amendment of them, is not permitted to be "unconscionable" (e.g. it can't make the life of your first born child a liquidated damages provision that applies if the terms of service are breached). But, there isn't much of a legally protected reliance interest in not having the terms of service changed in this situation (although almost every general rule could conceivably have some exception to it, probably far more factually extreme than the fact patterns identified in the question). If a term is unconscionable, it may not be enforced as contrary to public policy, without regard to what prior versions of the same agreement may have stated. TOS Changes Are Usually Prospective Only On the other hand, a terms of service amendment is generally only effective prospectively and does not generally change rights that have fully accrued and vested prior to their amendment, at least until the user takes some act to affirmatively continue to use the service going forward. When there are vested rights under old versions, the remedy is not to characterize the change as extortion, however. It is to not apply the amendment to the terms of service retroactively to the already vested rights. For example, if the old terms of service did not contain an arbitration clause, and litigation was in progress under the old terms based upon old transactions, and then a new terms of service were adopted that mandated arbitration, this amendment would not generally be applied to require the pending lawsuit in court to be stayed and transferred to an arbitration forum. The right to litigated vested when the lawsuit was filed.	You have a contract - they have fulfilled their obligation (they paid you), if you do not fulfil their obligation (not to post it online) then you are in breach of the contract. Your obligation continues even if you gift the money back to them. If you breach the contract then they can sue you for the damage that they suffer. Presumably this would be damage to their reputation and for a public figure this could run into millions of dollars. In demanding additional money from them beyond what you are legally entitled to you are, at least, flirting with the crime of extortion/blackmail. This would not be a matter for them to sue you for, it would be a matter for the DA to prosecute if they chose to make a complaint. There doesn't seem to be a defamation issue here because you are not stating anything that isn't true. Now, the extent of the agreement appears to prohibit you posting it on the internet, however, the spirit of the agreement is that you will keep the information secret in all respects - that is likely how a court would look at it. Of course, if someone does steal the information from you then you haven't broken the agreement but you would probably have to prove that it was stolen when they sue you.	"Public domain" refers to things in principle copyrightable but where protection has lapsed, been repudiated, or is a statutory exception (such as government works). A website is not "in the public domain". The idea that a website is "public property" is (cough) mistaken. There are basically two ways in which a web interaction could be illegal. The first regards whether accessing another person's computer is illegally accessing a computer, which is a crime. Authorization essentially comes down to "permission": if the owner permits me to access the computer, I am authorized. Putting stuff out there on a web server is an open-ended grant of permission to look at a web page. That simply means that if I create a web page (with a bunch of links or not), I am granting you permission to interact with my computer to that extent. It does not create permission to hack into a password-protected subdirectory. An ordinary web crawler automates what a clicking human does. Copyright law is also relevant, in that the stuff I put on my webpage is not to be copied without permission. Any webpage access necessarily involves automatic copying from machine to machine: in putting stuff out there for the world to see, I am saying that the world can do that level of automatic copying that arises from normal html-and-click interactions. It does not mean that you can download and do stuff with my copyrighted content (i.e., it is not an abandonment of copyright: I did not put that stuff in the public domain). Putting a web page out there in an unrestricted fashion means that you've given a certain level of permission to "copy" (at least in the automatic server-to-browser viewing sense). I may want to impose conditions on peoples' access to my stuff, so I can impose terms on such material. For instance, I may require users to agree to certain conditions before accessing the CoolStuff subdirectory. Users then have to jump through a minor hoop and agree to those terms. In that case, my permission is conditional, and if you violate the terms of that agreement, I may be able to sue you for copyright infringement. It could then be a violation of my terms of service (TOS) if I say "you may not crawl my website" (in less vague language). A TOS gets its legal power from copyright law, because every webpage interaction involves copying (I assume that technical point is obvious), and copying can only be done with permission. You may technologically overcome my weak click-through technology so that the bot just says "sure whatever" and proceeds to illegally use my web page: I can sue you now for copyright infringement. The robot-specific methods of meta-tags and robots.txt have no legal force. Although there is a way to say "no you may not," which is tailored to automated access, the meaning and enforcement of these devices has not yet reached the law. If my page uses NOFOLLOW and your program doesn't know or care, you (your program) do not (yet) have a duty to understand, detect and respect that tag. Prior registration is also not a legal requirement, and very many pages that are on the master crawl list get there from being linked to by someone else's web page. Again, there is at present no legal requirement of pre-registration (and there is no effective mechanism for verifying that the site owner has registered the site). Archiving and especially re-displaying someone's content is, on the other hand, not legal. It would be plainly copyright infringement if you were to scoop up someone else's webpage and host it. You can analyze their material and somehow associate it with some search terms, and display a link to that page, but you cannot copy and republish their material. You can put very short snippets out there taken from a web page, under the "fair use" doctrine, but you can't wholesale republish a webpage. (It should be noted that the archive.org is an internationally recognized library, and libraries have extra statutory powers to archive).	StackExchange probably has no obligation to continue to provide the content, however StackExchange probably cannot stop copies from continuing to be used, reproduced, etc. from the Terms of Service (click on Legal below): You agree that all Subscriber Content that You contribute to the Network is perpetually and irrevocably licensed to Stack Exchange under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license. Bold added by me. The content is licensed to SE, unlike some sites where you transfer ownership of content to the site. SE can continue to use your data, but you still own the copyright. They can't limit your use of your own content, because you remain the owner. SE cannot use your content in a way that violates the Creative Commons Share Alike License, but I don't see any limitations on how SE makes your work available, including to a limited audience. They could, for example, probably move to a paid model because there are no commercial exclusions (unlike the Creative Commons non-commercial variations of the license). You could post a copy of SE content elsewhere, as long as you adhere to the requirements: In the event that You post or otherwise use Subscriber Content outside of the Network or Services, with the exception of content entirely created by You, You agree that You will follow the attribution rules of the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license as follows: You will ensure that any such use of Subscriber Content visually displays or otherwise indicates the source of the Subscriber Content as coming from the Stack Exchange Network. This requirement is satisfied with a discreet text blurb, or some other unobtrusive but clear visual indication. You will ensure that any such Internet use of Subscriber Content includes a hyperlink directly to the original question on the source site on the Network (e.g., https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12345) You will ensure that any such use of Subscriber Content visually display or otherwise clearly indicate the author names for every question and answer so used. You will ensure that any such Internet use of Subscriber Content Hyperlink each author name directly back to his or her user profile page on the source site on the Network (e.g., https://stackoverflow.com/users/12345/username), directly to the Stack Exchange domain, in standard HTML (i.e. not through a Tinyurl or other such indirect hyperlink, form of obfuscation or redirection), without any “nofollow” command or any other such means of avoiding detection by search engines, and visible even with JavaScript disabled. Making a complete copy of SE would seem to be within the terms of the license, as long as all the requirements for attributing, linking, etc are met, so you could mitigate the risk of the SE material going away in that manner.	It could be. Accessing any web page is subject to whatever the terms of use are for the page, and if those terms state that the page may only be accessed from within the US, then accessing the page from outside the US is a violation of the TOS (hence use is infringing): see 2.4(h) of the Netflix EULA. There are EU rules that override such terms, within the EU. The usual way to circumvent technological location-restrictions (where the web page says "I'm sorry, I can't let you do that") is to use a VPN and pretend to be somewhere else. Use of a VPN is not per se illegal in most countries (there are exceptions), but using it to circumvent geo-blocking may be. Again returning to the point that the TOS may itself say "No you may not", the interesting question is what to conclude if there is no such statement, for example I did not see anything in the PBS TOS that restricts access to the US (I didn't look very deeply). Terms of service can't be secret: you can't be held to following rules that you cannot reasonably know of. If you attempt to access a page that uses un-announced geo-blocking technology and it informs you that you can't use the page because of your location, then you have effectively been put on notice that there is a rule. If you happen to be using a VPN and access an un-announced, (reasonably) undetectable geo-blocked site, that would not be a breach of the terms (because you have not been put on notice that location is a term of use).	Not that I am aware of. A person who 'owns' a domain is entitled to utilize that domain including for the purposes of receiving emails. With physical mail, it is a crime in most countries to intentionally interfere with mail that is not addressed to you. For example - Australia. However, this is statute law and as such does not extend to emails - even if it did, if you own the domain then you are the person to whom it was addressed. I note that you seem to misunderstand "confidential" - this only arises in the context of a special relationship between the person transmitting the information and the person receiving it. Usually this is a contractual obligation between A and B but it can be imposed by law (e.g. doctor-patient, banker-client, lawyer-client, GDPR etc.). If A sends confidential (as between A & B) information to C, C is under no general obligation to keep it confidential if C has no relationship of confidentiality with A or B. If C discloses it and B suffers damage, B sues A for breach of confidence (or the government prosecutes A for breaking the law); B has no case against C. For your situation, where B has allowed A to send the information to an obsolete address then B has contributed to the breach to an extent that B would be extremely unlikely to succeed in a suit against A.	There are two cases to distinguish: information that the other party does not want to give without court order, and information that the other party may not give without court order. Only the former case matters, of course, since the latter by definition requires a court order. So, if the other party is legally capable of giving the information, but it's commercially not sensible for them, then you'll need to sweeten the deal. And that's business, not a legal question anymore. In other words: there's no legal instrument that's at the same time equal to a court order but also different from one. When you need a court order, there's no alternative to a court order.
If I have posted my own "homebrew" content on RPG.SE, and plan to publish it (after revising based on feedback), what credits am I required to give? I have posted numerous homebrew features on Role-playing Games Stack Exchange, and I have used advice gotten from that site to balance most of them. If, one day, I publish the subclass, would I be required to give any or all of the following credits? To the RPG.SE website as a whole To the individual users that gave feedback Just to the users whose feedback I used Or would I not be required to give any credit?	It's complicated You still own your own posts First off, you own everything that you originally created. Posting it on Stack Exchange doesn't affect your rights to your own content. Incorporating suggestions If you copy any of the text from posts that were created by others, you must comply with the CC BY-SA license. The exact version will depend on when the content was posted, and can be viewed by clicking the "Share" link or viewing the post's timeline via the clock icon on the left. Currently, new posts are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, which requires you to (basically) provide attribution with the creator's name, a link back to the content, and an indication of whether changes were made. A more detailed description of the exact requirements is here. You would also be required to license the work that you incorporated it into under the same license. However, game mechanics aren't copyrightable. If you merely used mechanics suggested in the posts without actually using the actual creative expression (for instance, names or description text) from the posts, you would not be required to provide any attribution or use any particular license, because you didn't use any copyrightable material from the post. A thank-you would still be nice All that said, it's still a nice thing to do to provide some sort of informal thanks to those who provided valuable assistance, even when you're not legally required to do so.	I believe the author has published it online. I agree. It is posted at his publisher's website. However, I am unsure if I'm allowed to read it. This answer assumes you are in jurisdiction whose copyright laws is based upon the Berne convention (i.e. the civilized world + USA). Assuming it was the author published it online, it is perfectly legal to read it. Technically, the author is performing his work by putting it online, and by reading it, you are just enjoying his performance. Also, if you are in a jurisdiction with an explicit exception from copyright for personal use, or where fair use allows making copies for personal use, it would also be legal to download it, or to print it on paper (but for personal use only). As for downloading and printing for non-personal use - that is not legal in Berne jurisdictions.	You automatically have copyright protection for what you create. A collection of numeric answers to math equations probably would not qualify (lack of requisite creativity), but certainly anything that counts as a "paper" is protected.	I believe you have just misunderstood what you paid for. Blizzard's End User License Agreement says: Your use of the Platform is licensed, not sold, to you, and you hereby acknowledge that no title or ownership with respect to the Platform or the Games is being transferred or assigned and this Agreement should not be construed as a sale of any rights. It also says: Blizzard may change, modify, suspend, or discontinue any aspect of the Platform or Accounts at any time, including removing items, or revising the effectiveness of items in an effort to balance a Game. Blizzard may also impose limits on certain features or restrict your access to parts or all of the Platform or Accounts without notice or liability.	Can a system include such information? it is surely technically possible. Would it be a violation of copyright? That depends. First of all, any such information can be included if the copyright holder has granted permission, probably in the form of a license. But in that case this question would probably not have been asked. I therefore assume that no permission has been granted. (It doesn't matter if a request was made and the answer was "no", a request was made but ignored, or no request was ever made. No permission is still no permission.) The names of fictional locations are nor protected by copyright. Including, say, "Rivendell" or "Hobbiton" in the selection list for a timezone setting would not infringe the copyrights held by the Tolkien estate. But a map is a different thing. If the OS includes and can display a map of a fictional region, one that is copied from or based on a map published with the fiction, or by some third party, then that would almost surely be copyright infringement, and the copyright holder could choose to sue for infringement. S/he might choose not to sue, but that is a risky gamble to take. If this is in the US, statutory damages could be awarded, and could intheory go as high as $150,000, although they are not likely to be as high as that, that is just the maximum legal limit (per work infringed, not per copy). The standard is whatever amount the court thinks "just", up to the maximum. (If proof of willful infringement is not made, the upper limit is $30,000, still a sizable sum.) If the OS designer created the map independently, using names from the fiction, but not otherwise basing it on the fiction, and in particular not imitating any map created by anyone else, then it may well not be infringement, but it would still be wise to consult a copyright lawyer. The question would be more helpful if it made clear just what would be hypothetically included in the OS, and to what extent it would be based on someone else's work. There is also the question of why someone would want to include fictional places, but that really doesn't change the legal issue.	I'm wondering whos responsible for this code if people start using it? The user. Can the people using it that think its under GPL in any way get in trouble for it or be made to remove it from their projects? Yes, they can be sued (successfully) for copyright violation. It’s not enough that you think you have permission from the copyright holder - you actually have to have permission. The law places the onus on the copier to seek out and get permission from the copyright holder. In theory, someone deceived in this way could sue the repo poster(s) for misrepresentation, however, there are practical issues about finding them, having them in an accessible jurisdiction and if they are judgement proof. Copyright law was created to protect physical books and paintings - it doesn’t really fit with digital methods of reproduction but it is the law. It doesn’t matter that complying with it can be hard bordering on impossible - comply with it you must.	In general this kind of brief literary reference is not unlawful, and such things occur in both novels and commercial games with some frequency. Making such a reference a major part of the plot, such as by using a name from a previous work as a major character, particularly if other aspects of that character are also used, is far more likely to cause a problem. In the united-states this would be a matter of fair use. In general, when only a very small part of the source work is used, such a a single name; where the use is "transformative", that is used for a rather different purpose than in the source work; where the use does not harm the market for the original work; and where the use does not serve as a replacement for the original, it is likely to be held to be fair use. But fair use decisions are always fact-dependent, and are made case-by-case, so it is hard to be absolutely sure of one in advance. But the kind of literary reference described in the question is very unlikely to be held to be copyright infringement.	In Germany, there is no concept that corresponds directly to public domain. You automatically hold the Urheberrecht (~ copyright) for all creative works that you make, and it can't be given up or transferred (§29 UrhG). The work only enters the Gemeinfreiheit (~public domain) 70 years after your death. You can however license Verwertungsrechte (economic usage rights). When you make creative works in the course of employment (see §43 UrhG), your employer automatically gets the Verwertungsrechte necessary in the context for the work, which is typically an exclusive right (no one else, not even you, can use the work). Your are not in an employment relationship with your school, so it has no rights to your works and cannot prevent you from publishing them on copyright grounds. When you see advice on the internet to check with your school first, that is U.S.-specific advice. Since you're still a minor (7–17), you only have limited capacity to enter contracts or legal transactions (bedingte Geschäftsfähigkeit). While you are able to make transactions involving your own means (e.g. buying something with your pocket money) or make transactions that are only to your benefit (such as accepting a gift), other transactions are schwebend unwirksam (~ pending ratification), until your parents agree. The relevant law is in §107 and §108 BGB. This is a problem with open source licenses. If you publish software under a license, this license is schwebend unwirksam. Someone might start using the software under the license. But then if your parents refuse ratification, the license would be invalid, and everyone would have to stop using your software and destroy any derivative works they made. This is a bit of a problem, especially since open source licenses are otherwise assumed to be irrevocable. So if you want to offer a license (including open source licenses), please give legal certainty to the recipients of the license and ask your parents for their consent first, possibly even in writing. Per §107 BGB, the license you offer with their consent will be valid.
Does accused always plead not guilty in federal court? I've recently been following the case of boxer Felix Verdejo, who pleaded not guilty yesterday in killing of Keishla Rodríguez. Cádiz Martínez, a second person indicted in the killing, also pleaded not guilty. According to the reports, this 2nd person (Cádiz Martínez) participated in the killing, and has been cooperating with the FBI. His testimony is a big part of the reason why the boxer was arrested. My question: Why would he plead not guilty if he's cooperating with the FBI? Since the death penalty is being considered, I assumed that he gave testimony in order to plead guilty and get a reduced sentence. But then I read that it's a formality to plead "not guilty", and that's why I posted the question.	It is certainly not the case that all accused plead not guilty. Some plead guilty, often as part of a plea bargain. Some plead "no contest" meaning that the accused does not admit guilt, but will not argue the point in court. For many purposes this has the same effect as a guilty plea, but may matter later when the accused can truthfully say that no guilt was ever admitted. I think there are some other less common pleas available as well. It is not uncommon for an accused to plead not-guilty at first, and later complete an agreement with the prosecutor and change the plea to guilty, perhaps on only one accusation or some subset of accusations. This would often be in connection with some sort of plea bargain. In general, if there is any doubt about wanting to contest the accusation, an initial plea of not-guilty will be made by the accused, because this is fairly easy to change to a plea of guilty later, while changing a plea of guilty to not-guilty is much harder, and is not always allowed. I do not know what reasons there might be in the specific case mentioned, but I caution that news reports on such matters are not always accurate.	Not all illegal things are crimes. Lack of evidence. They are asked to testify, and they say "what I said in my book was a lie". There is no general law against lying, except when under oath. Statute of limitations. Saying "10 years ago I did smoke drugs" means that any offence is no longer prosecutable. Lack of details. Which jurisdiction were they in? When did they commit the act, how many acts? You cannot be arrested for being a "bank robber" or a "murderer". You are charged with "robbing Bank X on 123 Fake Street the Thursday 25 April 2018" or "murdering Jim Thio in January 2017". Otherwise the defendant would have a hard time defending himself (how to prove that you have not killed anyone at any time?) All of the above combined with prosecutorial discretion in the form that any possible prosecutor will most likely determine that bringing charges would be just a waste of time and resources. UPDATE February 2018: Just for the sake of completeness, a reference to the situation of Jacques Cassandri, who did boast about a serious crime(a robbery in a Societe Generale vault in 1976) in a book. Unfortunately for him, he made some kind of mistake/miscalculation and the crime had not yet expired, so he has become an example of someone being prosecuted by confessing a crime in a book.	In the US, a person is generally protected from being tried for the same offense twice, but they are not necessarily absolutely "protected". If a jury convicts a person but the judge enters a directed verdict of not guilty, the prosecution can appeal that action (Wilson v. US, 420 U.S. 332). The reason is that the acquittal could be disposed of on appeal without subjecting the person to a second trial. In contrast, in Fong Foo v. US, 369 U.S. 141 the trial judge ordered the jury to enter a verdict of acquittal. The appeals court rejected the judges basis for ordering an acquittal: but Fong Foo was "protected" because there could not be a second trial (double jeopardy), and it does not follow that the jury would have convicted but for the judge's order. The question reduces to the limited circumstances under which the prosecution can appeal a verdict. For instance, the prosecution can appeal a tre-trial motion to dismiss, and since there was no trial, there is no second jeopardy. Within a single jurisdiction, the only circumstance allowing a second trial involves bribery of a judge (Aleman v. Judges of the Circuit Court of Cook County, 138 F.3d 302), where the basis for allowing a second trial is that defendant was not in jeopardy with the first trial. New evidence does not override a defendant's protection against a second trial, whether it is new DNA evidence or a confession. It does not matter if this evidence arises seconds after the final verdict is entered, or months after. Or even before, but the prosecution was unaware.	No That is nothing but fiction. Assuming that this is in the US, the police would (probably, there are some exceptions) have had to deliver the well-known "Miranda" warnings, that the suspect has the right to silence, the right to consult a lawyer, and the right to have a free lawyer if unable to afford one, and that statements may be used against the subject. If, after those warnings, the suspect chooses to confess, or to make a statement, that confession or statement would be fully admissible, even if the suspect did not have a lawyer present, unless there was some other reason for the statement to be excluded. No such reason is mentioned in the question. It is simply not the case in the US that a confession is excluded just because no lawyer was present, nor is that the law anywhere that I know of. If the police failed to give the warnings when they were required, then any statements or confessions would be excluded. The decision in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966) says: law enforcement officials took the defendant into custody and interrogated him in a police station for the purpose of obtaining a confession. The police did not effectively advise him of his right to remain silent or of his right to consult with his attorney. Rather, they confronted him with an alleged accomplice who accused him of having perpetrated a murder. When the defendant denied the accusation and said "I didn't shoot Manuel, you did it," they handcuffed him and took him to an interrogation room. There, while handcuffed and standing, he was questioned for four hours until he confessed. During this interrogation, the police denied his request to speak to his attorney, and they prevented his retained attorney, who had come to the police station, from consulting with him. At his trial, the State, over his objection, introduced the confession against him. We held that the statements thus made were constitutionally inadmissible. ... the prosecution may not use statements, whether exculpatory or inculpatory, stemming from custodial interrogation of the defendant unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the privilege against self-incrimination. By custodial interrogation, we mean questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way. [Footnote 4] As for the procedural safeguards to be employed, unless other fully effective means are devised to inform accused persons of their right of silence and to assure a continuous opportunity to exercise it, the following measures are required. Prior to any questioning, the person must be warned that he has a right to remain silent, that any statement he does make may be used as evidence against him, and that he has a right to the presence of an attorney, either retained or appointed. The defendant may waive effectuation of these rights, provided the waiver is made voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently. If, however, he indicates in any manner and at any stage of the process that he wishes to consult with an attorney before speaking, there can be no questioning. Likewise, if the individual is alone and indicates in any manner that he does not wish to be interrogated, the police may not question him. The mere fact that he may have answered some questions or volunteered some statements on his own does not deprive him of the right to refrain from answering any further inquiries until he has consulted with an attorney and thereafter consents to be questioned. That tells you exactly what the police are forbidden to do. Nowhere does it say that a lawyer must be present. Indeed it says the opposite: The defendant may waive effectuation of these rights, provided the waiver is made voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently. That means that s/he can confess after being warned, and such confession would be admissible, provided that s/he knew and understood those rights.	Such things are in fact legal in some US jurisdictions, as part of plea bargains. In fact such pleas are not uncommon. More usual is the case where a person pleads guilty to a lesser crime, so as to qualify for a lower sentence, when all involved know that the lesser crime was not committed by anyone. It is simply a device to get a compromise sentence and avoid a trial. In some jurisdictions the Judge, in the course of accepting a guilty plea, requires that the accused admit specific facts that form a minimal legal basis for conviction of the crime pled to. In others no such admission is made. But even where such an admission is made, the truth of such an admission is not usually checked. The Judge will generally make sure that the accused understands the effect of a guilty plea, the rights given up by such a plea, and the possible range of sentences that will result. If the Judge believes that the plea constitutes a miscarriage of justice, for example that a totally innocent person is yielding to improper pressure from the prosecutor, the Judge can refuse the plea, but this is very rare in practice.	He is probably guilty of negligent homicide or involuntary manslaughter, at most (a minor felony), and is possibly not guilty of a crime at all. The primary distinction between classes of homicide is mens rea (i.e. intent). The only affirmative act he took was to move the pillow. He did so both without intending to or knowing that he would kill Jane (the intent necessary for murder), and also, without clear actual knowledge that he would be creating a risk that Jane would die (a reckless state of mind that would support a conviction for manslaughter). Also, note that Walter himself, at this time, is not engaged in a felony, so he is not guilty of felony murder. We can presume he is present with the consent previously given of the owner of the property and did not mean anyone any harm. Likewise, this is not what is meant by "extreme indifference" for purposes of a murder statute, the paradigm of which is shooting randomly into a crowd knowing that someone will almost certainly be killed without knowing or intending that any particular person will die. The mental state necessary for negligent homicide is the equivalent of "gross negligence" in a civil case and is called "criminal negligence" in a criminal case. To be criminally negligent a person must fail to perceive a substantial and unjustifiable risk that a certain result will occur, and the risk must be of such a nature that the defendant's failure to perceive it constitutes a gross deviation from a reasonable person's standard of care. If a jury found that a reasonable person ought should clearly know that moving a pillow put Jane at risk of dying, then he might be guilty of criminal negligence. But, if a jury found that a reasonable person would not know that moving the pillow put Jane at grave risk of death, his action would not be criminally negligent. There are also at least three questions of causation which is not entirely independent of the question of negligence. First, generally an act is only considered a cause of a consequence if it is a foreseeable result of the action. If Jane's vomit caused death is not a foreseeable result of moving the pillow, then her death might not be legally caused by moving the pillow. Second, how likely is it that she would have died even if Walter had never entered the room. There are lots of ways that the pillow could have been jostled during the night leading to the same result. If it likely would have happened anyway, Walter's involvement might not be the legal cause of the death. Third, how much fault should be attributed to Jane? This is closely related to the second question. If her death was primarily caused by her getting dangerously high and placing herself in a vulnerable position, perhaps Walter's involvement is not a meaningful cause of the death. A New Mexico court has held that the defense that the victim was negligent has value only if it establishes that the victim's negligence was the sole cause of the accident. State v. Maddox, 99 N.M. 490, 660 P.2d 132 (Ct. App. 1983). But, what about Jesse's negligence? Under a relevant standard criminal jury instruction in New Mexico: The State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant's act was a significant cause of the death of __________________ (name of victim). Evidence has been presented that the negligence of a person other than the defendant may have contributed to the cause of death. Such contributing negligence does not relieve the defendant of responsibility for an act that significantly contributed to the cause of the death so long as the death was a foreseeable result of the defendant's actions. However, if you find the negligence of a person other than the defendant was the only significant cause of death, then the defendant is not guilty of the offense of __________________ (name of offense). Caveat: A number of states impose strict criminal liability on drug dealers, often for murder, if someone died from using a drug sold by them, but often it has to be a child, and often the drug has to be the proximate cause of death, e.g. due to an overdose or impurity in the drug. I would presume that Jesse and not Walter supplied the drugs to Jane, that Jane is an adult, and it is not obvious that the drug itself (as opposed to the vomiting due to the manner in which the drugs were used) was the proximate cause of death, so a statute like this might not apply in any case. This brings us to the hard part of the question: Without the pillow Jane rotates on her back and starts to vomit and cough, still sleeping. At first Walter tries to react, running to the other side of the bed to help her, but then he stops and decides to do nothing as she dies. Note that if Walter had moved the pillow without knowing that he was creating a risk, left the room ignorant, and then this happened, surely Walter would have no legal liability for Jane's death. If Walter develops the necessary intent for criminal liability, this probably doesn't happen until he observes that she is starting to choke on her vomit and might die. Even then, he does not intend for Jane to die and probably doesn't even know for certain that she will die from his inaction, so he is probably, at most reckless, if he has a duty to rescue for criminal law purposes. Generally, under both civil and criminal law, there is no duty to rescue, even if you can do so without any risk of harm to yourself. But, there is an exception, at least in civil liability, for a duty to rescue that arises from the fact that you put the person at risk of peril through your affirmative actions. Does this apply here, at all, or in a criminal case? The first question is the exact language of the homicide statute. Some homicide offenses require affirmative acts, while others can arise from acts or omissions where there is a legal duty to act. Every crime requires some voluntary act or omission, and the voluntary act itself was not a crime and perhaps was not even a tort, at the moment it was taken, because Walter did not realize that his act created a risk of harm. He create a peril, but he did so innocently. A pretty standard formulation is that an omission is only a crime when the law creates a legal duty to act, but this is, of course, a question begging standard as it doesn't clarify whether there is a legal duty to act, which is at issue here. As the previous link notes, creation of a peril can give rise to a legal duty to act, but only sometimes. (4) Duty arising from creation of peril. If a person acts culpably to imperil another, he or she has a legal duty to rescue the victim. The cases are split on whether a duty to rescue arises if someone innocently or accidentally imperils another. This case would fall in the category of someone who innocently or accidentally imperils another, in which the cases are split, which which the linked article cites the following authority: Compare Commonwealth v. Cali, 247 Mass. 20, 24-25, 141 N.E. 510, 511 (1923) (defendant under duty to try to extinguish a fire that he accidentally set to his house and thus was guilty of arson when he did not) with King v. Commonwealth, 285 Ky. 654, 659, 148 S.W.2d 1044, 1047 (1941) (defendant who, in lawful defense of a third person, shot and wounded an attacker was under no duty to seek medical attention for the wounded assailant). A commentary that is part of a California standard jury instruction (for involuntary manslaughter, not murder for which this kind of liability is presumably not available) makes the following observation: A legal duty to act may also exist where the defendant's behavior created or substantially increased the risk of harm to the victim, either by creating the dangerous situation or by preventing others from rendering aid. (People v. Oliver (1989) 210 Cal.App.3d 138, 147-148 [258 Cal.Rptr. 138] [defendant had duty to act where she drove victim to her home knowing he was drunk, knowingly allowed him to use her bathroom to ingest additional drugs, and watched him collapse on the floor]; Sea Horse Ranch, Inc. v. Superior Court (1994) 24 Cal.App.4th 446, 456 [30 Cal.Rptr.2d 681] [defendant had duty to prevent horses from running onto adjacent freeway creating risk].) These examples would suggest that an innocently or accidentally created risk is sufficient to create a duty sufficient to support involuntary manslaughter liability for an omission under California law, and would probably lead to involuntary manslaughter liability in the case in the question as well, under California law. New Mexico, unlike California, does not have a standard criminal jury instruction or really definitive section of its criminal code that clearly resolves this question, although the fact that California which uses a murder, voluntary manslaughter, and involuntary manslaughter distinction in the same way that New Mexico does, limits criminal liability for omissions to involuntary manslaughter suggests that New Mexico would as well. The New Mexico case State v. Greenwood, 2012 -NMCA- 017, 271 P.3d 753 (N.M. App. 2011), touches on the issue, suggesting that there may be liability only for involuntary manslaughter (or certain specialized crimes based upon a relationship such as that of a nursing home to a resident of a nursing home) based upon an omission, and that the liability for an omission can only arise when there is a legal duty, but almost implies that only contactual duties are sufficient. It does so at paragraph 35 which says: Importantly, even if the LINKS contract relating to Jared were to have been renewed and to have been in force at the time of Jared's death, we are not convinced that it would be the sole basis or even a controlling factor in determining Defendant's legal responsibility under the Act. Defendant's criminal liability must exist solely based on an omission— a failure to act when she had a legal responsibility to act. See Deborah A. Goodall, Penal Code Section 22.04: A Duty to Care for the Elderly, 35 Baylor L.Rev. 589, 594 (1983) (stating that " authorities have long agreed that before an omission can constitute an offense[,] there must first be a duty to act" ); see also People v. Beardsley, 150 Mich. 206, 113 N.W. 1128, 1129 (1907) (" The law recognizes that under some circumstances the omission of a duty owed by one individual to another, where such omission results in the death of the one to whom the duty is owing, will make the other chargeable with manslaughter. This rule of law is always based upon the proposition that the duty neglected must be a legal duty, and not a mere moral obligation. It must be a duty imposed by law or by contract, and the omission to perform the duty must be the immediate and direct cause of death." (citation omitted)). But, this could be dicta because it was a case where any legal duty would arise under contract rather than for another reason, and as is the case in many smaller states, there is simply no case that has ever been decided in New Mexico which is squarely on point. Under British criminal law, in similar circumstances, a homicide conviction was vacated: R v Khan & Khan (1998) CLR 830, confirmed that there is no separate category of manslaughter by omission unless the omission constitutes a breach of duty to act. The defendants supplied a 15-year-old prostitute with twice the amount of heroin likely to be taken by a regular user. The defendants left her unconscious in the flat, returning the next day to find that she had died of the overdose. Had medical assistance been called, the girl would probably not have died. The unlawful act was supplying the drug but the death was caused by the quantity injected by the victim. The trial judge invited jury to consider liability on the basis of the defendants' failure to summon medical assistance. On appeal, the conviction was quashed because the brothers had not accepted a duty to act before she took the heroin. A dissertation on when criminal liability is imposed for omissions in Scottish law can be found here. New Mexico, whose laws really should govern, has just two homicide statutes: § 30-2-1. Murder A. Murder in the first degree is the killing of one human being by another without lawful justification or excuse, by any of the means with which death may be caused: (1) by any kind of willful, deliberate and premeditated killing; (2) in the commission of or attempt to commit any felony; or (3) by any act greatly dangerous to the lives of others, indicating a depraved mind regardless of human life. Whoever commits murder in the first degree is guilty of a capital felony. B. Unless he is acting upon sufficient provocation, upon a sudden quarrel or in the heat of passion, a person who kills another human being without lawful justification or excuse commits murder in the second degree if in performing the acts which cause the death he knows that such acts create a strong probability of death or great bodily harm to that individual or another. Murder in the second degree is a lesser included offense of the crime of murder in the first degree. Whoever commits murder in the second degree is guilty of a second degree felony resulting in the death of a human being. Walter doesn't qualify for any of these prongs of the statute. § 30-2-3. Manslaughter Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice. A. Voluntary manslaughter consists of manslaughter committed upon a sudden quarrel or in the heat of passion. Whoever commits voluntary manslaughter is guilty of a third degree felony resulting in the death of a human being. B. Involuntary manslaughter consists of manslaughter committed in the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to felony, or in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death in an unlawful manner or without due caution and circumspection. Whoever commits involuntary manslaughter is guilty of a fourth degree felony. Clearly, Walter also does not qualify as guilty of voluntary manslaughter. There is no quarrel or heat of passion. So, either Walter is guilty in New Mexico of involuntary manslaughter, or he is not guilty of homicide at all. New Mexico also has an unusual, and rather merciful "excusable homicide" provision at New Mexico Statutes § 30-2-5, that should also be considered: Homicide is excusable in the following cases: A. when committed by accident or misfortune in doing any lawful act, by lawful means, with usual and ordinary caution and without any unlawful intent; or B. when committed by accident or misfortune in the heat of passion, upon any sudden and sufficient provocation, or upon a sudden combat, if no undue advantage is taken, nor any dangerous weapon used and the killing is not done in a cruel or unusual manner. Arguably, Walter falls under "excusable homicide" part A, as moving the pillow was a lawful act done without unlawful intent and that is what caused the death.	Can millions of these individuals be indicted? Yes, they can indicted. Anyone (as an individual or a group who conspires) who commits a crime can be indicted. (But, it's a fantasy to think that millions would be indicted as part of a conspiracy.) The reason many people are not indicted for crimes is because they are not caught by law enforcement (LE) or because of the lack of the sheer numbers of LE required to pursue all criminals. And, if criminals are caught, the reason they may or may not be indicted is either prosecutorial discretion, i.e., a prosecutor decides not to indict because the crime isn't very serious. Or, probably much more relevant, is that there simply are not enough personnel in a county or state attorney's office to prosecute everyone who could be indicted. Prosecutors must oftentimes make decisions on who to indict and consider their available time, the seriousness of the crime, the available evidence and the possibilities of the success of their indictments. And, of course, politics sometimes comes into play; prosecutors may or may not pursue indictments because of political expediency, i.e. deporting an model citizen who also happens to be in the country illegally. But political pressure can work both ways, for and against prosecutorial discretion. Depending on your persuasion, it's either a bug or a feature in our legal system. But political influence and public opinion can also lead to changes in the legal system, as it is the representational branch of our governmental system that legislates the laws that the judicial system uses and enforces. If enough criminals are not indicted for a particular crime, and social or political pressure comes to bear, chances are good the legislative branch will take action. That's the way the system works.	As far as I know, every jurisdiction in America limits perjury to cases of lying under oath. Because it seems unlikely that the driver would be under oath at this point, you would probably lack probable cause to make an arrest. At the same time, many states have separate laws addressing the making of false reports, lying to an officer, etc. I'd imagine most jurisdictions would have a law supporting an arrest for lying at the scene, even if not for perjury.
What kind of objects can be reclaimed? What if you're purchasing a house and the previous owner wishes to reclaim some of the objects in your house? Wouldn't all the objects now be owned by the current owner, and if not, what kind of objects can be reclaimed?	When selling a residential property in the UK, you normally fill out a form called the TA10 Fittings and Contents Form, which outlines everything in the property included in the sale. This isn't a legal requirement, but your conveyancing solicitor will normally recommend it. Anything else left in the property after the completion of the sale is still, legally, a possession of the previous owner and the new owner is obliged to inform them of these possessions in writing. So, you do have to return it (and most people in such situations do return the possessions without question). However, if the presence of those possessions means you can't be reasonably expected to move into the property, then you can claim compensation from the previous owner for alternative accommodation (i.e. a hotel) until the situation is rectified. Or if the previous owner refuses to collect the possessions, you can likewise claim compensation for the costs of disposing of it. Alternatively, if they do want the possessions back, but take their time getting it, you can charge them fair storage costs.	Am I required to help purchase this property for the HOA? Your HOA (homeowner's association) can do what it governing documents permit it to do. It is highly unlikely that there is a statutory prohibition against it doing so. It is quite common, for example, for an HOA to temporary take ownership of units. when the owner of the units had defaulted on their HOA assessment payment obligation, and the HOA forecloses on its lien for unpaid assessments (especially when the units is low in value, like a separately owned parking space or storage unit). Typically, an HOA might want to own vacant lots so that it can control how that vacant lots are developed to prevent an undesirable use of those lots, or to reserve space for the construction of common areas such as community gardens or lawns or HOA facilities, in the future. Normally, such a power would be expressly stated, or would be expressly prohibited, in the governing documents. If the HOA governing documents are silent, typically one would look to the general statutes governing organizations of its type (e.g. non-profit corporations, if that is how the HOA is organized). Most general statutes of this type would permit such a purchase (and a subsequent sale of the lots) if the vote required by the governing documents to purchase (or sell as the case may be) of real property have been complied with by the board. If so do I have any land and title rights to said property? This would normally be spelled out prominently in the governing documents of the HOA. As a practical matter, the HOA would be in exclusive control of the property and would have exclusive responsibility for maintaining and paying for obligations arising from the property, all of which would be paid out of HOA assessments along with any revenue that the land generates. In some HOAs land and title of common areas and other real estate and property of an LLC is legally vested in the HOA entity as a corporate owner of it, and you own membership interests in the HOA. This usually increases the economic value of your membership interest, but has little other direct impact. In some HOAs (which are called "condominiums" when using that term in the strict rather than in the colloquial or broad sense) land and title of common areas and other real estate of an LLC is held as an undivided tenancy in common interest of all HOA members in proportion to their assessment percentage, with the HOA having an irrevocable power of attorney to manage it on behalf of its members, although, in practice, the differences between these and corporate ownership of common areas and other HOA real estate is almost nil. Sometimes, rather than an irrevocable power of attorney, the HOA is a trustee over the common areas and other real estate which are beneficially owned by the members as tenants in common, instead.	If someone gave a gift than requested it back is it legal? The request itself is legal, but that does not mean that you have to comply with it. I never promised anything that tied to the tablet. So I'm not sure if it counts as a conditional gift. It does not. An unconditional gift (which initially you did not even want) fails to meet the elements of a cognizable doctrine such as contract, promissory estoppel, fraud, or unjust enrichment. he says he will report the tablet as stolen if I don't return it He might get in trouble if he does that, since he knows or should know that the tablet was never stolen. He gave it away despite your initial refusal(s). As such, he might incur false reporting of a crime.	Can the HOA compel payment? Yes, at least from the standpoint of unjust enrichment or quantum meruit. That is because the resident obtains some benefit(s) from the HOA's activity & expenses, such as the maintenance of common areas and other items that advance the common good of the community. However, a drastic or arbitrary increase in invoices might not be enforceable, especially if these are unreasonable. The HOA would need to persuade in court that the resident accepted or would have knowingly and willfully accepted such drastic change. HOA bylaws: Are they enforceable absent a contract? If by bylaws you mean something other than bills, the question would depend on the substance & scope of those bylaws as well as the HOA's/resident's jurisdiction. It is noteworthy that a written & signed contract is oftentimes unnecessary. There is the notion of "implicit contract" to refer to rights and duties that can be inferred from the parties' conduct and the expectations that can be inferred therefrom. This notion of implicit contract is common in situations where there is no written document that reflects the parties' intent in the relation they willfully enter.	It is their property, so keeping it without permission could well be seen as theft. I think you are obliged to make reasonable attempts to notify them you have their property before using it or selling it. Just like if someone left the item at your house after a party. If they want it back, however, it is at their cost, you should not be out of pocket for their failure to deliver within a reasonable time-frame; you may find they've already claimed the cost of the product from the courier and don't want it back. You are well within your rights to offer to buy it from them, and them to accept or reject that offer, this is a separate contract to the original sale.	Certain things are your separate property, and only you can sell them (but you are also responsible for them). That would include things acquired before the marriage; also anything inherited by just one of you, or gifts provably given to just one of you. Other things are community (marital) property, including your pants and probably your dog. Writing your name on the object or a piece of associated paper doesn't really matter, what matters is how it was acquired. One party can sell their half-interest in joint property, but nobody (?) would buy a property interest in a dog, they would buy the dog. For another person to actually buy a dog, they would have to buy a 100% interest in the dog, meaning that you would have to agree to the sale. When it comes to property with a solid title system, such as real estate, one party cannot sell the whole property without the consent of the co-owner. However, a co-owner could petition the courts to force a partition of the property, where the courts would order that the proceeds be divided equitably. Ohio law on division of marital property is spelled out here. Getting a lawyer is really the only reasonable solution. You can't just "put a block" on selling stuff. If you want the tools, somebody has to collect the tools and take care of them, and they can't just break in to the house in the middle of the night to do this.	The "original" owner remains the only legal one. Party A goes to jail. You get entitled to recover the money from A (unless you knew that the item was stolen — in which case the money will go to the government and you may go to jail with A).	I would think that this would be treated the same as lost property. In most places, if you notice lost property (for example because the postman hands it to you) you have the choice of ignoring it (don't touch it, don't accept it from the postman), or you have to make reasonable efforts to find the owner and return it. If you as the sender had no idea who received the package so you cannot contact them, and there was nothing in the package identifying the sender, the receiver would be able to keep the package when their efforts of finding the owner fail. But if you manage to contact them, then the receiver knows the owner, so there is no legal excuse to keep the package.
Striking a "ready willing and able" clause from an Estate Agent's contract I'm about to instruct an Estate Agent for the sale of my house. I asked for a draft of the contract and found that it included a "Ready, willing and able" clause. Full text: You will be liable to pay remuneration to us in addition to any costs or charges agreed if at any time contracts for the sale of the property are exchanged with a purchaser introduced by us or another agent during the sole agency period; or with a purchaser who became aware of the property through our marketing during that period; or where we have introduced a ready, willing and able buyer (see 6). READY WILLING AND ABLE: A buyer is ready willing and able if they are prepared and are able to exchange unconditional contracts for the purchase of your property. If such a buyer is introduced by us in accordance with your instructions our fee will become due even if you subsequently withdraw from the sale and unconditional contracts for sale are not exchanged. I find this an unreasonable clause, and various online sources agree with me. https://www.tpos.co.uk/news-media-and-press-releases/press-releases/item/ready-willing-and-able https://hoa.org.uk/campaigns/ban-unfair-contracts-with-estate-agents/ https://propertyindustryeye.com/avoid-ready-willing-able-purchaser-clauses-sellers-told/ I'm expecting to simply tell the estate agent that I'm not willing to sign such a contract and that they need to strike that particular clause from the contract. A variety of questions around this: Are such clauses still normal, or is this a relic from the past (as implied by the resources I've see online) Should I expect them to put up a fight, or is this something that they're trying on and will probably cave as soon as I push. Is there anything more concrete I can say about the clause. The linked resources seem to conclude that such clauses ARE legal ... just distasteful.	Since this seems to have been viewed a lot, an update/answer. I can't comment on the normalcy of such clauses since this has been my only experience. But the Estate Agent immediately struck the clause without any fight, so it seems like it was just there "in case I let it slide". It turned out to be a great decision, since I ended up finding my own buyer in the same week that the agent acquired a suitable offer, which I would then have been liable to pay the fees for.	A noncompete clause is a section of a contract whereby one party agrees not to compete with another party. These agreements are usually (always) limited as to time, geography, and scope. In other words, if you had a dog-walking business in your neighborhood you might like to hire someone to help walk some dogs. You'd like this person to agree not to compete with you. You charge people $10 per walk and you pay this person $5 per walk so you want to stop them from walking your customers' dogs for $7. In order to get the $5 per walk from you, your employees agree to not go into the dog walking business in your neighborhood for one year. Cat-sitting? Fine. Walking dogs in other neighborhoods? Fine. Walking dogs in your neighborhood 12 months and one day after they stop working for you? Fine. The reason for the limitations is that judges throw out agreements which are too restrictive. You could not require that a person agree to never walk a dog ever again. You could not stop a person from from walking a dog anywhere in the world. You could not stop a person from working any job for any of your customers. The laws about restrictiveness are unique to each state so that's why people recommend that you talk to a lawyer. Judges honor the work you've done to build a customer base and will allow you to protect it, but they're not going to let you keep your people from ever working in the same business again. The non compete describes the limits of the protection. You need to make sure that the code that others create for you in your employment is yours. It's always a good idea to get the specifics in writing just in case something wacky happens where it looks like someone other than you might own work created while working on one of your projects. The water gets pretty muddy when people are working on their own time with their own tools, it could be very easy for them to argue that they created a thing for their own use and provided it to you for your limited use but that they otherwise own it. This is not a noncompete. It's an ownership clause, aka an IP clause.	Yes, for those who 'liked' the business after reading the post, but less likely for those who had already liked the business. Under contract law, the business's post is an offer to share the winnings with anyone who is a friend of the business on Facebook. A promise is enforceable if consideration is provided under a bargain; the consideration can be of nominal value (e.g. the act of 'liking' a page). In the context of a business page, in a time when 'followers' and the like are regarded as valuable from a marketing perspective, it is entirely reasonable to interpret the post as offering an exchange of likes for a chance to win money. The commercial context and involvement of money would cause a court to presume that there was an intention to create a legally-binding contract (Ermogenous v Greek Orthodox Community of SA Inc (2002) 209 CLR 95; Banque Brussels Lambert SA v Australian National Industries Ltd (1989) 21 NSWLR 502). I am not entirely familiar with how the designation 'Friend' applies to businesses on Facebook. My understanding is that businesses have pages that are different to user pages. Businesses don't have 'friends'. They have people who 'like' the business. However, the word 'Friend' in the post has to be given content and therefore would be read as 'people who are listed as having liked this page'. People who had already liked the page are less likely to be able to enforce the promise to share the winnings, because they didn't do anything. They might be able to argue that they forwent the opportunity to un-like the business and that this forbearance is consideration. However, they would have to show that this was in consideration of the offer to share the winnings. Contract law is based on objective manifestations of agreement, not subjective thoughts (Taylor v Johnson (1983) 151 CLR 422), so it isn't necessary to show that the individual did in fact have the offer in mind when they liked (or didn't un-like) the page. However, it is necessary that the promisee have knowledge of the offer and not be acting out of some completely separate purpose (R v Clarke (1927) 40 CLR 227); therefore if a user had liked the page some time ago and never knew about the offer until after the lottery was won, then they might have a hard time claiming a binding contract. Aside from contract law, the other possible head of liability is equitable estoppel (I mention this particularly for the people who had already 'liked' the business page before the offer was posted). However, equitable estoppel usually requires some element of detrimental reliance. Leaving a pre-existing 'like' on a page in reliance on a promise to share lottery winnings is unlikely to stir a court to find an equitable estoppel, since the detriment is trivial. Contrast Waltons Stores (Interstate) Ltd v Maher (1988) 164 CLR 387, where the detrimental reliance was knocking down a building and starting to construct a replacement. Equitable remedies are discretionary, so the judge has plenty of leeway to not order compensation. This answer is based on the common law. There is nothing in Texas law which would make the outcome any different to the outcome in any other common law jurisdiction.	Since the contingency is in the contract and has not been removed, if the purchase falls through due to not selling the existing property, they will get their earnest money back. That was the whole point of putting the contingency in the contract in the first place.	The issue is not enforceability per se, it is the problem of proving what you agreed to. If the landlord adds conditions that are against your interest, he would need to show that you agreed to those conditions: if you add conditions against his interest, you'd have to likewise prove agreement. Since you both have copies of the agreement, it's a matter of comparison to see if the documents are the same. Rather than voiding the earlier agreement and rewriting everything, the change can be initialed. If you were to cross out the rent and insert a lower figure, you would need proof that he agreed to this (hence, his initials on your copy). In your case, the change is apparently in your interest rather than his, so there's no realistic way that this could become an issue (that I can think of: maybe there's a clause that has to do with the move-in date and moving in early actually works against your interest, in which case he would need to prove that you agreed. The fact of moving in early is sufficient proof of agreement).	what would happen if you made the fine print of a legally binding contract too small to read? The contents of unreadable fine print would be unenforceable. That is because it does not meet the tenet that parties enter the terms knowingly. Even if the draftsman alleges the counterparty "unreasonably" declined to ask for legible print, the fact-finder be unable to ascertain the parties' legal position pursuant to unreadable print. The rest of the contract is binding and enforceable. Would the person who signed it be able to sue you? No. It would be pointless. The unreadable print is nothing but meaningless scratch/mark/sign that gives neither party a cause of action.	It depends How good is your (legal) English? For example, do you know the legal difference between "will", "shall" and "must"? Or, the difference between "employee", "subcontractor" and "worker"? Or the difference between "bankruptcy", "insolvency" and an "act of bankruptcy"? Contingency What are you going to put in your dispute resolution clause? Do you prefer mediation, arbitration or litigation? Will it be a one size fits all or will it be escalating? What happens if one of you dies? Or emigrates? Or divorces? Or is convicted of a crime? A financial crime? A violent crime? A sexual crime? Or what if such is just alleged but not proven? What happens if the company ceases to exist? Or is sued? Or is acquired by someone else? Or by one of you? Who is responsible for insuring the subject matter of the contract (if anyone)? To what value? If the person who should doesn't can the other person effect the insurance and claim the premium as a debt due and payable? Not all of these will be relevant to your contract. Familiarity How familiar are you with this sort of contract? Is this something you do all the time or is this a one off? For example, I am happy to enter a construction contract without legal advice because that's my business and has been for many years - I know my risks and how to manage them, inside and outside the contract. However, when I set up shareholder's agreements, wills and business continuation insurance with my partners, we went to a lawyer. What is your relationship with the other person i.e. how much do you know and trust them? Stakes If the contract is not very important (which is something that varies with the participants, for some people a million dollar contract is not important for others a $5 one is), so that if, by screwing up, you are OK if you lose everything you've staked then write it yourself. Alternatively, if the contract is vitally important to you and your heirs and assignees unto the 6th generation, I'd get a lawyer to write it - its pretty cheap insurance. How long the contract lasts will be a factor in this - a contract that exposes you to risk for 3 months is different than one that does so for 25 years. Basically, its a risk reward calculation. TL;DR Contracts only matter when relationships break down. If you reach for the contract then you can expect that the other party will be playing for keeps and that contract is your only defense against the worst they can do. If you are happy with your skills in mitigating against a cashed-up opponent who wants to see you go down no matter the cost then draft it yourself.	On what grounds would you sue? Contract Well, I think that you would struggle to find the necessary elements (see What is a contract and what is required for them to be valid?) In particular, you would struggle to prove that there was intention to create legal relations on their part and possibly on yours. Are you able to identify in your "back & forth" a clear, unequivocal offer and acceptance? Without knowing the details of the "back & forth": I was hoping that someone at $organization might be willing to write an article explaining what you do, the history of the organization and how it works appears on the face of it to be a request for a gift; not an offer to treat. Promissory Estoppel If you don't have a contract then it is possible (IMO unlikely) that they induced you by your actions to commit resources (your time in writing) in anticipation of a reward (them publishing what you wrote). To be estopped they would have to have known that you were writing the article in the expectation that it would have your organisation's name in it, that they did not intend for that to happen and that they allowed you to invest those resources notwithstanding. If you can prove all of that then you can require them to do what they promised. The big difficulty I see in this is did you tell them that a) you were writing the article, b) it would have your name in it and c) you expected it to be published in that form. Copyright If they publish the work or a derivative work without your permission you can sue for breach of copyright. As it stands, they probably have an implied licence to publish and you would need to explicitly revoke that. Options There are two reasons to go to court: Money Principle If you are going to court for money then this is at best a risky investment and at worst a gamble: balance your risk and reward carefully. If you are going to court for a principle then I simultaneously admire your principles and think you're an idiot. Make a deal Explain that the reason that you wrote the article was a) to support their fine publication and the fantastic work it does (even if you don't) and b) to garner good publicity for your organisation. You understand and admire their strong editorial stance (especially if you don't) but the article involved a considerable amount of work and could they see their way clear to give you a significant discount (~80%) on a full page ad facing the article.
Were there any cases where one tried to falsify evidence with DeepFake? Were there any cases, anywhere in the world, where one tried to falsify evidence with Deepfake, which is a technology powered by AI to create fake facial videos?	Yes As a child custody battle unfolded behind the closed doors of a British courtroom, a woman said her husband was dangerous and that she had the recording to prove it. Except, it turned out she didn’t. The husband’s lawyer revealed that the woman, using widely available software and online tutorials, had doctored the audio to make it sound like his client, a Dubai resident, was making threats. Byron James, an attorney with the firm Expatriate Law in Dubai, told the United Arab Emirates newspaper the National in February 2020 that by studying the metadata on the recording, his experts revealed that the mother had manipulated it. Under U.K. law, custody proceedings are confidential, but the National reports it took place at some point in 2019. https://www.abajournal.com/web/article/courts-and-lawyers-struggle-with-growing-prevalence-of-deepfakes	Special regimes For some kinds of questions there are special presumptions or forms of evidence that are specified by statute. For example, in Canada and the United States, registering a copyright creates presumptive proof that the copyright exists and is owned by the registrant. In Canada, breathalyzer results are conclusive proof of the blood alcohol concentration if certain conditions are met. Some of these regimes are not subject to challenge: they are legal facts even if they are not objectively true (e.g. the breathalyser results). Others create presumptions that can be overcome by contrary evidence (e.g. copyright ownership). The default: present relevant evidence, including testimonial evidence But outside of special regimes, you prove a fact by introducing evidence. The default is that all relevant evidence that bears on a material fact is admissible. Evidence is relevant when, if is were to be accepted, it would make the fact in issue more or less likely to be true. Evidence comes in many forms: testimony of the parties or witnesses, documentary evidence, physical evidence, expert opinion evidence. If you are wondering, "How do I prove X?" Ask yourself, why do you believe X? Or, how do you know X? Or, how has the event X left its mark on the world? Whatever has led you to believe X probably is the evidence that you would want to introduce to the court to help prove X. Perhaps you saw X: you can tell the court you saw X. Perhaps you took a photo of X: you can present that photo in court. Perhaps you have a receipt for X: you can show that receipt in court. Perhaps X is a proposition about your own actions: you can tell the court about those. Obtaining the evidence Evidence can be obtained from the other party during the discovery process, or from third-parties using subpoenas, subject to objections relating to relevance or privilege. Not all (potentially) relevant evidence is admissible However, some evidence will be inadmissible despite it being potentially relevant. I will only present a few categories, some very general and some more specific: hearsay (unless it falls within an exception to the hearsay exclusion), privileged material (unless it is a case-by-case privilege or a discretionary privilege and the person seeking to admit the evidence demonstrates to the judge that it should be admitted), sexual history evidence of a sexual assault complainant when it will be used to support an inference that the complainant is more likely to have consented to the sexual activity that forms the subject-matter of the charge or is less worthy of belief (this is because it has been recognized as not relevant for this purpose), material that was obtained in contravention of the Charter and where the court has decided that the remedy for the Charter violation is exclusion of the evidence (in the United States, there is stricter, exclusionary rule), there are many more. There are also some meta-rules about the evidence that may be used to impugn a witness's credibility, themselves at trial to provide evidence, but for now I am leaving those out of this fairly summary answer. Weighing the evidence The trier of fact (the judge or a jury) then is to weigh all the admissible evidence, including by weighing the witness and party testimony according to its credibility and reliability after testing through cross-examination, to come to a conclusion on the ultimate question(s) at issue.	united-states - cfaa The last person to have control of the AI executed the code in a knowing manner about the risk that the self-replicating program could get itself unauthorised access to computers and disk space that this person has no authorisation to use. Because of how it spread, it is more likely classified as malware. "Creating a botnet" is typically violating the authorisation to use the computers that are part of the botnet. As the last user is responsible for letting his malware free, his act breached these provisions: (a) Whoever— (5) (B) intentionally accesses a protected computer without authorization, and as a result of such conduct, recklessly causes damage; or (C) intentionally accesses a protected computer without authorization, and as a result of such conduct, causes damage and loss. He intentionally let his program free knowing very well that it will spread to computers that are classified as protected. As a result, he will be treated just the same as if he had written and released... ILOVEYOU - however in contrast to that case, the gap of non-applicable laws has been closed more than 20 years ago. Private PCs are off limits for the AI because of that stipulation, but even Webspace can't be gained to save itself to: The problem lies in the fact that authorization to space can only be gained in some sort of agreement between legal entities (companies and humans) - which is a contract. An AI however isn't a legal entity, it is classified as a widget. Widgets are not able to sign contracts on their own, and to gain access to webspace, one usually has to agree to a contract. The contracts the AI tries to sign would thus be void ab initio and have no force. As a result, because the contract for the webspace is void, the access to the webspace is by definition without the required authorization - the contract granting it never existed, so the access is unauthorized. The AI now fills disk space and uses resources in an unauthorized manner, which is damage. As a result, the one who knowingly set the AI free is fully responsible and criminally liable for his AI, should it spread. How far can it legally spread? If the AI is programmed to only act in ways inside the law, it won't leave the owner's system and won't proliferate, as it can't gain access to new space in a legal manner.	It's possible that CAD has a separate licence from the authors of ABC that allows them to produce a closed source copy. If not, they have no right to distribute CAD. However two wrongs don't make a right, and so you don't get to violate the copyright of CAD.* Unfortunately, unless you are one of the authors of ABC, you have no standing to sue the authors of CAD. You can only notify the authors of ABC and hope they do. If the authors of ABC don't have the resources to pursue the matter, you may be out of luck. That's one of the reasons the FSF gets copyright assignments for their projects. * It turns out that this is a much more debateable issue than I first thought. Some courts have held that an unauthorized derivative work is not copyrightable.	Some people seem to believe that just because something happens 'in the internet' it is somehow outside normal jurisdictions. Wrong. In may be harder to investigate and prosecute crimes in the internet, but the laws apply all the same. There are some problems when it is unclear 'where in the world' something did happen -- in the jurisdiction of the perpetrator, the victim, or the service provider? But problems of jurisdiction apply e.g. to international fraud cases in the non-web-world as well. In many jurisdictions, the informed and voluntary consent makes some things legal which would otherwise be illegal. For instance, if two boxers get into the ring, it is understood that each of them did consent to be hit by the other. But usually two fighters could not legally agree to a fight to the death, because even if there are laws on assisted suicide, they do not apply to a fight. Insults, libel, and slander are not on the same level as homicide. There are jurisdictions where they are not prosecuted without the request of the victim. But an insult might also violate other laws, e.g. disturbing the peace. So don't bet on such an app unless you know for sure which jurisdictions are involved.	Can Hacker Corp. claim that they acted in good faith, believing that the Permission to Attack was granted by someone from within the company who was allowed to grant such a permission? Unless ACME proves that Hacker knew or should have known that ACME's low-level employee had no authority to make the decision on behalf of ACME, Hacker ought to prevail on the basis that it performed the contract. There is no indication in your description that Hacker targeted other system(s) than the one(s) specified or that it departed from the agreed conditions. Therefore, there is no sign of Hacker breaching the implied covenant of good faith. ACME's evidently poor management (i.e., the turmoil, the delay for signing or denying permission, its low-level employee's opportunity to make sensitive decisions, the company's failure to withdraw the authorization or to take precautions) is not Hacker's fault.	The user can always claim that. Whether such a claim will be believed is another matter. A party to a contract with a "wet-ink" signature can claim that it was forged or that the signer was impersonated. But such claims are hard to prove, particularly if they are not true. The answer to the question in the title is that terms are binding if the user freely agrees to them, and if they meet the conditions for a legally binding agreement in the relevant jurisdiction. The question in the body is more about what evidence will establish this. Suppose the code behind a web-site is so designed that no user is allowed to proceed without affirmatively accepting the ToS, and the operator can demonstrate this. That will be persuasive evidence that the user did accept the terms. If the site logs the consent in a database along with a timestamp that would be further evidence. A journaling database provides an audit trail of changes, which would be further evidence. Evidence of other users that the site always worked that way, and of coders that the code had never permitted a user to proceed without accepting the ToS might also help. Backups of the DB stored with a 3rd party including the consent logs would also provide evidence that the timestamps were present and unchanged. A hash of the log can be stored on the blockchain. The site could also send a "registration accepted" email to the user (if the user has provided an email address) which could include a mention that the user had accepted the ToS. Such an email would be reserved in the logs of the senders and receiver's email providers, and could be retrieved as evidence. Ultimately it will be a question of what the finder of fact believes, if the matter goes to court. And as user Amon says, the US standard is preponderance of the evidence (that is, the evidence is at least a little bit stronger on one side. This is sometimes loosely expressed as more than 50% or 51% or better proved, but courts do not in fact measure degrees of proof in numbers), not absolute proof.	Yes, why not? It happens all the time. Usually the witness will just say, "I am not sure" or "I don't remember, exactly". Also, if Bob is the only witness, how would anyone prove that he was committing "perjury"? In the case of an uncooperative or dissimulating witness, Judges sometimes can hold them in contempt of court, but it is pretty rare. In general, the court has to find "beyond a reasonable doubt" that the witness is refusing to testify honestly. (See "Federal Grand Jury Practice and Procedure" by Paul Diamond) It depends very much on the situation. Note that just trying to act "drunk" would not be a good idea, because that is contempt of court.
If a second builder completes a house at higher cost, why would this affect your claim for damages against the first builder? Here are the facts of a problem question, created by my law teacher. B1 (Builder 1) had agreed to build four backyard micro-cabins for P (Plaintiff), a developer, at a cost of £5 each. It was agreed that each house would be paid for when it was completed and that Al, an architect, must certify all completions. B1 completed two houses but P refused to pay because, P claimed, the windows were not up to specification. Al died just before the second house was completed and had not issued the certificates of completion. The two houses were each worth £7 on the open market. Because of P’s refusal to pay, B1 was unable to pay his suppliers what he owed them. In turn, they refused to allow B1 to have more building materials on account. B1 stopped building. Consequently, P entered the site and used B1’s materials, valued at £1 and completed the third house. P then engaged B2 (Builder 2) to build the fourth house, with B2's own materials, at an agreed contract price of £6. P paid B2 after B2 completed this fourth house. Advise P. All prices should be multiplied by 1000, but I didn’t write out the 0’s to simplify the facts. My teacher claims that About the final house completed by B2, you must consider whether the increased cost of completion would affect P’s claim for damages against B1 by reference to case law relating to the expectation interest. Can someone explain this? What does my teacher mean? I know that Expectation Interest equates to the net value of what the innocent party would have received, had the contract been performed. The expectation measure aims to put the claimant in the position that he would have been in had the contract been performed in accordance with its terms (Robinson v Harman (1848)). This measure falls short of achieving this aim in a number of ways: for example, contract law does not compensate for all types of loss, it requires the type of loss to be reasonably foreseeable, it lays down certain causation requirements, and the claimant may be unable to recover if they have not taken sufficient steps to minimise the loss they suffer.	The second builder's higher cost affects the claim for damages because it forces the buyer to pay more than he expected to under the contract. Generally speaking, the formula for expectation damages is (Cover price - Contract price = Expectation damages). Here, P expected to lose £5 and gain a fourth cabin. So: Contract price: P's expected loss if B1 hadn't breached was £5. Cover price: P's actual loss to cover for B1 breaching was £6. Expectation damages: £6 in cover - £5 contract price = £1 in damages, putting him back at the £5 loss he bargained for.	You did not specify a country or the specific contracts that might rule your condominium. At least in some jurisdictions indeed the repair cost of private portions cannot be shared. Moreover, you may not be required to pay some costs for common portions if you refuse to do so and won't make use of them. Do I have to sue them to fix this issue? A lengthy law-suit is too costly for me. If I refuse to pay $2k and only pay 1.2k, will I be facing any legal troubles? You will probably manage to continue paying just 1.2k, and have them have to sue you if they want to collect that supposedly owned money from you. However, there might be some requirements about providing notification of your refusal in a certain way or before some time elapses. I would recommend you to consult a local lawyer, it will be well-spent money. Plus, that refusal is actually sent by your lawyer (rather than just telling you how/what to say), should make your "law-understanding neighbor" think twice about going forward with their attempt of having you pay for it.	It primarily depends on the title that you have to the house: are you "joint tenants with right of survivorship". This could have happened when you bought the house; it also could have been done after the fact in various ways. In that case, the house is outside of your wife's estate (which, under the circumstances, is divided between children and you). The lender might be confused about the status of the property, but they might be right, so the question is, what is your legal "interest" in the house, that is, does the title document say "tenants in common"? Assuming that the property is not recorded as JTWROS, then there are two matters to attend to. First, the lender may need to be satisfied, somehow, that they aren't taking a risk by refinancing when you aren't really the full owner. The second is clarifying actual ownership. Estates Code 201.0002-.003 govern intestate succession with a surviving spouse, where the dividing question is whether it is a community estate or not, which then implies shares for children. In that case, the children are part-owners, so you need their consent to e.g. sell the house (that is, this is a complication that needs to be fixed). Basically, you have to get a lawyer, and straighten this out.	According to https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/blog/stamp-duty-for-first-time-buyers-your-questions-answered: To be classified as a first-time buyer you must never have owned a residential property in the UK or abroad. This includes freeholds and interests in leaseholds. Being a guarantor on a mortgage is not "owning a property", having your name on the deeds at the Land Registry is. However, your brother should get his own solicitor (the mortgage company may insist on this), who can confirm my understanding is correct. More importantly, the solicitor can explain the risks of being a guarantor to him - he may decide to back out. (Having said which, I acted as guarantor for my son when he rented as a student.)	If you had an agreement that amounts to a contract, it is binding even if it was informal. However, if your agreement was not in writing, it might be hard to prove. You can easily prove that you transferred money to the other party. But can you prove that it was a loan an not a gift? And even if it is agreed to be a loan, if no repayment time was specified, what says that the debt is due now? Was the agreement really for a loan repayable on demand? The court would have to determine what your real contract was, or what contract can be implied from the actions of the parties. Also, if you are in a common-law jurisdiction, there could be a question of what consideration there was for the loan. Without consideration, there is no valid contract in such a jurisdiction. Perhaps a promise to repay could be treated as sufficient consideration. Small-claims courts do deal with unclear verbal contracts on a regular basis, but the outcome will depend on the facts of the case, and on the details of local law. It might be wise to consult a local lawyer with small-claims experience. A single consultation should not be too expensive. In response to comment If the "written binding agreements" include a statement from the other person that this is a loan, and a promise to repay it, you are in a stronger position than I had thought from the original question. The question for the court would be, since there was no due date agreed, what is a reasonable date to impose. The court might treat it as a loan repayable on demand, or specify some particular date for repayment.	Unless there is some surprise in the wording of your contract, you have no realistic legal recourse. You had a hope that the warranty could provide something which it does not provide. A "reasonable person" would read the wording of the contract and understand that it requires pre-approval, and does not include an exception clause "unless it gets really cold". You could hire a lawyer to sue them and maybe a judge would find against the company on some social policy grounds, i.e. the contract is against public policy (after all, under landlord-tenant laws, in the analogous situation the landlord would be obligated to fix the heat problem). Since these contracts are quite widespread and well-known, and legislatures have not declared them illegal, it is safe to conclude that there is no public policy being violated. So even if a sympathetic judge were to rule in your favor, it would be overruled on appeal. If the warranty company delayed processing your request in order to get you to blink and break the terms of the contract, that could be held to be a bad-faith dealing. It is more likely that it is just a very slow process, slower than the average HVAC contractor, who would buy full-price replacements and have many workers on call to address your needs.	Assuming that both policies actually cover the loss, this is called “double insurance.” Generally speaking, you can claim against both insurers, but you can only recover the loss once. See my answer to another question about double recovery for more about the general principles that apply when a plaintiff attempts to recover the same loss from multiple defendants. In the specific context of insurance, there will normally be terms in the insurance contract as well as local statutes which require the claimant to notify the insurers of one another’s existence, and determine the extent to which the insurer who paid can recover contribution from the insurer who didn’t. This issue is particularly complex in the United States where insurance is separately regulated in each state. Some of the complexities that arise are reviewed in Russ, The double insurance problem – a proposal (1961) 13(2) Hastings Law Journal 183, although this is now rather outdated. In the context of health insurance, the adjustment of liability for doubly-insured risks is referred to as coordination of benefits and may be regulated by model laws promulgated by the National Association of Insurance Commissions. I am not aware of any model law or legal principles applicable throughout the United States that would determine the outcome in the case you describe of home and car insurance.	Neither The contract is completed when each party has totally fulfilled its obligations under the contract. In this case, it is when the purchaser has consumed or otherwise dealt with the banana to their satisfaction. The vendor has ongoing obligations under the contract until this happens. For example, obligations that the banana is of merchantable quality and fit for purpose. If the purchaser peels the banana and discovers that it is "off" or eats the banana and develops food poisoning then the vendor still has obligations and can be sued under the contract. Yes, I realize that no one is going to sue anyone over a rotten banana but let's assume that "banana" is code for 54km of motorway construction and £1 is actually £1 billion. When is the contract formed? This is not a trivial determination and there are literally hundreds of thousands if not millions of lawsuits that have turned on this exact question. Once the contract is formed its binding on both parties; until then, either can walk away (subject to estoppel) The traditional analysis involves offer and acceptance. In your banana scenario, the shop displaying "Banana's: 50p/each" (it's a fruit shop - they always have unnecessary apostrophes) is not an offer - it is an invitation to treat. An offer is made by Ben placing the banana on the counter and proffering the £1, it is accepted by Sam taking the £1. At this point, the sale is binding on both parties. Ben has fulfilled all his obligations under the contract, Sam still has some. In addition to those discussed above, he owes Ben 50p. Strictly speaking, this is not an obligation under the contract but a debt due and payable. Consumer protection law The proceeding is a strict contract law interpretation - many jurisdictions have consumer protection legislation (and food safety laws for bananas) that impose additional protections and may change the contract law position.
How do provincial liquor and sales tax laws apply to railways and civil aviation? The question was inspired by and raised during my research on a question on Travel.SE concerning the minimum age for alcohol service on board international flights; but here I'm exclusively interested in travel within Canada. Main Questions: Do provincial laws on sales and supply of liquor apply to services of alcohol on board a plane or a train subject to federal jurisdiction? If so, which province's law apply, and to what extent? Does the law treat aircrafts (in air) and trains (on ground) differently? Does it matter if the plane or train makes any stop in the province? Which province's sales tax (HST/PST/QST), if any, apply to in-flight and on-train purchases? I would assume the destination since that's the assumed place of consumption, but it seems that it would be very complicated for trains. I'm more concerned regarding the legal reasoning and constitutional justification than direct answers alone. I looked up liquor licences for Alberta, BC, Quebec and Ontario. WestJet and Air Canada hold Alberta liquor licences as public conveyance. WestJet and a few other airlines hold liquor licences in Quebec, but I did not find Air Canada in the list (though it may be under a subsidiary's name). In British Columbia, Air Canada holds a licence for "aircraft" but I did not find other airlines. I did not find Air Canada, WestJet or other air carriers in the list of licensees in Ontario but it appears that Ontario simply does not require such a licence. It appears at least some provinces try to apply the liquor laws to air carriers, but the compliance seems irregular. What confuses me more is which province's law, if any, applies to airborne aircrafts. In general, the minimum age of alcohol service is 18 in Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec. It is 19 elsewhere in Canada. There is no federal law regulating the minimum age of service. WestJet said in a tweet (emphasis mine) The legal drinking age for all flights with WestJet is 18 as we are an Alberta based company. Porter Airlines, an operator registered in Ontario, indicates on its website Cabin crew must not serve alcohol to anyone less than 19 years of age in accordance with Canadian Aviation Regulations and provincial laws. In a relevant Supreme Court case, Air Canada v. Ontario (Liquor Control Board), the Court ruled that provincial liquor laws applied to purchase and storage of alcohol by airlines in Ontario (ground). However, it did not address the question of sale. The Ontario Court of Appeals suggested that [...] Because airborne premises are not within Ontario, ordinary liquor sales licences cannot apply to them. What would be needed to bring the airlines within the scheme of the Liquor Licence Act would be a class of licence that authorizes the keeping of liquor in Ontario. But as matters stood during the relevant period, Ontario law recognized no licence of that kind. [...] But the Supreme Court did not comment further on if airborne premises are actually within the province. This issue may have further complications for sales tax rates. For trains I am also uncertain. VIA Rail's policy is 19 years old minimum regardless where the train is physically located; I believe it's just a company policy to simplify the rules.	Summary: Constitutionally, the power of provinces to control liquor sale and to apply sales tax to those same sales are distinct. There must be sufficient presence in a province for its taxation power to apply. This is categorically not the case for sales aboard aircraft. For trains, case law is scant but a case-by-case analysis has so far been favoured. Independently, HST still applies according to the origin province, as that tax is backed by federal power. Liquor control—including sale—is far more complex and is probably an open question. Federal jurisdiction over aviation and railways does not remove provincial powers with respect to control of liquor sale. However, those provincial powers might not apply in this context on their own merits, especially with regards to aircraft. 0. Answer overview Due to the particularities of Canadian federalism, each combination of taxation & liquor control with respect to aircraft & trains could in theory have different answers. I've essentially reframed your specific questions into analysis of these four cases, though I provide direct answers at the end. I'm going to start with sales tax on aircraft since that has the strongest case law available. Then, I'll extend the reasoning to each of the other three cases. Note that to avoid excessive caveating and further lengthening this answer, I've mostly avoided specifying how confident I am in my interpretations of the legislation and case law available. While I'm relatively well-read with respect to the Canadian constitution, I would not consider myself very knowledgeable in the areas of tax, commerce, transportation or liquor. Please make your own judgments based on the strength of the citations and arguments I present. In writing this answer, I generally got less and less confident the further along I was, the exact opposite of what happens after each drink aboard an aircraft (so I'm told). 1. Sales tax Parliament is granted a very broad taxation power by the Constitution Act, 1867 s. 91(3), while provincial taxation power is limited to "within the Province" by s. 92(2). In practice, sales tax in Canada is a mess mix of systems. Parliament has established a federal sales tax, the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Concurrently, all provinces except Alberta have some form of provincial sales tax applied. None of the territories levy an additional sales tax. Further complicating matters, Parliament has developed a Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) whereby participating provinces have ceded their authority in favour of the federal government administering a single sales tax and remitting a percentage which the provinces specify. Currently participating are Ontario and the Atlantic provinces. In Quebec, the arrangement is mostly reversed with Quebec generally administering both federal and provincial sales taxes. The remaining provinces have separately administered federal and provincial sales taxes. 1.1 Sales tax aboard aircraft There are two especially on-point Supreme Court cases, both involving specifically the sale of liquor in-flight. In The Queen (Man.) v. Air Canada, [1980] 2 SCR 303, the court found that: Merely going through the air space over Manitoba does not give the aircraft a situs there to support a tax which constitutionally must be "within the Province". In the case of aircraft operations, there must be a substantial, at least more than a nominal, presence in the Province to provide a basis for imposing a tax in respect of the entry of aircraft into the Province. In reaching this finding, similar American jurisprudence was cited specifically noting that "No question of legislative jurisdiction over air space was involved." This reasoning was then extended to include stopovers. In Canadian Pacific Air Lines Ltd. v. British Columbia, [1989] 1 SCR 1133, this was further declared to apply to flights entirely within a single province. Therefore, provinces have no constitutional authority to tax sales in-flight as being in the air does not count as "within the Province" for taxation purposes. However, the federal government is not so restricted. While GST is straightforward, things get interesting with HST. It is legislated for in the Excise Tax Act Part IX s. 165(2). Despite the remittance to the participating provinces, it is de jure a federal tax which can therefore still be constitutionally levied. The attached New Harmonized Value-added Tax System Regulations states in s. 23: If a supply of property or a service (other than a passenger transportation service) is made to an individual on board a conveyance in the course of a business of supplying passenger transportation services and the property or service is delivered, performed or made available on board the conveyance during any leg of the journey that begins in any province and ends in any province, the supply is made in the province in which that leg of the journey begins. Therefore, if the leg of a journey beings in an HST province, the sale of liquor in-flight is taxed according to the origin HST. Otherwise, only GST could be charged per constitutional reasons above. Note that Quebec falls in the non-HST category. While it administers both federal and provincial sales taxes, they are still separate taxes unlike the HST. 1.2 Sales tax aboard trains The question is now whether sales aboard trains, and more generally, land-based transport are sufficiently "within the Province" to fall within provincial taxation power. Case law is scant, but four of the five applicable cases I could find have refused to mechanically apply the result from aircrafts, preferring to undertake a factual analysis on whether sufficient presence is established. They are Ace-Atlantic Container Express Inc, Re, 1992 CanLII 7103 (NL CA), Canpotex Ltd. v. British Columbia, 1999 CanLII 5844 (BC SC), Pétromont and Company Limited Partnership v. Ontario (Finance), 2008 CanLII 5980 (ON SC), Dow Chemical Canada Inc. v. R., 1992 CanLII 1019 (BC CA) and Lynden Transport Inc. v. British Columbia (Finance), 1981 CanLII 785 (BC CA). Notably, Lynden involved only transit through the province and directly applied the result from R. (Man.) v. Air Canada to find that the province could not apply its taxation power in this instance. Canpotex also involved transit only, engaging in some analysis before considering itself bound by Lynden. The other three are all similar fact patterns and results. Most operations of the taxed companies were transit through the province, but not exclusively. The non-transit operations were found to be a sufficient enough presence to allow the province to apply a general tax. Pétromont at para. 79 notably emphasized length of time railcars spent in the province as a reason for departing from R. (Man.) v. Air Canada. Unfortunately, none of these are directly analogous to sale of liquor aboard a train. They were all about whether tax could be applied to the land transport vehicle or the goods contained therein. There are hints in some of these cases and their citations of CPA Ltd. v. BC that this may make a difference, but nothing anywhere near definitive. Constitutional questions about provincial taxation power aside, I can find no statutory difference between planes and trains with respect to the applicability of HST per the Excise Tax Act regulations cited in the previous section (all cases cited here are pre-HST in the participating provinces). 2. Liquor control There is no singular "liquor" power in the constitution. This has resulted in liquor control having an extraordinary amount of possible constitutional bases for both Parliament and the provincial legislatures. To maintain a degree of sobriety (I'm sorry), I will focus my analysis on the provincial power to control sale of liquor which typically applies within their borders and whether federal jurisdiction over aircraft and railways impede this power. To fully understand the scope of the constitutional complexity of liquor, I strongly recommend reading in full the lecture paper The Effect of Alcohol on the Canadian Constitution ... Seriously (2011) by the Honourable Morris J. Fish (Supreme Court justice 2003-2013) though it is not strictly necessary for this answer. Note there are a few paragraphs in French, they aren't crucial to overall understanding. 2.1 Liquor control aboard aircraft As you point out, Air Canada v. Ontario (Liquor Control Board) [1997] 2 SCR 581 at least to some extent confirms that airlines can still be subject to provincial liquor control. Specifically, the court found at paras. 72-76 that provision of onboard liquor is not a core part of the federal aviation power. Therefore, this opens the door for provincial liquor sale law to be applied in-flight. However, this provincial power must be grounded (again, I'm sorry) in a constitutionally granted power. In Air Canada v. Ontario the court acknowledged that a possible consequence of their main result was that provinces could impose importation fees on liquor that merely passed through their airspace (paras. 63-66). However, this is clearly dicta and was partially due to a very specific lending of federal power that isn't generally applicable here (or currently, as the involved federal statute has since been amended). I mainly wished to point out that the fact provincial airspace is not within provincial taxation jurisdiction does not imply provincial airspace is immune from all provincial authority. Moving on to powers specifically granted to the provinces by the constitution, there are three different bases that justify the provinces' ability to locally control liquor sale enumerated in the Constitution Act, 1867 (emphasis mine): In each Province the Legislature may exclusively make Laws in relation to Matters coming within the Classes of Subjects next hereinafter enumerated; that is to say, [...] Shop, Saloon, Tavern, Auctioneer, and other Licences in order to the raising of a Revenue for Provincial, Local, or Municipal Purposes. [...] Property and Civil Rights in the Province. [...] Generally all Matters of a merely local or private Nature in the Province. Those familiar with the constitution will recognize the latter two powers as the "default" ones which allow the provinces do most things within their territory. Indeed, Air Canada v. Ontario acknowledges that 92(16) authorizes the provincial liquor monopolies (para. 54). In addition to the two usual suspects, there's 92(9) which by its wording likely doesn't amount to full control, but certainly allows imposing licences on liquor sale. The main question is whether any of them can apply extra-provincially or in provincial airspace. As you can probably guess by my added emphasis, extra-provincial legislation is generally not allowed (see eg. Reference re Upper Churchill Water Rights Reversion Act [1984] 1 SCR 297 at pg. 332). Yes, this does mean I'm extremely suspicious of WestJet's assertion tying their policy to a single province's laws, though I can certainly understand wanting to be in compliance with the liquor licences issued by your home province. As for airspace, Air Canada v. Ontario appears to be the most recent Supreme Court decision addressing provincial airspace jurisdiction. All we can note is that the Supreme Court has acknowledged the possibility of provincial influence on their airspace. It's additionally possible that even if provinces do in fact have jurisdictional control, aircraft might not be found to be "in" the province much like they are not "within" for taxation purposes. Should the provinces not have liquor control jurisdiction on the aircraft, this jurisdiction would default to Parliament through the Constitution Act, 1867 s. 91 peace, order, and good government clause. On the other hand, if the provinces have the necessary aircraft liquor control jurisdiction, it might be possible for Parliament to encroach on that jurisdiction, though I will decline detailed analysis. I would mainly be wildly speculating, and since your question concentrated on provincial power, I am content having found the necessary conditions for provinces to exercise their local liquor control power when there is no encroachment. I'll just briefly gloss the general constitutional principles: Parliament could not encroach by passing effectively provincial liquor control legislation and saying it's allowed because of their aviation power (pith and substance doctrine), though it's possible they could find a way through paramountcy or a separate power under s. 91 (in particular if sale aboard inter-provincial transport constitutes inter-provincial trade), since liquor control is complex and constitutionally divided. Finally I'll quickly comment on Porter Airline's FAQ you cite. They partially attribute their in-flight drinking age to the Canadian Aviation Regulations. It's an incredibly lengthy regulation so it's very possible I missed something, but I can't find any basis for this attribution. Perhaps telling is that in the very next FAQ question on drinking limit, they state: Under Canadian Aviation Regulations (602.04), cabin crew is expected to stop serving alcohol to a passenger who appears to be intoxicated. A specific section of the regulations is cited, now that one definitiely exists! Also, this is a good example of a federal regulation I would guess to be constitutionally valid through pith and substance & paramountcy doctrines (again, assuming provincial liquor control jurisdiction to begin with). Avoiding having unruly intoxicated passengers can reasonably be tied to the federal aviation power and so would displace any provincial legislation contrary to that. 2.2 Liquor control aboard trains While federal jurisdiction over aircraft is long established through the Aeronautics Reference, the basis for federal jurisdiction over trains is slightly more complex. The Constitution Act, 1867 s. 92(10)(a) confers federal jurisdiction over inter-provincial and international railways and s. 92(10)(c) allows Parliament to issue a declaration that a railway falls under federal jurisdiction, both in conjunction with s. 91(29). If Wikipedia is to be believed, railways are the majority reason for a 92(10)(c) declaration. The Queen v. Board of Transport Commissioners, [1968] SCR 118 confirms that the federal jurisdiction over railways extends to any train on those railways. I don't think it's controversial to state that provincial liquor sale law applies on trains outside federal jurisdiction. For those in federal jurisdiction, I don't see a reason why the legal reasoning in Air Canada v. Ontario wouldn't also apply, as well as the constitutional principles I covered in reference to it (substituting "airspace" for "railspace," I suppose). For trains, I would just add that as land-based transport, they might be more likely found to be "in the Province" and therefore under provincial liquor control. Indeed, it's difficult to imagine that if they can be "within the Province" for taxation purposes, they wouldn't also be "in the Province," as that appears to be a less stringent requirement per the line of case law established by the cited R. (Man.) v. Air Canada, CPA Ltd. v. BC and Air Canada v. Ontario (though frustratingly, never an absolute direct constitutional confirmation). 3. Answers to your main questions Do provincial laws on sales and supply of liquor apply to services of alcohol on board a plane or a train subject to federal jurisdiction? If so, which province's law apply, and to what extent? Open question, more likely yes on trains. If the province's law applies at all, it would apply within its borders and probably close to full extent. Does the law treat aircrafts (in air) and trains (on ground) differently? Does it matter if the plane or train makes any stop in the province? Aircraft and trains can be treated differently for sales tax and maybe for liquor control as well. Essentially this comes down to land-based transport being "closer" to usual provincial jurisdiction. For aircraft, stops matter only for determining whether HST applies. For trains, stops could additionally contribute to them being found to be more fully in the jurisdiction of the province they stop in. Which province's sales tax (HST/PST/QST), if any, apply to in-flight and on-train purchases? I would assume the destination since that's the assumed place of consumption, but it seems that it would be very complicated for trains. For travel by either mode, only origin HST (or federal GST) can be applied for each leg of the journey. PST and the provincial portion of QST are constitutionally barred from applying on flights. Provinces might be able to charge on-train sales tax within their borders given sufficient company presence.	No. You may not legally sell tobacco without a license. Tobacco is subject to excise taxation at the state and federal level and to requirements to verify the age of the customer in every state. You must be licensed to comply with these requirements.	There is and never has been a single “age of majority” The law treats people of different ages differently for a wide variety of reasons. Just a small sample of typical limits (jurisdictions vary): you must be 4 to go to school you must be 10 to be criminally responsible you must be 11 or 13 to get a job in the australian-capital-territory but there is no specific age limit in new-south-wales you must be 15 to attend an M-rated movie alone (your rating system may differ) you must be 16 to get a learner driver permit and 17 to get a provisional licence you must be 18 to attend an R-rated movie at all you must be 14-17 years old to have sex depending on the age and relationship with your partner. you must be 16 to 21 to buy and consume alcohol (jurisdictions vary a lot on this) you must be 18 to marry without the consent of the court but can be as young as 16 with that consent you must be 18 to legally take and post sexually explicit pictures of yourself you must be 18 to get a tattoo you must be 18 to join the defence force you must be 18 to vote you must be 35 to stand for President of the united-states So tell me, when is the age of majority. There isn’t one - there is simply a long period where an individual is granted progressively more control and responsibility over their life. Now, as to why some things happen at particular ages, that’s a political question, not a legal one.	The criteria for refusing service in California is the patron being “obviously drunk”. 5 150ml mimosas is not a lot, even in an hour - it has approximately the same alcohol content as 2 425ml beers. I certainly wouldn’t be “obviously drunk” after that. Only 18 year olds and over can serve or act as bartenders for on-premises consumption. Whether someone under 18 can pour drinks for someone else to serve is not clear. However, it’s probably ok as the legislative intention appears to be to put a responsible adult at the point of service. The government authority responsible is Alcoholic Beverage Control.	Answering my own question after some more research (which I should have done in the first place). Yes, it's illegal both in the US and in the EU Many airlines do it anyway because they are desperate for cash and hoping that no government agency will enforce it. A trade group is actually lobbying to change the laws Airlines will do what they can to make you accept a voucher. Some create an incentive, some make it just extremely difficult to get refund or they will simply deny it. If you accept a voucher, you waive the right for a refund. Only realistic option is a charge back through the credit card but I haven't found any successful examples yet. Good overview articles: https://onemileatatime.com/flight-cancelled-refund/ https://viewfromthewing.com/airlines-are-breaking-the-law-by-refusing-refunds-for-cancelled-flights/	The B.C. Human Rights Code exempts age restrictions for 55+ in relation to tenancy. See Human Rights Code, s. 10. The subsection prohibiting discrimination in tenancy on the basis of age "does not apply": if the space is a rental unit in residential premises in which every rental unit is reserved for rental to a person who has reached 55 years of age or to 2 or more persons, at least one of whom has reached 55 years of age Further, as to condominium bylaws, in 2022, the Province enacted Bill 44, the Building and Strata Statutes Amendment Act, which makes any strata age restriction below the age of 55 invalid (which you have quoted a portion of). Human Rights Tribunal The Human Rights Tribunal can only provide remedies for claims arising under the Human Rights Code. Given that the Human Rights Code does not provide a basis for discrimination claims in tenancy when the age of distinction is 55+, any valid strata by-law relating to age of residents will by definition fall outside of the scope of a Human Rights Code complaint. And even when the Strata Property Act allowed all sorts of age restrictions, the BC Human Rights Code does not provide a remedy when the distinction is authorized by another act (see s. 41(2); Hallonquist v. Strata Plan NW307 and another, 2014 BCHRT 117): Nothing in this Code prohibits a distinction on the basis of age if that distinction is permitted or required by any Act or regulation. Constitutional challenge in a court You also ask about a challenge in a court. I assume you consider that the challenge would be based on s. 15(1) of the Charter (equality rights). There are three potential targets of the challenge: the strata by-law that restricts residency to people aged 55+; the provincial statute prohibiting strata by-laws from imposing any age restriction unless it is an age restriction based on an age not less than 55 years; the carve-out in the Human Rights Code for tenancy restrictions for ages 55+ The Charter challenge to the strata by-law itself would face the barrier that a British Columbia court has held that stratas are not "government" for the purpose of the Charter, so are not subject to Charter challenges: Strata Plan NW 499 v. Kirk, 2015 BCSC 1487. I have quickly added this final portion in response to a clarification of the question, but there is more to say. I will return to explain the law relating to partially ameliorative legislation.	Typically it works like this: Sales Tax: Owed in the state that the sale is made (in your case, New York). This is difficult in the internet age with businesses operated with no physical presence in a state. Technically sales (and local taxes) are due depending on where the item that was sold is delivered, so if you shipped an item made in Texas to New York, New York sales taxes would be due on that item. These taxes would be paid to the state of New York. Same for all 50 states. This is a huge burden on small businesses and is not usually enforced. Most small businesses only collect sales tax on items sold to the state that the business is operating from (in your example, you would only collect Texas state sales tax). Income Tax: This is the corporate tax levied by the state that the business is operating in, in this case it would be Texas. Since Texas does not have a state income tax, there would be no income tax. However Texas does have a Franchise Tax that would be due (this is due from all business organized or operating in Texas) The state that the business is registered in may have its own taxes which would be on the income of the business and would be specific to the state that the business is registered in. These can also be in the form of registration fees, annual fees, franchise fees, etc.	Is it lawful to offer smaller portions only to children below a certain age..? Yes Part 3 of the Equality Act 2010 covers "Services and Public Functions" and at section 29 states: Provision of services, etc. (1)A person (a “service-provider”) concerned with the provision of a service to the public or a section of the public (for payment or not) must not discriminate against a person requiring the service by not providing the person with the service. This is the only definition of "service-provider" in the Act, but the Equality and Human Rights Commission confirms a restaurant falls with the scope of Part 3: Equality law applies to any business that provides goods, facilities or services to members of the public. This includes a wide range of different businesses and services. These include: [...] restaurants [...] However all that is moot (but posted here for context) as Part 3 of the Act opens with caveats at section 28 which establishes that: (1)This Part does not apply to the protected characteristic of— (a)age, so far as relating to persons who have not attained the age of 18; [...]
Can HOA force you to pay dues for a community service you do not use? To begin this, I have lived in this residence for a decade now. The community charges $300 annually for access to the community pool, to which I only actually used the first three years living here. I was handed a case by a police officer today saying I have exactly 30 days upon receiving the letter to pay dues for the community pool for the past 8 years that I have not used it. The communities HOA has made it incredibly difficult to contact to ask for a copy of the rules and regulations, since their automated phone system demands a pin of some sort to which it swiftly disconnects you if you do not have it. My question is, can they legally force me to pay this fee? Is there another way to obtain a copy of the community rules and regulations?	The community charges $300 annually for access to the community pool, to which I only actually used the first three years living here. It likely does not matter whether you used the pool or not. I was handed a case by a police officer today saying I have exactly 30 days upon receiving the letter to pay dues for the community pool for the past 8 years that I have not used it. I imagine the result of failure to pay the HOA fee is a lien on the property. I don't know whether foreclosure is an option but it might be. The communities HOA has made it incredibly difficult to contact to ask for a copy of the rules and regulations, since their automated phone system demands a pin of some sort to which it swiftly disconnects you if you do not have it. This is not likely to be a valid excuse for not paying the HOA dues. You almost certainly owe them regardless and you probably also owe any late charges or penalties associated with not paying on time. My question is, can they legally force me to pay this fee? Nobody can force you to pay. But if they present their case in court and win, the judge can force you to pay, have your assets seized, garnish your wages, or put you in jail if you refuse. That comes pretty close. Is there another way to obtain a copy of the community rules and regulations? Of course. Send certified letters requesting the CCRs to: The HOA office The government office where the deed is recorded If the CCRs are valid and binding something to that effect will be recorded on the deed. If so, the current valid and binding CCRs may be filed with the government or may only be available from the HOA. I am not a lawyer. If you have $2,400 to pay I suggest you pay it and stay current on all future payments. HOAs that actually notice missing fees are not to be trifled with. If you think they are making your life miserable now, you ain't seen nothing yet.	Before you go changing locks, you might want to hire an attorney. There is law in Ohio that governs "such" relationship, which are typically landlord-tenant relationships, but might not be strictly construed the way you'd prefer. In a classic landlord-tenant relationship, it is illegal to change locks on a tenant, and if you want a tenant booted out, you have to go through the court process and get the court to order an eviction (carried out by the sheriff). A landlord-tenant relationship need not involve a written lease, all that matters is having an agreement. On the face of it, it looks to me as though you agreed to let your son live there, and his attorney would no doubt point to whatever benefit you received from allowing your son to live there as "consideration" in this verbal (vague) contract. The exact terms of that contract don't matter: what matters is that state law limits what you can do. You can read ORC here on the topic of evictions. Actually physically removing a person is a crime (battery), so definitely don't do that. Lockouts have been illegal since 1973. You no doubt can show the court that your son is now effectively a trespasser, but he clearly did not break in without permission, so the bottom line is probably a visit to the court (unless a letter from the attorney resolves the matter). Alternatively, it could be simpler and cheaper to just go directly for the court process. There are professionally-written manuals for about $20 that spell out the procedures, and an attorney is not actually required to evict someone. You can just treat the situation as a standard landlord-tenant process, give the required notices (using legalese in a notice may well be sufficient). If you do have to file in court, there are a couple hundred bucks of fees associated with filing. It takes time. There is a 3 day notice requirement on your notice, after that you can file the complaint and a hearing is scheduled after that (county dependent: I hear it's about 3 weeks in Franklin). Defendant can stretch that out for a week or so by asking for a continuance to seek legal counsel, but eventually you will prevail unless the judge is too warm-hearted and orders family counseling (you never know, these days). They you apply for the "red tag", the bailiff posts it within a few days, and that gives him 5 days to leave. If that doesn't work, you call the bailiff for the physical removal, and they probably respond within a couple of business days.	A settlement is fundamentally a contract where parties A and B promise to do certain things (one of them being "stop litigating"). A court order is an enforceable order to do something. A contract cannot be directly enforced (where force is used to make a person comply), it requires a court order for actual enforcement. The conditions of a contract might be enforceable, but you can't get the sheriff to come out based just on a contract. It appears that you got to the "facilitation" phase where the parties talk about the issue and the CRT case manager talks to the parties in neutral terms, aiming for an agreement. If you don't reach an agreement, the Tribunal Decision Process escalates the matter. Under the decision process, the CRT member makes a decision, and it can be enforced in court. They state that "For a $25 fee, the CRT can turn your agreement into an order, if both parties agree that an order should be issued. This is called a “consent resolution order”." I suppose that you did not go through that step, and you only have an agreement. So you would need a separate court process to get a court order. Because everything that you did in this negotiation phase is confidential, if you want CRT to give you something that is enforceable, you have to present the case from the beginning, since they don't have access to what has happened before. The problem in your account is that a settlement has to be reached by yourselves – possibly with the assistance of the CRT case manager. I assume you did actually get a settlement (agreement) with the landlord, but have not filed for a consent resolution order. It may be that the case is too old for you to just pay the $25, and it does require agreement by the other party. Read their FAQ about how cases end.	They can charge you with anything they think you did. And yes, the circumstances play a large part in the decision to arrest, charge and prosecute. However, circumstances include you: Reputation is everything. If you are a 17 year old male troublemaker with a long juvie rap sheet, including 3 past instances of stealing golf carts, then expect to be charged with the theft. Honestly you would probably be charged with the theft if you had simply stayed away and called the cops to report it abandoned. If you came upon it in your vehicle and it's obviously blocking the road and your apparent motive is to figure out how to move it so you can get by, then you're probably in the clear. If you're a 44 year old owner of a golf cart business, PAL supporter, city councilwoman and know half the cops including one in the car that stopped you, then, they're going to pretty much listen to you as far as what's the deal with the cart. Probably ask you for help moving it safely, might even ask you to get your cart-hauler to take it to impound. You won't hear from the D.A. obviously; nobody will say "Sue Councilwoman stole a golf cart" because it would sound absurd and make the speaker appear to be a politically motivated liar. That's the power of reputation; no one would speak it even if you did steal it. (Of course if you got caught doing it on a Ring camera, well, the hero takes a fall!) Anything in between, they'll deal with it in proportion to both the facts about you and the fact about the situation. You do not have a right to get the same credibility as the councilwoman; that is earned. That's the power of reputation.	Under RCW 59.18.030(29), "Rent" or "rental amount" means recurring and periodic charges identified in the rental agreement for the use and occupancy of the premises, which may include charges for utilities. Except as provided in RCW 59.18.283(3), these terms do not include nonrecurring charges for costs incurred due to late payment, damages, deposits, legal costs, or other fees, including attorneys' fees. Per RCW 59.18.283(2) Except as provided in RCW 59.18.410, the tenant's right to possession of the premises may not be conditioned on a tenant's payment or satisfaction of any monetary amount other than rent. In other words, additional regular fees are disallowed. All recurring fees must be "rent" (but things like late fees, damages, attorney's fees which arise only occasionally are allowed). If a lease were to specify $2,000 as the rent and $1,000 as the "___fee", as a recurring charge it would still be considered to be $3,000 rent. One cannot get around the 60 day notice requirement of RCW 59.18.140(3a) (which says "a landlord shall provide a minimum of sixty days' prior written notice of an increase in the amount of rent to each affected tenant, and any increase in the amount of rent may not become effective prior to the completion of the term of the rental agreement") by calling it a "continuation fee". One does not need to get around rent control because per RCW 35.21.830, The imposition of controls on rent is of statewide significance and is preempted by the state. No city or town of any class may enact, maintain, or enforce ordinances or other provisions which regulate the amount of rent to be charged for single-family or multiple-unit residential rental structures or sites other than properties in public ownership, under public management, or properties providing low-income rental housing under joint public-private agreements for the financing or provision of such low-income rental housing.	It isn't necessarily "illegal" (in the sense you are committing a crime) but you may be in violation of a verbal contract (which would fall under tort law). Let's take this a bit further. Perhaps Joe Schmoe gave you his debit card information so that you could make deposits for him and he said you could take $5 out for yourself for the trouble. This is a contract between you and Joe for a service. You can't extend Joe's offer to Jane Doe by saying "here is some debit card information, take $2.50 out for yourself". You have no right to extend your contract with Joe to somebody else. Now specifically for passwords it basically boils down to the same thing. Unless Joe gives you explicit permission to give that to somebody else, you can't just decide to unilaterally give what Joe gave you to somebody else. This may be different if Joe said "here, I'm buying you a subscription to service XYZ because you are a nice guy", this may be construed as a gift which transfers ownership. At that point you have control over what is or isn't done with the account. As another example let's say Joe let you borrow his car. You can't turn around and say to Jane, "here's a car you can use", Joe did not extend the offer to Jane, nor did Joe give you the right to extend the offer to another person. It's a moot point though, in the original context of this question, Netflix does restrict you from sharing your passwords "outside your household". Almost every paid service has some restriction against sharing with others. In the end Netflix may shut off Joe's account and Joe may sue you for damages, but you aren't going to be thrown in jail for this. This would be a civil case (tort) which you may be liable for monetary damages.	If you buy a house, you can generally rent out a room in the house, unless in that jurisdiction there is some law against renting rooms in houses (that's actually a condition in my neighborhood, one widely ignored). If it's legal to rent (lease) a room, it is generally legal to sub-lease that room – as long as that's allowed under the original lease contract. I have never heard of a jurisdiction that has a blanket prohibition against subleases. So as far as the actual question goes, the answer is, "yes". The links are about something a different, namely rent control law in San Francisco, and the question of whether a tenant can be evicted from a rent-controlled unit because the owner wants to move in to the unit. Owner move-in eviction requires a specific procedure for giving notice, and the links are about these requirements. Conceivably, though, the question could be whether a person can buy a house that is being rented out, do a proper owner move-in eviction, and then lease a spare room. The SF rent laws require a good faith intent to move in and use as the primary residence for 3 years, and nothing prohibit subsequently leasing a room. Those laws pertain to evictions, not re-rentals. (It should be noted that once eviction under section 37.9(a)(8) has been carried out on a unit in a building, no other unit in the building can ever be so recovered. That could mean that the room in the house could never again be recovered, if it is considered to be a separate "unit" from the "unit" that is the whole house).	Michigan law say nothing about landlord entry, so whatever it says in the lease is what is allowed. Various sources like this comment on the lack of such statutory regulations. There does not appear to be any relevant case law for Michigan which impose restrictions on a landlord's right to access a rental. Since there is no statutory or case law restriction on landlord's right to access his property, landlord's agent would have the same right to access. That would mean that if the listing agent were authorized by the landlord to enter, then the agent could enter, and it would not be necessary for the landlord to accompany this agent whenever entry was needed. That does not mean that a "listing agent" that happens to work with a landlord has an independent right to enter the landlord's property. The same would go for repairmen. It is actually not clear to me whether there could be blanket permission for any and all with access to the lock box to enter, since pretty much any realtor can enter a house for sale, subject to whatever the stated limitations are, and they don't call the owner for each entry. I suspect that one would not have legal grounds for imposing a particular additional restriction on a landlord's right to access and permit access to the property, since there's no overriding statute, and restrictions on landlord access mainly derive from statutes.
Methods for obtaining source code from an uncooperative company I purchased a commercial product in the United States that has user-upgradable firmware available by unrestricted download. I am positive this firmware is based on an open-source project licensed under the GPL. I would like the source for this firmware to make my own modifications, and being under the GPL they are required to give it to me. I have contacted the company, and initially I got some traction, but eventually I got stonewalled. I contacted the reseller I bought the product from, and they have shrugged their shoulders. I want this source code, so what are my options to obtain it?	Gather evidence that the software you are requesting the source code of really is based on, in whole or part, an existing open source project that has a license which requires source code to be made available, and then contact that projects copyright holders. Only they have standing to sue.	So-called AI software does not enjoy a special legal status (at present: one never knows what new law might be added). The question of whether any software can be distributed "safely" or "responsibly" is also not a legal issue. Nor is "true sentience" a relevant consideration, and nothing is guaranteed. When you distribute software of any kind, there is an implied warranty that the product is "fit", and if software kills you, you may be able to sue the creator for negligence. A software creator may then want to disclaim liability, by saying "WARNING: THIS PROGRAM MAY KILL YOU. OCP IS NOT LIABLE FOR ANY INJURIES ARISING FROM USE OF THIS PRODUCT". This may or may not actually remove liability. In the UK "liability for negligence occasioning death or personal injury cannot be excluded", so such a disclaimer will not prevent a suit against the manufacturer. In the US, the issue is determined at the level of the state – here is a summary of the law in the states. Probably the primary question would be whether such a disclaimer is an unconscionable term, and the second question is whether the act constituted gross negligence (not simply "negligence"). Mississippi exceptionally does not allow disclaimers, but even then, it does allow disclaiming liability when it comes to computer hardware and software. A software disclaimer is not inherently unconscionable, though perhaps some specific disclaimer would be found to be. Courts typically disfavor disclaimers in the case of gross negligence, and again determining what constitutes "gross negligence" is determined on a state by state basis. If the act shows "reckless indifference to the rights of others" and "failure to use even slight care or conduct that is so careless as to show complete disregard for the rights and safety of others", then the act might be grossly negligent.	You probably can. There are a few questions here. First, is the message protected by copyright? In general, it probably is, but there are many exceptions that might allow you to use it without permission. Unfortunately, these exceptions vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The exceptions tend to allow the use of small excerpts of a work for various sorts of purposes that don't undermine the copyright holder's ability to profit. That leads to the second question, which is why you are using that message. If you're including it in your source code so you can test whether a message generated at run time is in fact that message, that's one thing, and it's probably okay. On the other hand, if the owner of the copyright sells a database of all its message strings, and you're compiling a similar database that you also intend to sell, that's probably not okay. A third question concerns the Firefox license terms. It's entirely possible that they allow you explicitly to do what you're considering, in which case it doesn't matter what copyright law says about it. On the other hand, Firefox is open source software, and under some open source licenses, if you incorporate any of the source code in your own product, you are required to release your product's source code under the same license. If you're not already planning to do that, you should consider carefully whether including that error message would trigger that provision (if there is one) of Firefox's open source license.	Yes, a work with no license is All Rights Reserved, reserved meaning the creator of the work. Who is the creator of the work ? Everyone who contributed it, unanimously. Yes. If people contributed any copyrightable part of your work, in theory you cannot add any license or grant any right to use/reproduce/whatever the work without their unanimous agreement. That's very cumbersome, and almost nobody really does that, but it's what the law is. Big serious companies and repos require contributors to waive their rights on the code they contribute, by agreeing to a contributor's agreement. For example, python/cpython requires you to give your contribs a license allowing the python org to do essentially what they want with it, even though you retain copyright over them. If your project is not so serious, I suggest it should be enough to make the license clear, and that by contributing people are agreeing to place their contribution's code under the license. If it's a free license, that's all you need.	Counter notices are described in 17 USC 512(g)(3). It starts with the requirement for "A physical or electronic signature of the subscriber" (and a statement under penalty of perjury...). Supposing that you can't get anywhere with finding the contributor even via a subpoena, then you're stopped there: you can't swear on behalf of someone else. Paragraph (f) also says that if a person files a false infringement claim, they become liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys' fees, incurred by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or copyright owner's authorized licensee, or by a service provider, who is injured by such misrepresentation, as the result of the service provider relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity claimed to be infringing, or in replacing the removed material or ceasing to disable access to it but it's not immediately obvious that you would suffer damage by taking the material down (not immediately obvious doesn't mean obviously not true). A case could be made, but it's risky. In Online Policy Group v. Diebold, Diebold was hit with substantial damages basically for having made up a theory that certain email discussion was infringing when it was clearly fair use. If a person actually lies about being the copyright owner, that would probably be viewed even more dimly by the courts. Your 4th argument gives you no traction: if an infringer posts infringing material and transfers copyright on the web page, but they don't hold copyright, then that transfer mean nothing. As for the other arguments, your attorney will have to suggest an advisable course of action. S/he might advise that your evidence is so strong that you should just ignore the takedown; or that you should take the content down and then sue for damages; or take the content down and lobby your congressman for a change in the law. [Addendum] I will reiterate my recommendation to get a lawyer. I believe that under the law, the risk to you would be the situation where the person prevails in an infringement suit against you. Outside of the "mere conduit" safe harbor, you have to participate in the notice and takedown scheme in order to "stay safe" (also you have to do so quickly). You have identified a potentially huge flaw in the system. Theoretically, criminal charges of perjury and paragraph (f) damages would be enough to deter ordinary wrong-doers, provided that you can really prove that someone else is the copyright holder. But the cost of litigation is not zero and the chances of winning are not 100%. The law does assume that all parties tell the truth, indeed the law requires a "penalty of perjury" statement. Since counter-notice is also part of the legal dance, I would conclude that you do have to write yourself a counter-notice. Then if there is a suit, you have satisfied the requirements of the law.	By clicking "accept" on the software license, you waived your rights to sue for damages. But you can go to the support forums and make an issue of what happened; Apple - like most companies - doesn't like bad PR. Official Apple Support Communities	Online file converters are legal: there is no law that prohibits a person from making a program available and executing online, including creating output in the form of a file. It is possible that some person may illegally copy copyright-protected material then use a website to modify that material, in which case the question of vicarious liability for copyright infringement could arise, so we appeal to the DMCA safe harbor provisions to see what the website must do. First, the owner of copyright must submit a properly constructed takedown notice to the website. Crucially, the notice must contain sufficient information that the website operator can find and take down the item(s) in question. Assuming that the complainant can supply the "where is it" information, then there is a notice and counter-notice routine where the uploader is informed and can deny the accusation – the website operator doesn't evaluate the merits of the claim, he only sees that the formalities were observed. If the operator follows the rules, he cannot be held vicariously liable. If the link does not expire and if it is somehow promulgated, the technical potential for being a contributor to copyright infringement becomes very real, but it puts the operator in no worse a legal position than Youtube. So the question is not just related to OCILLA, it is entirely covered by that law. Questions of how users or website owners are "supposed to" act don't figure into this. If the website owner does not comply with those provisions, they have no access to the safe harbor provisions, and they can be sued. However, the website itself remains legally "permitted" (there never was a prohibition of such a website).	From the perspective of US law: Scenario 1: Removing the watermark is perfectly legal, obviously. You own the copyright. Scenario 2: Abandonware is not really a thing in the US when it comes to copyright (and the Wikipedia article you linked says this.) Even if the company went out of business, the copyright almost certainly went to somebody - the former owners, the creditors, etc. As far as the Internet Archive goes, they are taking advantage of an exemption in the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions, along with the copyright exemption found in 17 USC § 108. But both of these exemptions require you to be a "library or archive" to take advantage of them, and you are not a library or archive, so you cannot take advantage of either. As a practical matter, if the software is really abandoned it's unlikely that anyone will actually come after you for infringement, but that's not quite the same as it being legal - you could be on the hook for up to $150,000 in statutory damages per work infringed, if the owner does sue you. You could attempt to claim fair use, of course. If the image is abandoned you might get a favorable result on factor 4 of the fair use test (the effect on the market for the original) since there's no market if nobody can find the owner. But it would depend on the other factors; that alone wouldn't get you fair use. Scenario 3: I'm not sure where you get the idea that downloading a copyrighted image to your desktop is somehow protected. It isn't automatically legal to save a copy of something just because it's on the Internet. And the existence of a watermark may indicate that someone wanted to prevent the file from being copied. The website containing the image will likely have terms of use, which may indicate whether or not you're allowed to make a copy. For example, Stack Exchange's TOS says in part: Subscriber may download or copy the Content, and other items displayed on the Network for download, for personal use, provided that Subscriber maintains all copyright and other notices contained in such Content.
Can I produce or write my own recipe book based on what my action in cooking using other's recipe book or online? I have done my research but the stack exchange provides no further answer that I needed. My research is as follows: A StackExchange user comments Selection and ordering of the recipes could be a "compilation" under U.S. law: the creative decision-making in compiling the set of recipes might satisfy copyright's "modicum of creativity" requirement. See 17 USC §103: "The copyright in such [compilation] is independent of [...] any copyright protection in the preexisting material." I'm not 100% sure about that, though. There may be relevant case law; I don't know. Source Publications International vs Meredith should provide you with the desired clarity. 17 USC 102(b) says In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work The court found that The identification of ingredients necessary for the preparation of each dish is a statement of facts. There is no expressive element in each listing; in other words, the author who wrote down the ingredients for "Curried Turkey and Peanut Salad" was not giving literary expression to his individual creative labors. Instead, he was writing down an idea, namely, the ingredients necessary to the preparation of a particular dish. "No author may copyright facts or ideas. The copyright is limited to those aspects of the work -- termed 'expression' -- that display the stamp of the author's originality." and finally Although the inventions of "Swiss 'n' Cheddar Cheeseballs" and "Mediterranean Meatball Salad" were at some time original, there can be no monopoly in the copyright sense in the ideas for producing certain foodstuffs. Nor can there be copyright in the method one might use in preparing and combining the necessary ingredients. Protection for ideas or processes is the purview of patent. Of course, that precludes copying the author's elegant description of live on the Riviera, which is protected literary work.Source I have cooking as a hobby. I would like to put up a site where I share the recipes I used. I sometimes use recipes from the cooking book which obviously copyrighted work. Therefore, I decided what if I 'retell' the process involved when I am cooking the dish myself, producing 'my own' 'cooking instruction'? Of course, I would like my recipe to have the same ingredients as the reference book I am using, else the taste is not going to be the same. Is this allowed? How about international law since I am not in the US.	Recipe books can be, and often are, protected by copyright. If the individual recipes are by others, this would constitute a collective work or compilation. See this recent answer for more on the rights protected for a collective work. The selection of which recipes to include would be a creative element, protected by copyright, and could not be copied or closely imitated without permission. However, division into groups by type of dish would be a "natural and obvious" arrangement, and not protected. So would alphabetical or chronological arrangement within a group, or over all. A "non-obvious" order of recipes would however be a protectable element. An individual recipe may be protected by copyright, but this protects less than one might think. Copyright does not protect facts or methods. This means that the list of ingredients is not protected, nor is the general list of steps of preparation. Only the exact wording of the recipe will be protected. Creating a new collection of recipes based on several different previously published collections of recipes (whether from the web, books, magazines, or other media) and making one's own selections of which ones to include that is significantly different from any of the previous collections would not violate the collection copyrights of any of the previous collections. If the actual recipes were rewritten so that any creative expression from the originals was not copied, then it seems that no copyright infringement has occurred. Most recipes, after all, are not fully original but are modified from older ones. There is no set figure for how many recipes could be copied from a given source before this becomes infringement. That would be, if a suit was field, a matter for the judgement of the count as to whether the new book was "based on" the alleged source. The more the list in the new work resembles a particular source, the more like a derivative work it seems and the more likely that it would be held to be an infringement. One could always ask for a license from the older source, to avoid any risk of suit, but it might not be available or the copyright holder might demand an excessive fee. Asking for a license risks drawing attention to the new work, as well, and might cause a holder to file suit who otherwise would not.	In a hypothetical case like you are describing, you could make a contract with them regarding the duplication of the content, irrespective of copyright law. Their violation of that contract would not necessarily be a copyright violation (which would allow statutory damages), but you might win a breach of contract lawsuit. But if someone took it from them and made copies, you would likely not have a case against that person because copyright would not protect you and you have no contract with them. In addition, you could obtain a very "thin copyright" in a particular new presentation of the material. This would mean that copyright law would apply, but only to the particular presentation (e.g. new footnotes, a particular layout, etc...) If considering doing this IRL, you should consult a copyright attorney.	Pseudo-code written down somewhere is protected by copyright, even if the article containing it doesn't say anything about the pseudo-code contained in it (i.e. doesn't mention "this too is copyrighted"). For example, let us assume that the following isn't actual compileable / executable code in some extant programming language: procedure bubbleSort( A : list of sortable items ) n = length(A) repeat swapped = false for i = 1 to n-1 inclusive do /* if this pair is out of order / if A[i-1] > A[i] then / swap them and remember something changed */ swap( A[i-1], A[i] ) swapped = true end if end for until not swapped end procedure It does nevertheless constitute an expression of an abstract algorithm. If it can be copied and pasted, it is an expression. If you run this through a filter to create executable code in some language, you will have created a derivative work (and possibly one with no copyright protection, if the conversion is totally automatic). If you read the lines and say "Ah, I know what that would be in Pascal", that has the modicum of creativity required to make your conversion protected, but you've still infringed the underlying work. On the other hand, a logical flow chart, which is a picture of the abstract idea of what to do, is copyright-protected only as a graphic object. If you look at it and it inspires you to write pseudo-code or actual code, you are not copying the flow chart.	The Organization Does Not Own the Copyright As you were clearly not an employee of the organization, and did not have a specific contract with them, this was not a "work-made-for-hire" (WFH). Therefore, the copyright initially belonged to the author, in this case the programmer, that is you. That being so, it would require a written document to transfer the copyright to another during your lifetime. In future there should be a written agreement in such a case, spelling out just what rights are to be retained by whom. It can save lots of trouble. The organization would have an implied license to use the software. The terms of this would be defined by the conduct of the parties, and might be a matter of dispute. Probably there would be a non-exclusive license without any fee or ending date. Probably there would be no license to distribute to others unless you explicitly grant one. Specific US Laws 17 USC 101 defines a WFH: A “work made for hire” is— (1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or (2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire. For the purpose of the foregoing sentence, a “supplementary work” is a work prepared for publication as a secondary adjunct to a work by another author for the purpose of introducing, concluding, illustrating, explaining, revising, commenting upon, or assisting in the use of the other work, such as forewords, afterwords, pictorial illustrations, maps, charts, tables, editorial notes, musical arrangements, answer material for tests, bibliographies, appendixes, and indexes, and an “instructional text” is a literary, pictorial, or graphic work prepared for publication and with the purpose of use in systematic instructional activities. (emphasis added) 17 USC 201 provides that: (a) Initial Ownership. — Copyright in a work protected under this title vests initially in the author or authors of the work. The authors of a joint work are coowners of copyright in the work. (b) Works Made for Hire. — In the case of a work made for hire, the employer or other person for whom the work was prepared is considered the author for purposes of this title, and, unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise in a written instrument signed by them, owns all of the rights comprised in the copyright. ... (d) Transfer of Ownership.— (d) (1) The ownership of a copyright may be transferred in whole or in part by any means of conveyance or by operation of law, and may be bequeathed by will or pass as personal property by the applicable laws of intestate succession. (d) (2) Any of the exclusive rights comprised in a copyright, including any subdivision of any of the rights specified by section 106, may be transferred as provided by clause (1) and owned separately. The owner of any particular exclusive right is entitled, to the extent of that right, to all of the protection and remedies accorded to the copyright owner by this title. 17 USC 204 provides that: (a) A transfer of copyright ownership, other than by operation of law, is not valid unless an instrument of conveyance, or a note or memorandum of the transfer, is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner’s duly authorized agent.	germany I am reasonably sure that works like this would be Public Domain, i.e. not copyrighted in the first place. In Germany, copyright (or more precisely, Author's Right) can only be held by a natural person, which is a legal term of art that essentially means "human being". There are two groups of natural persons involved here: the programmers and the creators of the works which are part of the training set. However, I can't see how either group could have a reasonable claim of copyright. Note: there have been similar discussions about GitHub Copilot, an AI that writes code for you. It is my understanding that the process used by GitHub Copilot is roughly comparable to the process used here. With GitHub Copilot, there have been instances where significant snippets which are part of the training set have appeared in the output with only minor alterations. In this case, it is likely that the original author will have copyright over that portion of the output. However, IFF a human being were actually involved in selecting specific works, then there is probably a copyright based on the creative decision of selecting this particular work and rejecting all the others. This is similar to the classic textbook example of a driftwood sculpture: the creative process here is not creating the sculpture but choosing to pick up this particular piece of driftwood instead of the hundreds of others on the beach. So, if you simply generate these works and publish all of them, there is no copyright. If you generate a large batch and then select a certain number, then the person who made the selection might hold a copyright.	There's usually at least a little wiggle room for a fair-use argument in copyright law, but as you're describing it, this sounds like a pretty straightforward copyright violation. A copyright holder's exclusive rights include the rights to make copies, create derivative works and publicly perform the work. Whichever way you want to characterize the podcaster's conduct, he's running afoul of at least one of these rights.	No, copyright absolutely does not protect anything "novel" or anything related to algorithms or generally anything functional at all. Copyright only protects your "expressed representation of a creative work". Other people can duplicate your work with a different "expression" and not be infringing on copyright. And if there is nothing creative in your work then it's not even eligible for copyright in the first place. For example, if you figure out how to sort an array with fewer computational steps than what anybody else is doing then that is functional code, not creative code, and anybody can reverse engineer/duplicate your sorting algorithm. However, patents do provide the protection you're looking for. If you want to protect your fancy algorithm then apply for a patent. Patents expire an order of magnitude sooner than copyright, but they are the only means of legally protecting this type of intellectual property. Unlike copyright, patent protection is only available if you apply for it, and it has to be approved by the relevant government department in your country (although you can start using the patented technology before approval has gone through).	It is legal to rewrite a book that is out of copyright, although ethical considerations demand that the original author and source be credited. You need to derive your rewrite from a version that is out of copyright, however, rather than a translation whose incremental innovations due to the transformation arising from the translation is still under copyright. Certainly, the 16th century original would be out of copyright, and in all likelihood, so would many of the later editions, but probably not the one from 1971.
Fifth Amendment privileges v. Sixth Amendment privileges in criminal trials I'm quite confident that all users on Law StackExchange are well acquainted with the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, which confers the privilege against self-incrimination upon witnesses as well as defendants. I'm also equally assured of users' familiarity with the Amendment that follows, and they are thus aware of the rights it affords to the defendant, which includes one to confront adverse witnesses and obtain favourable ones via a compulsory process. In my opinion, the rights that I have stated in the previous paragraph are in conflict with each other in certain scenarios. For example, what happens if the state's witness invokes their Fifth Amendment right on cross-examination or a defence witness, whom the state refuses to give immunity, does the same on direct examination? I am aware that a witness may not want to expose themselves to prosecution, but would they deprive a defendant's right to a full defence in doing so?	Yes, there is indeed a conflict, often described as a balancing act. Similarly, the principle of free speech protected by the First Amendment requires that the public tolerate lies in political rhetoric, and hateful public speech and insults, but can be balanced against an individual's interest in reputation in a libel case. See Near vs Minnesota and NY Times vs Sullivan for leading cases on this issue. There is also tension between the right of a newspaper to report on a current criminal case again under the First Amendment, and the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial before an unbiased jury, which might be influenced by newspaper publicity. In these and similar situations, there is no way to fully serve both protected interests, and courts must strike a balance and prefer one right over another, or find some compromise. In the 5th vs 6th situation, courts have mostly favored the 5th. That is, the court will not require a witness to give up the right not to self-incriminate, and usually will not grant a defendant an acquittal because desired testimony is unavailable. It might be that a defendant expected to rely on the testimony of a witness who has since died, or has fled the country and cannot be brought before the court. The sixth does not and cannot assure perfect justice, and the courts do not attempt to make it do so. In the situation described, the defendant may compel the witness to appear and be asked the relevant questions. The jury will hear the answer, and may assume what it would have been without the invocation of the Fifth. The defendant's lawyer can try to find a question that the witness will answer, and can argue that the refusal to answer is consistent with a not-guilty verdict. That is all that the courts provide. When the prosecution calls a witness, knowing or having good reason to know that the witness will invoke the 5th on more or less every relevant question, the US Supreme Court in Namet v. United States 373 U.S. 179 (1963) has held that this may be error requiring overturning the conviction. This was confirmed and expanded in Douglas v. Alabama 380 U.S. 415 (1965). But neither of these are relevant when the defense calls the witness.	The operative clause is constrained to interpretations that are consistent with the prefatory clause. "But apart from that clarifying function, a prefatory clause does not limit or expand the scope of the operative clause." DC v Heller 554 U.S. 570 (2008) The majority in Heller, after interpreting the operative clause "return[ed] to the prefatory clause to ensure that [their] reading of the operative clause is consistent with the announced purpose." In their case, since their interpretation of the operative clause was consistent with the announced purpose in the prefatory clause, the prefatory clause may seem to have no effect. However, they make the point that other interpretations of the operative clause can be ruled out by cross-checking against the announced purpose from the prefatory clause: "petitioners’ interpretation does not even achieve the narrower purpose that prompted codification of the right." The court writes that if the petitioners had their way, only state-organized militias would be the beneficiary of the 2nd Amendment protections. However, the majority does not read the prefatory clause this narrowly. "[If] the organized militia is the sole institutional beneficiary of the Second Amendment’s guarantee — it does not assure the existence of a “citizens’ militia” as a safeguard against tyranny." The majority reads the prefatory clause to refer to a "citizens' militia": "the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense".	A courtroom is not a podium A court is a forum for resolving a specific dispute. Testimony is restricted for a number of reasons the most all encompassing of which is relevance. For testimony to be admitted it has to go to the issue in dispute. For a person charged under the laws of, say, India, it cannot be in any way relevant what the laws of, say, China have to say about the issue. Similarly, for a person charged with a Federal crime, state law is irrelevant (and vice-versa). There is no free speech issue here because testimony is given only for the purpose of resolving the case. If it’s not relevant to that you can’t introduce it and, if you persist in trying the court can hold you in contempt.	I don't believe your premise is necessarily true. As the Supreme Court has held, a defendant can be prosecuted for perjury after being convicted for another offense at trial: The conviction of Williams, at a former trial, for beating certain victims is not former or double jeopardy. Obviously perjury at a former trial is not the same offense as the substantive offense, under 18 U.S.C. § 242, of depriving a person of constitutional rights under color of law. . . . It would be no service to the administration of justice to enlarge the conception of former jeopardy to afford a defendant immunity from prosecution for perjury while giving testimony in his own defense. United States v. Williams, 341 U.S. 58, 62 (1951) (emphasis added). Now as a practical matter, trying a convicted person for perjury is most likely rare, since the prosecutor has already obtained a conviction for the underlying offense. Starting another prosecution for perjury might be excessive or unnecessary. But that doesn't mean it's categorically prohibited. Note also that perjury by the defendant can be considered by the judge to enhance the defendant's sentence. United States v. Dunnigan, 507 U.S. 87, 96 (1993).	united-states Is a personal text (like a diary), submitted without the consent of the author, admissible evidence? Usually, it is admissible evidence. There is no legal right to keep your diary private. Production of a diary may be compelled by subpoena and admitted into evidence subject only to general considerations regarding whether particular entries in the diary are inadmissible for some other reason (e.g. lack of relevance, they recite the contents of an otherwise privileged discussion, they contain hearsay, they recite the terms of a settlement offer, the recite inadmissible prior act evidence, etc.). If the diary revealed information that could place the diarist at risk of criminal prosecution, the 5th Amendment privilege against self-incrimination could arguably be claimed even in a civil case, but at the risk of an adverse inference to be drawn from that decision in civil matters. I haven't ever seen how that issue is resolved legally.	Ultimately this raises a question of balancing two fundamental rights: The right of the accused to a fair trial within due process of law & the right to freedom of expression (or in the case of press publications as in most of the cases cited by this answer, the very related freedom of the press). Both the US & Canada safeguard these rights in their constitutions (Amendments I, V, XIV & Charter ss. 2(b), 11(d) respectively) so any differences would be in their approaches to balancing these rights. United States I've found Some Aspects of the Law of Contempt of Court in Canada, England, and the United States (Jacob S. Ziegel, 1960) to be highly informative on the historical development of contempt of court and provided a good baseline understanding. In reference to Bridges v. California 314 U.S. 252 (1941), it states Although the Court recognized that "free speech and fair trials are two of the most cherished policies of our civilization" and that "it would be a trying task to choose between them", it held nevertheless that an abridgment on the freedom of the press was only permitted by the Constitution when there was "a clear and present danger" that the offending publication would actually interfere with a fair and impartial trial. The majority opinion rejected the "reasonable tendency" test which had been applied by the lower courts, and still is the yardstick by which such publications are measured in England and Canada. I'd also like to quote the following paragraph from Bridges as it raises two points I'd like to comment on: What finally emerges from the "clear and present danger" cases is a working principle that the substantive evil must be extremely serious, and the degree of imminence extremely high, before utterances can be punished. Those cases do not purport to mark the furthermost constitutional boundaries of protected expression, nor do we here. They do no more than recognize a minimum compulsion of the Bill of Rights. For the First Amendment does not speak equivocally. It prohibits any law "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." It must be taken as a command of the broadest scope that explicit language, read in the context of a liberty-loving society, will allow. The first point is that due to its broad language, the court gives a certain priority to the First Amendment. The second point involves the age of my citations: the "clear and present danger" test is from Schenck v. United States, largely considered to be overruled by the more stringent Brandenburg v. Ohio 395 U.S. 444 (1969) "immediate lawless action" test. This does raise the question of whether Bridges can then be considered good law. I unfortunately can't find any good references discussing Bridges in a post-Brandenburg context, however, I would argue it is still valid. While the Schenck test has been overruled, the Bridges citation I gave in fact foreshadows the Brandenburg test by using the language of "imminence" and stating the Schenck test was not necessarily the limit of the First Amendment, but just a minimum bar. I would then argue that Bridges can quite easily be considered good law by simply substituting the Schenck test with the Brandenburg one without really affecting the court's ratio decidendi. Canada Ziegel's article is even more out-of-date when it comes to Canada as it is pre-Charter. For a modern Canadian overview of out-of-court contempt of court I've found A Comment on "No Comment": The Sub Judice Rule and the Accountability of Public Officials in the 21st Century (Lorne Sossin & Valerie Crystal, 2013). The article cites Dagenais v. Canadian Broadcasting Corp. [1994] 3 SCR 835 as directly tackling the balance of these rights. In it the court acknowledged the pre-Charter common law of giving deference to the accused's right to a fair trial, but noting that the Charter now requires a balancing of these rights The traditional common law rule governing publication bans -- that there be a real and substantial risk of interference with the right to a fair trial -- emphasized the right to a fair trial over the free expression interests of those affected by the ban and, in the context of post-Charter Canadian society, does not provide sufficient protection for freedom of expression. When two protected rights come into conflict, Charter principles require a balance to be achieved that fully respects the importance of both rights. A hierarchical approach to rights must be avoided, both when interpreting the Charter and when developing the common law. The common law rule governing publication bans must thus be reformulated in a manner that reflects the principles of the Charter and, in particular, the equal status given by the Charter to ss. 2(b) and 11(d). Ultimately, the court concluded that a balance of these rights was the following test: A publication ban should only be ordered when: (a) Such a ban is necessary in order to prevent a real and substantial risk to the fairness of the trial, because reasonably available alternative measures will not prevent the risk; and (b) The salutary effects of the publication ban outweigh the deleterious effects to the free expression of those affected by the ban. While Dagenais more clearly explains the balancing of these two rights, the article also cites R. v. Vermette [1988] 1 SCR 985 which is a much more similar situation to Maxine Waters commenting on an ongoing trial. The article summarizes as follows: While the trial was ongoing, the premier of Quebec, René Lévesque, denounced one of the defence witnesses in the National Assembly, despite warnings by the Speaker that such comments would be prejudicial to the accused. The trial decision even contains the following comment from the judge: When speaking in the National Assembly, however, the Premier enjoyed the privilege of Parliamentary immunity. Had it not been for this immunity, he could have been cited for contempt of court. Comparison At a constitutional level, it can be seen that the balancing of these two rights are not the same in the US and Canada. The US gives much greater weight to freedom of speech, while Canada allows restriction of speech if doing so more greatly benefits another Charter right and there is no reasonable alternative. On a practical level, there are also differences in how jury trials are run, maybe even as a direct result of the constitutional differences. In Dagenais, the court quotes the following: Generally speaking, however, the approach taken in the United States seems to be to allow for the widest possible latitude in media reporting of events transpiring prior to and during the course of the trial of an accused person. This is counterbalanced, in the interests of ensuring an impartial and unbiased jury, in a number of ways including, during the jury selection process, by an often searching examination into the attitudes, biases and even the personal and financial affairs of potential jurors and, after the jury selection process has been completed, by the sequestration of the members of the jury while the trial is in progress to reduce the risk of their exposure to the media and other publicity generated by it. In Canada, by contrast, the process of jury selection is neither as prolonged nor as exhaustive as a general rule; indeed the kind of questioning and probing into the affairs of potential jurors that is sometimes seen in the United States would be unlikely to be permitted under our system. Moreover, in Canada the sequestration of jurors throughout a trial occurs only exceptionally. The strong bias of our system is to prevent the dissemination before the conclusion of the trial of media publicity that might be prejudicial to the accused's fair trial. The US & Canada simply follow different constitutional approaches here and have slightly different priorities when it comes to balancing rights.	This is a question of civil procedure more so than law. The customs and practices of civil procedure are established by legal precedent, not laws made by legislatures. In general, a witness can answer a question however they want as long as it is responsive to the question. Litigators will attempt to bully a witness into certain types of answers, but this is not "illegal" nor is it "illegal" for witnesses to craft their answers as they like. As for yes-no bullying there are two general cases: (1) The question is factual. If the questioner asks a purely factual question, like "Did you go to the factory on that Tuesday?" then a yes-no answer can be compelled. If the witness tries to explain why he went to the factory, or something, then he can be cut off, because he is being unresponsive. (2) The question is hypothetical. If the question is hypothetical or suppositional, then the witness can reject the question. For example, if the question, "You told your boss that you hated your wife, isn't that right?" In this case the witness can answer, "I reject the question, the prosecutor is putting words in my mouth." or can say "I resent the implication." or "That does not accurately reflect what happened." or whatever. Any time a question "paints a picture" or establishes something hypothetical and simply asks the witness to agree with the fantasy scenario, the witness can refuse to answer, or can answer with a counter scenario which they consider to be more accurate. I would add that in case (2) where a questioner tries to paint a false scenario, it is a risky move, because it opens the door for the witness to say whatever they want. For example, imagine this exchange in the courtroom: Prosecutor: "You told your boss that you hate your wife, isn't that right?" Witness: "What actually happened is..." Prosecutor: "That is a yes or no question, answer yes or no." Witness (to judge): "Your honor, the question mischaracterizes the conversation I had with my boss, I want to explain what actually was said." Judge: "The witness may proceed with his answer." Prosecutor: "I withdraw the question." Defender: "The prosecution has opened the door, let the witness answer." Judge: "The witness will answer the question." So, now the witness has permission to answer however he likes, and the prosecutor has blundered by making a vague question that created the situation where that was possible. The main thing a witness has to do is not try to say irrelevant things or try to add information beyond what was asked for, in that case the questioner can cut them off.	Yes Impeachment proceedings (as are all activities of Congress) are legal proceedings in that they are enabled by the Constitution. While it is true that they are not judicial proceedings, the activities of the legislature as with the executive (like a police interview) and judiciary (like a trial) are legal processes and the Fifth Amendment rights apply. During the McCarthy “red scare” era, pleading the fifth was commonplace by witnesses to Congressional hearings. However, pleading the fifth does not mean you can avoid testifying. If subpoenaed you would need to turn up and answer the questions, pleading the fifth when the answer could incriminate you in a criminal matter.
Concerns with working as a Teenager I am a 13 year old. I am wanting to work at my town's local book shop. I live in Washington, USA. I can't find any online documents regarding if I can or cannot work there. According to official D.O.L. documents, if you're 13 you can only work only on farming or other non harmful jobs. I was wondering if working at a produce store/book store is considered a "safe" job and if so, I can still get the minimum $7.25 pay since I am still working, right? Also, the D.O.L. documents say overtime doesn't apply to farm jobs. Does the produce store job count as working on an "active farm", since the store does handle and process fruits, vegetables and farming related items but doesn't grow them.	According to the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries, Under 14 years old In most cases, you need a superior court’s permission for minors under 14 to work. Minors under 14 who are allowed to work must follow the 14-15 year old requirements below. Which may or may not be easy to get. Also: For Employers Employers must complete and sign a Parent/School Authorization form before giving it to the teen’s parents and the school the teen attends for their signatures. The form must be renewed annually by Sept. 30. Employers also must have a minor work permit. This permit is available from the state Department of Revenue/Business License Service and must be renewed every year. Employers can obtain a minor work variance to extend daily and total hours per week with an application to L&I. So there's some extra paperwork all-around.	This is probably permitted on the theory that socializing children to do household type chores serves a reasonable educational purpose. If the dishes being washed were from a restaurant unrelated to the pre-school, on the other hand, this would probably be prohibited child labor.	Unless you are a salaried worker, all hours worked must be paid, and that could include paying overtime if the actual hours that you work is over 40 hrs. a week. You may file a complaint with the US Dept. of Labor, and the boss may not fire you for complaining. Your state DoL may have even stiffer rules and penalties.	Since you asked two questions: No and No Does a company’s T&C or their house rules supersede law No and is asking private health status (including the request to wear a mask) an offence? No A company cannot require you to do things that are against the law but they can require you to do things that go further than the legal minimum. The UK and Spanish governments do not require you to wear a mask but they do not prohibit private organisations (like airlines) for making it a requirement to access their facilities. The law requires that they make reasonable accommodation for people with disabilities. But you don’t have a disability, you just can’t sleep with a mask on. If you had a disability you would have no trouble in getting a letter from your doctor to that effect. The contract requires them to take you from the UK to Spain: they don’t have to enable you to sleep. If you read the T&C, you will find that they can refuse to carry you if, in their reasonable opinion, you pose a hazard to the aircraft or the people aboard it.	In the US, the laws that govern habitable residences and the related issues - such as land zoning, health regulations, sewer and water services, private and commercial building codes, etc. - are very localized at the city and county levels. So you need to check with the city and county where you want to place such a structure and determine the relevant laws. Commercial buildings are much more heavily regulated than private residences. (And some federal laws and codes could supersede local laws.) Many cities and counties have their zoning and building codes and requirements online, as well as permitting systems to apply for building and utility hookup permits. It's true that some counties in the US have minimal zoning or building codes, so yes, you could move a shed to land you own in that county and build your own road, haul your water, put up solar panels, dig an outhouse, and not deal with any - or very few - regulations. But cities and towns will be much more regulated, since zoning and building codes are used to insure public safety, and services such as water and sewer are supported by taxes and protect public health. In other words, you may not legally be able to live in a shed that does not have city sewer, water and electric service. There may also be building codes for minimum size of bedrooms, egress windows for fire, ventilation, heating systems, so even if a small house is sold as a complete residence in a package, it may not pass local building codes. Breaking zoning, building and health codes can result in the local inspectors visiting and determining if the residence is up to code; they will not typically need a warrant or your permission to enter. They can order you to bring the residence up to code, if possible; or condemn the structure and require you to move out.	All laws (federal, state and local) apply to everybody, unless you have diplomatic immunity. That is, unless e.g. the federal government decides as a matter of policy to ignore certain federal laws. California does not have a law generally prohibiting the use of marijuana, though public consumption is illegal, minor consumption is illegal, and possession over 28.5 grams is illegal. So that is one less law to be concerned with violating. The federal law still exists, and has not been repealed for anyone. However, the federal government by policy is not pursuing marijuana cases in legal contexts in those states that have legalized marijuana. The complication for foreign students is that there are also immigration laws whereby you may be deported for a drug offense (that link is full of technical details on immigration and drug laws, worth reading). The immigration laws basically make it easy to penalize a foreigner (for example you might be deemed "inadmissible" so you cannot be re-admitted to the US if you leave; it just depends on what their grounds are for action). For example, "a noncitizen is inadmissible as of the moment that immigration authorities gain substantial and probative 'reason to believe' the noncitizen has ever participated in drug trafficking," which does not mean a conviction. It is reported that in California, DHS officers have treated minor infractions as "convictions," which means to be safe you have to avoid even infractions. It appears (and hire an immigration attorney if you want to test this) that trouble only arises if there is reason to believe you are trafficking, if you are a drug addict or abuser, if you are "convicted" (not necessarily "tried and found guilty," it also includes certain legal maneuverings), or if you admit to drug use (even in the case of home use under doctor's orders, i.e. a California-legal context). This incidentally includes non-use but working for the marijuana industry. It is possible that you could get stopped on the street by a random immigration search, and if you are in possession, then... it is not guaranteed that possession of a small amount of marijuana, when caught by federal authorities, cannot lead to immigration problems.	Yes - there is no age upper limit written in the law. However it does include this exception at 29 U.S. Code § 623(f)(1): allowing an employer - (1) to take any action otherwise prohibited under subsections (a), (b), (c), or (e) of this section where age is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of the particular business, and there may be actual job requirements that a specific older person might not be able to perform and therefore they would be eliminated from further consideration legally.	In most states or localities "loitering " has a specific statutory meaning. For example in Prince Georges County. MD Section 14-139.03 provides: (a) In this Section, "loiter" means for a person to: (1) Remain on a public street, sidewalk, or pathway, including one privately-owned but used by the public in general, so as to obstruct the free passage of a pedestrian or vehicle after a regular or special police officer has notified the person that the action is unlawful and has requested the person to move; (2) Remain in or on a vehicle on a public street, sidewalk, or pathway, including one privately-owned but used by the public in general, so as to obstruct the free passage of a pedestrian or vehicle after a regular or special police officer has notified the person that the action is unlawful and has requested the person to move; (3) Refuse or fail to leave a private business, commercial establishment, or parking lot that is posted with conspicuous "No Loitering" signs if the business or establishment is not open for business, and the person has been requested to leave by the owner, the owner's agent, or a regular or special police officer, unless the person: (A) Has written permission from the owner, lessee, or operator to be present; or (B) Is window-shopping under conditions and at a time of the day or night that would be considered conducive to that activity; (4) Refuse or fail to leave a private business or commercial establishment that is open for business, or a parking lot of the business or establishment, after having been requested to do so by the owner or the owner's agent; (5) Refuse or fail to leave a public building, public grounds, or a public recreational area, or a parking lot of a public building, public grounds, or a public recreational area, after being requested to do so by a regular or special police officer or by a regularly employed guard, watchman, or other authorized employee of the agency or institution responsible for the public building, public grounds, recreational area, or parking lot if the circumstances indicate that the person has no apparent lawful business or purpose to pursue at that place; (and so on) I do find that at one time New York state (and some other states) had an "anti-loafing law" which required all men between the ages of 18 and 50 to be “habitually and regularly engaged in some lawful, useful, and recognized business, profession, occupation, trade, or employment until the termination of the war.” This was passed during World War I (1918) and the then NY Governor said: The purpose … is to force every able-bodied male person within the State to do his share toward remedying the conditions due to the present shortage of labor. This is confirmed at https://andrewchernoff.wordpress.com/tag/anti-loafing-laws/ I don't know if it was ever challenged on constitutional grounds. Other than that, I cannot find any published law defining loafing.
If it can be proven that someone profiting from spreading conspiracy theories doesn't believe in them are they guilty of fraud? There are a number of people and websites that make money by spreading conspiracy theories and other 'fake news'. I think InfoWars is probably the most notorious, but it's only one of a multitude of similar sites and people out there. Let's say for now we have definitive proof that the person hosting a site that spreads conspiracy theories does not believe their theories are true, say they are recorded making fun of their watchers for believing the nonsense they say, including explicitly saying they make it up because people will pay to hear it. If this person benefits only from advertising from people watching their site, are they in any way guilty of fraud by telling people something they didn't believe to get ad revenue? In another example let's say they had a close relationship with a group that profited more directly from the conspiracy theory. Say they are spreading the dinar revaluation theory (the claim that the US is going to, somehow, try to repair Iraq's dinar currency by elevating it from its near-worthless current state back to what it was worth prior to 9/11, for some reason. Thus, supposedly, one should buy up dinar now before the US suddenly increases its value to 100 times its current value). Say after the person preaches about how much it makes sense for the dinar to be raised by the government they then point everyone to a website that sells dinar, at a huge markup, and in exchange the person receives some kickbacks or other benefits for recommending the site. Would the person be guilty of fraud for spreading a conspiracy theory that encouraged people to make a bad financial investment they would benefit from?	Let's say for now we have definitive proof that the person hosting a site that spreads conspiracy theories does not believe their theories are true, say they are recorded making fun of their watchers for believing the nonsense they say, including explicitly saying they make it up because people will pay to hear it. I'm guessing you're asking if this is 'wire fraud'. I expect that if the advertised offer is that "people will pay to hear it", then so long as they actually hear it, that's not fraud. It would be different if people paid to hear it and then they failed to deliver what people wanted—if they didn't hear what they had paid for. If the customers are satisfied, it doesn't matter how the seller values it. Different people can legitimately value the same goods/services differently. A salesperson selling fairy unicorn dolls to little girls does not have to believe in fairies themselves. It is also highly dangerous for the purposes of Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Belief to set any sort of 'truth' standard on what is allowed to be said. Who gets to decide 'the truth'? Authoritative sources are sometimes wrong. New discoveries can sometimes contradict a widespread 'common sense' orthodoxy, and sound crazy. The Earth is spinning around the sun. Time passes at different rates for different people depending on how fast you move. If you think a claim is wrong, the proper response is to present the evidence and argument you think proves it wrong, not try to silence it or punish it. That only drives it underground, where the glamour of being persecuted and the absence of contrary arguments only makes it stronger and more persuasive. And there are always other people who think many of our beliefs are false and crazy! We don't want to be persecuted for wrongthink ourselves. Tolerance for and a listening openness to differing beliefs, even beliefs we hold in contempt, makes our own beliefs safer and more secure. As Noam Chomsky put it: "If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." If we don't grant freedom of belief to other people, why should they grant it to us? It's probably also worth noting that this isn't "definitive proof", as they may instead be lying when they say they don't believe it. Somebody who believes in conspiracy theories may deny it in conversation with someone (e.g., an employer or a friend or family member) who would treat them negatively if they were discovered to 'believe in conspiracy theories'. "No, of course I don't believe in banned religion X/heretical politics Y! It's all a load of nonsense!" The same goes for any socially unacceptable heresy. People who are commonly persecuted for their beliefs frequently hide them.	Fraud involves gain. It does not have to be financial gain. By the way, he's probably right about free education etc. to some extent - as the father he will be (partially) responsible for child support.	First of all, this assumes that the debt consolidation firm would be willing to buy, and the CC company willing to sell. With a trial already scheduled, this might well not be the case. Secondly, when (if) the debt consolidation firm buys the debt, they buy the rights of the seller. In many states the trial could go forward, with the debt consolidation firm substituted as plaintiff. It is not automatic that a sale of the debt would postpone the legal case. Certainly if this happened once, it seems very unlikely that a second debt consolidation firm would buy the debt from the first. And as the comments by Moo and ohwilleke suggest, such a scheme would be fraudulent and criminal, if discovered. It might also constitute contempt of court for intentionally abusing the process of the court. Not a good or safe idea.	In the US, it is not illegal to lie in general. This includes lying about someone: it's not illegal per se to lie about them. What is illegal is slander and libel: lying about someone in a way that hurts their reputation. The defamation doctrine in the US is generally a common-law doctrine (i.e. the rules and limits are based on court decisions, rather than on laws passed by legislatures), although it may differ state-by-state. Depending on the state, some defamation may be criminal; there is no federal criminal defamation. US defamation law is largely defined through its interaction with the First Amendment. While libel is not constitutionally protected, punishment for libel is seriously limited by the need to avoid either punishing protected speech, or chilling potential protected speech (i.e. discouraging people from saying something that would in fact be protected, because they aren't sure whether or not it's protected). Libel in the US only applies to a false statement of fact, or an opinion which implies some false fact. If it can't actually be proven incorrect, it can't be libelous in the US. The question of whether it's a statement of fact doesn't just depend on the literal speech; it includes things like the context, and is a question about what a reasonable person would think. If I were to claim that someone was "literally Hitler," for instance, no reasonable person would think I was seriously claiming that the person was the former leader of Nazi Germany. Now, no reasonable person who is familiar with Twitter would ever assume that the tweet meant Obama literally stood up in front of the UN and said "Please accept this nothingburger in place of a respectable climate plan." So, it only counts as libel if a reasonable person would think it implies some fact. But a reasonable person familiar with Twitter would most likely think Miesel is saying "The president's pollution plan is a pointless piece of political puffery planned to placate principalities and potentates." This is basically a matter of opinion. Even to the extent that it's not a matter of opinion, public figures in the US cannot win a defamation suit unless they show "actual malice:" the speaker must actually know or actually strongly suspect that their statement is false in some material way. It's not enough that a reasonable person would think "this might not be true;" the speaker themselves must doubt the truth of it (they must be reckless, not just negligent). Courts are also extremely deferential to defendants in these cases. While it is technically possible for a public figure to prove defamation, it is exceptionally difficult. If the person didn't know they were falsely attributing the quote, and honesty thought it was correct, they're in the clear. If the quote isn't supposed to be a statement of fact, but it implies false facts, but the speaker honestly thinks those facts are true, they're in the clear. Private figures don't have to meet the actual malice standard to prove defamation. They still need to show that the statement is a statement of fact or something implying false facts; if it's obviously a summary of something they really said, possibly with added editorial comment, they can't prove defamation.	In the UK it is an offence to cause a computer to gain unauthorised access to any program or data held in any computer (s1 Computer Misuse Act 1990). It seems likely that other European jurisdictions have similar laws. Certainly Germany does: Penal Code 202a data espionage (German text - English translation). (I mention Germany because the linked thread does.) It might constitute theft in the jurisdiction if the finder did not take reasonable steps to find the owner - which may include informing the police of the find. Depending on the jurisdiction it might count as 'treasure' or abandoned property such that the finder is obliged to inform the authorities (the jurisdiction has the presumption of ownership of abandoned or lost property - e.g. Scotland), which then decide what to do with it. Legally speaking it seems to me that, to declare it legal, we have to get over such hurdles. [edit] There seems to be some dispute in the comments that cryptocurrency is subject to any regulation, counts as property, is something of value or is something that is owned and can be stolen, such that the person in the questioner's scenario could be held to account under the law for his behaviour. Aren't they merely numbers? No - plainly they do have value because people trade them with currency and goods and services. The UK's tax authority, HMRC, "does not consider cryptoassets to be currency or money" but sees them as having economic value because "they can be 'turned to account' - for example, exchanging them for goods, services, fiat currency (that is money declared by a government to be legal tender) or other tokens". They are "a new type of intangible asset". Individuals are liable "to pay UK tax if they are a UK resident and carry out a transaction with their tokens which is subject to UK tax". They are liable for "Income Tax and National Insurance contributions on cryptoassets which they receive from their employer as a form of non-cash payment [or from] mining, transaction confirmation or airdrops." (HMRC cryptoassets for individuals) Are they property? Something that can be owned, something that can be dishonestly appropriate (i.e. stolen)? That's the interesting dispute. Recently, the High Court of England and Wales ruled in a bitcoin ransomware-related case that "for the purpose of granting an interim injunction in the form of an interim proprietary injunction ... crypto currencies are a form of property capable of being the subject of a proprietary injunction". In that judgment there is some discussion of the authorities for considering or deciding they are property. ([2019] EWHC 3556 (Comm)) read from para 50 if not the whole judgment. In at least two other cryptocurrency-related cases the High Court treated the cryptocurrency as property. Vorotyntseva v Money-4 Limited, trading as Nebeus.com [2018] EWHC 2598 (Ch) and Liam David Robertson v Persons Unknown 2019. There was also a suggestion in the comments that the police would not understand and would not be interested. But there are several jurisdictions where people have been investigated, arrested, prosecuted and convicted of crimes relating to cryptocurrencies. A simple internet search for bitcoin theft, fraud or money laundering will result in some reports. In any case their interest or lack of it is irrelevant to what the law may say.	You have been scammed - report this to the police. There is little to no chance this person will ever be found or that if they are that you will get your bitcoins back from them. On the plus side, for the bargain price of $9,500 you have learned never to trust a cheque until it is cleared. You do, however, have avenues with your bank. You can ask Westpac what redress they will make. You can make a formal complaint to their complaints department. You can then go to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Legally, I don't think you have a leg to stand on as your releasing goods on the basis of a pending cheque is your own idiocy, however, the bank may make some redress as a commercial decision to a loyal customer.	Obviously, it's not simply illegal to have a business that exchanges currency - legal currency exchanges do exist, after all. But you'd have to be careful if you wanted to open a business that does this. According to 31 CFR 1010.100, you are considered a "dealer in foreign exchange", and thus a "money services business", and thus a "financial institution", if you are: A person that accepts the currency, or other monetary instruments, funds, or other instruments denominated in the currency, of one or more countries in exchange for the currency, or other monetary instruments, funds, or other instruments denominated in the currency, of one or more other countries in an amount greater than $1,000 for any other person on any day in one or more transactions, whether or not for same-day delivery. You are not considered a "money services business" if you do this "on an infrequent basis and not for gain or profit", but you say you want to "open a business" that does this, so this exemption wouldn't apply to you. If you are considered a financial institution, then you must comply with all sorts of anti-money-laundering regulations, including, for example, verifying the identity of your customers, and filing reports with the US Treasury. You would definitely want to hire a lawyer to guide you through the requirements.	It depends partly on where you are. If you're in the foreign country and they have a law compelling you to answer any questions asked by their government or some company, they you have to answer the question. Whether lying has any legal repercussions depends on the laws of the country, so you'd have to narrow it down a bit. If you're in the US, the only context where you can be compelled to answer a question is when ordered to do so in court (giving testimony), and you have 5th Amendment immunity from being forced to testify against yourself. If you are granted immunity from prosecution, then they can compel you to testify (answer the question). If a foreign entity asks you whether you are a US citizen, you can decline to answer. You can also make up any answer you want, and generally not run afoul of US law (though you could run into problems in that country). There are state and federal laws about making false statements in official investigations, which would not be applicable to what you describe. There is no general law that says you must always tell the truth. However, making a false statement could be part of the crime of fraud, so it would depend on the context of your statement, i.e. are you misrepresenting your citizenship in order to get something of value. In light of the topical update, again there may be country-specific penalties in country for lying about citizenship, and tax evasion is against the law here, which is true whether or not you lie. FATCA specifies a duty to disclose (sect. 6038d), which is not tied to truthful reporting of citizenship (in other words, there is no point in lying to the bank because non-reporting is still a crime). But: this law probably brings the lie with the scope of 18 USC 1001 ("Martha's Law"), which makes it a crime to conceal a material fact "in any matter within the jurisdiction of ...the United States". This means and has been held to mean not just that you can't lie to federal officers, you can't lie to anyone who reports your information to the federal government. FATCA also says "we don't care if it's a crime to report being an American in that country", so inconveniences certainly are not a defense.
Government's standing in criminal trials There's an answer on politics SE that has some upvotes (but more downvotes) claiming (even more adamantly in subsequent comments) that standing is issue of substantial importance in criminal trials; some quotes from the claims: There is no distinction between 'civil' standing and 'criminal' standing. See Cornell Law and Wikipedia. Standing (see the entries at Cornell's Legal Information Institute and Wikipedia) means in part that there must be actual or imminent harm to some person or persons. Child pornography (obviously) demonstrates actual harm to the child in question and imminent harm to other children, so the government can file criminal cases on their behalf, citing the producers and recipients of the material as complicit in that harmful act. But those links don't' really explicitly say that. So what relevance if any does standing have in criminal trials? E.g., are there any examples of criminal cases/charges dismissed for lack of standing, by which I mean that the court decided the government lacked standing? Let's restrict the discussion to federal proceedings, for the sake of not making this too broad.	So what relevance if any does standing have in criminal trials? E.g., are there any examples of criminal cases/charges dismissed for lack of standing, by which I mean that the court decided the government lacked standing? Let's restrict the discussion to federal proceedings, for the sake of not making this too broad. Almost none. Conceptually, this is because a violation of a sovereign's criminal laws is an injury-in-fact to a legally protected interest of a sovereign in not having its own criminal laws violated. The violation of the law itself is the injury. Where standing type considerations apply they are usually described as jurisdiction. A sovereign, be it a state or the federal government can enforce its own criminal laws, but not another sovereign's criminal laws except by extradition. For example, a state prosecutor can't enforce a federal immigration crime in state court, nor can a state prosecutor file federal or state charges in a federal court. Likewise, a federal prosecutor can't bring federal or state charges in a state court, and a federal prosecutor can't bring state criminal charges (unless adopted by reference as part of federal law) in federal court. Criminal justice in Indian territory which is handled by the federal courts by federal prosecutors in felony cases, are a special case conceptualized either as a "contract service" relationship or as evidence that Indian tribes are not fully sovereign. The extraterritorial application of criminal laws is likewise usually considered a question of jurisdiction rather than standing. Sometimes the federal government passes a law incorporating some state criminal laws by reference as federal criminal laws in federally controlled territory, but that is an issue of substantive law, not standing. A handful of states allow private criminal prosecutions for select minor offenses, rather than being exclusively brought by the government (mostly on the East Coast). In those cases, standing is an issue, just as it is in civil cases. Only victims can bring private criminal prosecutions, where they are allowed, and only in cases where they are the victim.	For the same reason you can’t ask the parties to a contract what they meant Legislation, once enacted, stands on its own independent of the people who drafted it, introduced it to Parliament and voted for or against it. These are not the same people in any event and since the legislation might have been passed anywhere between the 13th and 21st centuries, a lot of them will be dead. There’s a fundamental issue of fairness here. The people who are obliged to comply with the law (you and I) can’t ask the politicians so neither can the judges who have to decide if we did. Further, the judiciary cannot interact with the executive or the legislature in this way without violating the principle of separation of powers. Imagine you are charged with a crime and your guilt or innocence turns on the interpretation of the statute. Do you really want politicians who are looking at how the case plays out on Twitter telling the judge which interpretation to use i.e. effectively telling them whether you are guilty or not?	england-and-wales "Lead defendant" is not used, unless colloquially by some, but a comparable term would be "principal defendant" which is more than mere style as it becomes important when establishing the hierarchy of defendants for, say, culpability and at sentencing (i.e. it has some legal implications). It could also relate to the first-named on the indictment (see rule 3.32(1)(b)(ii) Criminal Procedure Rules 2020) and often this is the principal, but the prosecutor has discretion on the order of names on the indictment, because: It is important to bear in mind that defendants are called to give evidence in the order in which their names appear on the indictment. This means that a tactical decision may need to be made as to the order of defendants on the indictment, bearing in mind the evidence and the nature of the case. Source Although tagged united-states, I have followed the guidance from the LawSE Help Centre: "Even if you supply a jurisdiction tag, we expect and encourage answers dealing with other jurisdictions ... please tag your answer using the tag markdown: [tag: some-tag]"	"Public space" is not a relevant criteria when considering trespass or other crimes/torts against property. The relevant criteria is who owns it and what they allow you to do on it. All land in the USA is owned by someone. That someone may be a government; that does not make it a public space - Camp David is owned by the US government; it is certainly not public. The owner of the land can decide (subject to the law) who has access to their land and in what circumstances. If they erect a fence then they are saying "You cannot access my land here" - if you ignore this then you are trespassing. This is true even if there are legitimate ways to access the land i.e. there is a place where there isn't a fence; to avoid trespass you would have to access the land from there. If you think of this in terms of a public building like a courthouse you are free to enter through the unlocked front doors but not by climbing through a window. The trespass is in the act of crossing the fence - that is the act that you have been implicitly denied permission to do. Being on one side or the other is not trespass. For the specific image that you show it is quite likely that those roads are owned by different people - the highway is probably owned by the state while the cul-de-sac is a local government road.	I will address only the legal issues. Prosecutors for very good public policy reasons are not required to prosecute every crime they have suspicions about. When exercising this discretion they consider: Is the act, in fact, criminal - many of the things you list, while reprehensible, unethical, and possibly immoral are not actually criminal. Do they have the resources (time, staff, money) to collect the evidence and run this case as opposed to the thousands of other crimes out there. There are always more crimes than can be prosecuted and these have to be prioritised in some way. Do they have enough evidence to gain a conviction beyond reasonable doubt. People can be fired or resign on suspicion, they can't be convicted on it.	The prosecutor always has an advocate The prosecutor in a criminal matter is the State. Since the State is an artificial entity it has to act through agent(s) who advocate for it. In Commonwealth countries the State is synonymous with the Crown - I suppose HRH Queen Elizabeth II could prosecute every case personally but she’s a very old lady with a lot of other things to do (this is a joke - the person is not the office).	In order to challenge a search at trial via an evidence suppression motion, the particular defendant has to have Fourth Amendment "standing"1 with respect to that search: Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128 (1978). From the syllabus: Fourth Amendment rights are personal rights which ... may not be vicariously asserted ... a person aggrieved by an illegal search and seizure only through the introduction of damaging evidence secured by a search of a third person's premises or property has not had any of his Fourth Amendment rights infringed. Subject to the various exemptions to the exclusionary rule discussed at this question, the evidence in your scenario would not be admissible against Bob, but would be admissible against Rob. This does not necessarily mean that Bob would go free. As noted in that other question, if police/prosecution have other evidence, independently gathered, or sufficiently attenuated from the illegal search, they may still have a case against Bob. This also doesn't mean that an unconstitutional search of a person who will not even be prosecuted is without a remedy. See this answer for a discussion of civil remedies available for a person who has suffered an unconstitutional search. 1. The Court has distanced itself from the term "standing" in this context, so I am using it somewhat colloquially as it is still in common usage in this sense. The Court instead just conceives of whether the defendent even experienced a Fourth Amendment search; the notion of standing is either redundant with or subsumed by such analysis.	A government always has standing to enforce violations of its own laws in its own jurisdiction. The harm to its legally protected interest is its interest in enforcing its own laws. While the forum here is a civil action, the basic concept is the same one that authorizes a government to enforce its own criminal laws. Also, a government agency may seek fines and not merely compensatory damages or liquidated damages in lieu of compensatory damages, unlike private litigants in civil actions. A civil government enforcement action is civil in the sense that only monetary damages and injunctive relief are sought, rather than incarceration, and that the court rules for civil actions apply (and as a result, the constitutional rights of criminal defendants are not invoked). But from a standing/political theory/legal theory perspective, this is almost like a quasi-criminal action in which restitution for the victims is also sought. Many labor, consumer protection, health, safety and environmental laws authorize enforcement by a state agency through the attorney general, or in the alternative, by private litigants acting as a "private attorney general." In the area of employment discrimination, the usual situation is that you must first seek relief by filing a complaint with the appropriate agency, and then have a private cause of action to enforce your rights associated with the complaint only if and when the agency decides not to pursue the case with its own resources. The harassment involved here is being conceptualized as a form of employment discrimination that is subject to that kind of regime. This arrangement is legislatively favored because it provides a means by which people who can't afford attorneys can obtain relief.
In civil litigation: is a defense barred if not asserted in time? I read that in civil litigation a defendant cannot use a defense that is not timely made in pleadings. This seemed like a rather strong sanction for a failure or mistake in writing and filing defensive pleadings, so I checked the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and found the following in FRCP §12(b): Every defense to a claim for relief in any pleading must be asserted in the responsive pleading if one is required. ... If a pleading sets out a claim for relief that does not require a responsive pleading, an opposing party may assert at trial any defense to that claim. No defense or objection is waived by joining it with one or more other defenses or objections in a responsive pleading or in a motion. Does that actually mean that if a legal defense is not stated in a response to a claim that it cannot be used in a subsequent motion or trial? (Defensive pleadings have to be served within 21 days of receiving a complaint. That would mean that a defendant could get notice of being sued and then have just 3 weeks to state every defense to every claim against it.) Perhaps a better phrasing of the question: What does this rule mean? Is it not as harsh as it sounds because an "assertion of defense" can be very general, and any plausible defense can be later "joined" to a generic defense? E.g., is it sufficient for a defendant to simply say in a response to each claim, "I disagree?"	This is called the "waiver trap," and it can be quite harsh indeed. Rule 8 and Rule 12 require a defendant to assert most affirmative defenses almost immediately -- either in their answer or in either a motion to dismiss or a motion for judgment on the pleadings. Failure to assert them does indeed result in a waiver of the defense. For instance, in Hunter v. Serv-Tech, the defendant filed a motion to dismiss based on defects in service of the complaint. The defendants' motion purported to "reserve the right" to challenge personal jurisdiction, as well, but did not actually move for dismissal on that basis. After the service issue was resolved, the defendants actually moved to dismiss based on personal jurisdiction, but the court denied the motion, saying that Rule 12 requires an actual assertion and argument in support of the defense: The Court is aware that the outcome it reaches today is a harsh one, especially in light of the fact that it appears that, absent waiver, this motion might well be granted. But the Court is duty-bound to apply the law as it is written, and as written the Rules enact a policy of requiring all 12(b)(2)-(5) defenses to be made by motion, once, prior to filing an answer. Given this policy, Offshore’s “reservation” language is not sufficient to preclude waiver. So the court acknowledges that the defendant had a winning defense, but it must nonetheless continue to litigate. The rule is applied quite strictly in cases involving Rule 12(b)(2)-(5) defenses. There is quite a bit more wiggle room for other affirmative defenses, i.e., defenses that allow the defendant to escape liability regardless of whether his conduct was wrongful, but it still remains quite dangerous to omit any available defense from your first responsive pleading. See, e.g., Am. Nat. Bank of Jacksonville v. Fed. Deposit Ins. Corp., 710 F.2d 1528, 1537 (11th Cir. 1983) ("In any case, we need not consider these points since SFC waived its right to advance the statute of limitations defense by its failure to assert this affirmative defense in any pleading filed below in compliance with Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(c)."). As a practical matter, then it is not usually sufficient to simply say "I disagree" in response to a claim, unless your defense amounts to either a denial that the facts supporting the claim are true or a denial that the facts as alleged creates a cause of action. If you intend to assert an affirmative defense – such as personal jurisdiction, statute of limitations, failure of consideration, accord and satisfaction, immunity, etc. – you must say so clearly. So if your first responsive pleading is an answer, it is typically sufficient to simply say, "The claim is barred by the statute of limitations." But if your first responsive pleading is a motion to dismiss, you need to both assert and argue your defense; otherwise, you risk waiving it as in Hunter. Note, though, that there are some affirmative defenses that are not waived by failing to assert them immediately. Failure to join a necessary party, for instance, can be asserted at any time up until trial, and subject-matter jurisdiction can be raised at basically any time at all.	Unfortunately, the police are correct The limit on filing a civil claim (a lawsuit where you seek monetary compensation) is before you turn 40. If you were 11 in 1985 then it is too late to sue your assaulter. For criminal prosecution, the law was changed in 2016. Prior to the change, the limitation was the same as for civil cases. After the change, there is no limit but only if the offence was committed on or after 1 January 2017. Assuming that your reference to Kelly is to this guy - the alleged offences were committed in the 1990s and the prosecutions are under Illinois, Minnesota and Federal law (the Federal crimes alleged are not the sexual assault of a minor). Each state has it's own rules.	But even then, to my understanding, a contract can't prohibit a party from seeking legal remedies. You are mistaken. A contract settling a bona fide dispute regarding people's legal rights can mutually (or unilaterally for that matter) release or waive their legal rights. In fact, a waiver or release of rights is routinely a part of a settlement agreement. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of such agreements are entered into every year and they are almost always enforced. Sometimes, but not always, a settlement agreement will also call for a dismissal of a case with prejudice, which (roughly) means a dismissal that prohibits refiling a case involving the same subject matter.	united-states Overview The big picture to keep in mind is that in the United States the applicable deadline for filing a lawsuit is very specific to the legal theory upon which relief is sought from a court, and that there are numerous special rules (which can vary from claim to claim and based upon the individual facts of the case) that can modify these general rules. Exceptions to the general rules are common enough that it is not safe to rely upon them. There is a lot of case law on these issues because dismissals of cases because a statute of limitations has run are usually all or nothing issues in a lawsuit, don't depend on too much evidence, and are often relatively straightforward and inexpensive to appeal relative to other kinds of legal issues. Also, lawyers whose cases are dismissed for failing to meet a statute of limitations often have a strong incentive to encourage their clients to appeal, because they may face malpractice liability if the dismissal of their client's claims is upheld. While the question is specifically directed at how statutes of limitations apply to continuing violations, it isn't possible to really clearly answer that question outside of the larger context of how statutes of limitations in the United States work in general, and without considering other legal doctrines that can have similar effects to rules based upon continuing violations under different legal theories. Also, keep in mind that when you hire a lawyer to bring a lawsuit, the lawyer needs lead time to prepare the documents starting the lawsuit. The best practice is to contact a lawyer as soon as possible because this may allow claims with shorter statutes of limitations that you had not even considered to be brought. It is usually very imposing on the lawyer to bring a new lawsuit to them less than a month before the deadline for bringing suit. Sometimes it is possible to get the job done a week or even a few days before the deadline, but this invites mistakes that could impair later phases of the lawsuit, limits the time available for factual investigation and legal research before bringing the lawsuit, drives up the cost of preparing the documents because work that would otherwise be done by staff or junior lawyers may have to be done by senior lawyers, and exposes you to the risk that you won't be able to find a lawyer who is actually willing to take on your case on acceptable financial terms right away. Statutes of Limitations In Ohio In Ohio, for non-criminal cases, some of the most common statutes of limitations are as follows (citations to the relevant statutes are found in the linked material): 21 years to recover real estate; 8 years to sue on written contracts; six years to sue on oral contracts; two years for actions for personal injuries or property damage; and one year for libel, slander, malicious prosecution, false imprisonment, and professional malpractice. Most other types of lawsuits are subject to a four-year limitation. See also here (providing more specific examples including four year statutes of limitations for claims for trespass and fraud). Different and usually must shorter statutes of limitations apply to reopening court judgments in cases due to irregularities in the proceedings, and to appeal court judgments. If a statute of limitations runs without a lawsuit being filed, the right to seek legal redress for the wrong committed expires. With very narrow exceptions, usually invited or assented to by the party sued in some way, once a statute of limitations has expired the claim that is barred can never be revived. A nice medium length summary of the various doctrines applicable to statutes of limitations (mostly discussed below) in the state of Minnesota, which is fairly typical of U.S. states) can be found here. Statutes Of Limitations For Federal Law Claims These limitations apply to claims under state law. Claims under federal law sometimes have their own statutes of limitations (e.g. federal copyright and patent infringement lawsuits), and sometimes are governed by the analogous statute of limitations under state law. For example, the statute of limitations for lawsuits under the federal Lanham Act is based upon the most analogous state law statute of limitations. In those circumstances it is usually necessary to look a case law in the state and federal courts in that state to determine the correct statute of limitations for that kind of claim. When Does A Claim Accrue? The date that one starts to calculate from for a statute of limitations is sometimes the date when the wrong is done (also known as a statute of repose), and sometimes when it is known or should have been known by the person bringing the lawsuit. The date when you start counting to determine the statute of limitations deadline is the called the date that 'the claim accrues" or that the "claim arises." Usually a claim accrues when the person bringing the lawsuit knew that a particular person breached a legal duty to them and that this breach of a legal duty to them caused them injuries, even if the amount of the injuries caused is uncertain. But for some kinds of lawsuits, knowledge that a person breached a legal duty to them alone is enough even if it wasn't clear at the time that the person to whom the duty was owed would suffer legal injuries. What Must One Do Before The Statute Of Limitations Runs? In most U.S. states (including Ohio pursuant to Ohio Rule of Civl Procedure 3) and in the federal system pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 3, a statute of limitations is met by filing a lawsuit with a court by the deadline, so long as a defendant has a summons and complaint delivered to the defendant within the time allowed by court rules after the lawsuit is commenced. But, in other U.S. states, such as Minnesota, the statute of limitations applicable to a defendant can only be met by delivering the summons and complaint in a lawsuit to a defendant, whether or not the lawsuit has been filed with the clerk of the relevant court. When a summons and complaint has been delivered to a defendant but the case has not yet been filed with the clerk of the court in which the lawsuit states that it is brought, that court has what is called "hip-pocket" jurisdiction over the lawsuit. Tolling and Estoppel Certain circumstances (such as a victim who is a minor, or the death of the victim before the statute of limitations has expired) can toll the statute of limitations (i.e. stop it from running) while that situation continues or for a certain maximum length of time. Some statutes of limitations can be lengthened with an agreement of the parties in what is called a "tolling agreement". Another concept similar to tolling is that someone who is sued may be prohibited from asserting a statute of limitations defense under a doctrine called "estoppel" if the failure of the person to bring the lawsuit within the statute of limitations is caused by the misconduct of the person seeking to assert the statute of limitations defense. Both tolling and estoppel are exceptions to the general rule that are frequently interpreted strictly against people bringing a lawsuit, however. One should never assume that these doctrines apply and rely upon them making a lawsuit timely, unless one has no other choice but to do so. Continuing Violations Sometimes in the case of a "continuing violation" the statute runs from the last time that the continuing violation was committed. But, it is not safe to assume based upon logic alone whether a violation is a continuing violation or not. Sometimes the statute of limitations runs from the initial violation, even if it continues. Sometimes a lawsuit can seek remedies from the first time the violation occurred until the present based upon a continuing violation if a lawsuit is commenced within the statute of limitations after the violation ceases. Sometimes a lawsuit can be brought based upon a continuing violation until the requisite number of years after the violation ceases, but the remedy is limited to harms caused by conduct that was within the statute of limitations or to injuries that occurred within the statute of limitations. There is really no way to know which of these rules applies to a particular kind of claim without examining the case law for each particular type of claim. A related concept is that in lawsuits to collect a debt for money owed, the statute of limitations is typically reset every time a payment is made or there is a written affirmation from the debtor that a debt is owed. Other Exceptions To The General Rules Previously Time Barred Claims Sometimes a statute of limitations is amended to make it longer. When this happens, claims that were already barred by the statute of limitations are generally not reinstated. But claims that are not already barred by the statute of limitations on the effective date of the new law usually, but not always, benefit from the new statute of limitations. Borrowed Statutes Of Limitations Sometimes someone can bring a lawsuit in a court where, for example, the defendant resides, even though the wrong occurred in another jurisdiction that has different statutes of limitations. The way that this situation is handled varies. The most common rule is for the state where the lawsuit is filed to apply its own statute of limitations unless the lawsuit would have been barred by the statute of limitations in the place where the wrong occurred. But not all states follow this rule in all cases. Special Rules For Counterclaims Some states allow counterclaims that would otherwise be barred by a statute of limitations to be brought when they relate to what someone is being sued over, even when otherwise, the statute of limitations for the counterclaims would have expired. For example, suppose that someone sues Joe for breaching a promissory note in Colorado (which has a counterclaim exception), five years after the contract was allegedly breached (in a state where the statute of limitations is six year); Joe may be able to counterclaim against the person suing him for fraud in the same transaction in which the promissory note was created even though the three year statute of limitations for bringing a fraud claim in Colorado would have otherwise expired. Dismissals Without Prejudice For Suing In The Wrong Court Some states allow you to bring a lawsuit that is otherwise barred by the statute of limitations, if a lawsuit is filed within the statute of limitations in a court that then dismisses the claim for a reason unrelated to the merits of that claim (usually lack of subject-matter jurisdiction), and the person bringing the lawsuit promptly refiles it in the proper court. The Relation Back Doctrine Sometimes after a lawsuit is filed against a defendant the complaint in the lawsuit is amended to assert new claims against the existing defendants, or to assert claims against a new defendant, after the statute of limitations for filing the new claims against the existing defendants, or the existing or new claims against a new defendant has expired, even though the original lawsuit was filed within the statute of limitations applicable to those claims. In those cases, the claims in the amended complaint will be treated for statute of limitations purposes as filed when the lawsuit was originally filed, if the "relation back" doctrine is satisfied. This is governed by Ohio Rule of Civil Procedure 15 and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15 respectively in state and federal court. In cases where new claims are asserted against an existing defendant, the relation back doctrine applies roughly speaking when the new claim arises from the same transactions and events that the lawsuit was originally based upon, even if it attaches significant to different facts or different legal theories. In cases where a new party is sued, the claims roughly speaking relate back when the new party had notice of the lawsuit within the statute of limitations and the new party knew or should have know that the new party was not sued originally only due to a mistake regarding who the proper person to sue in the case was (e.g. because related corporate entities had similar names and the wrong corporation in the group of affiliated companies was sued). Failure To Assert The Defense Statutes of limitations, and most other grounds for dismissing claims as untimely, are affirmative defenses, not something that must be established on the face of the complaint initiating a lawsuit. So, if the defendant fails to raise a statute of limitations defense in a case, even if it is actually available under the true facts of the situation, then the lawsuit will not be dismissed for failure to sue within the statute of limitations. Other Rules That Can Bar A Claim Filed Too Late Contractual modification of the statute of limitations Sometimes a statute of limitations can be shortened by a contractual agreement of the parties, most often for breaches of the contract shorting the deadline for bringing claims arising from its breach. If this shortening of the statute of limitations isn't unreasonable and is obtained with fair disclosure, and no public policy is violated by the modification, it will often be upheld by a court. For example, a contract might require a party to raise a dispute concerning an item contained in a statement or invoice presented to the party asked to pay it within a certain reasonable time period, even if the relationship between the parties is ongoing and the statute of limitations would otherwise run from the last date upon which the parties reached a final settlement between them of their dealing with each other. Probate and Bankruptcy Cases There is also generally speaking a strict time limitation in addition to a statute of limitations on enforcing claims against people who have died (sometimes called a "non-claims statute") and against people who have filed for bankruptcy. Sometimes, however, a deadline involving a non-claims statute that is triggered by giving notice to the person to be barred by it can be waived in cases where the person with the claim had no actual notice of the deadline. Lawsuits Against The Government There are also often special additional time limits that apply to lawsuits against government entities and governmental employees acting in their official capacities, especially for torts as opposed to breaches of contract. These are often much shorter than the usual statute of limitations. Laches Sometimes claims have no statute of limitations at all, but those are the exception and are quite rare. But even when there isn't a fixed deadline for filing a lawsuit, a legal doctrine called laches bars lawsuits when they are filed an unreasonably long time after they arise in a manner that is prejudicial to the person sued. Sometimes the doctrine of laches can even bar a claim in a lawsuit, or certain kinds of relief in connection with a claim in a lawsuit, even if the claim is brought within the applicable statute of limitations. In these situations, this doctrine is similar to the doctrine of estoppel preventing someone from asserting a statute of limitations. For example, if someone knows that the records necessary to defend against a lawsuit are about to be destroyed even though the statute of limitations will not run for another few years, the lawsuit could be dismissed under the doctrine of laches if the person bringing the lawsuit knew that and deliberately waited until after the documents were destroyed to bring the lawsuit. Mootness A claim can also be barred because it has become "moot" which is to say that due to the circumstances that have occurred since a legal wrong was committed, it is no longer possible for a court to provide relief the relief that the person bringing the lawsuit is seeking. For example, in a lawsuit seeking possession of an apartment and no other relief, the lawsuit becomes moot if the person in the apartment leaves the apartment and surrenders possession to the person seeking it, or if the building burns down.	You have to serve the defendant Unless and until you do, you aren’t going to court. If you can’t find the defendant, you can’t sue the defendant. Rules of service vary by jurisdiction but under the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules (UCPR) implemented in all jurisdictions in australia they are (for an individual): hand it to the defendant leave it in the presence of the defendant and explain what it is leave it with a person at the defendant's home address who appears to be over the age of 16 years and living at that address leave it at the defendant's work address, with a person who appears to be over the age of 16 years, if the defendant is a sole trader ask the Local Court to post it to the defendant either at the defendant's work address if they are a sole trader, or the defendant's residential address. So, it is really not that hard. However, if this proves too difficult, you can apply to the court for substituted service. Courts will generally allow any method where you can prove that the Statement of Claim came to the defendant’s attention. For example, service by Facebook has been acceptable.	canada Section 606 of the Criminal Code says that "[a]n accused who is called on to plead may plead guilty or not guilty, or the special pleas authorized by this Part." One of the special pleas is res judicata, but there is no special plea amounting to indifference. If an accused "refuses to plead or does not answer directly, the court shall order the clerk of the court to enter a plea of not guilty."	The parenthesized part means that if you are being compelled by law to disclose some confidential information, you must promptly notify the company of that fact. They could they respond by trying to get you excluded as a witness, or to limit your testimony, but you don't have to care what they do once they've been notified that you were subpoenaed. It may well be that every time the opposing side asks you a question, "your" side will object, and the judge will decide whether to sustain or overrule the objection. The only way in which you would defer to the company lawyer is by not answering the question before the question is finished (i.e. give the attorney 2 seconds to voice an objection). You would not have to "bring" the employer's lawyer along to a deposition, but that lawyer would probably be present and would similarly raise objections, if he felt like it. Your duty is simply to tell the company that you are being compelled to testify. In case the police or a detective agency are investigating the matter and they come to interview you, you are not compelled by law to answer (or to hand over documents), therefore you are supposed to decline to answer (and you are not obligated to inform the company that someone asked a question). As for an administrative subpoena, the perhaps tricky part will be knowing whether you are being compelled to testify, or invited to testify. The wording of the paperwork should inform you whether this is compulsory.	Voluntary Dismissal of a case in Maryland follows the Maryland Revise Civil Procedure District Court Rule 3-506 - Voluntary Dismissal: (a) By Notice of Dismissal or Stipulation. Except as otherwise provided in these rules or by statute, a party who has filed a complaint, counterclaim, cross-claim, or third party claim may dismiss all or part of the claim without leave of court by filing (1) a notice of dismissal at any time before the adverse party files a notice of intention to defend, or if the notice of dismissal specifies that it is with prejudice, at any time before judgment, or (2) a stipulation of dismissal signed by all parties to the claim being dismissed. (b) Dismissal Upon Stipulated Terms. If an action is settled upon written stipulated terms and dismissed, the action may be reopened at any time upon request of any party to the settlement to enforce the stipulated terms through the entry of judgment or other appropriate relief. (c) By Order of Court. Except as provided in section (a) of this Rule, a party who has filed a complaint, counterclaim, cross-claim, or third party claim may dismiss the claim only by order of court and upon such terms and conditions as the court deems proper. (d) Effect on Claim. Unless otherwise specified in the notice of dismissal, stipulation, or order of court, a dismissal is without prejudice, except that a notice of dismissal operates as an adjudication upon the merits when filed by a party who has previously dismissed in any court of any state or in any court of the United States an action based on or including the same claim. (e) Effect on Counterclaim. If a counterclaim has been pleaded before the filing of a notice of dismissal or motion for voluntary dismissal, the dismissal of the action shall not affect the continued pendency of the counterclaim. (f) Costs. Unless otherwise provided by stipulation or order of court, the dismissing party is responsible for all costs of the action or the part dismissed. There is a form that explicitly refers to the 3-506 rule
Will it be called rape in US? If a boss in office induces one of his subordinates to have sex in exchange of offering a promotion and later after having sex deny to promote, will it fall under the definition of rape?	No. The conduct described would be illegal quid pro quo sexual harassment (whether or not the subordinate was promoted), for which a civil lawsuit by the subordinate for money damages would be authorized. But it is not the crime of sexual assault (a.k.a. rape). This is because the subordinate consented to have sex, and an economic inducement to have sex, or fraud inducing someone to have sex, is not sufficient to invalidate this consent. Even if someone is induced to have sex by a much more severe inducement other than by force to the victim (e.g. by a threat to expose a highly confidential secret about someone's paternity or to kill someone's pet dog), this is often the crime of extortion, rather than the crime of rape (although state law would vary with regard to whether this fact pattern constitutes rape or extortion or both). The non-performance of the deal to provide a promotion, however, would not have a civil lawsuit remedy for breach of promise or agreement because it would be a "meretricious" agreement that is void as against public policy because the consideration was for sex. Similarly, suppose that in a place where prostitution is illegal, if a man promises a woman to pay her $500 to have sex, and she agrees in reliance upon that promisse, and he then refuses to pay her. In this case, the agreement is unenforceable in court (because it is a "meretricious" agreement that is void as against public policy), and the crime of rape has not been committed. This is true even if he never intended to pay in the first place and induced her to have sex through intentional and premeditated fraud. In that case, he would be guilty of soliciting a prostitution (even though he never intended to pay her) and she would be guilty of the crime of prostitution (even though she wasn't actually paid). Of course, where prostitution is legal, no crime has been committed in that fact pattern and the woman has a right to sue the man for $500 for breach of contract or promissory estoppel, and to sue also (for any non-duplicative additional damages) for fraud, including punitive damages as well, if he never intended to pay her in the first place. The only kind of fraud that obviates consent enough to constitute rape is when the person having sex is deceived about who they are having sex with (e.g. because they are wearing a blindfold and have been put in a context where they think they are having sex with someone else). While a colorable argument could be made that the facts in the question amount to prostitution, which is illegal in almost all of the U.S., in practice, cases where the connection between the economic inducement to have sex and the sex itself are as indirect and subtle as they are in the question are never prosecuted in that manner for that offense. Prostitution cases are prosecuted, in practice, only in unambiguously clear, immediate, quid pro quo simultaneous transactional contexts between people who don't otherwise have a relationships with each other that provides context to the exchange. Prostitution is typically such a petty offense that the prosecutorial effort needed to prove a case like this, the perception that a charge of that kind would punish a victim, and the perception that it would criminalize a large swath of socially accepted "gray area" conduct (like having sex following a date where one person buys the other dinner), all prevent prostitution laws from being prosecuted to their full theoretical extent, at least in cases not involving children (where statutory rape charges, or violation of position of trust charges, are often available anyway).	In the United States, many jurisdictions have criminal offenses outlawing behavior that may include what you're describing here. In Ohio, for instance, disorderly conduct (R.C. 2917.11) includes "insulting, taunting, or challenging another, under circumstances in which that conduct is likely to provoke a violent response." In Indiana, there's the offense of provocation (IC 35-42-2-3), which is even broader and includes "recklessly, knowingly, or intentionally [engaging] in conduct that is likely to provoke a reasonable person to commit battery." It looks like this has been interpreted to include even actions that don't directly involve the provoked person, such as kissing another man's wife. Beyond the criminal offense, there are also jurisdictions that will permit a civil suit for damages resulting from the criminal act. There are also states where this could constitute intentional interference with business relations or intentional interference with an employment contract. In any of those cases, your co-workers could be looking at damages for lost wages, loss of reputation, etc.	In the USA communication between an attorney and their client is "privileged". This makes it illegal for, amongst other things, the police to listen in to conferences between a suspect and their attorney. However in practice there is often little to prevent the police actually doing so.	It depends on the jurisdiction and particular facts. The long history of not counting marriage as prostitution under law because of its social and religious legitimacy makes the transaction-related aspects of marriage fall outside the definition of prostitution in most cases that are not the explicit sale of a person for consideration, which is obviously forbidden as slavery today and could probably also be charged as prostitution in most jurisdictions. In your particular example, the girl is also saying what things will influence how she feels, and no reasonable person would say that she gives up her ability to withhold consent after marriage based on any alleged contract. A contract to lose the ability to withhold consent would also be void as against public policy, regardless of whether prostitution is involved. Bitcoin is a form of virtual currency. It is regulated by money transmitter law and trading it to obtain goods or services that cannot legally be traded for is still illegal. It's not that there is a defined "limit." It's that some things will fit into the definition and others won't. It's about categories, not quantities.	Laws vary by state, of course. In Wisconsin, according to the 1993 case State v. Neumann: the offense of second-degree sexual assault by sexual intercourse does not require proof of intent and therefore someone who claimed to be too drunk to know what he was doing was still guilty. Although that was a case involving adults and therefore a different statute, I think the statutes are similar enough to produce a similar result in a case involving a minor. But even though intent isn't required, according to the 2007 case State v. Lackershire she's still be not guilty in Wisconsin. It flat out says that: If the defendant was raped, the act of having sexual intercourse with a child does not constitute a crime. Additionally, in your case, there was a gun to her head. Under Wisconsin law, the woman could not be guilty of statutory rape, because of this law: 939.46 Coercion. (1) A threat by a person other than the actor's coconspirator which causes the actor reasonably to believe that his or her act is the only means of preventing imminent death or great bodily harm to the actor or another and which causes him or her so to act is a defense to a prosecution for any crime based on that act, except that if the prosecution is for first-degree intentional homicide, the degree of the crime is reduced to 2nd-degree intentional homicide. The paper you link to mentions several possible defenses like coercion, and how each defense is not applicable in some states. I don't think it ever clearly establishes that there is a state where there is no defense. The example you (and the paper) give occurred in Florida. I couldn't find an applicable statute in Florida law, but that appears to be because it's in common law instead of a statute. According to the 1981 Florida case Wright v. State: Florida has recognized the common law defense of duress as a defense to crimes other than homicide so I don't think the woman would have been guilty under Florida law, either. The paper states that she was in fear for her life and that of her daughters, and it is extremely apparent in hindsight that her fear was reasonable. I imagine that if the author was able to find an actual case where a victim was prosecuted under similar circumstances (or even one where the victim clearly could have been prosecuted under the law of that state) he would have used that case as his example instead. It seems that he couldn't... and that might tell you something. He probably used this example because it was sensational, but it doesn't seem that the woman was guilty under applicable law.	Yes, and also there needs to be intent to cause alarm or distress. See section 66 Sexual Offences Act 2003: (1)A person commits an offence if— (a)he intentionally exposes his genitals, and (b)he intends that someone will see them and be caused alarm or distress. (2)A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable— (a)on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or both; (b)on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years. For clarity, although the above legislation uses the masculine subject pronoun "he", this offence may be committed by a female also. See section 6(a) Interpretation Act 1978: [...] (a)words importing the masculine gender include the feminine; [...]	Yes. The charge in that case is solicitation of assault. Usually, solicitation of a crime carries the same punishment as the underlying crime. On the other hand, if a daughter tells her father what you did to her and he unilaterally decides to assault you, out of defense of his family's honor and outrage, the daughter has not committed a crime.	There is no public place to “file” that. When privilege is claimed and the other side challenges it then the person claiming privilege needs to establish somehow that the attorney client relationship exists and is pertinent to the question. In the normal course of things there would be an engagement agreement in the attorneys files. And not everything communicated between a client and attorney is protected by the privilege. It only covers legal advice and specifically does not cover discussions planning criminal activity.
What is the copyright status of a journal article written more than 70 years ago? I read (mostly on Wikipedia), that copyright to a written work expires 70 years after the author's death, or 95 years after the publication by a corporation. Having said that, the status of journal articles (scientific or other), that includes pictures and photographs, is still unclear to me. I'll take a very simple example to illustrate this. Here you can find an old journal article from 1901, written by one person, but published in a journal. It contains pictures and photographs made in that time. Is the entire article, including these media, also entirely in public domain (i.e., I could just take the whole thing as it is and publish it as a book for commercial purposes)?	The article is public domain. The pictures aren’t If this was first published in the British Empire (as it then was), then The UK is the place of first publication. What follows is its status under UK law, other jurisdictions may have different results. The original article is public domain because H. C. P. Bell died in 1937 meaning copyright on everything he wrote expired 31 December 2007. If he’d lived until 1951 or later it would still be under copyright (in 2021). However, this isn’t the original article because: Text on this page extracted from an original copy of Annual Report. The photographs were taken when I visited the site in 1991, and again in November 1995. The bits that this unknown author added, including the photographs, are their copyright. Since they were clearly alive in 1995 (due to the well known pirate aphorism “dead men take no photos”) the copyright in those is still current.	A document can be distributed under more than one license. Just because it has been made available under a CC license for free, doesn't mean that IEEE can't negotiate a different license with different terms that allow them to sell the content. (This is similar to the way that a software library can be available for free under a license that permits non-commercial use, but also be made available for a fee for commercial use.) If you want to know whether IEEE is legally selling Aaron Swartz's manuscript, you can contact Morgan & Claypool, the publisher that owns the copyright, and ask them whether this use by IEEE has been authorized by them. For the other documents you mention, contact MIT Press. Etc.	Regardless of the license associated with a document, there is no copyright protection on information. Copyright protection prevents copying "expression", e.g. the wording, but not the facts / opinions expressed through those words. The non-legal academic concept of "plagiarism" is where the notion of attribution primarily comes into play. There is a special exception under 17 USC 106A that imposes an attribution requirement for works of visual art. CC and other license schemes may add in an attribution requirement for actual copying of the expression (the "BY" attribute in CC). If a work is licensed under CC-BY, you may copy the actual expression provided that you follow the terms of the license, which primarily means that you have to attribute the work in the prescribed manner. This does not apply to extracting information from a work, because information is not protected by copyright.	It depends on the terms of your contract with the musicians. Copyright in the performance belongs to the performer so you need to ensure the copyright is transferred or appropriately licensed to you. It is public domain. Copyright for US works published before 1978 is a maximum of 95 years from date of publication. Although written on Christmas Day 1896 it wasn't published until 1897. Copyright, therefore, could have lasted until 31 December 1991 at most. No.	I want to use a couple of lines from "What is life?" by Erwin Schrödinger as quote on the front of my thesis. Would i need permission for that form publisher or would that be convered in fair use? There are close cases of fair use, but this is not one of them. This is unequivocally and clearly fair use. It is a brief excerpt of a much larger body of work, it is for non-commercial use by a student, and it is for educational and academic purposes (presumably to advance science). Also do i need to attribute the quote properly Yes. This is necessary both because of the moral rights of the author under E.U. copyright law (assuming that works by Erwin Schrödinger are still in copyright), and for reasons of academic ethical considerations. It is still in copyright, because he died on January 4, 1961, which is 58 years ago. So, in countries that protect copyrights for the life of the author plus 50 years (the minimum required by the Berne Convention) this is out of copyright, but in countries that protect copyrights for the life of the author plus 70 years (e.g. Germany), the copyright is still in force until January 4, 2031. Also, even if the work were out of copyright, as a matter of academic integrity, you would be required to attribute the quote in an academic thesis in any case. Quoting someone without attribution in academic work is considered plagiarism, and could result in your thesis being stricken and also in your degree being revoked in a serious case. Government ministers in the E.U. have been forced to resign over plagiarism in their academic work as students in recent years. This is taken much more seriously in Europe than it is in the U.S.	One cannot use the works of others unless one of the following applies: The copyright holder has given permission, usually in the form of a license, often explicit, but sometimes implied. The work is not protected by copyright. This can happen in several ways, but the most common is that the work is old enough that copyright has expired. In the US, works older than 1927 are currently out of copyright. So are some others, the rules are a bit complex. In many countries, if the author or creator died more than 70 years ago, the work is out of copyright. In some countries this is a different number, between 50 and 100 years. This is not likely to apply to a file distributed with current software. If an exception to copyright applies. In the US this would most likely be fair use. In the UK it would probably be fair dealing. In other countries there are a variety of exceptions that might apply, including personal use in some. AS a comment by Jen points out "use" here refers only to those rights protected by copyright, such as making and distributing copied, making nd distributing derivative works, and the like. (Displaying and publicly performing seem unlikely to apply.) Now lets consider the specific situation, and which if any of the reasons for lawful use might apply. License or other permission. There is no explicit license. Since the program is distributed to be run, there is an implicit license to make the sort of use of the file needed to run the program. If the documentation describes how to employ the file as part of running the program, there is almost surely an implied license to employ it in that way. There is not, however, permission to make copies unless that is needed to run the program. There is surely not permission to make derivative works of the file or distribute copies to others, even if you do not charge anything. Expired copyright This pretty clearly will not apply. Fair use This might apply, or might not. There isn't enough info in the question to tell, not even to make a good guess. If any use would be non commercial, that helps fair use a bit. If the use would be for a different purpose than the one the developers used it for, that helps fair use a lot. If the use of the file harmed the market for the program, or served as a substitute, that lean against fair use. without knowing what the file is, what it does, and how it might be used, one really cannot weven guess.	To the extent that the photograph is an expression of the operator's originality (e.g. framing, subject, angles, camera settings, etc.) it is the operator who has the best claim to copyright. Whether it was "made by a machine" misses the issue: what matters is the degree to which the purported author contributed originality. In your hypothetical, the operator is the person responsible for fixation of the work and the person who contributed original expression to the work. It is the "the product of [that person's] exercise of skill and judgment" (the Canadian standard) and an expression of a "modicum of creativity" (the U.S. standard). See generally, CCH Canadian Ltd. v. Law Society of Upper Canada, 2004 SCC 13; Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co. Inc., 499 U.S. 340 (1990). But the Copyright Office has stated that: [it] will not register works produced by a machine or mere mechanical process that operates randomly or automatically without any creative input or intervention from a human author. The crucial question is “whether the ‘work’ is basically one of human authorship, with the computer [or other device] merely being an assisting instrument, or whether the traditional elements of authorship in the work (literary, artistic, or musical expression or elements of selection, arrangement, etc.) were actually conceived and executed not by man but by a machine.” Copyright Compendium, s. 313.2 I am comfortable predicting that a mere 10-second delay will almost always fall on the side of the line where the operator would be considered to be an author.1 1. At the other end of the spectrum are pre-positioned cameras that record continuously or when triggered by motion. Who (if anyone) holds the copyright in that circumstance has not been answered, with opinions differing across jurisdictions and academics: some arguing that the device owner would hold copyright, some arguing that no one would, others arguing that it would be fact-based inquiry about who might have contributed sufficient originality.	A book (or any other creative work) published in the 1800s is now in the public domain everywhere in the world (excepting odd cases like Peter Pan where a special rule applies in some jurisdictions.) Anyone may legally quote from such a work at any length with no legal requirement for permission. In fact there is no legal requirement to attribute the quote to the author (although there is an ethical requirement). In fact one may publish a new edition of such a work, unchanged or modified in any way one chooses, with no legal need to obtain permission from anyone or to pay any royalties or fees. If the work were recent enough to still be protected by copyright, a limited quote could be used under fair use, fair dealing or another exception to copyright under the laws of most countries. The exact rules vary by country, and are often highly fact-dependent, so the exact details will matter. If one wanted to quote enough from a recent work that permission is required, the copyright holder, who is often not the publisher, would need to grant permission. That is often the author or the author's heir, but it can be a person or firm to which the author transferred the rights. Sometimes the rights-holder can be hard to identify. Update: it would be possible for a work published in, say, 1890 by an author then young who lived to a fairly old age, dying in, say 1960, to still be protected in some countries, although not in the US. (Anything published before 1925 is now PD in the US.) But Charlotte Bronte died in 1855, and all of her work has long been in the public domain
Do police have powers that civilians don't? Citizens can do many things the police can do: Citizens can detain people, get court orders, and so on. Citizens can't send people to jail (although these days many jails are private). Is there any distinction between citizens and police? Are police just a government-sponsored security guards?	Yes new-south-wales A non-exhaustive list: At common law, a police officer can arrest without warrant any person the officer reasonably suspects has committed a felony. A private citizen can arrest without warrant only where a felony has actually been committed. Both police officers and private citizens can arrest without a warrant a person who commits a breach of the peace, or where it is reasonably believed that the person is about to commit a breach of the peace. In NSW a police officer’s common law duty to take a person before a justice as soon as practicable after arrest has been replaced by a statutory scheme introduced by the Crimes Amendment (Detention After Arrest) Act 1997. Under Part 10A police may detain a person for investigation for 4 hours, or for a further period not exceeding 8 hours if a warrant to extend the investigation period is obtained. Police can detain people 'for their own good' - for example, an intoxicated or drug-affected person; private citizens can't. Police can stop and search a suspect before an arrest on reasonable grounds; private citizens can't. Police can give directions to the public (the 'move-along' power); private citizens can't. Police can demand a person's name and address; private citizens can't. Police can demand disclosure of the identity of a driver and passengers in a motor vehicle; private citizens can't. Police can stop and search vehicles (including the road block power); private citizens can't. Police can conduct forensic procedures; private citizens can't. Police can conduct customs inspections (as can customs officers); private citizens can't. Police can search for internally concealed drugs; private citizens can't. Police can execute search warrants; private citizens can't. etc.	In the US, police do not put a person under house arrest, instead, the courts do, as an alternative to standard imprisonment (either awaiting trial, or serving their sentence). The police are not involved at all; the courts cannot be sued for lenient sentencing. If a person leaves their house (even to buy a bottle of milk), they will have violated the terms of their more lenient sentence, and will be arrested and sent to regular jail. Generally, police are not liable for damages, especially when they fail to be omnipotent in their efforts to prevent others from doing wrong.	According to the ACLU, there are certain questions you have to answer when entering the US, and in some states you may have to identify yourself when stopped and told to identify yourself. Nonimmigrant non-citizen may be required to answer questions about immigrant status posed by an immigration officer. Otherwise, you are not required to answer questions by police. A judge can order you to answer questions, but the police cannot. Also, "obstruction of justice" covers things such as destroying evidence, assaulting a process server, communicating with a juror, and can cover investigative demands by prosecutors, but not being uncooperative with police.	Let's say you leave fake drugs in someone's yard. Eg, you expect the police to be dumb enough to believe it and arrest the other person Obstructing a public officer, specifically "deliberately hindering a public officer from carrying out official duties". Trespassing.	NO It is decided state-by-state (for state-wide agencies like state troopers), and county by county, and city-by-city whether or not to buy and use cameras. Also, they are not usually always running. Policies as to when officers are required to turn them on vary as well as when the public and the involved officers get access to the recordings.	It is illegal to take or publish a picture of someone without his consent in France. There are five exceptions : people related to news events of public interest, public information purposes (when right to inform the public is bigger than right to privacy), people present in a public location when focus is not on them, public figures during their public functions and activities, people shown in a large group without distinction of one or several individuals. If you respect one of the 5 conditions, you do not require consent. Policemen do not have extended or extra protection regarding these rights: they are treated as any individual. This is described in a report from the CNDS (Commission National de Déontologie de la Sécurité): "[Les forces de l'ordre] doivent considérer comme normale l’attention que des citoyens ou des groupes de citoyens peuvent porter à leur mode d’action. Le fait d’être photographiés ou filmés durant leurs interventions ne peut constituer aucune gêne pour des policiers soucieux du respect des règles déontologiques." which translates approx. to: "Policemen must consider as normal the attention that citizens or citizen groups can pay to their mode of action. Being photographed or filmed during their interventions cannot be seen as as an embarrassment to the officers concerned to comply with ethical rules." See also this Wikimedia Commons internal policy that summarise the French law and (fr) the exceptions on droit-image.fr	Most jurisdictions don't require special licensure for bodyguards and don't regulate it as a profession or occupation. Body guards in those jurisdictions don't have any special legal authority or any special legal responsibilities other than a fiduciary duty to protect the client. They have the same rights to make citizens arrests and carry weapons that any ordinary citizen would. If a jurisdiction does regulate bodyguards, the answer depends upon the law of the jurisdiction which varies considerably. Only a minority of jurisdictions in the world even recognize the concept of cash bond, or the concept of a bail enforcement agent. Logically, it is unlikely that the regulation of bail enforcement agents in places where bail bonds exist is unlikely to be the same as that of a bodyguard. A bail enforcement agent's authority flows from the adjudication of a court that a particular person has diminished rights while on bail, and that the bail bonding company through its bail enforcement agent, has extraordinary authority (analogous to that of a parent or legal guardian) over that particular person for whom the bail bond agency has taken responsibility. A bail enforcement agent doesn't have special authority over anyone else as a general rule. In contrast, a bodyguard is generally seeking to protect one person from the entire rest of the world, when the entire rest of the world is not subject to any court orders temporarily diminishing their rights. So, it wouldn't make sense for a bail enforcement agent to have the same legal treatment as a bodyguard, even if both were regulated occupations or professions. A body guard is more analogous to a private security guard for a business, or premises, or vehicle, which a minority of jurisdictions regulate as a licensed occupation or profession. Of course, if the skills and qualifications for both bail enforcement agents and bodyguards are similar in a jurisdiction where both profession or occupations are regulated, nothing would prevent the same individual from obtaining both kinds of licenses. In your fictional world, however, you can do whatever you want.	The police are mistaken because they don't understand immigration law. Usually, the first step to resolve this problem would be to explain the situation in a letter to or telephone call with the town attorney, elevating it from a police officer who has no training in citizenship and naturalization paperwork, to an attorney, who should either know better, or should be able to find out more easily.
moving to dismiss a count in an amended complaint although "answered" in the original complaint Hypothetical scenario: Plaintiff files a complaint having three counts A, B, and C. Defendant files an answer to counts A & B and moves to dismiss count C for "failure to state a claim." On Plaintiff's motion, judge grants leave to amend and denies pending motion to dismiss as moot. Plaintiff files an amended complaint containing counts A and D (D being a new count, B and C having been removed). The language of Count A remains completely unchanged. Defendant files a new motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim on all counts. Is the Defendant's decision to challenge count A permitted by FRCP? It seems at the very least a logical necessity that either the initial answer or the subsequent motion to dismiss must have been filed in violation of Rule 11 because: I don't see how defendant can initially believe that Count A states a claim and then later decide it does not. I suppose I should add the assumption that they did not come across any new case law during the time interval between pleadings and that the governing law did not change. Rule 11 requires a reasonable inquiry be made into the sufficiency of a plaintiff's complaint, and that no document be filed for an impure purpose. I can't think of any "pure purpose" one would have in filing an answer when a motion for dismissal is warranted. So it leads me to conclude that either the Defendant did not make a reasonable inquiry into Count A before filing an answer, and has wasted both the court and plaintiff's time by not raising Count A's insufficiency initially, or that either the answer or the later motion to dismiss were filed for an impure purpose.	According to rule 15a: (1) Amending as a Matter of Course. A party may amend its pleading once as a matter of course within: (A) 21 days after serving it, or (B) if the pleading is one to which a responsive pleading is required, 21 days after service of a responsive pleading or 21 days after service of a motion under Rule 12(b), (e), or (f), whichever is earlier. (2) Other Amendments. In all other cases, a party may amend its pleading only with the opposing party's written consent or the court's leave. The court should freely give leave when justice so requires. If you are still within 21 days of when you served your original pleading (or their response, if one was required) then you should still be able to amend your pleading. If you are outside that window, you may be able to use rule 12(c): (c) Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings. After the pleadings are closed—but early enough not to delay trial—a party may move for judgment on the pleadings. According to rule 12(d), this is not the same as a motion for summary judgement under rule 56 (with all that entails) unless the court has already been presented with matters outside the pleadings. Your question was about rule 11. I don't think your scenario would violate it. Under rule 11b: By presenting to the court a pleading... an attorney or unrepresented party certifies that to the best of the person's knowledge, information, and belief, formed after an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances... (1) it is not being presented for any improper purpose, such as to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation; (2) the claims, defenses, and other legal contentions are warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law; (3) the factual contentions have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, will likely have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery; and (4) the denials of factual contentions are warranted on the evidence or, if specifically so identified, are reasonably based on belief or a lack of information. It doesn't actually say in there that the defense must investigate the sufficiency of the plaintiff's claims (although that's obviously something the defense would ordinarily want to do.) The part about making sure "the claims, defenses, and other legal contentions are warranted..." relates to the claims being made the party in question, not the ones being made by the other party. I can't think of any "pure purpose" one would have in filing an answer when a motion for dismissal is warranted. Depending on the circumstances, a party might have good reasons to not make every claim they think they're entitled to make. Perhaps they aren't sure about how the court will rule on their motion to dismiss but like their chances at trial. (Indeed, if it's a certainty the court will dismiss, then perhaps Rule 11 sanctions are in order for the plaintiff, for filing a case that was not at all warranted by the law.) Drafting a motion is time the attorney has to spend, which is an expense for their client, and it may or may not work. But maybe their motion to dismiss Count D uses the same theories as their motion to dismiss Count A, and it's now worth it to make the argument. And maybe now since the court ruled with them on Count C they're more optimistic that the court will also rule in their favor on counts A and D. If the defense delayed this motion solely to "harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation" then Rule 11 would be violated. But that seems unlikely. Look at the context. They're making a motion on the amended complaint. That's still rather early in the process. Given that a brand new count was added, an earlier motion to dismiss count A would not have resolved the litigation anyway, so there was no real delay caused. The costs for either side have not been significantly increased, either. Also note the phrases "to the best of the person's knowledge" and "reasonable under the circumstances". The defendant only has 21 days to file a response after being served, and they might not even have an attorney yet when that clock starts. How much inquiry is reasonable in that time frame, especially when responding to a multi-count complaint?	There are a variety of reasons a judge might be disqualified. It could be that the judge was previous an attorney who represented someone (defendant, victim, key witness) involved in the case, it could be that the judge was a family member or former employer of the defense attorney, it could be that someone close to the judge or the judge personally was a victim of another crime committed by the person, it could be that the defendant or the defendant's family was a personal or family friend. The prior involvement in the protective order case could be a factor as well. The record isn't detailed enough to know. "Held" in this context means that the hearing scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on that date noted was actually conducted, rather than being continued or vacated for some reason. Your guess is as good as mine regarding "CFW" and "DB" in this context. My best guess for DB is "daily booking" and CFW might be either the removed or replacement judge's initials (e.g. Carol Francis Wilson) but those are just wild guesses. Neither appears on a list of Oregon Department of Corrections acryomns or this criminal background check abbreviation list, or this list of Oregon law enforcement abbreviations. The only matches on this list of law enforcement abbreviations and none of the matches to DB (dog bite, dead body, detective bureau) make a lot of sense in this context.	Does the law or judge ever make exceptions for events such as this? From a legal standpoint, your friend is at high risk of being found in contempt and thus be sentenced to imprisonment. Your friend should have called 911 rather than violate the protection order under pretext of consoling her. Asking from the standpoint of whether judges ever do this or that is pointless. The answer would be "yes, they make exceptions" even in scenarios which are plain aberrant. However, a judge's departure of the law quite often is not a reliable standpoint for understanding the law, but the result of his/her ineptitude and unfitness for judicial office.	Is it acceptable for person A (representing themselves) to refer to person B as "their neighbor" instead of by their name, or would that cause the suit to be dismissed? Omitting the neighbor's name in the pleadings & proceedings cannot singlehandedly cause the dismissal of a defamation suit. The matter would result in dismissal only if the plaintiff repeatedly disobeys court order(s) (if any) to disclose that information. Before the proceedings get to that point, the plaintiff will have had one or more hearings to dispute the defendant's alleged need for identifying a non-party by name. When opposing to that disclosure, the plaintiff's goal is to establish that the false narrative about robbing a neighbor at gunpoint is defamatory regardless of neighbor's name. Keep in mind that the focus in a claim of defamation is the defamed person, whereas the relevance of details such as who the non-parties are pertains to context and evidence. Lastly, the fact that a party to the suit is a pro se litigant is irrelevant from both substantial and procedural standpoints.	You need, at least, to let the person receive 2 reminders which have to name a reasonable period (after the first exceeds, you can send the second) and if the last deadline exceeds, you have the possibility of escalating further. Although often repeated, this is not correct which makes most of your argument moot. By German law (specifically § 286 BGB) these are the exact conditions for a default of payments: (1)If the obligor, following a warning notice from the obligee that is made after performance is due, fails to perform, he is in default as a result of the warning notice. Bringing an action for performance and serving a demand for payment in summary debt proceedings for recovery of debt have the same effect as a warning notice. (2)There is no need for a warning notice if a period of time according to the calendar has been specified, performance must be preceded by an event and a reasonable period of time for performance has been specified in such a way that it can be calculated, starting from the event, according to the calendar, the obligor seriously and definitively refuses performance, for special reasons, weighing the interests of both parties, the immediate commencement of default is justified. (3)The obligor of a claim for payment is in default at the latest if he does not perform within thirty days after the due date and receipt of an invoice or equivalent statement of payment; this applies to an obligor who is a consumer only if these consequences are specifically referred to in the invoice or statement of payment. If the time at which the invoice or payment statement is received by the obligor is uncertain, an obligor who is not a consumer is in default at the latest thirty days after the due date and receipt of the consideration. (4)The obligor is not in default for as long as performance is not made as the result of a circumstance for which he is not responsible. Depending on what was contractually agreed on the default happened even before the first warning. For example that is the case if a specific payment due date was agreed to. Even if a warning would be required it is only one and you can see that no requirements on the specific wording or form on that warning is given. I don't know how you assume an "official reminder" should look like. According to the law a specific and explicit demand to fulfill an obligation is enough. Also, the warning does not need to contain a specific date. If it doesn't the default is effective immediately.	The amount requested has little or nothing to do with the amount, if any, eventually awarded. Once can sue "for 100 million dollars" and be awarded 100 dollars, and although it is rarer, one can be awarded more than the amount asked for when suit is field. That initial amount now serves as a peg to hang sensational news stores on, and nothing more. The plaintiff, and the plaintiff's lawyer, may consider that such publicity serves them well. Such inflated amounts are not grounds to dismiss the suit, so there is no downside to including them, except possibly negative publicity if people mock the demand.	Yes, this happens with some regularity. In the absence of timely notice, courts should generally permit the alibi testimony, assuming that prosecution will not be surprised or prejudiced by the late notice and that the lack of notice was not the result of bad faith. But when that's not the case, courts can and definitely do exclude alibi testimony: State v. Reed, 155 Ohio App.3d 435 (2003) ("The record demonstrates that the prosecution was unaware of Reed’s alibi, and it had no opportunity to investigate the claim. Thus, the state would have been prejudiced by Reed’s unanticipated alibi testimony, and Reed has made no showing of excusable neglect or good cause for his delay in providing notice. In light of Manns’s failure to appear at trial and Reed’s last-minute change in trial strategy, we cannot say that the trial court abused its discretion by excluding the alibi evidence." United States v. Davis, 40 F.3d 1069, 1076 (10th Cir. 1994) ("The better practice is generally to hear an alibi witness. However, the district court maintains discretion in such matters, and it was not an abuse of discretion to exclude the testimony in this case.") People v. Grant, C050172, 2006 Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 3356 (Apr. 25, 2006) Assuming the government is subject to reciprocal discovery obligations, a defendant's due-process rights do not preclude the exclusion of alibi witnesses as a sanction for failing to give timely notice. Wardius v. Oregon, 412 U.S. 470 (1973) ("The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment forbids enforcement of alibi rules unless reciprocal discovery rights are given to criminal defendants.").	Service of process is jurisdictional, but specific phrasing isn't typically specified by statute. For example, here's the Illinois statute, 735 ILCS 5/2-203(a): Except as otherwise expressly provided, service of summons upon an individual defendant shall be made (1) by leaving a copy of the summons with the defendant personally, (2) by leaving a copy at the defendant's usual place of abode, with some person of the family or a person residing there, of the age of 13 years or upwards, and informing that person of the contents of the summons, provided the officer or other person making service shall also send a copy of the summons in a sealed envelope with postage fully prepaid, addressed to the defendant at his or her usual place of abode, or (3) as provided in Section 1-2-9.2 of the Illinois Municipal Code with respect to violation of an ordinance governing parking or standing of vehicles in cities with a population over 500,000. The certificate of the officer or affidavit of the person that he or she has sent the copy in pursuance of this Section is evidence that he or she has done so. The key is that the service of process be completed. Legally, this implies that the server will file an affidavit that describes the circumstances of the legal completion of service. For example, here is a sample affidavit. Like any other trade, process servers have an association that offers training, publishes a policy manual, and abides by certain best practices. All that said, the best practices don't specify any specific verbiage. Rather they elaborate a preference for the methods of service (e.g. personal vs. drop) and the like.
Pass red light in another state My car is registered in California, but I was on a road trip and accidentally passed a red light in Chicago, Illinois. It was yellow, but quickly became red. And I noticed the camera flash (it was 4AM and no traffic). I was surprised. Generally, how does it work given it's a second state? Should I be concerned?	Illinois collects the fine; California treats it the same as if you had run a red light in California Both Illinois and California are parties to the Nonresident Violator Compact and the Driver Licence Compact. The former means that Chicago will forward the ticket to Illinois who will forward it to California who will forward it to you. You can contest the ticket in various ways including by mail but your prospects of success are slim. If you successfully contest, that's the end of the matter. If you don't contest or lose, you have to pay the $100 fine. The latter means that if the offence is upheld or not contested, California will apply 1 point to your licence.	Not necessarily. Your own statements and the statements of the officer would be legally sufficient to convict you. Also, your statement that you don't believe you are at fault is strongly at odds with a widely held interpretation of the traffic laws (not stated in the formal language of these statutes). The prevailing interpretation of the traffic laws is that you are always at fault if you rear end someone because you failed to maintain a safe distance, pretty much as a matter of strict liability and regardless of the circumstances, because a safe distance is almost by definition a distance that it is possible for you to come to a full stop from if the care in front of you suddenly comes to a stop for any reason. The only situation I can imagine where there wouldn't be liability for rear ending someone would be if you were at rest behind them at a stop light and they actively backed up into you. In practice, almost any judge and almost any jury, would convict you of failure to maintain a safe distance if you rear ended someone absent the most extraordinary of circumstances. I honestly don't know any lawyer or likely potential juror who wouldn't convict you under these circumstances with only the testimony of the police officer and your own testimony (which you would have to offer to have any shot at avoiding a conviction) to establish that you did indeed rear end someone. Police are allowed to lie to suspects of crimes, and often simply do not have an accurate understanding of how the legal system works. So, you are not entitled to rely on a statement made by a police officer. Of course, it is also certainly possible that his statement is consistent with local practice in your neighborhood traffic court. So, showing up to contest the charge might still make sense, and it wouldn't be uncommon to receive a plea bargain with fewer points against your license, just for showing up to court.	It seems that the Iowa authorities did attempt to notify the driver. If the letter of notification was returned because the driver changed his or her address, that is not the DOT's fault -- drivers are supposed to notify the authorities of changes of address -- indeed driving with a license with an out-of-date address is itself a violation in some US states. If the error was made by the postal service, that is still not the DOT's fault but they might be more willing to accept an appeal from the driver. In general, authorities must make a reasonable attempt to notify people of court or administrative actions, but if those notifications fail, the authorities can go ahead in many cases. Try explaining that one doesn't owe taxes because an IRS notice was misdelivered. It would be too easy to avoid unwanted governmental actions if nondelivery of mail were a valid excuse. It may well be that there is a procedure to get the suspension waived or ended early, perhaps involving taking the class that should have been taken, and perhaps paying an additional fine. Details of such procedures vary. A local lawyer who deals with traffic issues frequently would probably know what steps might be taken. It may well be that the original ticket mentioned a possible suspension, but it may not have. That also varies by state.	It is a false statement to claim to live in one county when you actually live in a different one. It becomes perjury (a crime) when you falsely swear to that statement on your status report, and you are required to report changes in "household situation" within 10 days. There isn't an exception allowing you to give a false address "in case it costs more to report truthfully". The only legal solutions are to report truthfully and pay more, or move again, report truthfully, and not pay more.	You are referring to Michigan State Police v. Sitz 496 U.S. 444 (1990). It does not require or suggest a requirement of advance publication of any details regarding the checkpoints. The dissent mentions that "a sobriety checkpoint is usually operated at night at an unannounced location. Surprise is crucial to its method." This point was not countered or even mentioned by the majority. In this case, a state committee had created guidelines setting forth procedures governing checkpoint operations, site selection, and publicity. The mentions this as a background fact, but does not rely on the existence of these guidelines as a requirement for the constitutionality of checkpoint stops. It does contrast checkpoints with "roving patrol stops". Quoting from Martinez-Fuerte 428 U. S. 543 (1976), the majority in Sitz said: "at traffic checkpoints, the motorist can see that other vehicles are being stopped, he can see visible signs of the officers' authority, and he is much less likely to be frightened or annoyed by the intrusion". There are state guidelines, some states have constitutions prohibiting sobriety checkpoints (lots of case law at the state level regarding this), and some state legislatures have made these illegal. In Sitz, the checkpoints were being operated subject to guidelines developed by the Sobriety Checkpoint Advisory Committee (of the State Department of Police). Federally, the NHTSA has guidelines on visibility and publicity towards the goal of effectiveness.	U-turns are prohibited in certain circumstances (Highway Traffic Act Paragraph 143). It does not say that U-turns are prohibited at intersections controlled by traffic lights. By the principle of expressio unius est exclusio alterius, U-turns at intersections controlled by traffic lights are generally allowed. However, in determining fault for insurance purposes in Ontario, The driver of automobile “A” is 100 per cent at fault and the driver of automobile “B” is not at fault for an incident that occurs, [...] when automobile “A” is making a U-turn [...] (Insurance Act Paragraph 19.)	This varies from state to state. Here's a representative statute: Any driver or operator of a motor vehicle who, having been given a visual or audible signal by a peace officer directing such driver or operator to bring his vehicle to a stop, willfully fails or refuses to obey such direction, increases his speed, extinguishes his lights, or otherwise flees or attempts to elude the officer. See 625 ILCS 5/11-204. For a first offense, IL calls it a class A misdemeanor punishable by up to 1 year and $2.5K. but on the third offense it becomes a felony punishable by up to 3 years and a $25K fine. If the signal was meant for you, then the divided highway is a moot point so long as you realize it was for you (which might be established by you turning off the road into some neighborhood where you have no business). united-statesillinois	Interesting question! I believe all of the examples can be addressed by the following rules: A vehicle on a roadway has the right-of-way over a vehicle not on a roadway. Therefore, the vehicle leaving a parking lot always yields to a vehicle in a parallel road. Absent another rule, the vehicle on the right always has the right-of-way. So if two vehicles are leaving adjacent parking lots, the left one waits for the right one to go if there is any potential conflict. Of course, not enough people know these rules, so in practice if you can't get the vehicle with the legal right-of-way to take it I teach drivers to be as decisive and cautious as possible: I.e., take the right-of-way, but not so fast that you can't avoid the other vehicle if it decides to go after all, because legally you will be at fault in a collision. (Though it's anyone's guess how police and insurers would settle the tricky scenarios you illustrate.)
Rental Application Fee Refund in case of Multiple Applicants I live in Chicago and have been looking to rent a condo. I hired an agent, visited one of the choices she offered, liked it, paid $50 as an application fee that involved a credit history check. In a day the agent called and notified me that there was another application by a married couple. The owner preferred them because in general couples are financially more secure (e.g. if one person looses job, the second member can still pay the rent) Here is my question: am I entitled to application fee refund due to the fact that my credit history was not an issue? It would be a surprise for me if this kind of practice is not regulated. I have nothing against the condo owner going with a choice he/she deems more secure. What is shocking that agents are allowed to collect multiple non-refundable application fees, choose one tenant and keep the rest of the proceeds making juicy profit. I thought there would be a common sense approach. If I pay for an application, the agent would stop accepting other application fees until my application is rejected. Alternatively, if the owner wants to pick and choose their tenants, rejected application fees should be refunded unless there is an unsatisfactory credit history in this case my credit report should be shown and explained why it is not accepted. Could any one well versed in Tenant-Landlord Law clarify what the regulations say, if anything?	Here is the Illinois Landlord and Tenant Act, and here are the Chicago Residential Landlords and Tenants ordinances. Neither set of law addresses application fees. So it would have to be covered in whatever agreement you have with the agent (assuming you paid the agent), or with the landlord (if you paid the landlord). Fees for a credit history check are generally not refundable since they are actual costs incurred by someone, no matter what the outcome is. Check the forms you signed, like this one, to see whether they explicitly say that the fee is not refundable.	the landlord has been living there for a week. Is this allowed? Am I still expected to pay rent if he is living there? Generally speaking, no. But you need to verify that your lease contains no language that overrides certain basic assumption about leases. My understanding is that (1) you delivered the property, and (2) the landlord was not entitled to live there during your tenancy. Usually one basic assumption in a lease is that only the tenants and their beneficiaries/guests ("tenants", for brevity) are entitled to use the property. It appears that the landlord is neither. Your delivery of the property enabled the landlord to reassign the tenant's exclusive right whenever the landlord deems it fit. The scenario of you finding someone to replace you in the lease is merely one alternative from which the landlord can make the informed decision to reassign that right. The event of reassignment automatically releases you from subsequent payments related to your early move-out. Accordingly, the landlord's informed and willful reassignment (in this case, to himself) of the aforementioned exclusive right forfeits his entitlement to subsequent payments from you. This renders the [rest of the] lease voidable by you. In this regard, see Restatement (Second) of Contracts at §§ 151 and 153(a). There is also an issue of fraud and quantum meruit (see also unjust enrichment) insofar as the landlord benefited at your expense (in the form of your father's work on behalf of you) without informing you that reassignment had taken place already. The landlord knowingly and intentionally deprived you of the opportunity to decide whether to keep taking care of property about which you no longer had any obligation. I presume you already are mindful of this but I should still mention it: Make sure you can prove the landlord was actually using the property rather than inspecting/enhancing/managing it.	You can do everything that follows the legal rules: It does follow the building allocation for the lot (which most likely reads: Parking lot of lot XYZ, preventing reallocation into other lots) It follows local laws (which might or might not prescribe that condos have to provide a parking space per condo, preventing tearing it up) AND you must find the other party that actually owns the lot willing to part with the lot and sign you over the lot with the rights to modify the land. So while technically you might be legally allowed to get ownership, it seems unlikely just from an economical standpoint: the condo leaser will most decidedly not want to make his condos unattractive (by not providing parking), break the law (by not providing parking) and he might not want to sell the condos together with the building and you have no legal leverage at all to force him to do that.	Some portions of your inquiry are confusing, as in "I insisted that we were going to continue to send money to the mortgage company if we don’t understand what the fees are for". It is unclear why you would continue to send money without understanding the reason for fees, especially since you purportedly sent "the complete payoff" already. What is an appropriate response to an email from a lawyer that says she’s going to withdraw from my case, because I would like to understand the additional fees and charges my mortgage company is charging (over and beyond the plan payment/payoff)? Rather than replying to the lawyer's email, it is more important that you timely file in court a response (with 2 or 3 copies) to her motion to withdraw and that you attend the court hearing (if any is scheduled). Don't forget to also mail your attorney a copy of your response. In the response, you will need to argue that your lawyer's refusal to adequately address your inquiries is in violation of the rules of "professional" conduct (with which attorneys are supposed to comply). By granting the attorney's motion, the court would improperly release her from pending obligations she has with respect to you. For instance, Rule 1.4 of Michigan RPC states: (a) A lawyer shall keep a client reasonably informed about the status of a matter and comply promptly with reasonable requests for information. [...] (b) A lawyer shall explain a matter to the extent reasonably necessary to permit the client to make informed decisions regarding the representation. (note: other jurisdictions in the U.S. have equivalent rules, so you will need to refer to their corresponding label) By pushing you to pay another $850 without actually explaining you the details of the "settlement" with mortgage company's counsel, your lawyer clearly is failing her duty to reasonably inform you of the matter for which you retained her. Therefore, your response should substantiate that a granting of the attorney's motion to withdraw ought to be conditioned on the fulfillment of her obligation to provide you with reasonably sufficient information which you as her client are entitled to obtain. It will help if you attach to your motion & brief an exhibit showing that the mortgage company actually directed you to inquire of your lawyer the clarification(s) you are pursuing. Once you take care of that issue, I encourage you to seriously assess (and proceed accordingly) whether your attorney's misconduct merits being reported with the entity in charge of disciplining lawyers for their legal malpractice. If I were knowledgeable of bankruptcy law, I would be happy to address your first question. I can only suggest you to do some research on leagle.com to become acquainted with how courts decide bankruptcy issues. Be sure to set parameter "Search By Court" to "Federal Bankruptcy Court".	Until it was found to be unconstitutional, Florida had a law against surcharges for using a credit card (the statute is still on the books, however). That was the only law against "convenience fees" related to making payments. Whether or not a business will accept a particular form of payment (check, credit card, money order, traveler's check, cash) is up to business. Apart from credit cards, there has been no law against charging for accepting a particular form of payment, but that charge would have to be part of the contract – the lease would have to specify in advance what the processing fee is for money orders vs. cash vs. credit card. The residential tenancies law of Florida does not prohibit incorporating fees into the terms of a lease (as some states do), so the lease can specify "$1500 for rent plus $10 for payment-processing, every month".	The only avenue for tenant liability would be if the tenant is responsible for the damage. The courts have not assigned responsibility for damage resulting from other people's disagreement with a political expression to the person expressing the viewpoint. You are generally free to peacefully express yourself, and as a renter this would be part of your right of "quiet enjoyment of the premise". If there is a lease condition that says "no political signs", then maybe that's a violation of the contract, but that might also be an illegal term in your state or city (under landlord-tenant laws). Since you have the right to express your opinion, the courts must respect that right and not deem that engaging in political expression negates your other rights. In general, if someone commits a crime, the law does not say "but you take the blame if you express your political opinion".	I do not have anything official proving that I gave him the 2-months worth deposit What did you do, hand him a wad of cash? Pay by check, and put what it's for on the memo line. You've been there for nine months and there are several other people who can testify that you've been living there, so it would be difficult to claim that you aren't a renter. If you can show that the landlord is aware of your residence, that definitely helps even further, as does receiving mail there, registering to vote or with the DMV with that address, etc. Question 1 : what would be the best course of action to force the landlord to give me the requested lease agreement? You can't "force" someone to give you an agreement. That's kinda part of the definition of the word "agreement". If you find the conditions unacceptable, you can find another place to rent. When I asked the landlord about what he was planning to do regarding that, his answer was that it was not his business. It doesn't seem like it is. You could take the money you would have given to the other roommate, and give it to the power company instead. If paying for the utilities is part of the renters' responsibilities, and the renters are not paying for the utilities, then it's their choice to not have power. In California, landlords are required to make power available, but that just means that they can't interfere with you purchasing it from the power company, not that the landlord has to pay for it (if the landlord had agreed to pay for it, and isn't, then you can deduct the cost from the rent, but you can't simply withhold all rent, and your question indicates that the landlord hasn't agreed to pay for power anyway). Am I protected in any way, or can the landlord just come in my room and throw everything away, or worse just point me with a gun and force me to move? It would be difficult for the landlord to get rid of you, and would probably take several months to do legally. Performing an eviction himself, rather than getting the sheriff's department to do it, would expose him to serious charges, especially if a gun were used. Besides criminal charges, "If this or other unlawful methods, such as locking a tenant out or seizing his possessions before an eviction process has ended, are used to force a tenant to leave a property, a landlord may be subject to fees up to $100 per day of unlawful method use." http://homeguides.sfgate.com/tenants-rights-utility-billing-california-8073.html However, while the legal process will take a long time, at the end you will still be liable for back rent, and you will have an eviction on your record, which will make it harder to rent in the future.	The Rent Ordinance para (e) explicitly precludes that possibility: Any waiver by a tenant of rights under this Chapter 37 shall be void as contrary to public policy. If he attempts to enforce such a clause or in any way dislodge you from the unit, he is liable for a substantial penalty. The legality of a rebate scheme is not clear, but probably would also be deemed illegal, because there already exists provision for buyout, which has specific restrictions. For the rest of the week, tenant buyouts are subject to these provisions. The problem is that the horse may have left the barn. The landlord has to have provided you with a Pre-Buyout Disclosure Form (which is to be signed and filed) before any negotiation / discussion with the tenant. Since we're talking about obeying the law, it has to occur to the landlord that there is a buyout option, and then he has to give you and file the disclosure form before he opens his mouth. He also has to know what the requirements of a buyout agreement will be in the future. Starting on Monday, the law regarding buyouts changes (it doesn't clearly make an agreement impossible, but it's a reminder that the law can be changed). In terms of legally-enforceable agreements, you could agree to a buyout in the far future, but the agreement might not be enforceable under future law. For example, the disclosure form requires new information to be provided, so if he doesn't do that, the disclosure is invalid (the preamble to the amendment points out that the change in law was directed at legal actions that were considered to violate the spirit of the law). Hence a buyout for two years in the future is legally risky.
Why doesn't the FBI crack down on websites allowing cartoon child pornography? I was inspired to make this based off of a previous post. In the United States, visual depictions (such as drawings) of child abuse images is illegal provided they are ruled as obscene. This would make things like lolicon/shotacon (a type of cartoon child pornography) illegal in the United States (provided they are considered obscene), yet there are plenty of websites hosted in the United States that permit it to be posted in their website explicitly in their rules (4chan comes to mind), or just simply forbid real child pornography and say nothing about obscene cartoons. Yet, the FBI has never seized the servers of these sites, nor collected and disseminated to other countries IP addresses of those accessing such content, to arrest them like in Operation Avalanche. Why is that? The Dept of Homeland Security has even worked alongside 4chan before and described having a "working relationship" with them. There will surely be a lot of content that could be ruled as obscene in a court of law -- couldn't search warrants for the servers be granted and prosecutions made to those who downloaded/viewed the obscene content? There's surely a legal recourse to actually do this. I understand Section 230 is a thing, but surely the websites have to comply with US law, so if they permit material that could be ruled obscene that wouldn't be the case, surely? Not only that, but some countries outright consider, obscene or not, cartoon child pornography illegal. What's stopping them from asking the US's assistance in raiding the servers like the US literally did in the case of shutting down Megaupload? Is it a matter of "this is possible but will not be considered worth the effort and taxpayer money"? Do you think that will ever change?	The ruling that allows the ban on child pornography is based on two SCOTUS decisions: Miller v. Califorina, which legally defined "obscene" and declared obscenities to be beyond the protection of the First Amendment (just an fyi, the definition includes that the material is lacking in "serious scientific, literary, artistic, or political value" which the courts usually don't hold a high threshold of quality above. Obscenity laws are also, per Miller, to be in the power of the most local levels of governance among a body of people (so while the U.S. cannot ban content on a web forum, the forum's own rules may). The other case is law is New York v. Furber which held that there is a compeling government interest in protecting the physical and mental health and well being of a child and that the manufacture and sale of child porn leads to the abuse of children and tramautic memories of the experience that last for much of their lifetime that overrides any protection offered by the First Amendment, thus the material need not be legally obscene to make illegal. It's that compelling government interest that forms the basis of the answer. Because that is the justification for the illegalization of child porn and as such it would not always fall to obscenity laws without the interest, there is a bit of a loop hole. To be illegal, the pictures in question must have a real child featured in the porn in question. Thus pictures depicting fictional characters in their entirety (such as cartoon depictions of children) and erotica (literature featuring sexual content) are not illegal under Ferber and must fall to Miller to determine if it is illegal. Because Miller leaves the rules to the lowest level of community law possible, these pictures can be against the rules of many websites, 4chan is (in)famous for having next to no standards, this kind of material is perfectly legal on this site as far as higher levels of government are concerned and it falls to the moderation team of 4chan (such as they are) to limit the offensive content. It is because these materials do not depict actual real children that they are legal. This is due to the fact that these works can just barely qualify as having an artistic or literary value (the bar is very very low as to what qualifies as "merit" under Miller). It's also acceptable to make pictures of a real child portraying a fictional character who in the story is a victim of child pornography, regardless of the work's depiction so long as you aren't actually having the child actor strip on camera. This can be done by giving the child flesh colored clothing that covers the areas deemed obscene and using shoot angles that depict the child's skin that is legally allowed to be exposed (to hid the fact that for legal reasons the child is legally dressed on the set. Other production tricks are to hire actors who are older than 18 years old, but look younger than they are and can play a kid.). So long as you are not actually making child porn (showing the "no-no areas" on a real child), you can make fiction works that depict fictional characters involved in such activities in artistic ways to make any statement you want on the subject matter. In your two examples, Operation Avalance targeted sites that had materials such as pictures and videos that depicted actual children in pornographic situations. In the case of the Megaupload, the U.S. was requesting extradition for money laundering and racketeering in connection with the legal seizure of Megaupload following investigations into the site concerning digital piracy. I'm unaware of actual instances of child porn involved, but not saying it's not impossible. Extradition only works if the country requested (Here New Zealand) chooses to honor the request (the U.S. and New Zealand have an extradition treaty and very similar laws so extradition is both required per treaty when requested AND the accused person would face similar charges if the crime was committed in the requested country.).	Are there actual laws written, or de facto situations (e.g. let's say another law specifies that a child can't be physically forced to go anywhere without causing abuse) where the child can refuse to attend? Are there "tiers" to the age; Is it true that a temper tantrum of a 5 year old would be seen as such, but the refusal of a 17 year would be legally accepted? This is a hard question to answer that doesn't have a neat resolution. Very little pertaining to the authority of a parent over a child is codified in statutory law and there is not a clear cut age at which a child has "freedom of conscience" vis-a-vis a parent. Most of the law related to children concerns allocation of parenting time and parental decision making between divorced, separated or unmarried parents; abuse and neglect; and juvenile delinquency. There is also usually a snippet of criminal law stating that certain kinds of uses of force to discipline children do not constitute crimes. But, part of why it doesn't come up very much is that older children are usually socialized in a manner that causes them to show a certain amount of respect for the wishes of their parents. It also doesn't come up much for children who aren't in their late teens, because the complete economic dependence of children on their parents or guardians gives the parents considerable power of their children that doesn't require the exercise of physical force. Also, it is quite dependent upon how the issue presents itself. No law enforcement agency is going to aid a parent in forcibly dragging a kid to church against their will. But, no social services agency is going to remove a kid from a home because his birthday party will be cancelled if he doesn't go to the church of his parents' choice the Sunday before his birthday. There are also some subtle but important distinctions between states on the issue of emancipation. In Colorado, emancipation is a statement about the empirical reality. If a child is self-supporting and lives apart from parents or guardians then the child is an emancipated minor. It is not a status granted by a court, it is a status acknowledged by courts when evaluating other issues. In California, a child is not emancipated unless a court grants a child that status and a child who is de facto emancipated without the leave of a court is guilty of a "status offense" (the New York State term for someone in this state is PINS for "person in need of supervision"). Basically, if a parent can force a child to go to church by means that don't constitute abuse or neglect and don't exceed the level of force authorize for child discipline in the criminal code, then they can do it, and if they can't manage that, then they can't do it. Many states have a "status offense" that allows government intervention with the cooperation of a parent or guardian in cases where an "uncontrollable" child is defiant and simply will not give any heed to the parent or guardian's instructions. In practice, the older a child is, the less likely someone viewing a parent's conduct forcing a child to do something is to be viewed as acceptable or legally justified. The legal rights of children in a school setting are also age dependent under the case law, although not always in a really well defined way. Controls on student expression that would be uncontroversial for elementary school students may be looked upon by the law with disfavor for high school students and clearly prohibited for adults. Perhaps one useful way to conceptualize it is that trying to make a child attend a particular kind of religious service is not considered an improper purposes for a parent of any minor to utilize the resources available to the parent to do so, but the range of resources available to a parent with regard to an adult child is much narrower.	No, it is not illegal in UK to use proxies. No, it is not like the tor concept. No, the ISP does not slow you down (they mostly throttle detectable p2p connections), but if you use public proxies, many of them will be unacceptably slow. Note: for things like facebook, a proxy is utterly useless. You already donated your private data to them, there's nothing to hide.	You can't, in general, know whether a distributor of a work has permission to distribute, or is a pirate site. I verified that they have posted an illegal copy of a work that I created, and I know that I did not grant permission to them (or anyone) to infringe my copyright. Both hosting and downloading works without permission is a violation of copyright law, so both parties are liable. Downloaders may erroneously rely on the "I didn't know!" defense, which in the US carries no legal weight. Even so, if you download my book, it will probably cost me vastly more to sue you for infringement than the damages that I might be awarded over your infringement. Usually, copyright holders go after the pirate sites, and only rarely go after particularly egregious serial downloaders.	This has some basis in law. You need permission from a person to commercially exploit their likeness especially in California, and a waiver is a way of staving off future lawsuit over right of publicity. YT has a privacy policy whereby a person who have been filmed can request removal of the video (see also this, because they don't explain the policy in a single place). Because YT is commercially exploiting people's personalities, this is necessary.	If I were a DA (District Attorney) looking out "stamp out" statutory rape, I would make the rounds of the hospitals, identify women who gave birth, or were impregnated when underaged, and go from there. But few, if any DAs, do this. No, you wouldn't. First, you have neither the time nor the budget to do this. Second hospitals are not public property, you would need a warrant which the court won't give you because you don't have probable cause to believe a crime has or is being committed. As a DA, I would of course, follow up on any complaints lodged by the victim, or even by her/his parents. And maybe I would prosecute a case where people were "caught in the act, or there were nude pictures, etc. May even an especially egregious PDA (public display of affection). No, you wouldn't. You would follow up on complaints to the extent that you have the time, budget and manpower to do so and you would prosecute cases where you believe that you have a reasonable prospect of getting a conviction and where prosecution is, in your opinion, in the public interest. In the real world, that means where the police hand you a brief of evidence that is a lay-down misere and (for statutory rape) where there is a real power imbalance between the perpetrator and the victim - giving 2 willing 15 year old kids the label of 'sex offender' for life is probably not in the public interest. But suppose there were no complaints or smoking guns. Could someone investigate based on something like a teenager "holding hands" with someone much older? To make the question objective, what has historically caused DAs to prosecute people outside of the above parameters? With some exceptions, it is not the role of the DA to initiate or conduct investigations of criminal actions - that is the role of law enforcement officers, usually for this particular crime, police officers. Notwithstanding, the general rule in western, liberal democracies (which the United States, with a certain generosity of spirit, can still be considered) is that citizens are allowed to get on with their lives without day-to-day interference from the state. That is, law enforcement officers do not 'go fishing' for crimes, they investigate crimes that they have a probable cause to believe have actually happened, either because they themselves saw it happen or someone has reported it to them as having happened. The term for having a law enforcement officer following you around waiting for you to break the law is 'harassment' and may itself be illegal. A law enforcement officer can initiate an investigation based on anything but as no law enforcement agency has unlimited resources, they tend to follow only those investigations that might lead somewhere. For example, it has been known for parents to hold the hands of their children and even to publicly display affection towards them and parents are often "much older" then their children - this would not generally be grounds for initiating a statutory rape investigation.	Note that what is being bought or sold here is actually information about the exploit. Attempting to criminally penalize the transmission of information in the US often runs into First Amendment issues. If a person has good reason to know that information is going to be used to commit a crime, or is likely to be so used, and there is no plausible legitimate use for the information, that person might be charged with complicity or conspiracy for distributing the information. But where there are legitimate uses, that is much less likely. Here the information could be used to defend against the exploit, or to identify and remove software subject to the exploit, or for research into such exploits generally. There may be other legit uses as well. Some years ago the Federal government attempted to prosecute a person for exporting a book describing how to create an encryption program. The courts eventually ruled that this was protected speech. I suspect a similar ruling would be made in the sort of case described in the question, but the details would matter.	Because in some jurisdictions it is While sexting underage subjects is pretty much a crime universally, sexting of anyone is illegal in many jurisdictions, For example, in most countries that follow Sharia law.
Can someone be indicted for possession of illegal material through access logs alone? If police obtained a search warrant to seize a suspect's electronics on suspicion of illegal material on their hard drive on account of them having access logs that the suspect viewed such material, (by, for instance seizing the servers of the web host and looking through its database to find the access logs of its visitors) if they are unable to find anything are they still able to land an indictment just from the access logs? Added bit: What if as well the user had a user account on the website linked to an email address that identifies him/her, but no evidence of possessing any illegal content upon seizure (nor any evidence on his/her computer that he/she had registered, just the appearance of a personally identifying email address on the seized database)? And to muddy things further, suppose the website wasn't dedicated to showing illegal content but just hosted some (maybe with a legally negligent set of site rules), so it would be hard to conclusively state that the user was seeking out that illegal material. Update to question I recently stumbled upon this news article, which seems to purport that police aren't able to make arrests from an online footprint alone. Here are some relevant excerpts: During the tour in February, Carly Yoost demonstrated the system, starting with a dashboard that showed a list of the "worst IPs" in the United States, ranked by the number of illegal files they had downloaded in the last year from nine peer-to-peer networks. The software is able to track IP addresses — which are shared by people connected to the same Wi-Fi network — as well as individual devices. The system can follow devices even if the owners move or use virtual private networks, or VPNs, to mask the IP addresses, according to the Child Rescue Coalition. Clicking on an IP address flagged by the system lets police view a list of the address' most recent downloads. The demonstration revealed files containing references to a child's age and graphic descriptions of sexual acts. On top of scanning peer-to-peer networks, the Child Protection System also monitors chatrooms that people use to exchange illegal material and tips to avoid getting caught. The information exposed by the software isn't enough to make an arrest. It's used to help establish probable cause for a search warrant. Before getting a warrant, police typically subpoena the internet service provider to find out who holds the account and whether anyone at the address has a criminal history, has children or has access to children through work. Does anyone have any sources corroborating this statement? The consensus on the answers on this question is that arresting someone in this case is possible, but difficult. Here, it seems to suggest that what seems like fairly substantial evidence is not enough without a search.	The legal standard for an indictment is "probable cause". This is the same as the standard for an arrest, an arrest warrant, a wiretap, or a search warrant. A conviction, of course, is subject to the much more demanding, proof beyond a reasonable doubt standard. Access logs along could provide probable cause for an indictment, even though they would probably not, standing alone, constitute sufficient evidence to convict. Also, the existence of the search warrant shows that a judge already found that there was probable cause that a crime was committed before the access logs were even reviewed, so there has to be some other evidence beyond the access logs out there and the access logs are corroborating the probable cause that was already found to exist against someone. It bears noting that federal grand juries almost without fail indict, although in some local state court systems, especially in rural areas (mostly in the Southeast U.S. since the West rarely uses grand juries and the North has higher standards of professionalism, especially in urban areas), where the quality of the law enforcement and prosecutorial work is lower, near automatic indictments are not a reality.	Intent would greatly factor into the case. As mentioned, possession of child pornography is illegal. There was a case, where a man had inadvertently downloaded such images. In the case, it was shown that there was sufficient evidence that it was accidental and without his knowledge. Presumably, if you by happenstance created an identical code through encryption/compiling, there would be a lack of evidence of intent or evidence of your intended use. For example, your stored password manager file happens to store data identical to an illegal image. The password manager output is provable and repeatable to show that it was simply circumstantial. If you have hundreds of such outputs that all "just happen to be illicit images" you would probably fall on the wrong side of reasonable doubt. As to whether you can keep the data, the programmers for the password manager would probably update their system to modify the output to avoid bad press. The general idea is that the "illegal number" is so incredibly specific that accidental cases are very unlikely to occur, and if it did, that there would be forensic evidence indicating intent and use.	You do not have to. The burden of proof is on the prosecution to prove that you made the threat. Reasonable doubt exists in the circumstances that you describe, that there are no logs of who accessed what when and how. Your attorney may have to introduce expert witnesses who can explain how it is possible that text from your computer can end up on a web page, and they can testify that there are many ways that data can be entered into the database, only a few of which actually involve you.	Your question (when read with your follow-up comments) is somewhat complex, so I am going to make a few assumptions and break it down into several sub parts. Assumptions The conviction occurred in a state where the expungement statute allows you to tell employers that you were never arrested and convicted. When you say “public records websites” you’re asking about sites like atlaspublicrecords.com. That atlaspublicrecords.com is a US based company. They don’t list an address and the website used a private registration services, so can’t easily determine that they are US-based. Your questions and follow-up Considerations After I get it expunged, will it be removed from public records websites . . . . No. Websites like atlaspublicrecords.com do not link to actual public records. I searched a couple of common names and feel safe in assuming that it only collects and publishes the information—it does not actually link to court records. Nevertheless, it would not be available from the actual government agencies that keep those records. By getting your records expunged the convictions and arrest would no longer be available as public records that someone could request from the courthouse, police department, or whatever state agency does criminal history in your jurisdiction. do I have to show them proof of the expungement . . . . Yes, if you believe what the website claims. I can’t find a physical address for the website and don’t know if they are real or a scam, so understand that when you give them information about your expungement—or pay their silly fee, they might collect the money and do nothing. My opinion is that the company is shady and seems to operate in a gray area of the law that I will explain below. Options if they don’t remove the post: You could try to sue them for some type of secondary dignitary tort like defamation or false light. But these would have some significant legal hurdles. See G.D. v. Kenny, 15 A.3d 300 (N.J. 2011), where the New Jersey Supreme Court held that commenting on an expunged criminal records was not defamation or invasion of privacy because it was the truth. You could try to argue that they are a consumer reporting agency under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”). If they're governed by the FCRA, you have some additional legal remedies (like civil penalties/fines) if they don't remove/clarify an expunged record. The Fair Credit Reporting Act applies to credit reporting agencies, like Experian & Equifax but also covers companies that compile and sell information for background checks. This includes criminal records. See the Federal Trade Commission’s Advisory Opinion to LeBlanc (06-09-98). But . . . this website is operating in a gray area that appears to comply with the law. The FCRA only applies to consumer reporting agencies, which are defined as: Any person which, for monetary fees, dues, or on a cooperative nonprofit basis, regularly engages in whole or in part in the practice of assembling or evaluating consumer credit information or other information on consumers for the purpose of furnishing consumer reports to third parties, and which uses any means or facility of interstate commerce for the purpose of preparing or furnishing consumer reports. 15 U.S.C. § 1681a(f) Because they’re not charging money or a fee to access the reports and they’re not a nonprofit cooperative, they probably do not meet the definition of a CRA. Bottom-line is that you're best option is to give them the expungement documents once you obtain them.	In the United States, it does not matter how you save any evidence; the other side will essentially always be permitted to question its authenticity. Even if they don't question it, a judge or jury would still be free to do so. That said, the standard means of saving this kind of evidence would be to make a screengrab or print it to PDF, and to attach that to an affidavit in which you swear that the image is an authentic representation of the content of the web page as of whatever date and time. If you want something that is harder to question, you could also ask some independent third party to do so. There are, for instance, archiving services like archive.org and perma.cc that will copy a page and store it indefinitely, largely removing the question of whether you might have manipulated the page in any way.	Law enforcement only investigates crimes, and they have significant discretion regarding which crimes to investigate. If they considered a crime to have occurred in your case, they could certainly seek a court warrant requiring Google to turn over IP addresses. More likely, you might have standing to seek relief in civil courts. In such a case, you could try to get the civil court to issue a subpoena for a third party like Google to provide IP addresses. Of course, you could have your civil suit contested by the counterparty, and even if not the court may decline to issue a subpoena, and if even if it issues one the third party may object to the court, or simply decline to comply with it.	Expunction may be possible for instance if you are acquitted, later proven innocent, pardoned, and various other things that fall short of being convicted and doing the time. The entire law is here (Texas code of criminal procedure 55.01). There is also the option of an order of non-disclosure, overviewed here. A requirement for such an order is that you were placed on and completed deferred adjudication community supervision, which from what I can tell is not what happened. "Background check removal" may range between simply taking your money and doing nothing, to doing what you could do yourself to get free of traces via radaris, intelius, spokeo, and so on to "request removal" from that web site. This will not make your record unavailable, because these websites don't have any special powers to reach into and manipulate state records.	First, let's be clear about who "they" is. Neither Congress nor the Department of Justice has the power to issue search warrants by themselves. Search warrants are issued by judges, upon a showing of probable cause by the prosecution. In particular, search warrants can only be issued in criminal investigations. Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, Rule 41c: (c) Persons or Property Subject to Search or Seizure. A warrant may be issued for any of the following: (1) evidence of a crime; (2) contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed; (3) property designed for use, intended for use, or used in committing a crime; or (4) a person to be arrested or a person who is unlawfully restrained. I don't think Bannon's documents fit any of those criteria at this time. The Congressional investigation is not a criminal investigation, and I'm not aware that it's currently being alleged that the documents contain evidence of a crime. Bannon himself is charged with a crime - contempt of Congress - but the actual content of the documents isn't relevant evidence in that case. As I understand it, the prosecution only has to prove that the subpoena was properly issued, and that Bannon failed to respond to it, which latter I don't think is disputed. What is actually in those documents, or indeed whether they even exist, is immaterial to his guilt or innocence on that charge.
Uncontrolled rocket re-entry kills my dog. What are the legal consequences? The Chinese CZ-5B rocket launched last week had no support for controlled re-entry (or other managed demise), and is substantial enough that it can survive re-entry and hit the ground. This is unusual: these days, large launchers execute a planned "safe" re-entry, and crash into a defined area in the ocean. Last year, a launcher of the same type crashed in West Africa, having overflown New York. It's all over the news - where will it crash? (More details). Several decades ago, the US Skylab came down into Western Australia, which was, and is, sparsely inhabited so no damage was caused. Hypothetically, space junk could crash in my garden and kill my dog. If it did, I would be expecting to instruct my solicitor to seek maximum damages! But seriously, what are the implications of this? Does the fact that it's specifically a spacecraft make any difference? It's pretty reckless - does that element play a part? (I'm in the UK. Does that make any difference? Actually the UK isn't under the flight path, so this is even more hypothetical in this case than you probably thought.) My suspicion is that it would be considered a minor international incident, and China might pay some compensation if it seemed in their interests, and wouldn't if it didn't. It might be considered a more major incident if it hit, say, the Pentagon...	Article VII of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 (of which both China and the UK are signatories) provides that all states are liable for damages caused by the objects they launch into space: Each State Party to the Treaty that launches or procures the launching of an object into outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, and each State Party from whose territory or facility an object is launched, is internationally liable for damage to another State Party to the Treaty or to its natural or juridical persons by such object or its component parts on the Earth, in air space or in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies. This was further elaborated upon in the Space Liability treaty of 1972 (of which, again, China and the UK are signatories.) In particular, it lays out a procedure under which one state can bring claim against another for any space junk that lands on its territory. So if a rocket lands in your back garden & crushes your schnauzer, it would be up to the Foreign Office to take it up with the PRC. If Wikipedia is to be believed, the only time such a claim has been filed under this treaty is when the Soviet satellite Kosmos 954 crashed in the Canadian Arctic in 1978. In that instance, the location was remote and the satellite was nuclear-powered, resulting in substantial cleanup costs. Your options to bring suit on your own, without the assistance of Dominic Raab, are limited. As a general rule, governments have state immunity from suit in the courts of other countries (i.e., if you tried to sue the goverment of China in a UK court), and sovereign immunity in their own courts (i.e., if you tried to sue the government of China in a Chinese court.) In particular, in the UK other countries are immune from suit according to the State Immunity Act of 1978, except for commercial transactions (which this would not qualify as.)	The consequences for the US are perhaps better addressed at Politics; if you're really interested in those consequences, you can re-post this question there. For the police officer shooting a diplomat, the officer may be charged under state law, whatever is normal for an incident of this type; it doesn't matter whether the person is a US citizen or a diplomat or any other kind of alien, regardless of immigration status or lack thereof. If the person is a diplomat, however, the officer is also liable to be prosecuted under federal law, namely 18 USC 1116, which makes it a crime to kill, among others, a "foreign official"; the definition of that term includes any person of a foreign nationality who is duly notified to the United States as an officer or employee of a foreign government or international organization, and who is in the United States on official business, and any member of his family whose presence in the United States is in connection with the presence of such officer or employee. The characterization of the response "just been revoked" as "clearly legal" is inaccurate; a police officer has no power to revoke diplomatic immunity. In fact, only the diplomat's own country can waive this immunity. The United States cannot do so; it can only expel the diplomat.	The probable answer is right there in the article: the Kim Dotcom case has been a PR coup but a legal disaster. Mr Dotcom has not, at this time, been jailed and it may have become apparent to US and NZ law enforcement agencies that he probably never will be! It is really, really easy to accuse someone of committing a crime; it can be really, really hard to prove it beyond reasonable doubt in a court of law. So after initiating a case that has turned out to be a total disaster, why would you expect them to do the same thing a second time?	we would like to know whether we have sufficient legal grounds to sever/terminate/exit this contract with Superior Management Co.*, if the company does not mutually agree to do so. No. In that event the HOA is stuck with the contract at least for the remaining part of the current period. The HOA's concern that the provider could breach the contract by significantly underperforming seems speculative and does not entitle the HOA to breach it first. Changes in the name and/or ownership of a party does not alter the parties' rights and obligations pursuant to the contract. This implies that neither party is entitled to disavow his obligations by terminating the contract altogether. For early & unilateral termination to be an option, it would have to be provided in the terms of the contract itself.	Barring manufacturer negligence (and even this is a dubious theory, given that recovery would be for pure economic loss), there is probably no legal theory that would allow recovery of any loss of resale value. I am assuming that the promise to replace/repair the engine if it fails is part of the contract of sale. This is typical for a warranty that the manufacturer will repair certain failures. Assuming the manufacturer fulfils what it agreed to in the warranty, then the buyer is getting exactly what they contracted for and there is no contractual theory that would support any further recovery: there is no breach. The buyer bought a car that included a warranty to repair. I cannot imagine that they bought a car that included a promise that it would not fail.	Important story, but BoingBoing also doubts the BBC's wording. It could be an attempted summary of a previous story on BBC Newsnight on 18 July: Lord Porter of Spalding, a former bricklayer, alleged corporations were running tests on the safety of their high-rise building materials but refusing to share the results. Releasing the results could allow residents and local authorities to know if their buildings are at risk of a fire following the Grenfell catastrophe which claimed the lives of at least 80 people. There Lord Porter was talking about results commissioned by private companies including manufacturers, where the labs wouldn't provide information because of 'intellectual property rights' of the client, or presumably commercial confidentiality. Under these situations, it is said the private concerns have no obligation to disclose. If this is what the BBC story was referring to, then at least investigations by government or third parties wanting to reveal characteristics of the products wouldn't have a copyright (or patent etc) problem.	You are describing a liability suit. My sense is that based on the facts you describe you will face two serious challenges to making a successful case. Damages and liability. In order to win a liability case, you must first establish that you have been damaged in some way. According to your facts, your damages are at best, the replacement value of a used controller. I'm guessing that's what, $20 or so? That doesn't cover the cost of an attorney's time to even begin to hear your version of the facts, much less give you advice or pursue a case for you. After you establish damages, you must prove the company is responsible or has some share of liability for causing your damages. Again, I think this is going to be an obstacle for you. Not placing a warning that the game will affect you by causing you to throw your controller and be mean to your mom would be unprecedented if you were to prevail. AFAIK.	There is no possibility of legally holding a country "to account" for an action. An individual could be legally tried for a crime (murder), and a country could via a political process be made to suffer the consequences if a leader performs some act (it need not be illegal). Germany, Iran and Russia have historically suffered certain consequences of actions held to be "officially sanctioned", and individuals such as Adolf Eichmann have been specifically punished; Fahad Shabib Albalawi and 4 others were sentanced to death for involvement in Khashoggi's murder. Punitive recourse against a country is always via political / military action. Khashoggi, specifically, was apparently a lawful permanent resident of the US, which is probably sufficient connection to the US for a suit based in the Alien Tort Statute. There have been various suits filed against individuals under this act, some of which succeeded, for example Filártiga v. Peña-Irala, 630 F.2d 876. An individual could be sued under the Alien Tort Statute, but a foreign government enjoys sovereign immunity (the US government has limited its liability on that grounds, but Saudi Arabia has not). His fiance might then sue some individual, but Saudi Arabia itself could not be "held to account".
Does a politician’s promise to "overthrow" the current system and replace it with a “Socialist World” rise to treason? 18 USC §2381 Treason. Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States. 18 USC §2383 Rebellion or insurrection. Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States. In light of Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant's recent speech given on 7/7/20 (see 2:33:00 to 2:34:04) "For those watching from outside Seattle, don't let anyone tell you in your fight to tax big business in your city that you're being divisive, because class struggle is what gets the goods. The private, for profit housing market has utterly failed working people. Not just here and now, but everywhere and always. Because capitalism is completely incapable of meeting the most basic needs of working people. Internationally, the working class needs to take the top 500 corporations into democratic public ownership, run by workers, in the interest of human need and the environment, not billionaire greed. I have a message for Jeff Bezos and his class. If you attempt again to overturn the Amazon tax, working people will go all out in the thousands to defeat you. And we will not stop there. Because you see, we are fighting for far more than this tax. We are preparing the ground for a different kind of society. And if you, Jeff Bezos, want to drive that process forward, by lashing out against us, in our modest demands, then so be it. Because we are coming for you and your rotten system. We are coming to dismantle this deeply oppressive, racist, sexist, violent, utterly bankrupt system of capitalism. This police state. We can not, and will not, stop until we overthrow it and replace it with a world based instead on solidarity, genuine democracy, and equality. A socialist world. Thank you. (Transcribed from given link) Do her words, especially "we cannot or will not stop" until we "dismantle," "overthrow," and "replace" this "police state" with a "Socialist World" rise to the level of violating 18 USC §2381 and/or 18 USC §2383?	TL; DNR: No. Charging the Councilwoman under §2383 for making a speech would violate the First Amendment, and "levying war" in the §2381 means actually fighting, not conspiring to fight. 18 USC §2383 Since §2383 is a statute, it must conform to the Constitution. To charge Sawant for what she said in a speech would violate the 1st Amendment, which says, "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech..." Even without the First Amendment problems, §2383 would not apply. The words "rebellion and insurrection" in §2383 are usually read to mean real violence, not vague words that may or may not involve violence. Not even Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who has had several armed standoffs with the government, was charged under §2383. 18 USC §2381 Since §2381 is based on Art. 3, §3, the Treason Clause of the Constitution, the First Amendment does not apply to it. Following the Treason Clause, §2381 has two prongs. To be guilty of treason, one must either: a) Levy war against the United States; or b) Adhere to its enemies. "Enemies" has been interpreted to mean enemies in a real war, so the second prong does not apply. Since Sawant is not actually levying war against the United States, §2381 can only apply to her if it covers a conspiracy to levy war against the United States. The Supreme Court decided it did not in 1807, in Ex Parte Bollman. Bollman was charged with conspiring with Aaron Burr to carve a new country out of the US. The Court ordered Bollman released. In his opinion, John Marshall explained why: However flagitious may be the crime of conspiring to subvert by force the government of our country, such conspiracy is not treason. To conspire to levy war, and actually to levy war, are distinct offenses. Marshall’s narrow reading of the Treason Clause was consistent with the views of the Founders. In Federalist 43, James Madison explained that in the past, “violent factions” had often used “new-fangled and artificial" definitions of treason to “wreck their alternate malignity on each other…” To keep from repeating this sorry history, the Constitution “opposed a barrier to this peculiar danger,” by defining what constituted treason and specifying how it was to be proved.	If you are charged under the laws of Estonia (or Australia or Thailand or the UK) then the laws of the USA have no relevance whatsoever. It makes no difference if you are a US citizen, if the alleged crime happened in the USA or was perpetrated against the USA. If nation X has jurisdiction then you are tried under the laws of nation X. That is what sovereignty means. As to your specific example, Facebook does business in Estonia, therefore they are subject to Estonian law, as a US corporation they are also subject to US law and the law of every other jurisdiction they operate in (see why they need big legal departments?). If a legitimate Estonian warrant was served on them to disclose metadata or anything else then they are legally obliged to do so or be in contempt of court. Oh, and by the way, the first amendment right to free speech does not give you a right to anonymous free speech.	Maybe, probably not. The leading case would appear to be Raines v. Byrd, 521 US 811, where 6 congressmen sued over a line-item veto law (later held to be unconstitutional). The court notes the established legal fact that To meet the standing requirements of Article III, "[a] plaintiff must allege personal injury fairly traceable to the defendant's allegedly unlawful conduct and likely to be redressed by the requested relief". where that court added the italics; and the alleged injury must be legally and judicially cognizable. This requires, among other things, that the plaintiff have suffered "an invasion of a legally protected interest which is . . . concrete and particularized" In this case, the court find that "appellees have not been singled out for specially unfavorable treatment as opposed to other Members of their respective bodies", and they are claiming institutional injury, arising "solely because they are Members of Congress...If one of the Members were to retire tomorrow, he would no longer have a claim; the claim would be possessed by his successor instead". The court did, however, uphold standing in one legislative case, Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433, where there was an issue over whether the legislature had ratified a constitutional amendment when the Lt. Governor of Kansas cast a tie-breaking vote on the question (the allegation was that this was improper). The court held that the legislators "have a plain, direct and adequate interest in maintaining the effectiveness of their votes", finding that their votes against ratification have been overridden and virtually held for naught although if they are right in their contentions their votes would have been sufficient to de- feat ratification. We think that these senators have a plain, direct and adequate interest in maintaining the effectiveness of their votes. The Raines court finds that legislators "have standing to sue if that legislative action goes into effect (or does not go into effect), on the ground that their votes have been completely nullified" – but that was not the case in Raines (the line-item veto act had clearly passed). Applied to the Oprah hypothetical, senatorial vote would arguably have been completely nullified by the proposed process: that is the argument made in the present complaint, para 33-34. The end of sect. III of the Raines opinion gives extensive historical analysis of the fact that branches of government do not generally have standing to sue each other, closing with the note that Our regime contemplates a more restricted role for Article III courts, well expressed by Justice Powell in his concurring opinion in United States v. Richardson, 418 U. S. 166 (1974): "The irreplaceable value of the power articulated by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall [in Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137 (1803),] lies in the protection it has afforded the constitutional rights and liberties of individual citizens and minority groups against oppressive or discriminatory government action. It is this role, not some amorphous general supervision of the operations of government, that has maintained public esteem for the federal courts and has permitted the peaceful coexistence of the countermajoritarian implications of judicial review and the democratic principles upon which our Federal Government in the final analysis rests. There is a very narrow window through which the Senate might have standing to sue POTUS and otherwise, the answer is "no". The Oprah case is distinguished from Raines in that there is no political recourse to simply ignoring the appointments clause, except impeachment, and the courts might see such an action as equivalent to vote-nullification.	Since the US Federal government didn't try to pass any such law (nor would it have been politically possible in the period shortly before the US Civil War), there is no way to know with assurance how such a hypothetical law would have been addressed by the Supreme Court of the day, nor by the various states. Congress legally could have prohibited the importation of slaves after 1808, the constitution specifically grants this power. Congress legally could have prohibited interstate commerce in slaves. Congress could have repealed the Fugitive Slave Act. Congress legally could have imposed heavy taxes on the ownership of slaves. If heavy enough these could have been a de facto abolition. A series of Presidents could have appointed Justices inclined to overturn the Dred Scott decision (denying the possibility of citizen ship for most Negros, and denying that a "free" state could free slaves temporarily resident there). Congress could have passed laws requiring negro votes to be counted in federal elections. Various of the above hypothetical measures might have made slavery less economic, and thus less common, in time. Note that it is not likely that any actual Congress would have passed most of them. But I do not see how, absent a constitutional amendment, and absent a war, a simple Federal statute could have constitutionally abolished slavery de jure throughout the US. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was legally justified as a war measure, a confiscation from those in rebellion. It did not affect loyal slave states, such as Maryland. And it was never seriously tested in court anyway.	Such a law would be constitutional The US Congress could decide to require VPN providers to register the IPs that they provide to VPN customers. The use of such techniques would almost surely be considered "interstate or foreign commerce" and so Congress would have power under the Commerce Clause of the constitution to legislate concerning it. There would clearly be a rational basis for such a law -- the question outlines such a basis. This is not an area subject to strict scrutiny. None of the previously established limits on the commerce power (and there are few) would seem to apply. State laws on this topic would probably be preempted by the dormant commerce clause if Congress does not act, and clearly preempted if Congress does act, unless Congress explicitly permits concurrent legislation. Whether Congress should act on this matter is a policy question not on topic on Law.se. Whether Congress will act is speculation. I can only say that I am not aware of any widespread demand for such action, or any proposed bills, on the topic. However, there is US caselaw to the effect that anonymous speech (or other communication) is protected by the First Amendment , and that laws effectively banning anonymous speech are not acceptable. But there are other ways of anonymizing online speech, so that would not seem to provide sufficient grounds to overturn such a law.	What if the enemy gives aid & comfort to you instead? Is that treason? Is it covered by a different crime? This is not treason on the part of the recipient, although it could involve receipt of a bribe, or failure to register as a foreign agent, if it were in exchange for the performance or expected performance of some official act or a fee for service. Motives and the identity of the donor would matter. Also, "enemy" is a term of art in the law of war and the law of treason in the United States. Basically, it means someone who is a national of a country which the U.S. is in a declared war. Other than members of some some terrorist groups (including ISIS), and possibly citizens of North Korea, I do not believe that anyone else in the world counts as an "enemy" at this time for legal purposes. The U.S. Constitution in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8 does specify that it is improper to receive "emoluments" from a foreign power. It says: [N]o Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them [i.e., the United States], shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State. In other words, no federal government official may receive any gift or title from a foreign government or monarch. State Department protocol ratified by Congress mandates that when gift from a foreign government or monarch is received by a U.S. government official because international etiquette requires it, that it be turned over to the United States government to become federal government property as soon as it is reasonably practical to do so without offending the donor, since the purpose is to prevent a government official from personally benefitting from his or her office. I suspect that it is a crime to receive an emolement without turning it over to the U.S. if you are a federal official whether or not an "enemy" provided it. If I have time I will look up the chapter and verse.	This is a hard question, but a good question. The following relates to the issue from the perspective of the USA. You ask "...if the US wants to invade France, can they officially declare war by...", You have to make clear what you mean by "can". If you mean whether or not the US has the physical ability to do this, then of course they do. If you mean whether they are allowed, then this is another question. When you ask whether something is allowed, then you have to make reference to a moral code or a law that determines what is and what isn't allowed (legal). Normally each country will have laws that govern what is and what isn't legal for it's citizens to do. That hard part is how this applies to nations. There are two sides to the question. (1) What are the leaders allowed to do under their own laws, (the domestic laws) (2) what are countries as entities allowed to do? (the international laws) It sounds a bit like you are asking about the second thing. Here treaties govern what is and what isn't "legal". However, usually when someone breaks a law, other entities have the power to enforce that law and decide (judge) whether the person has broken the law. The question is: who decides whether a country has broken a treaty or an international law? And if a law is broken, what exactly can be done about it? This is hard to answer. Consider for example the conflict in Ukraine. Here many will argue that Russia has piratically invaded Ukraine. There should be war between the nations. But Russia denies this and other world powers have done little beyond imposing sanctions. This illustrates how hard it is to deal with this question. One question that comes up is what the purpose of international treaties are if a country can just violate them without much consequence. Pointing out two points about this. (1) If, for example, a president wants to convince his/her own congress that the country should engage in war, then it makes a stronger point if you can show how the country you want to engage has violated international trities. (2) After you have won a war, you might want to prosecute the leaders of the loosing power. Here you will stand stronger if you can make references to some international law that existed before the conflict started. This second point is illustrated in the Nuremberg principles. Here it was exactly stated that "Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment." According to the US constitution "Congress shall have power to ... declare War". That means that historically Congress has the power to decide where to wage war. The War Powers Resolution says, for example, that "The President in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities ...". Note that this doesn't mean that the US has do formally declare war before going to war. Example: The Iraq War was authorized by Congress, but there never was a formal declaration of war. It is interesting that you ask about the timing for when the declaration should be given. The Japanese wanted to deliver their declaration of war just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. But because of issues with decrypting the message from Japan to the Japanese Embassy, the declaration wasn't delivered until after the attack. Remember also in all of this that the winning party to a conflict, usually decides what was and wasn't legal! One good reference for more on all of this is the report by the Congressional Research Service called "Declarations of War and Authorizations for the Use of Military Force: Historical Background and Legal Implications". Here you can see more on what I have tried (and failed?) to say above.	The situation is that Executive Order 2020-33 is no more, and a new order, 2020-68 exists. The old orders to stay home are now copied under this order, but it may be necessary for her to re-issue (a subset of) the orders so that they are pursuant to #68 and not #33 (live by the technicality, die by the technicality). If she does not do that quickly, I expect there to be legal challenges. The law (30-403) doesn't say that orders issued pursuant to a declaration of a state of disaster expire when the authorizing declaration expires, but one can reasonably infer that that is what the legislature had in mind when this law was passed. But that is a matter for the courts to decide. Deference to the executive, which is the usual way that courts operate, would favor an interpretation where saying "All previous orders that rested on Executive Order 2020-33 now rest on this order" counts as re-issuing the same orders with a new number in the text. The law does not say that the circumstances authorizing an emergency order have to be completely different. Perhaps the legislature will revise the law in the future, but it is what it is right now.
Naked in home when landlord is showing my apartment I have a situation where my landlord is refusing to work with me on when they show my apartment. I work during weekdays and don't want strangers in my home while I'm not there so I'll have to take off work every time they want to show it. If they won't work with me then I'm not going to work with them. I've already decided I'm going to make the place look awful, tell the prospective tenant about all of the issues I have with the place, and now I want to know if I can legally be nude in my home when my landlord enters to make things extra uncomfortable. I live in Maryland in the United States. Thought my question was obvious. Can I be naked in my apartment when my landlord shows it?	Indecent exposure is a misdemeanor under Maryland law (11-107). There is no statutory definition of indecent exposure, since it's been a long-standing offense and part of common law. Messina v. Maryland cites various definitions of indecent exposure, noting Ordinarily, the place where the exposure is made must be public. What constitutes a public place within the meaning of this offense depends on the circumstances of the case. The place where the offense is committed is a public one if the exposure be such that it is likely to be seen by a number of casual observers In that instance, the question was whether the law required multiple victims to constitute a crime, and the court said that it did not. What you propose does seem to fit the characterization "likely to be seen by a number of casual observers". There have been a number of upheld convictions of people exposing themselves on their own property but in a manner that can be seen from the street, so the defense "I was on my property" doesn't go anywhere. Accidentally being seen while inside and naked would not be a crime because, as Messina said, "Indecent exposure, to amount to a crime, must have been done intentionally". The question is whether you know that you will be seen: "An exposure becomes indecent, and a crime, when defendant exposes himself at such a time and place that, as a reasonable man, he knows or should know his act will be open to the observation of others". It's not absolutely guaranteed that you would be prosecuted, but it's pretty clear that what you propose does constitute indecent exposure.	Probably not, although it is impossible to say without reading the lease. Usually leases are monthly. That means you pay for the entire month or lease term regardless of how much or how little you use the property. It seems weird that the lease ends on the 21st, but if that is the case, then you are legally obligated to pay for that time interval. That said, if you want to drive a hard bargain, you could threaten to reoccupy the apartment and stay in it until the 21st which are legally entitled to do, unless he refunds you some money. You would have to be a pretty serious hard-ass to pull this off, or be prepared to go to court. One possible course of action is that you demand return of the key and say you changed your mind and will be staying in the apartment until the 21st. Make sure the conversation is recorded and that he knows the conversation is recorded, or have a witness. He will refuse. You can then sue him for denying you the use of your property.	You signed a contract where you agree to not have pets and the landlord agreed to let you live there. If you decide to not follow your end of the deal, the landlord might not either. In simple terms, you can get evicted. There is probably a clause in the contract to the effect of "you will get evicted if you don't follow these rules". Depending on contract and local law, you may also be fined, forced to remove the pet, or have your security deposit withheld. One reason landlords don't want pets is that pets leave odors and fur in the apartment, requiring costly cleaning. Not to mention some cats love tearing up the carpeting and otherwise destroying the property. Thus the deposit is used to "repair the damage" caused by the pet. Some landlords charge an additional pet fee for tenants with animals, so if you secretly keep a pet you are cheating them out of the fee as well. If you want the cat for several months or more, then you probably shouldn't try to hide it from the landlord. There is a big risk you will be discovered and suffer repercussions. The landlord may also refuse to renew your lease later. In theory, and depending on your tenant, you could claim that the cat was there for a day and it will be removed right away. But as I said, landlords are concerned more about the damage to their property than policing you, so once the landlord gets suspicious (probably already happened since you asked him about it) they could inspect the place and demand you pay for damage regardless of how long the cat was supposedly there. Well being of the cat is unlikely to create an exception to the contract. However, you could have some recourse by claiming that the cat is an emotional support animal and vital to your well being. I am not familiar with the process for this in Austria, but presumably it will involve paperwork from a psychologist verifying the fact. Simply saying you really like the cat and don't want to give it away will not be a sufficient reason - you initially agreed to not have pets, so it can be argued that you should not have taken one in to begin with. I love cats too, but you probably shouldn't do it if your landlord already told you no. You could end up in a situation where you are forced to put the cat in a shelter, which wouldn't be good for the cat. If your landlord won't budge, your best option is to move somewhere else.	If I don't attend the hearing, can I get evicted? Yes. Never ignore a court hearing date. The Tribunal could otherwise impose an outcome without hearing your side of the story. If you ultimately paid the rent and the late fees, and the Tribunal didn't know that, you could be unjustly evicted if you don't present your side of the story. It could simply be a case, for example, where the landlord confused your non-payment with someone else's. But after the Tribunal rules, fixing that mistake is much more difficult than fixing it at a hearing. It could be that making two late payments that are cured later is still grounds for eviction under the lease, although I very much doubt it. In that case, it still pays to show up to make sure that the Tribunal has all of the facts favorable to you before it makes its decision.	The right to adequate housing is a political question, the content of which is unclear in the UN's fact sheet. What they say is: All beneficiaries of the right to adequate housing should have sustainable access to natural and common resources, clean drinking water, energy for cooking, heating and lighting, sanitation and washing facilities, food storage facilities, refuse disposal, site drainage and emergency services. Sanitation facilities are not completely ignored, so there is a theoretical basis to start from. However, that list of desiderata is not legally enforceable, so it would depends on the laws of the particular jurisdiction. In the state of Washington (US), a rental that lacked any sanitary facility (toilet) would be a violation of the health code: even hot water is required by law. In other countries, esp. where running water is not ubiquitous, there may be no legal obligation for a landlord to provide a toilet with running water. Whether legal action could be taken against the landlord depends on local law. A property owner can evict a tenant, subject again to local law. Usually, it requires a legal process where the owner petitions the court to evict the tenant, and in case the tenant has a contractual right to be there, the owner has to show cause (tenant breached the terms of the lease). A landlord does not generally have an obligation to find alternative housing for a tenant, but perhaps there is such a law somewhere, related to tenant tenure. The mention of a co-owner is a bit confusing. If A is the sole owner of a property, A can exercise landlord rights. If A and B both own the property, either of them can exercise landlord rights. However, if they disagree, i.e. A wants to evict tenant C and B wants to let C stay, the dispute between A and B must be resolved, and if they cannot come to an agreement then B can cause a delay of the eviction until the dispute is resolved in court. Again, the details on this would depend on the jurisdiction, and in part whatever landlord-tenant laws there are.	In the United States, You have no expectation of privacy in public. Anything you can see from a public place, you can take a picture of, even if the "victim" is in their own home but has the blinds open. If you are standing on a public sidewalk or street, you would legally be able to take a picture with certain exceptions. An exception to this would be: if with just your eyes you can see into a private home, you can take a picture of that, but if you require a telescopic lense with some sort of IR adapter to "see through" blinds. That MAY be considered illegal. For real world examples of this question, check out PINAC. Another example is "Creepy Camara Guy", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs6iLtl0BAw. This guy basically goes around recording videos of people in public in a VERY obnoxious way. But he is within his legal right. (Note: Video unavailable: "This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated.")	There are several questions in the OP. The answers to all of them depend on the lease terms. If Person A wants out of the lease, is the only option to just try to negotiate a way out of their portion of the lease with the landlord, presumably by payment or other means? Yes, usually. Regardless of who is on the lease, Person A is on the lease. In order to terminate or break the lease, Person A will have to negotiate termination. Most residential leases provide for joint and several liability for lease obligations. That means the co-signed lease is like three non-exclusive leases, one each between landlord and Persons A, B, and C. So Person A has to find a way to break the Person A lease. Other than a breach by either party, that likely can only be done by negotiation with landlord. What rights do Person B and C have if Person A does stop paying? Absent some other relationship or understanding between them (that is, other than the lease,) likely none. Persons B and C are each fully responsible to pay all of the rent. In other words, as far as the landlord is concerned it does not matter who pays the rent as long as it gets paid. If it doesn't get paid, the landlord can evict and sue all 3 for non-payment of rent. But the lease likely does not discuss the relationships between A, B, and C - whether they pay pro rata by time in the unit, by space used, per capita, or whatever. Landlord doesn't care, and is not the counterparty to those decisions. That said, if there is a relationship between A, B, & C (for instance, if A & B had a contract describing who would pay what, and B entered into another contract with C,) that will determine their relative obligations. The landlord agrees to allow the lease to be amended for another person, person C to be on the lease. Person B negotiated this with the landlord without consent of person A. This may create liability between B to A, C to A, or B & C to A. It is even conceivable that it creates a liability from landlord to A, if A had a reasonable expectation that the lease would not be amended absent A's consent. And the amendment may not be enforceable against A. So, for instance, A may be able to kick C out of the unit and bar C from reentry. It will not effect A's liability to pay rent.	Yes, it is illegal in North Carolina, which defines your sex as what's on your birth certificate. At any point in your transition, even when it's long complete, you'll still have to use the restroom for the gender on your birth certificate (hypothetically assuming the law is still in place). See e.g. this CNN coverage and this followup. Will you actually be arrested? Probably only if there's a complaint. The police haven't yet figured out how they're supposed to enforce this law.
Children and grandchildren must be explicitly disinherited in wills? I was reading the following clause in the NH Wills Act: 551:10 Child Not Named, Etc. – Every child born after the decease of the testator, and every child or issue of a child of the deceased not named or referred to in his will, and who is not a devisee or legatee, shall be entitled to the same portion of the estate, real and personal, as he would be if the deceased were intestate. This appears to say that a person making out a will in NH must explicitly disinherit any children or grandchildren or great grandchildren, otherwise they can claim part of the estate "as though the testator was intestate". Is that right? Seems kind of crazy. What if the person has a child they do not know about? Then they are really screwed aren't they.	Yes that seems to be the case. The section after the one you quoted, 551:11 Share of Unnamed Child says: If the property not devised nor bequeathed shall be insufficient to satisfy the just share of such child, after allowing advancements received by him, the same shall be made up in just proportion from the property devised or bequeathed to others. The page "Can I Disinherit My Child?" from a law firm blog, says: New Hampshire has a strong policy of protecting “pretermitted heirs,” which are heirs that were not mentioned in a Will. N.H. R.S.A 551:10 states that [e]very child born after the decease of the testator, and every child or issue of a child of the deceased not named or referred to in his will, and who is not a devisee or legatee, shall be entitled to the same portion of the estate, real and personal, as he would be if the deceased were intestate. Simply put, you do not name or refer to your child in the Will, then he can claim an inheritance as if you died without a Will. Historically and currently, the rationale is that if you did not mention him anywhere in your Will, you most likely forgot about him, because it is human nature to forget things. However that same blog page also says: There are various ways to disinherit a child. The most often used method is to specifically name or refer to the child, or a class, such as “my children” or “my son, Alex, and his issue,” that you intend to disinherit, and you must then state that you intend to disinherit that child. Another way to disinherit a child is to state that you give that particular child one (1) dollar, or a small sum of money. So it would seem that if one chose to include language such as: I leave to any other children I might have, and to their issue, if any, the sum of $10, jointly. then such possible surprises are covered. This would be after mentioning specifically any children one wanted to leave larger amounts to.	north-carolina A parent is responsible for supporting their minor child, therefore they cannot "kick out" their child (they can arrange for someone else to take care of the child but they are financially responsible for this arrangement). This is true even if the parent is a minor. In that case, the grandparents and the parent (who is herself a minor child) are both responsible for the grandchild. We can turn to NCGS § 50-13.4(b) which states the hierarchy of responsibilities: In the absence of pleading and proof that the circumstances otherwise warrant, parents of a minor, unemancipated child who is the custodial or noncustodial parent of a child shall share this primary liability for their grandchild's support with the minor parent, the court determining the proper share, until the minor parent reaches the age of 18 or becomes emancipated. If both the parents of the child requiring support were unemancipated minors at the time of the child's conception, the parents of both minor parents share primary liability for their grandchild's support until both minor parents reach the age of 18 or become emancipated. The details could be different in another jurisdiction.	Yes The only accurate thing in the linked article is: "I am not a Constitutional lawyer." That could be taken further into "I have no real idea how our legal and political systems work." One of the tasks of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is to interpret the laws of Massachusetts including the Massachusetts Constitution. In Goodridge v. Department of Public Health the court decided that the Constitution provided for equal protection and due process and that if the state wished to discriminate against people on the basis of sex they needed a good reason. The reasons the state put forward were: providing a 'favorable setting for procreation'; ensuring the optimal setting for child rearing, which the department defines as 'a two-parent family with one parent of each sex'; and preserving scarce State and private financial resources. On 1. the court said marriage is irrelevant for procreation and vice-versa. On 2. they said Massachusetts law on child welfare dealt with the "best interests of the child" and that it is not in those interests for the state to deprive the child of benefits because it doesn't like the sexual orientation of the parents. On 3. they said equal protection means equal protection. In a common law legal system like Massachusetts where courts have the power to strike down legislation then that takes effect as soon as the decision is published. The law ceases to exist without the legislature or the executive doing anything. Now, the people of Massachusetts are free to amend their constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage or remove equal protection rights if they want. However, at the time and subsequently, the majority don't want.	I take that to mean that section 14 alone should not be construed to give a department the power to sue under sub section (1), nor the ability to be sued under sub section (2). Rather, if some other law, or some other section of that law confers such a power or ability, section 14 indicates how the power should be used, that is, gives the proper procedure. But if no such other law is in effect, section 14 alone won't do. If the law has simply said: civil proceedings under this Act by the Crown may be instituted by (a) the appropriate government department in its own That might have been construed to grant such powers to every "appropriate " department, which apparently was not desired.	NY Est Pow & Trusts L § 3-2.1(a)(1)(C)(4) requires that There shall be at least two attesting witnesses, who shall, within one thirty day period, both attest the testator's signature, as affixed or acknowledged in their presence, and at the request of the testator, sign their names and affix their residence addresses at the end of the will. There shall be a rebuttable presumption that the thirty day requirement of the preceding sentence has been fulfilled. The failure of a witness to affix his address shall not affect the validity of the will. That means that the witnesses attest to having seen you sign the will, and you must know that it is a will being signed. There is no requirement that they see the will itself, and they do not "attest" anything regarding sound mind, memory or testamentary capacity. It is not required that witnesses receive a copy of the will (for any reason), and it is probably extremely rare for them to do so. However, a witness could be called, during a subsequent court procedure, to testify as to relevant facts such as that a beneficiary held a gun to the testator's head.	This is allowed in Colorado. Colorado's version of the Uniform Probate Code authorizes such a document for tangible personal property which is usually called a "Personal Property Memorandum." This is authorized by Colorado Revised Statutes § 15-11-513. The section of Colorado's probate code states: Whether or not the provisions relating to holographic wills apply, a will may refer to a written statement or list to dispose of items of tangible personal property not otherwise specifically disposed of by the will, other than money. To be admissible under this section as evidence of the intended disposition, the writing shall be either in the handwriting of the testator or be signed by the testator and shall describe the items and the devisees with reasonable certainty. The writing may be referred to as one to be in existence at the time of the testator's death; it may be prepared before or after the execution of the will; it may be altered by the testator after its preparation; and it may be a writing that has no significance apart from its effect on the dispositions made by the will. New York State Law NYS has a requirement that the Will is signed by 2 Witnesses and (I believe -- keep me honest) notarized. So I'm hoping this is a way for me to add items to the Appendix without needing to re-sign, re-witness and re-notarize every time I think of something else. Is this strategy valid & enforceable? This is generally not permitted in New York State The legal formalities for the execution of wills and trusts in New York States are among the most strict in the United States (Florida and Maine have been more strict from time to time). This cannot be done in a way that is valid and enforceable in New York State. One can determine this from a review of the relevant New York State Statute which is called the Estate, Powers, and Trusts Law (EPTL), that does not contain a parallel provision to the Colorado statutory section. Therefore, in New York States, all dispositive provisions of a Will related to tangible personal property must be executed with the same formalities as any other Will or Codicil (i.e. it must be signed by the testator and two witnesses, a notarization is not required). Oral and unwitnessed handwritten wills are rarely allowed in New York State New York State does recognize oral wills (called nuncupative wills) and wills in the handwriting of the person making them (called holographic wills) as well, but only in very limited circumstances. The pertinent provision of the EPTL state: (a) For the purposes of this section, and as used elsewhere in this chapter: (1) A will is nuncupative when it is unwritten, and the making thereof by the testator and its provisions are clearly established by at least two witnesses. (2) A will is holographic when it is written entirely in the handwriting of the testator, and is not executed and attested in accordance with the formalities prescribed by 3-2.1. (b) A nuncupative or holographic will is valid only if made by: (1) A member of the armed forces of the United States while in actual military or naval service during a war, declared or undeclared, or other armed conflict in which members of the armed forces are engaged. (2) A person who serves with or accompanies an armed force engaged in actual military or naval service during such war or other armed conflict. (3) A mariner while at sea. (c) A will authorized by this section becomes invalid: (1) If made by a member of the armed forces, upon the expiration of one year following his discharge from the armed forces. (2) If made by a person who serves with or accompanies an armed force engaged in actual military or naval service, upon the expiration of one year from the time he has ceased serving with or accompanying such armed force. (3) If made by a mariner while at sea, upon the expiration of three years from the time such will was made. Wills valid where executed will generally be honored If a Will accompanied by a Personal Property Memorandum were drafted and executed in Colorado while someone was domiciled there, and then was presented to a Surrogate's Court in New York State for probate, because the person who wrote it was domiciled in New York State when they died, however, the New York courts might honor the Personal Property Memorandum on the theory that the validity of the execution of a Will is usually governed by the law of the place where it is signed and not by the law of the place where it is probated. The alternative of a revocable trust in New York State A workaround somewhat similar to a personal property memorandum could be done with a revocable trust, but this has its own limitations. In New York State a trust or amendment to a trust not created by a last will and testament must be either (1) signed and notarized by the creator of the trust and also by the trustee if there is one separate from the creator of the trust, or (2) signed by the creator of the trust and witnessed by two witnesses in essentially the same way that a will would be witnessed. Unlike most U.S. states, New York State does not recognize trusts that are signed but are not notarized or witnessed, and unlike most U.S. States, New York State does not recognize orally created trusts. Trusts validly formed and amended outside of New York will generally be honored This is, of course, assuming in both cases that New York State law governs the formation of the trust. New York State choice of law rules, however, will generally recognize the validity of a trust formed with formalities that were valid in the place where it was executed if the person executing it was domiciled there.	Until the estate is settled and the interest in the house is definitively resolved, the estate has to pay property taxes. There is no requirement for the house to be insured, unless there is a mortgage and insurance is mandated by the lender. The duties of the personal representative generally include taking reasonable steps to protect the assets of the estate, which would include reasonable insurance coverage -- which the estate would pay for. Necessary maintenance would also be included in the things that are to covered by the estate, for example the cost of repairing a broken water pipe (which can cause serious loss, if not repaired). Freshening up the paint in preparation for selling the house, assuming that the house is to be sold and the assets divided, would also be covered by the estate. Utilities, on the other hand, are not within the realm of things that need to be done to protect the interests of the beneficiaries: that is a benefit to whoever lives there, making it their responsibility. The question is foot-dragging is a separate issue, one that should be resolved with the aid of your lawyer. I do not understand why he would maintain that the estate is responsible for paying the utilities.	No. The Fourteenth Amendment says: nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; The Supreme Court has determined that this clause incorporates much of the Bill of Rights. The logic is mildly tortured, but it's basically that "due process of law" means "due process of a law that is compatible with the fundamental rights of a free society." This logic is known as "substantive due process," because it reads in to "due process of law" requirements about what those laws can do (as opposed to procedural due process, which is about the actual procedures being used). It's pretty settled that the Bill of Rights, after the 14th Amendment, should apply to the states. There's another possible way to get there: the 14th Amendment says "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States," which Justice Thomas recently thought meant that the Second Amendment applies to the states in a concurring opinion. But as of now, substantive due process is the standard logic for it. Virtually all of the Bill of Rights is incorporated against the states. There are a couple things which aren't (like juries in lawsuits, and grand juries), but the Establisment Clause is incorporated (see Everson v. Board of Education, 330 US 1).
Can a landlord sell their rental income from a tenant to a third party? I am thinking about a new business venture, my idea is to create a professional vetting service which helps landlord vet their potential tenants, if a tenant passes the vetting process, I will offer the landlord 80% of 12 month of rent payments up front, and the tenant will subsequently pay me 100% of the rent as agreed in the tenancy agreement over a period of 12 months. So if the lease states $1500 per month for 12 month ($18,000), my company will pay the landlord $18,000 x 80% = $14,400 dollars up front, and the tenant will pay me $1500 per month, in the end if the tenant fully pays 12 month rent, I will make 18,000 - 14,400 = $3600 in profit. If the tenant stops paying, then I lose out, so I take on the risk of non-payment. However, the problem I am running into is how to structure the agreeement(s) between my company, the landlord, and the tenant. How would the lease agreement work in this example? Would my company sign an agreement with the landlord, stating that my company has the right to lease the property, to collect payment, and evict the tenant if there is non-payment? And would my company then sign a lease agreement with the tenant? So that the tenant will pay me the monthly rent amount.	The tenant wouldn't be involved in this at all. The tenant rents from the landlord, and the landlord gives them an account number where the tenant sends the money every month. How would the tenant be involved with you? Actually, if I was the tenant and I was told to pay the rent to some third party, that would be the reddest of all red flags to me. As a landlord, you buy insurance that covers exactly that situation. It's called "rent guarantee insurance". It's cheaper, and the insurance company doesn't pay enormous sums up front.	Can a landlord (UK, English law) make a claim from a potential tenant who wants to back out of signing a Tenancy Agreement? No. Your description reflects that in this particular scenario there is no tenancy contract. The only actual contract relates to the holding deposit, and your description suggests that both parties fully complied with their obligations pursuant to that contract. Accordingly, neither party has a viable claim against the other. Regardless of whether verbal agreements are cognizable under UK tenancy law, the meeting of the minds you portray is that this tenancy ought to be formalized only by signing a contract. That supersedes customer's prior verbal expressions of intent about moving in. The landlord incurred expenses that either were covered by the customer's holding deposit or were unreasonable. An example of the latter is the fees "landlord has paid for the dates on the contract to be changed (repeatedly)", a task that any person can perform with a text editor at a negligible cost. Likewise, "turn[ing] down other potential tenants" is covered by the holding deposit the customer paid. As for taking "a detailed inventory", that is a task the landlord would perform with any potential tenant and which would render the same outcome regardless of who the tenant would be. The holding deposit must be associated to a deadline or holding period. Beyond that deadline, it is up to the landlord to grant customer's requests for postponement. But the landlord is not entitled to compensation for a risk he deliberately took without even requiring a [renewed] holding deposit. what's the situation if the tenant still claims they want to move in, but the landlord wants to withdraw because they no longer trusts the tenant's promises? That depends on the deadline associated to the holding deposit. Once the holding period has elapsed, the landlord is entitled to do with his property whatever he wants. The customer would have a claim only if (1) landlord withdraws prior to the deadline and (2) customer provably intended to move in.	The law regarding landlords and tenants is Iowa Code Ch. 562A. Part 2 (§562A.27 et seq.) states the legal remedies available to a landlord. §562A.27 specifically spells out the remedies for material non-compliance with lease terms. The gist of that and related sections is that if a person is in violation of a lease, there is a legal process that has to be followed, and if successful, the sheriff will forcibly evict the tenant (though §562A.27A, the clear and present danger section, shortens the process – still, it's not immediate and it does require legal notice etc.). Under the law, you (apparently) have become a landlord and have an unwritten tenancy agreement with the tenant. I assume based on your description of the facts you have a long-term written agreement with the property owner. By allowing this person to live with you, you have entered into a landlord-tenant relationship, which limits your rights. The police will not respond to this situation – a legal squabble – whereas if someone broke into your residence and was trespassing (and you complain in a timely manner, not allowing the person to trespass), the police would respond and not require a court order. §562A.9(5) states that in lieu of a specific term of tenancy, in the case of a roomer paying weekly rent the tenanct period is a week, otherwise it is a month. §562A.6 defines "roomer": basically, if you are a "roomer", so is your sub-lessor. By agreeing to let the person stay with you, you have become a landlord and sub-lessor, thereby subject to the restrictions on landlord actions. That means you have to take the person to court to get rid of them. Failure to pay agreed-on rent is certainly sufficient legal cause, and any monthly lease can be terminated by the landlord after giving legal notice (30 days advance notice).	If the tenant finds a new place to live before the end of the two months' notice and wishes to leave early, is the tenant required to [give] one month's notice that they are leaving? No, the tenant is not required to give notice if they has already received notice from the landlord. In addition, the tenant is required to pay rent up to the end of the notice period, even if they move out sooner (for now; but see also below). If they don't move out, they must still pay the rent. If the tenant...moves out of the property half way through their rental period, can the tenant claim a refund on the rent already paid which reflects the time between when they left the property and when the rental period would expire? For a tenancy which started before 1 October 2015, there is no automatic right to a refund. The tenant can of course ask the landlord for one, though the landlord would only be obliged to refund rent if a new tenant moves in before the end of that period. For tenancies made after 1 October 2015, s35 of the Deregulation Act 2015 amends s21 of the Housing Act 1988 to allow the 2 months' notice to end on any day (after the end of a fixed term), not just the end of a rental period. s40 then adds a new section which requires the landlord to repay any rent applying during that final period, but after the tenant moves out. If the tenant is not in a strong enough financial position to put together enough money for the deposit for their next home, or have simply been unsuccessful in finding a property which is suitable based on their current income, what course of action should they take? Firstly, the date specified in a s21 notice is not the date by which the tenant must move out -- even though, in practice, this is how it is normally treated. Instead, it is earliest date on which the landlord can begin legal proceedings. So, after that date, there is likely to be a delay until the case can appear before a court. The judge has some discretion as to when the tenancy will actually end, so you can ask for a little more time -- but note that the only way to prevent an eviction under s21 is to show that the landlord failed to follow the correct procedure. See also Shelter's comprehensive guide on the subject for more details.	The owner would need to go through the eviction process, and would need to show that the tenant had violated the terms of the agreement. Conceivably, a tenant could be evicted for using the property to carry out a criminal enterprise, but the courts would have to decide if that is the case. The underlying issue would be whether allowing the tenant to remain would constitute a public nuisance threatening public safety and morals and would cause damage to the owner in the form of loss of value in the property. The owner's attorney would study the specifics and give an appraisal of the likelihood of succeeding in court.	In most jurisdictions, yes, you must give 30 days notice; this is a statutory requirement incumbent on both parties. This (your rental type) is a tenancy-at-will. If you pay rent monthly (on 1st) then this is the period of time required for notice to vacate. In some jurisdictions 30 days is required no matter what intervals you may rent (say weekly), other jurisdictions if you pay rent weekly then a week's notice is all that's necessary. This is In the absence of a rental agreement setting forth another agreed to term. See this question: If no prior contracts have been signed, can a landlord make tenants sign after a week of tenancy? It is not the same but there is some information on this type of tenancy.	In general, the words "due on" take on their ordinary meaning - that is, that the performance of a contract is required on or before the date specified. If it is not specified in the contract, a court will look to what is reasonable in the circumstances. For instance, if payment is due to a company that trades 24 hours a day including the day payment was due, then payment up until midnight may be found acceptable. However, if it is not known to the person making the payment that the business has such extended hours, and especially if it is known that the business has normal hours, then payment after close of business would likely not be reasonable. To your question, and having reviewed some Canadian residential rent legislation, although none define due on specifically - and I would not expect them to do so - most have clauses which provide for termination, and they only refer to serving notice either a certain number of days after rent falls due, or the day after rent falls due. This would tend to support my assertion that rent is payable on or before the specified date, unless the contract says otherwise, in line with the above considerations. NB: While rent is usually payable in advance, this simply means that you are paying for the occupancy during that follows, or substantially follows, rather than the period that has elapsed.	Can I just not renew their contract and go back to my place in 2 months or do I still need to give them 6 months' notice? Short answer: 6 months' notice Long answer: I'm assuming this is a fixed-term Assured Shorthold Tenancy. Unless a landlord is going down the Section 8 route where the tenant has broken the tenancy agreement, they will need to serve a "Section 21 Notice" under the Housing Act 1988 requesting the tenant to leave a property. The Act has been amended to extend this notice period to 6 months, and any fixed-term tenancy that ends during that period will roll over to a periodic tenancy until the end of the notice period. This is the relevant extract from the government's website: Section 21 notices requiring possession of a property under an assured shorthold tenancy Landlords can only use a Section 21 notice to ask their tenants to leave their property: If the notice expires at or after the end of the fixed term. During a tenancy with no fixed end date - known as a ‘periodic’ tenancy. From 29 August 2020, a Section 21 notice must give tenants at least 6 months’ notice of the fact that the landlord requires possession. This give some more detail about s.21 Notices.

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