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Can any portion of an american state declare independence from its state and create a new state? I was reading Territorial evolution of the United States. There it says The northeastern region of New York, known as the New Hampshire Grants, declared independence as New Connecticut. New Connecticut was renamed Vermont. Vermont, which had been considered part of New York despite acting independently since 1777, was admitted as the fourteenth state. Can this legally happen today? Can any portion of an american state declare independence from its state and create a new state?	Not all by itself. It requires the consent of the legislature of the existing state, as well as of the US Congress. But if they all agree, then yes, it is possible. US Constitution, Article IV, Section 3: New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress. You might like to read about how West Virginia was created out of Virginia in 1863. Of course the State of Virginia had already seceded, and the Confederate legislature obviously didn't consent, but the federal government recognized a separate "Restored" government of Virginia which did consent.	Amendments to the US Constitution are part of the US Constitution, and this includes the so-called Bill of Rights. The doctrine of applying parts of the US Constitution to states, known as incorporation, comes from the 14th amendment: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. The scope of the doctrine of incorporation is logically limited to amendments because the original articles of the constitution state how the federal government is run, and does not guarantee any rights or privileges to individuals. Amendments 1,2,4,8 are fully incorporated against states, 5 and 6 are partially incorporated, third and 7th are not incorporated, and for 9th and 10th there is no ruling. This arrangement derives from decisions by the Supreme Court, interpreting the 14th Amendment and the concept of "due process". If a state were to passe a law forbidding criticism of the governor (violating the First Amendment), an individual could sue to have the law found unconstitutional. Because, under the 14th Amendment, "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article", Congress can and has passed a law prohibiting violation of civil rights: 42 USC 1983. Since the state in this hypothetical scenario has violated federal law, the federal government (Dept. of Justice) has standing to sue the state for violating federal law.	"Could Maine pass a law making New Mexico corporations and LLCs legally nonexistent in Maine (and removing the corporate veil in cases where Maine courts have jurisdiction)?" No. The full faith and credit clause of the U.S. Constitution, and the dormant commerce clause doctrine of U.S. Constitutional law would both invalidate a Maine law to that effect. One might think that the privileges and immunities clause of Article IV, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution (as opposed to the privileges and immunities clause of the 14th Amendment) might also invalidate this law (e.g., it also prohibits residents of another state from obtaining occupational licenses in a state). But, this is not the case, because the U.S. Supreme Court held in Paul v. Virginia, 75 U.S. 168, 180 (1868), that corporations are not protected by the privileges and immunities clause. See generally, here. This doesn't mean that Maine couldn't regulate foreign corporations in some manner that doesn't unduly discriminate against out of state corporations. For example, most states require out of state corporations that do business in that state to pay a small fee and make a simple filing with the Secretary of State of that state authorizing them to do business in that state as a precondition to filing lawsuits or counterclaims seeking relief in their state's courts. But, this is far from a denial of the very existence of the out of state corporation and doesn't, for example, prohibit the out of state corporation from defending itself against suits brought against it in that state's courts. Likewise, it does not prohibit an out of state corporation from owning property or from affording limited liability protections to its owners.	Scenario 1. It doesn’t matter what it says. If it was not legally ratified, it is not legally in force. There is no absolutely no paradox at all. It is essentially just a draft amendment and would be thrown out if any attempt was made to enforce it and challenged.	Prior to the 14th and 15th amendments, the US Federal Constitution and the Federal laws passed under it neither allowed nor denied anyone the right to vote. The decisions on who would and would not be allowed to vote, including for members of Congress and for President, was wholly in the hands of the sates, and were regulated by the various state constitutions and laws. A few states permitted women to vote, and at least one permitted free blacks to vote, at least for a period of its history. The Federal government had nothing to say on the matter. In at lesat one case the US Supreme Court refused to consider such a question. That was the case of Luther v. Borden, 48 U.S. (7 How.) 1 (1849) which grew out of the Dorr Rebellion The state of Rhode Island, had retained its pre-revolutionary charter (dating from 1663) as its constitution, and required the ownership of a significant amount of landed property as a qualification to vote. The Wikipedia article on the rebellion (linked above) states: By 1829, 60% of the state's free white men were ineligible to vote (women and most non-white men were prohibited from voting). In 1841 a group led by Thomas Wilson Dorr held a convention to draft a new state Constitution, (known as the "People's Constitution"), and held ratifying votes on the draft. They declared that it had been approved by a majority of those qualified under the old laws as well as a majority of those voting and qualified under the new rules, and that it was therefore the valid constitution of the state. The old (charter) government said this was invalid and illegal. Attempts to establish the new government by force failed. However, a revised state constitution that greatly expanded voting rights was passed and took effect in 1843. Luther v. Borden was a case of trespass against members of the militia acting under the charter government, brought by a supporter of Dorr. The plaintiffs brought extensive evidence (over 150 pages) intended to establish that the Dorr or "People's" constitution had been validly ratified by a majority of voters, and that the old constitution had improperly restricted voting rights. The case went to the US Supreme Court, where Chief Justice Taney wrote in the majority opinion: The plaintiff contends that the charter government was displaced, and ceased to have any lawful power, after the organization, in May, 1842, of the government which he supported, and although that government never was able to exercise any authority in the State nor to command obedience to its laws or to its officers, yet he insists that it was the lawful and established government upon the ground that it was ratified by a large majority of the male people of the State of the age of twenty-one and upwards, and also by a majority of those who were entitled to vote for general officers under the then existing laws of the State. ... The point, then, raised here has been already decided by the courts of Rhode Island. The question relates altogether to the constitution and laws of that State, and the well settled rule in this court is that the courts of the United States adopt and follow the decisions of the State courts in questions which concern merely the constitution and laws of the State. Besides, if the Circuit Court had entered upon this inquiry, by what rule could it have determined the qualification of voters upon the adoption or rejection of the proposed constitution unless there was some previous law of the State to guide it? It is the province of a court to expound the law, not to make it. And certainly it is no part of the judicial functions of any court of the United States to prescribe the qualification of voters in a State, giving the right to those to whom it is denied by the written and established constitution and laws of the State, or taking it away from those to whom it is given; nor has it the right to determine what political privileges the citizens of a State are entitled to, unless there is an established constitution or law to govern its decision. {emphasis added} Thus, until the passage and ratification of the 14th and 15th amendments, which forbid states to deny the vote based on race, national origin, and a few other grounds, the Federal Constitution had nothing to say on the point. States were required to grant the right to vote to women by the 19th amendment in 1920, and the 26th (1971) prohibited denial on the ground of age to anyone 18 or older. The 24th (1964) prohibited denial for failure to pay a poll tax or any other tax. The 14th amendment has been held to guarantee the equal weight of votes, in what was at first known as the "one man, one vote" rule (later "one person, one vote") and has been used to overturn individual and group denials of voting rights. But there were no federal voting rights in the years before 1865. I am not aware of any writings by any of the "founding fathers" (say the members of the Constitutional Convention) that seriously discuss the possibility of a female President. But they did consider and endorse the possibility of a person being elected president who might not be qualified to vote in some of the states. They declined to impose, or permit Congress to impose, a property, or other variable, qualification on the president, even though many of the original states had property qualifications for voters. Options for this were proposed and voted down in the Convention's drafting process.	There is no law governing the 'number' of the president. Common sense suggests that a person can't be 45th and 46th; there must be someone in between having the presidency and they will become the 46th president. In the extremely unlikely scenario that a foreign power occupies the United States this year, eliminates the office of President, and a few years later the US is liberated and Donald Trump is re-elected, I guess people could name him the 45th and 46th President, but it makes no sense to speculate about this.	@DaleM isn't wrong, but some elaboration is in order. You (almost always) gain your citizenship (or nationality) in the first instance, at birth, without the agreement or assent of you or your parents. It is thrust upon you. Usually, your country of citizenship must consent to end your citizenship (or authorize you to do so unilaterally) under that country's laws. Once you have citizenship or nationality, in practice, in most countries, you can generally only renounce your citizenship if you contemporaneously or already have a citizenship somewhere else. You are at a minimum strongly dissuaded from doing so and are not a sympathetic candidate for relief under laws related to statelessness if you willfully put yourself in this position knowing the consequences. This is a feature of the citizenship laws of most countries in order to implement international treaties designed to prevent statelessness which are widely adopted. When an adult is naturalized as a citizen of a new country, usually, their old citizenship is revoked by operation of law under the laws of their old country. In many countries, including the U.S., there are high fees and tax consequences for renouncing your citizenship. Any potential tax liabilities in the future that were not yet due under U.S. law (e.g. capital gains taxes an appreciated assets not yet sold, and estate taxes that would be due if the person renouncing their citizenship had died on that date) are owed immediately upon applying to renounce your citizenship. A stateless person is, subject to quite narrow exceptions, still subject to all of the laws of the place where they are located, including almost all of its criminal laws (except treason) and its tax laws (at least on income earned in that country). A stateless person lacks many rights. They can't travel internationally (there are exceptions under treaty in some cases, but obtaining those rights is cumbersome at a minimum). They can't vote. They typically aren't entitled to domestic welfare state benefits like national health insurance, disability payments, unemployment benefits, subsidized housing, old age or retirement benefits, etc. They can't work in a licensed or regulated profession. They may not even be able to sign a lease. They may not be allowed to own a company or serve as an officer or director of a company or as a trustee of a trust. They aren't entitled to diplomatic assistance. There are many fraudulent legal movements such as the "sovereign citizen movement" (and the Moorish Sovereign Citizens) that assert that citizenship is voluntary and that just by disavowing it in some official feeling way, they can be exempt from taxes, court jurisdiction, and/or other laws. This is false and people who act on this fraudulent misinformation often suffer serious legal consequences as a result.	The new law wins. That's rather the point of passing a new law-- the legislature wants to change the current law of the land whether that is based on statutes or court rulings. Of course, there are caveats. Prior judicial rulings may have relied on an interpretation of a source of law that supersedes the legislature in question (i.e. based on an interpretation of the state or federal Constitution or based on a federal law that supersedes the state law). In that case the new law would be found unconstitutional or ignored. Or the new law might have an ambiguous interaction with current law that courts would have to resolve. The new law might clearly make X illegal but there may be legitimate questions about whether it intended to make previously legal action Y illegal as well. It is, after all, very difficult to write a law that covers every possible fact pattern one would encounter in the real world.
What recourse does a patient have in the event of accidentally false medical records? This story relates to my husband. He's 35 years old and had a vasectomy a few months ago. After the waiting period, he underwent the lab test to check that the procedure was successful. A few days after submitting his sample, he received an email from the urologist's office saying he had new information in his record (online patient portal). To his excessive surprise, the new information was NOT the results of the lab test, but was in fact a record of a cancer diagnosis. Double testicular cancer, to be precise. After a bewildering and frantic hour, he was able to get confirmation from the urologist's office that no, he doesn't actually have testicular cancer. An orchiectomy (testicle removal) had also appeared on his record, although this was clearly false, if only due to the date on the record; the office confirmed that also didn't belong on his record. This was all an accident made by someone in the office, presumably. A few weeks later, after many phone calls and two in-person visits to the office, the cancer diagnosis moved to a classification as a past condition, implying that it had been cured. The patient portal is handled by some other group, and the office claims they don't have the ability to remove records, hence the large volume of phone calls and trying to reach someone who does have that ability. Eventually, one cancer diagnosis was removed, but the other testicular cancer diagnosis and orchiectomy remain. It seems clear that having this appear on his medical record will affect my husband negatively, at the very least in regards to insurance. And, as one can imagine, this has been a traumatic emotional experience for him. So here are my questions: 1. What, if any, law is being broken by the accidental addition of false information to his record? 2. What is the best way to actually enforce removal of the false information? 3. What kind of recompense can we seek, or expect to get, from this situation? (I.e., would it be reasonable to demand that the office reimburse him for the cost of his procedure?)	The relevant legal requirement to have accurate records is 45 CFR 156.526, where An individual has the right to have a covered entity amend protected health information or a record about the individual in a designated record set for as long as the protected health information is maintained in the designated record set. The request can be denied if the record is accurate and complete. A simple and pointed solution is to print that page and circle the section, in a letter requesting an amendment. A somewhat more costly and much more effective solution would be to get a lawyer to write a letter in legalese. It is hard to imagine that the provider would not comply. You will notice that they have 60 days to comply (+30 days extension if requested). If for some reason they insist on leaving the record as is, you have the right to insert rebuttal statements into the record (basically, prove that the record is false). There is no realistic hope of compensation for annoyance, but you can hope for a correction.	IANAL, and I don't live in America, but some of this depends on their intent. If they gave the drugs away by mistake, they probably have not broken any laws. If they were given away deliberately (and you would need to prove this – which might be hard) then yes, he has broken laws. Either way, I expect you have a right to compensation (i.e. $900) from the physician to "make you whole again." If required necessary you could file for that in your local small claims court: The physician will either come to the party pretty quickly and sort it out, or the court will award you the money you need to buy the replacement meds. (But you will need to evidence the replacement cost, for a start....)	Based solely on what you've described, what the lawyer did is inappropriate if, in fact, it occurred without any prior permissions. However, since you are not the actual client, it may be that you lack pertinent info, because this would be exceedingly rare behavior. Lawyers are allowed to make procedural and "expert"/professional decisions about your case without your consent, and do so all the time. As a general rule: we decide who to depose, what expert(s) are necessary to prove your claim, what questions to ask in discovery, what to say and when to say it when attempting to settle, and what witnesses to call vs. not to call at panel or trial. All of that is in the purview of the attorney's general discretion and work product. However, attorneys cannot diminish, amend, or settle your claim without your permission, unless you've signed a limited representation agreement and/or a prior authorization to do these things with a waiver of consultation on issues relating to settlement. (It is not uncommon for a client to say, "My bottom line is X; hence, you have my permission to settle the case for anything over that amount.") A client may also, subsequently, give verbal consent, saying things like "just do your best and get what you can". Contingency and Total Award Strategies Since you aren't the one having entered into the contract, you may not be privy to the existence of these types of contingencies. Agreements like this are very common when an attorney takes a weaker med mal claim. It may be that the lawyer will only take the case to the extent that they will try to settle, and may even file the case, with the understanding that they will never try the case. It is a way to try to get you as much as possible when all facts come to light, without agreeing to the expense of a trial. This happens a lot. In these situations, when you are trying to settle a claim that ends up being much less valuable than the attorney thought when he took the case, the insurance carrier will often say, "We will pay X on the claim if Doctor Doe is dismissed out," or something like that. Often lawyers intentionally over-file, in hopes there are two carriers (the more insurance the more money to make you go away) that they can try to settle with. When it turns out both docs are covered under one insurance carrier, then the weaker claim will often get dismissed out. It is a strategic decision to add them, and to dismiss them – and this is very common. Proving malpractice against one doctor is hard enough; trying to prove that you are the victim of double malpractice, back to back, is nearly impossible. All of that said, even if a client has entered into these types of limited or decisional authority-granting agreements, the lawyer still has a duty to keep the client apprised of what's going on. The client may decide later they don't like how little the attorney is stating the claim is worth (despite being forewarned this may happen, it happens all the time that when it actually occurs the client is not happy). In that case, they have the right to find a new lawyer, but that will be very difficult to do for a few reasons: (1) the original attorney is entitled to get paid for the work done under a theory known as “quantum meruit,” so other attorneys will be hesitant to get involved; (2) they will put a lien on any recovery for the amount of time and expenses, to be paid from any settlements or awards (and they get paid first, before the client or the new lawyer); (3) if a client gets angry and says they want to just drop the case rather than have the lawyer make more than the client, even after a year or more of work, all of the costs will still be owed by the client; (4) the potential new attorney will call the one who has the case and ask about whether the client has unreasonable expectations, if their case has any value, etc. Keep mind, if an attorney is doing the things you've described, they probably would suffer no love loss if the case went away. Malpractice in Context It very often happens, especially in medical malpractice cases, that a client will come in and describe the case one way, and then when the medical records arrive and the attorney and/or the paralegal/nurse-para review them, and all the facts get flushed out, it turns out things occurred a bit (or a lot) differently than the client described or recalled in the first place. This is typically not a matter, 99% of the time, of the client lying to the attorney, but rather it is merely the phenomenon of memories being based on their perception of the events/their care, rather than verifiable fact and established medical standards. (This is why eye-witness testimony is so notably unreliable: 10 people can witness the same event and there will inevitably be 10 different descriptions.) One thing all clients should be told by their lawyer (and you should only hire an experienced medical malpractice lawyer for these cases) is that bad outcomes do not equal negligence. Lay people often think that if something bad occurred while under the care of a doctor, this is the case, but it is not the measure of malpractice. Sometimes, even when the doctor does everything according to their specialty/industry standard, bad outcomes happen. Malpractice/negligence only occurs when they have deviated from this standard of care - outcome notwithstanding. The inverse is also true, when it comes to a bad outcome. The doctor may have breached the standard of care, but this cannot be determined by the patient - the law requires expert testimony to establish this. Sometimes bad outcomes are just the risk of the procedure. This is why patients sign (but rarely read) the informed consent forms, that describe in detail, and state the patient is aware, of all the potential bad outcomes that may occur during the procedure. Negligence, or a "breach of the standard of care" occurs when the typical physician (not the best expert in the world, just the normal, typical doctor in that field) would have found the actions to be unreasonable and never acceptable given the totality of the circumstances. Once you prove that, you then still need to prove that is what caused your damages (not the disease, or the ailment itself). Unfortunately, even with the best physicians, bad outcomes happen all the time. It is very common, to the point of being almost predictable, that a medical malpractice claim's value will depart from the original ballpark estimate of value that an attorney tries to "best guess" at the outset. When your attorney tries to value a case, they roughly estimate your "special damages", which consists of medical bills, lost income, lost earning capacity, and other quantifiable sums. Then, they must try to assess the market rate award for pain and suffering for the type injury you've sustained. This is only guesswork, based on jury verdict reports, reported settlements, and the jurisdictional leanings toward large or small verdicts (comparatively). As the case evolves, as facts come to lights, as experts are consulted - this is when these estimates can largely deviate from the original guesstimate based on very limited information. Risks of Contingency Representation At any rate, when a lawyer takes a case on contingency (when they agreed to get paid only if they recover, and not until they recover, aside from out of pocket expenses), they do this because they've relied on the client's account of what happened, as well as their initial assessment of the records, usually prior to hiring an expert (if they even intended to hire one because they agreed to take the case all the way through trial). You must understand that attorneys don't like when a case loses value any more than the client; in fact, probably less as they are the ones who've invested often hundreds of hours in the case at that point. This is how they make their money. Thirty-three percent of a small amount is not the same as that of a large amount. And many, many hours go into these cases. An attorney can make far more than their hourly rate on a great case, but this is balanced by making far, far less on cases whose values plummet as facts come to light. When a case appears to lost much of it's initially estimated value, the attorney will still try to maximize recovery; however, it may not seem that way to the client because after they take their third, and then recoup their expenses (which is on top of the third and is the responsibility of the client win-or-lose), clients can end up with almost nothing. This is because the expense of these cases is enormous and it is the problem with that area of law and the system in general. It is not uncommon for a medical malpractice case to cost, out of pocket, $200,000 or more! This is why so few people are able to get a lawyer to take these cases, and often when they do, it's on the very limited basis I described. Med Malpractice Primer Med Mal cases are some of the hardest cases to win and they are by far some of the most expensive cases to try. This in not accidental. Depending on the state you live in, tort reform (a legislative effort to limit the amount of medical malpractice claims filed and tried overall, as well as limiting their total recovery) can range from limits on damages, to very short windows for statute of limitations, to the requirements (like where I practice) where you must literally try the case twice – once before a med mal screening panel, who hears all your witnesses just as a jury does, and then decides whether the case should (and in some cases can) go forward. In some states (I happen to practice in one) the findings are admissible in court (not the evidence but the finding). So, if the MMPT screening panel finds the doctor was not negligent, or was, but the damages were within the standard disclosed potential outcomes, so there was no causation, or myriad other things, if you decide (or in some states, if you even still get to go to court) the defense gets to say to the jury that the legislatively enacted Med Mal Pre-trial screening panel found X (no negligence, causation, or damages – or all three). These panels are usually comprised of a lawyer (75% defense lawyers) or a judge, and two doctors who are biased against these types of cases in the first place). Also, if your expert gets torn apart on an issue during panel phase, anything they admit can be used against them in the trial. I say all this to help you understand that these cases are made, by the legislature, to be very hard to even find a lawyer to take, very hard to win, and exceedingly expensive to litigate. This is based on the (fallacious) theory that medical malpractice claims should be limited to the most serious claims because this litigation is so costly, and so impactful on the rates all citizens pay for insurance, that the legislature has seen fit to make them very difficult to prosecute, thereby weeding out weak claims. Bottom Line If the client truly feels their lawyer did something they did not have permission (either explicitly in writing, or verbally) to do, they need to talk to the attorney, explain their discomfort with the situation, and figure out why it occurred and if it was truly in the best interest of the case and the client. If the lawyer cannot adequately answer those questions, they should get a second opinion. The client can demand that anything the attorney did be undone, if it was the type of thing that is in the client's control. One would need to see the engagement letter and retention agreement, and also be privy to the conversations. It is, unfortunately, not uncommon for a client to say they understand what the lawyer is proposing when they don't. If you find that's the case, you may have them ask that all determinations be put in writing, with an explanation as to why.	You'd have to get technical advice from Dentistry SE or something like that, but it is unlikely that this constitutes malpractice, instead was found to be necessary in the course of the implant. You could hire a lawyer to research the question to see if there is a reasonable probability that you could recover damages from a lawsuit, but the main difficulty would be establishing that you've been harmed. You would need an expert dental witness to establish that there is no reasonable connection between the implant and the frenectomy, and it might be an impossible to find a credible witness to that effect given that there is ample evidence that it can be necessary. If you are really saying that he is denying having performed the procedure, then in addition you would have to prove that he did, maybe with before and after pictures.	"Medical lawyer" is really the wrong focus, this is an issue of civil rights. The question would be, is it a violation of your civil rights to prevent you from taking your baby home; is it legal for the federal government to investigate people who refuse to take a covid test? You can take the question along with pertinent evidence to a civil rights attorney. To pick a non-random hospital's web page, they note that "Any person having surgery or a procedure, including birth, at a Texas Health hospital will be tested for COVID-19 to provide appropriate care for the patient, and for the protection of visitors and the care team", and "you will need to be tested at admission to help safeguard you and the care team". In answer to the question whether you can decline testing, they say "Testing is recommended to promote the health of you and your baby. Patients who have COVID-19 can have a weakened immune system and may have inflammatory symptoms that can compromise healing. We encourage you to speak with your provider about the best decision for you", which doesn't explicitly say "No you may not", nor "Yes, you may". However, they cannot literally force you to take the test: at most, they can refuse to treat you. In answer to the question "Will I be separated from my baby if I test positive for COVID-19?", they say "Texas Health will follow guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of OB/GYN and the Centers for Disease Control for how to keep you and your baby safe during your hospital stay. Ultimately, any decisions about care for you and your baby will be between you and your provider, based on what is best for you both". This is also not crystal clear. There are three primary legal issues, putting a worst spin on their policy. They say up front that you will be tested prior to admission: the question is whether you can decline to take the test but force them to admit you. Now we are closer to the realm of a medical negligence attorney – they can refuse to treat you, but that might leave them liable. The second question is whether they can temporarily take the infant away, against the mother's wishes (for example, hold the infant in a separate facility while the mother is in the hospital). The third question is whether they have direct authority to take the infant away when you leave the hospital. The third question gets a plain and simple no. The Texas Dept. of Family and Protective Services has some authority in such a matter, but taking a child requires an investigation and a court order.	Insurance fraud But not for the medical part of the form. Almost all procedures in Australia involve some type of insurance (Medicare, private, workers comp. etc.) - the notice is about the part of the form where you are authorizing payment.	A medical practitioner may use whatever methods s/he thinks proper and appropriate, subject to the limits of malpractice law, and to the right of the patient (or patient's parent or guardian for a child) to give informed consent to any procedure or treatment. A patient can not insist on a treatment or method that the doctor or dentist does not wish to perform, having only the right to seek another practitioner. Nor is a practitioner required to use only procedures covered by insurance, unless bound by contract to do so (as may be the case with some "in-network" or HMO agreements). Again, the patient is free to seek treatment elsewhere. So the parent could insist that the dentist not use "conscious sedation" by withholding consent, the dentist may then refuse to treat at all, unless perhaps this was an emergency situation not allowing the parent to seek another treatment venue.	You don't specify what country's law you're interested in, but as you mention precedent, I'll assume you're interested in common-law jurisdictions such as the United States. The short answer is: you won't find any successful lawsuits such as you describe, at least not without some significant additional facts. In order to be subject to liability, a person needs to commit a breach of some duty. In a civil suit, this needs to be a duty to the plaintiff. In order for it to be actionable for the doctor to not answer the phone, the doctor would have to have somehow assumed a duty to answer the phone at that particular time. Giving someone your phone number is not, in and of itself, a promise that you will never take a shower, or go to a movie, or let your battery run down, or for any other reason be unwilling or unable to answer your phone at a moment's notice. In addition, the patient would have to demonstrate that the doctor, by failing to answer the phone, caused some sort of harm. If the patient is having a medical emergency of some sort, the doctor's advice will almost certainly be: "Hang up and dial 911." This is something the patient can do without the doctor's help. Without some more significant and compelling facts, no court is going to impose a duty on a doctor to sit by the phone waiting for a patient's call.
Can an investor block new investment in a software company in order to cause administration and buy assets? I have a friend who is the CEO of a software startup. As with many software companies a large amount of value of the business lies in the software code, and data which has accrued over time. An investor who owns around 30% of the business is blocking new investment into the business. As the business only has around 2 months runway, it is likely to go into administration after 2 months. We believe that the investor is trying to force the business into administration, so that he can buy the assets cheaply (code and data), which he will then pass to his own external development team and use it to build a new business. Is this legal, and what can be done to prevent this happening?	It would depend on how the ownership contract is written. 30% sounds like a minority stake, so I don't know how they could block new investments unless the contract requires a super-majority to approve new rounds of financing. How does the remaining 70% of ownership feel about this? If they are abiding by the terms of the ownership contract I don't see that this is questionable behavior on their part. This is a business relationship. Business partners may come to have different outlooks on the future of the company, and the best way to protect their investment. Consider flipping the viewpoint: "I'm a minority owner in a company I no longer have confidence in. I would like to dissolve the company and sell off the assets to re-coup as much of my original investment as I can. The other owners want to chase this to the bitter end, and do a new round of financing, which will significantly dilute my shares, without (in my opinion) giving the company a real chance of success. What can I do?" When the founder of your friend's company accepted money for shares in the company, they gave up absolute control over the company's direction. Assuming none of the parties are acting in violation of the ownership contract, the most reasonable way to resolve a conflict like this is to buy out the dissenting shareholders.	The whole purpose of a patent is that the contents of the patent becomes public knowledge, in exchange for a time limited monopoly. Therefore you are allowed to do anything, since you are not just allowed but expected to examine the patent in order to improve on it, except that you need a license to sell or give away products implementing the patent as long as it is valid. The only thing to be careful about is that by publishing source code, you might be enticing others to infringe on the patent, so I'd recommend not to do that without advice of a lawyer. PS. With software, the interpretation of "making" software in patent law may be a bit surprising. There was a major case between Microsoft and AT&T about that. The software developer isn't "making" the software. The build engineer putting everything together isn't "making" the software. The CD manufacturer making a million copies isn't "making" the software. The person installing it on their computer is the one who makes it.	The board rules. Companies usually go to great lengths to be sure the company owns the IP developed within and for the company. But the company is governed by its board of directors and that board can decide to take the company in a new direction where some IP that the company owns would no longer be a key asset for ongoing business. Selling that IP to another organization might, then, be logical. Boards are elected by, and represent, the owners of the company.	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.	If I do some business travel for your company then I send you a bill for my working time and my expenses, and I expect it to be paid. If your shareholder does some business travel for your company, they can do the same. If they don't charge you for the working time, good for your company. Just expect the IRS to look at this bill more carefully than usual to make sure this is not in reality a dividend payment. For example, if the business travel was "two weeks in a five star hotel in Hawaii, all expenses paid", that wouldn't look quite right and cause trouble for both of you. PS: Cost of travelling to a company’s share holder meeting is not a business expense.	The companies really need to speak to an IP lawyer as this question is seeking specific advice which this site is loathe to give out for fear of compouding issues. The answer would depend on the license agreements and enforceability in various jurisdictions. According to https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/0368d7ee-0eb3-4e3e-a143-4410969a15bb/eula-for-vs2010?forum=vssetup Microsoft says you cant rent out the software - but this applies to the "Pro" version - I could not find anything on the "Premium" version - so most likely Microsoft to have some clam. The flipside is how enforceable this EULA is - and this would probably vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. It would be a very, very good idea to speak to a lawyer before letting Microsoft come onto the premises - as "inviting them" to do this is almost certainly not going to improve the Asians company's case and will allow Microsoft to go fishing further and make it easier for them to expand on and collect evidence should they decide to pursue the matter.	I find that Petri Mäntysaari: The Law of Corporate Finance: General Principles and EU Law: Volume II, p. 115-140 can pretty much explain the reasoning for this. It is in chapter 5.3 on Terms non-binding as intended. The contract might not contain all legal requirements for some reason, or a clause might become invalid due to law changes. Sometimes the contract becomes unenforceable for some reason or another in part or full. The salvatorian clause is there to fix the defective clause to become the closest estimate to the written form that is legal and not deficient instead of being just dropped from the contract. This can save a contract from becoming unenforceable or making it void in whole. Especially look at Page 140: If a contract term is invalid because of a mandatory provision of law, it will be replaced by legal background rules(§306(2) BGB). One of the standard ways to address the situation is to use a so-called salvatorian clause. [...] This [reinterpretation/fixing of deficiencies] would not happen without a specific contract term. (See §139 BGB. On the other hand see also §140 BGB. Compare DCFR II.-7:302 and II.-7:303) A caveat though: if the alteration to the clause needed is too big and substantial, the contract as a whole can become void and null, no matter what the salvatorian clause said. It cannot overcome some burdens and there are regularly courts (I know this for Germany) voiding contracts due to such serious deficiencies. Notes BGB is the German "Bürgerliche Gesetzbuch", an english translation exists §139 says "If a part of a legal transaction is void, then the entire legal transaction is void, unless it is to be assumed that it would have been undertaken even without the void part." Example: a sale lacking any payment is not a sale (which starts a legally required warranty) $140 says "If a void legal transaction fulfils the requirements of another legal transaction, then the latter is deemed to have been entered into, if it may be assumed that its validity would be intended if there were knowledge of the invalidity." Example: a sale lacking any payment can be interpreted as a gift if the intent was to do so (and does not grant warranty) DCFR is the EU Draft Common Frame of Reference, so the above rules are to be found in the document as follows II.–7:302: Contracts infringing mandatory rules - p. 565. Paraphrased: "if a clause in a contract violates a law, substitute the law for it, courts shall decide if that alters or voids the contract. They may fix contracts to cure them." II.–7:303: Effects of nullity or avoidance - p. 574. Paraphrased: "void contract (parts) can constitute unjustified enrichment, transfer of items might not have happened, courts may fix contracts to cure." From the DCFR document one can read what happens in absence of a Salvatorian clause, especially for UK law. II.–7:302: I. Contracts contrary to law 1 All European systems deal with contracts which contravene some rule of law, as opposed to contracts which are contrary to fundamental principles of morality or public policy. 5 In ENGLISH, IRISH and SCOTTISH law the standard texts all include chapter headings such as “Illegality”, or “Statutory Invalidity”. See further Enonchong, McBryde, Law of Contract in Scotland1 , paras. 19.28-19.36, and, for the confused development of Scottish law, Macgregor in Reid & Zimmermann vol. II, chap. 5. II. Effects of infringement 8 The general starting point in most European legal systems is that contracts violating legal rules are void. There is often, however, considerable flexibility in the law. 14 In ENGLISH and SCOTTISH law, while an illegal contract may be void, it is more often presented as “unenforceable”, in that neither specific performance nor damages are available to the parties. Thus a party may withdraw from an illegal contract with impunity. Courts will take notice of illegality of their own motion and dismiss actions accordingly (Chitty on Contracts I27, no. 16-199; MacQueen and Thomson, Contract Law in Scotland, § 7.15; McBryde, Law of Contract in Scotland1 , paras. 13.31-13.34, 19.17-19.27).). Again, however, there is flexibility in the law on contracts infringing statutory provisions. There are several cases in which the courts have considered whether giving effect to the statute requires the nullity of the contract as a supporting sanction (see e.g. St John Shipping Corp. v. Joseph Rank Ltd. [1957] 1 QB 267; Archbolds (Freightage) Ltd. v. S Spangletts Ltd. [1961] 2 QB 374, CA). English law is currently under review by the Law Commission: see its Consultation Paper on Illegal Transactions. The Commission’s provisional proposals were to the effect that courts should have the discretion to decide whether or not illegality should act as a defence to a claim for contractual enforcement. But the discretion should be structured by requiring the court to take account of specific factors: (1) the seriousness of the illegality involved; (2) the knowledge and intention of the party seeking enforcement; (3) whether denying relief will act as a deterrent; (4) whether denial of relief will further the purpose of the rule rendering the contract illegal; and (5) whether denying relief is proportionate to the illegality involved. II.–7:303: Notes 5 In ENGLISH law the general rule is against restitution but it is possible in exceptional cases where the claimant is not in pari delicto with the recipient, or the transaction has not been completely executed, or if the claim can be formulated without reference to the prohibited contract (Treitel, The Law of Contract9 , 490-504). IRISH law is similar (Clark 314-19), and so is SCOTTISH law (Stair Memorial Encyclopaedia vol. 15, paras. 764-765), although in one Scottish case where, by statute, contracts using old Scottish measures were void, restitutionary recovery was allowed in respect of a sale of potatoes by the Scottish acre, on the ground that there was no moral turpitude in such a transaction (Cuthbertson v. Lowes (1870) 8 M 1073; see further Macgregor, (2000) 4 ELR 19-45; McBryde, Law of Contract in Scotland1 , paras. 13.31-13.34, 19.22-19.26). The English Law Commission in its Consultation Paper on Illegal Transactions suggested that a court should have discretion to decide whether or not illegality should be recognised as a defence to a claim for restitution, various factors being taken into account. In addition the court should have a discretion to allow a party to withdraw from an illegal contract and to have restitution where this will reduce the likelihood of the completion of an illegal act or purpose, although it must be satisfied that the contract could not be enforced against the claimant, that there is genuine repentance of the illegality, and that it is not too serious.	The ultimate question is whether an obviously joke enterprise constitutes a real offering of securities or just performance art (a Ponzi scheme is one of many types of securities fraud). An unregistered offering of securities that does not fall within an exception is per se unlawful under federal law, but a security is generally defined as something offered with at least a prospect of making a potential profit for the investor which is not something that is true of this offering. (And if less than $1,000,000 are sold it might even be within an exemption to securities laws). State securities laws are divided into two categories. Most allow any offering of securities so long as proper disclosures are made and the offer is restricted to the right kind of investors. A minority impose substantive quality standards on offerings and this offering might violate the law in those states (although this still would present the question of whether a known money losing opportunity is really a security since there is no evidence of an intent to potentially make a profit from the investment). I do not believe that California imposes substantive quality of investment standards on public or private offerings of securities. Any deal whether or not it is a security is actionable if it is fraudulent. Normally an element of any claim for fraud is justified reliance upon a representation or upon a failure to disclose information. But, in this case, it is hard to see how anyone could say that they were justified in relying on any representation in making a purchase because they were told that they were being cheated. So, it is hard to see how a fraud claim would be sustained here either. I'm not sure that this cleanly falls into the category of gambling either, even though there is money at stake and the outcome isn't entirely certain. This doesn't really seem like a game of chance to me. Indeed, viewed as performance art, this scheme might even be entitled to First Amendment protection. Ultimately, I would not prioritize a civil or criminal action against this enterprise either from the perspective of a private lawyer representing an investor, or from the perspective of a government enforcement authority. And, while I would be a little nervous about running this enterprise, I wouldn't be quaking in my boots. In a civil lawsuit, any award would probably be minimal, and in a criminal case there would probably be an extremely generous plea offered.
Contempt of court (for certain speech and remaining silent included)? What's the worst/maximum sentence or sanction one can receive for remaining silent in court when asked to speak by a court official (with and without a subpoena)?	Theoretically, life imprisonment. One can be imprisoned for as long as you remain in contempt of court, so if a person is ordered to testify and refuses, he can be held in prison until he testifies. In the US, this has been tested up to 14 years, whereupon a judge decided that the individual would perennially remain in prison rather than comply with the order, so there was no point in further imprisonment. However, invoking the right to silence is typically related to testimony at a trial, and trials don't last a lifetime. When compliance with the order becomes moot, a contemptuous person will not be held any longer, at least if this is a civil contempt case. Criminal sanctions are also possible for contempt, in which case there is a specific period of incarceration as punishment.	Senators, and anyone else for that matter, can ask any questions they want. The witness is required to answer the questions only if under subpoena, and only if the answer of the question would neither require disclosure of privileged information nor violate a 5th Amendment right (which is a form of privilege). Many things that are the subject of an NDA are not privileged information, and the fact that someone claims that something is a trade secret does not automatically make it privileged information. Privileges can be established by statute, court rule or at common law.	There are several misunderstandings here. First of all, the US exclusionary rule applies only to evidence gained by the police, or by people acting as agents of the government, and not always to them. Secondly it applies only in criminal cases. The question does not say which state this would be in, and these are largely matters of state law, so it makes a difference. But I don't know of any state where taking a video without explicit consent, in a place where the person has a right to be, is a crime. In some states it would not even be a tort. If a video is taken without the subject's consent, that may be an invasion of privacy, and the subject might be able to sue (not "file charges). In such a case the video itself would absolutely be put in evidence, and if it recorded verbal permission to take the video, the case would be promptly dismissed, quite possibly with sanctions for a frivolous lawsuit. Even if the video were taken by a police officer, and was presented as evidence in a criminal case, the office could testify to the verbal permission. That would be enough for the judge to view the video as part of a suppression hearing (which is not before a jury). If the judge saw and heard verbal permission to take the video, that would be an end to the motion to suppress, unless it was claimed that the permission was somehow coerced or faked, and evidence supported such a claim.	Cohen has ethical problems, but this is probably pretty far down the list. If he were lying about the law, though, that could be treated as a violation of Rule 4.1 of the New York Rules of Professional Conduct: In the course of representing a client, a lawyer shall not knowingly make a false statement of fact or law to a third person. It could also be a violation of Rule 8.4: A lawyer or law firm shall not ... (c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation; Although these would be violations of his ethical obligations, they probably do not rise to the level of seriousness that would result in any meaningful punishment. Disbarment would be extremely unlikely, though a censure is conceivable. If someone reported the offense, I would actually expect that the state would decline to investigate at all. Of course, all of this assumes that he was deliberately lying about the state of the law, which I think overestimates his competence. More likely, he's just an idiot and didn't know that he was wrong. Importantly, being wrong about the law isn't unethical; it's a presumption at the foundation of our adversarial justice system.	I'll use Wisconsin as a jurisdiction. If you file a false death certificate, that's a felony. But you probably wouldn't go that far. It could be disorderly conduct. In Wisconsin disorderly conduct is described as follows: Whoever, in a public or private place, engages in violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous, unreasonably loud or otherwise disorderly conduct under circumstances in which the conduct tends to cause or provoke a disturbance is guilty of a Class B misdemeanor. There's also a statute prohibiting "Disrupting a funeral or memorial service" but it won't apply in this case unless disorderly conduct applies. It would raise the penalty to a class A misdemeanor (or a class I felony if you somehow did it again after being convicted once.) On the civil side, there could be an action for intentional infliction of emotional distress, either for the false report of your death, or for a "corpse" suddenly coming to life. This kind of lawsuit requires "extreme and outrageous conduct", but if this isn't, I don't know what would be.	Maybe I'm reading Walsh wrong, but it seems to me to be saying that Stout might apply in some cases, but it doesn't in that specific case. I think you are indeed reading it wrong. In the Walsh case, the court says: We have not had occasion to decide the question up to this time, but now that it is presented, we not only reiterate the doubt which we expressed in the McAlpin case (supra), but we think that the question of the defendant's negligence was erroneously submitted to the jury in the Stout case, and that we ought not to follow it as a precedent. It's clearly repudiating Stout here, and not just as it applies to that case. It literally says they think it should not be followed as precedent.	The holding of the Miranda decision says: (d) In the absence of other effective measures, the following procedures to safeguard the Fifth Amendment privilege must be observed: the person in custody must, prior to interrogation, be clearly informed that he has the right to remain silent, and that anything he says will be used against him in court; he must be clearly informed that he has the right to consult with a lawyer and to have the lawyer with him during interrogation, and that, if he is indigent, a lawyer will be appointed to represent him The body of the opinion also says The warning of the right to remain silent must be accompanied by the explanation that anything said can and will be used against the individual in court. although also He must be warned prior to any questioning that he has the right to remain silent, that anything he says can be used against him in a court of law When SCOTUS says do this, that is the law. Since SCOTUS say can, will, and can and will, the only safe course of action is to say can and will. This page has some interesting discussion about the problem of the meaning of modals in a legal context. The Miranda warning does not constitute a contractual promise between the arresting officer and the arrestee, so "will" cannot be construed as a binding promise to prosecute and use the evidence in court. "Will" can only be construed as a prediction, as do "may" and "might". If the warning said "can, and mightmay be used against you", that choice or wording would suggest that the probability of statements being used against you is low – that would be totally misleading. The strongest modal should be used, because the probability is high that some statement will indeed be used against the person. Simply saying "can" suggests that it's a mere possibility, as opposed to a probability. "Can and will" is thus the appropriate construction for conveying the probability that your confession will be used against you. "Shall" shall not be used (it is confusing since it doesn't mean what the legal profession sometimes thinks it means); "must" is just plain wrong (it's legally meaningless to say "anything you say must be used against you", when many things that a person says would be inadmissible).	A court would "dismiss" an action, a claim, or a defendant, but I don't know of any American court that would "dismiss" a motion. Instead, a motion would be "denied," or perhaps "overruled." If I saw this language in a motion, I would assume it was just a lawyer doing the stereotypical redundance thing.
Is a Senate trial required after the House impeaches a president? If the House of Representatives impeaches a president, everything I read says that there is then a trial by the Senate regarding removal from office. If the House impeaches a president, is it legally necessary to go forward with a Senate trial or is it an option for the House?	Article I, Section 3, Clause 6 says The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present. Therefore, the House cannot try an impeachment. The wording of the Constitution does not say "The Senate must try any impeachment delivered by the House". The option to reject an impeachment by simple majority runs completely counter to Senate tradition. But analogous to deployment of the "nuclear option" to change Senate rules, it is a conceivable outcome. The first impeachment presented to the Senate was against a Senator, William Blount in 1797, and in that instance the Senate appears to have voted that Blount was not an impeachable officer (so they did not vote on impeachment, but they did vote to expel him). In Nixon v. US, SCOTUS ruled that Senate impeachment actions are not justiciable. While current Senate rules require a trial, the rules can be changed by the Senate by a majority vote, and SCOTUS will not review such actions. The Senate can also adjourn and not take up one or more articles, as happened in Andrew Johnson's case.	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.	The rule that all bills die when a Congress ends is an unwritten rule, based on precedent. It is part of a more general rule: All unfinished business dies when a Congress ends. The logic of this rule is simple: Because every member of the House is elected every term, every new Congress is considered a separate Congress. To require a new Congress to take up the unfinished business of the previous Congress would violate yet another, more general rule: “No Congress can bind its successors.” This rule came from England, where it was thought to be a direct implication of parliamentary supremacy. In the US, it is justified either as implied by the constitution, or by practical political realities. What the Congressional manuals say The rule “all business dies” is mentioned in several of the standard compilations of Congressional practice and precedent. These compilations, (available online from the GPO,) include House Practice: However, because past proceedings of one Congress do not bind its successor, business remaining at the end of one Congress does not carry over to the beginning of a new Congress (with the exception of impeachment). Precedents of the House, § 8. Legislative Business of a Prior Session: Each Congress is a separate parliamentary body that comes into being at assembly and terminates upon sine die adjournment. Thus, it is generally the case that business of one Congress does not continue as business of the next Congress. For example, bills and resolutions introduced in one Congress cannot be taken up in a subsequent Congress but must be formally reintroduced. Unfinished business pending at the close of one Congress does not remain unfinished business of a subsequent Congress. Decschler’s Precdents, Ch. 1 § 11, The vast majority of business remaining at the end of one Congress does not, however, carry over to the beginning of a new Congress, since Congress does not allow the past proceedings of one Congress to bind its successor. Few categories have carried over from one Congress to the next; impeachment proceedings pending on the last day of one Congress have been continued at the beginning of the succeeding one, and a Presidential veto message to the House was on one occasion read and received at the beginning of the next Congress. Legislative Entrenchment: Why Congress Can't Bind The idea that one legislature cannot bind a later legislature is known as the rule against ”legislative entrenchment.” This rule traces back to England, where it was first stated by Edward Coke, in his Institutes of the Laws of England, published in 1644. Acts against the power of the Parliament subsequent bind not. In England, the rule was seen as a direct implication of parliamentary sovereignty. Thus, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, William Blackstone argued that to allow one parliament to bind another would be logically inconsistent with the idea of parliamentary supremacy: Because the legislature, being in truth the sovereign power, is always of equal…absolute authority: it acknowledges no superior upon earth, which the prior legislature must have been, if its ordinances could bind a subsequent parliament. Interestingly, during the Revolution, an American colonist, writing as Cassandra, used the rule against entrenchment to argue for independence. He quoted Coke to claim that because no Parliament could bind future Parliaments, any British promise to respect the rights of colonists was not, as the game theorists would say, credible. It is out of the power of the British Legislature to give us security for the future enjoyment of our rights and liberties…Is there safety in entering upon terms of accommodation with a power which cannot stipulate for the performance of its engagements? In reaction to such criticisms of the British system of Parliamentary supremacy, Americans decided to adopt a written constitution. The Americans argued that while a legislature might not be able to bind itself, the people, acting through the Constitution, could bind the legislature. Instead of invoking Parliamentary supremacy, Americans justified the “no Congress can bind” rule by appealing to the Constitution (ie, the electoral cycle + the vesting clause = every Congress is a new Congress, which alone is vested with the legislative power under Art. I, § 1), or to practical considerations (it is impossible for today’s Congress to enforce a binding clause on a later Congress, which could simply pass a new statute). (For fuller discussion of these arguments, see here.) Unwritten Rules in the House Here is what House Practice, Ch. 50. Rules and Precedents of the House, says about Rules Based on Precedent or Custom: Much of what is known as parliamentary law is not part of the formal written rules of the House but springs from precedent or long-standing custom. Such precedent may be invoked to resolve a procedural question in the absence of an express written rule on the subject. More frequently, the precedents of the House are used to show the scope and application of one of its formal rules… On the theory that a government of laws is preferable to a government of men, the House has repeatedly recognized the importance of following its precedents and obeying its well-established procedural rules. The House adheres to settled rulings, and will not lightly disturb procedures that have been established by prior decision of the Chair. However, the Speaker or Chairman may refuse to follow a precedent even though it is relevant to a pending question, where it is the only precedent on the point and was not carefully reasoned.	From Clinton v. Jones 520 U.S. 681 (1997): Deferral of this litigation until petitioner's Presidency ends is not constitutionally required. [...] The separation-of-powers doctrine does not require federal courts to stay all private actions against the President until he leaves office. [...] Nixon v Fitzgerald provides no support for an immunity for unofficial conduct. Regarding official acts, the President is immune. Nixon v. Fitzgerald 457 U.S. 731 (1982): Petitioner, as a former President of the United States, is entitled to absolute immunity from damages liability predicated on his official acts. [...] The President's absolute immunity extends to all acts within the "outer perimeter" of his duties of office.	He's not a judge in a courtroom with all the power of a federal judge. He's temporary presiding officer of the Senate, in charge of enforcing Senate rules. The Senate calendar is under control of the majority leader who passed the rules of how the trial would be run. If the rules don't say "must adjourn for the day by X o'clock" then Roberts would not be allowed to do so on his own, he needs a Senator to ask for adjournment and then get consent from the rest of the Senate.	No, votes would not have to be postponed. The Constitution has nothing specific to say about this. (It's not that long - you can and should read it through and check for yourself, and searching is even easier.) The Constitution's only reference to the Speaker of the House is Article I Section 2: "The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers [...]". (Other than the 25th Amendment which prescribes the role of the Speaker in receiving declarations as to whether the President is incapacitated.) The House's procedures, and the Speaker's role in them, are left up to the Rules of the House of Representatives, which the House makes for itself. (US Constitution, Article I, Section 5: "Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings [...]".) Rule I, Section 8 provides: (a) The Speaker may appoint a Member to perform the duties of the Chair. Except as specified in paragraph (b), such an appointment may not extend beyond three legislative days. (b)(1) In the case of illness, the Speaker may appoint a Member to perform the duties of the Chair for a period not exceeding 10 days, subject to the approval of the House. If the Speaker is absent and has omitted to make such an appointment, then the House shall elect a Speaker pro tempore to act during the absence of the Speaker. So if the Speaker is ill, she can appoint a temporary substitute (Speaker pro tempore), who can preside over all House business, including votes. If she cannot or does not do so, the House may elect a Speaker pro tempore with the same authority. (That election itself would be presided over by the Clerk of the House, an administrative official, as specified by Rule II Section 2(a).) Either way, there would be no need for votes to be postponed.	In the US, the resignation of the office of President or Vice-President must be in writing to the Secretary of State. In India, the constitution provides (Art. 65) that In the event of the occurrence of any vacancy in the office of the President by reason of his death, resignation or removal, or otherwise, the Vice-President shall act as President until the date on which a new President elected in accordance with the provisions of this Chapter to fill such vacancy enters upon his office and (Art 67) a Vice-President may, by writing under his hand addressed to the President, resign his office; It does not require that the president be named, nor does it require that the resignation actually be delivered to the president. The VP a.k.a. acting President can notify himself of his resignation, since he functions completely as the president. The houses of parliament might elect a new vice president between resignations.	The question has no definitive resolution other than the authorities cited and some other related authorities such as the protocol rules of the Secretary of State for diplomatic purposes and the Presidential succession statute. It has never been litigated any reasonable interpretations of the the constitution and relevant law could be argued. There is also some case law under the appointments clause regarding which departments count as principal departments. There is a broad consensus regarding the existence of 15 principal departments of the United States government and which departments those 15 departments are in practice. I would say that the majority view is that the highest ranking person in each department is the principal officer of that department (which is provided for by statute in the event of vacancies) but there is also an argument that only the Congressional ratified and Presidentially nominated Secretary of a department (and the Attorney General in the Justice Department similarly appointed) count. In the event of a dispute, either Congress or a court could resolve the issue depending upon how the issues ended up being presented for a decision. If asked, the White House Counsel would render a formal opinion that would be binding upon all members of the Executive Branch. Triller novel writer Tom Clancy has explored some of the scenarios as have other writers in the same genre, but since the 25th Amendment has never been invoked in this manner, there is no definitive answer or even a non-judicial precedent to provide us with guidance on the question.
Can a Resident Assistant be told to ignore a lawful order?' Today I have an interesting question involving Police, Fire and university administration. A little bit of background: for the past few years, my University has been involved in a small, awkward cold war with local emergency responders over expectations on live-in Residential Assistants during emergency situations. Specifically, the biggest flashpoints are fire alarms and wellness checks on residents. Within the dorms, we have been told that both Campus Police and Local Fire Departments have been provided keys to all rooms in case an emergency (fire or safety) is reported. We have also been told that we are, under no circumstances, to assist Police or Fire with entering a room (to which we have keys as Resident Assistants, for lockouts and the like) until we have received permission from several layers of (on-call) department administration. The heads of the Residential Services Office insist that this is to protect the department in the case of a privacy complaint on behalf of a resident who we let police into the room of, and to avoid liability from ordering (by policy) RAs back into a potentially dangerous building under alarm. Police and fire, meanwhile, never seem to have the keys. Thus, for the safety of the building or the resident, they will order us to open up the door for them, right now. Which brings us to the issue: Police/fire wants us to open a door, and gives us what I believe is a lawful order do so. Meanwhile, Residence Life policy wants us to call up to our supervisor and follow a whole procedure, directly countermanding the orders of the officer or firefighter on scene. Must I open the door, legally speaking? And is my department's policy of refusal illegal/unenforceable?	There is a state law that requires you to obey the police: ORC 2917.13, which says you may not Fail to obey the lawful order of any law enforcement officer engaged in the law enforcement officer's duties at the scene of or in connection with a fire, accident, disaster, riot, or emergency of any kind. If you do, misconduct at an emergency is a misdemeanor of the fourth degree. If a violation of this section creates a risk of physical harm to persons or property, misconduct at an emergency is a misdemeanor of the first degree. You also cannot Hamper the lawful operations of any law enforcement officer, firefighter, rescuer, medical person, emergency medical services person, or other authorized person, engaged in the person's duties at the scene of a fire, accident, disaster, riot, or emergency of any kind "Hamper" is not defined statutorily, but the plain meaning of "hamper" is not the same as "fail to assist". We have not established that the order is lawful, however, which is crucial. The police cannot just freely search a residence without permission. If they have permission from the occupant, they can search and seize. If they have probable cause to believe that a crime exists and the circumstances make a warrant impractical, they can search and seize. I don't know what you mean by "wellness check", but that seems plainly to be unlawful entry. However, if the resident calls 911 and reports that he is having an issue, that is sufficient consent for entry. In the case of a fire alarm, the fire code authorizes a fire department official in charge of an actual emergency response incident to order the evacuation of a building, and occupants are required to comply. If we suppose that the smoke detector in a room has gone off, the fire department is authorized to inspect for fire, and there is a provision under the law about failure to obey a lawful command (to open the door so that they can look for fire). Problem: you cannot know whether the order is lawful. The officer doesn't decide what is lawful, the courts do (after the fact), and typically a command is found to be lawful unless it is clearly unlawful. The order from your supervisor is not "enforceable" in the sense that you cannot be arrested, imprisoned, or fined for disobeying your boss. However, there is a potential club they can use against you, namely firing you for disobeying the order. Normally, you can be fired for wearing the wrong shirt. But there are laws about employers doing illegal things, such as ORC 4113.52, which provides recourse when the employee reasonably believes that the violation is a criminal offense that is likely to cause an imminent risk of physical harm to persons or a hazard to public health or safety etc. In which case you report this to the supervisor, they have 24 hours after getting the report to correct the situation, and after that you would report the situation to the county prosecutor. (Read all of the details in the linked law, don't just skip steps: this is an executive summary). Having done this, you are protected from being fired, demoted. reassigned etc. The employer will be strongly motivated to not incur the penalties for violating the whistle blower statute. Additionally, you can sue the employer if they fire you for refusing to violate the law (termination in violation of public policy).	If we cut through all the entertaining colour commentary around Bob's experience then all that happened is TfL refused him permission to carry a specific item and according to the TfL Conditions of Carriage: 9.2 Staff can refuse permission for you to take any item onto our services. For example, you may be prevented from taking a bicycle on DLR services during the London Marathon. So the rules around the times when non-folding bikes are permitted on the Overground not withstanding there's a catch-all rule which allows them to refuse specific items on specific occasions for whatever reason they want. What remedies does Bob have available for his wasted time, his refusal of carriage, the supervisor's concealment of his identity, general rude treatment, Realistically - none. The refusal may be harsh - but there's plenty of room in the conditions of carriage to allow it. A supervisor concealing his identity may be annoying but it's not illegal, nor is being rude. the BTP's shockingly insulting accusation of his "wasting police time" by simply trying to explain the situation to reason with them upon their arrival, either against TfL, or against BTP? Probably nothing doing here either - the BTP aren't for what Bob's trying to use them for. I doubt they'd actually pursue Bob for wasting police time unless he makes a habit of doing it, but they've got a point. They're not the complaints department for TfL! It's like calling the police because McDonalds won't serve you at the drive through.	The difference is that the person was originally invited to live there, so they do have a claim of residency. A tenant recently allowed someone to move into his apartment as his caregiver. This is the problem here, the person was invited to live in there in exchange for a service. This person now has a legal right to occupy the property and the eviction process must be followed. If the person broke into the house and occupied a room, that is trespassing since there was no original legal right to occupy the property. The trespasser cannot claim any legal right to the property and therefore is trespassing. Can it really be so that he is legally bound to allow these strangers to share his apartment with him because of a technicality that classifies them as "squatters"? Unfortunately yes. This should be a lesson to the tenant that they need to properly run background checks and have solid contracts with live-in caregivers/roommates. Unfortunately this is not only inconvenient, but will probably be an expensive lesson as well.	This is an excellent explanation. All Australian jurisdictions have (in general) common road rules. In NSW these are enacted by Road Rules 2014 regulation under the Road Transport Act 2013. The relevant provision is Clause 306: 306 Exemption for drivers of emergency vehicles A provision of these Rules does not apply to the driver of an emergency vehicle if: (a) in the circumstances: (i) the driver is taking reasonable care, and (ii) it is reasonable that the rule should not apply, and (b) if the vehicle is a motor vehicle that is moving-the vehicle is displaying a blue or red flashing light or sounding an alarm. From your statement (a)(i) and (b) would seem to apply so it becomes a question if (a)(ii) does. Well, you don't know the circumstances so you can't judge if it is reasonable that the rule not apply: if the police car were involved in a collision, caught on a red light camera or booked then the driver would have to show that it was. It is worth noting that some road offences like drink or dangerous driving are not in the Road Rules, they are in the Crimes Act and so the exemption doesn't apply to them. It is also not a shield from civil liability although the difficulty of proving negligence goes up because disobeying the road rules is no longer enough.	Usually, an order would specify what happens. There is no hard and fast rule in this situation.	This depends entirely on STATE law, and you need to list the state(s) you are interested in in the question. Thus, the usual legal statement "it depends." POLICE ARE NOT ATTORNEYS Don't accept legal advice from the police at face value. Police frequently don't actually know the minutiae of the law, and/or often misunderstand it. Their job is not to provide legal advice nor legal judgement, their job is to enforce the law based on certain priorities. Thus the area of enforcement is usually narrowed to specific categories so they can be experts in that area. (I.e vice cops, bunko squad, homicide division, etc.) But police are not lawyers, so don't expect them to understand the law. They did not attend 3 years of law school after attaining a college degree, which lawyers DO. Police get as little as 3 months training (in some states like Arkansas they can be put on duty without ANY training for up to a year (!) before attending the academy). THAT SAID, REGARDING CALL RECORDINGS: There are single and two party states. In single party states, any single person who is part of a call or communication can record it. In "two party" states, everyone that is part of the call must be informed. There are numerous exceptions and stipulations however. GREAT EXPECTATIONS First off, is there an "expectation of privacy." Again this varies by state and case law. Generally, if there is no expectation of privacy, then there is a clear exception to record. For instance, if you are in a busy restaurant, and people around you can hear or eavesdrop, you have no expectation of privacy. Courts have also ruled that if you are in the presence of a police officer performing official duties, there is also no expectation of privacy (not for either of you). IS IT LIVE OR IS IT MEMOREX Are you being recorded? If you are in a two/all party state, and you have an expectation of privacy (a phone call made in your home) then one of the following must occur: If the police are recording you without your knowledge, they must have a court order permitting them to do so as part of an investigation. Otherwise you must be notified with a statement at the beginning of the call that the call is being recorded. (Typically your option is to hang up or continue. Continuing the call implies your consent.) In some states the notification can be in the form of a "duck" or a beep every 15 seconds (time period varies, this is also different per state). OPINION NOT ADVICE BELOW I would think that being notified that a call is being recorded ends any expectation of privacy for any involved party. Assuming the state law and related case law supports recording when there is no expectation of privacy, this circumstance would seem to permit recording legally. Doubly so if your were talking to police in official capacity (did you notice a beep every xx seconds?) CAUTION: Because this varies so much by state, and because even the various Federal District Courts are not in unanimous agreement on the minutiae, there may be other factors to consider.	None No law requires police to keep people apart when making statements. Doing so is good police practice. In some police organizations internal regulations or procedures may specify that officers should do so. But those are not laws. In some cases witnesses may have had a chance to confer and agree on a story before police arrive, the police cannot prevent that. The trier of fact can take into account that witnesses had a chanc to agree on a false story.	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.
Can the racial/ethnic makeup of a company be used in a discrimination case? Suppose a company is made up 100 employees, and that 75 of them are from the same ethnic background or race, say Jewish, or black. The company is in an industry that has nothing to do with that race, for example they are not designing Menorahs, or producing Kinaras. Suppose they are selling paper supplies. How likely is it that this hiring pattern will be taken to be evidence of discrimination in hiring? Assuming the neighborhood is generally mixed and that people of all races are available for hire. Are there legal defenses against an accusation of discrimination in a case where hired employees represents a much smaller percentage of the surrounding population in terms of race / ethnicity?	The employer might be liable for a discrimination claim, under the doctrine of disparate impact. See Texas Department of Housing & Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, Inc and references cited therein. The idea is that an employer can be liable absent proof of intentional discrimination when a practice disproportionately affects protected classes of individuals, and the practice is not justified by reasonable business considerations. So it would depend on why this particular state of affairs in employment came about. There is a test known as the 80% rule which attempts to quantify the notion of "under-representation" as evidence of discrimination. This test (not widely respected by the courts these days) might constitute evidence of discrimination, if a protected class is demonstrably under-represented. The current standard seems to be by comparison to random selection. In EEOC v. Sambo's of Georgia, Inc., 530 F. Supp. 86, the court found that a grooming policy had a disparate impact on members of a religion (Sikhism), and was thus contrary to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, although a requirement to shave does not obviously discriminate on the basis of religion. This points to an important element of a successful disparate impact claim, that there has to be a policy with a causal effect. In the above scenario, there is no proposed policy that has this effect. Note that the burden of proof is on the person suing for relief – they must have a theory of something the company does that causes this hiring pattern, a practice that is discriminatory. The identified policy (whatever it might be) could be justified by a business necessity defense (Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424), by showing that the practice has a demonstrable relationship to the requirements of the job. That, b.t.w., would not excuse a racially or religiously discriminatory hiring policy for a factory manufacturing menorahs or kinaras. If a company recruiting locally in Boise ID had a 75% black work force, it would be reasonable to suspect that something was up. But legally, without showing that this results from a unjustified policy of the company, mere statistically anomalous distribution is does not sustain a claim of discrimination.	Maybe s158 of the Equality Act 2010 allows proportionate action to redress disadvantage, different needs or disproportionately low participation by people with a protected characteristic. For example, woman make up 16.5% of the UK’s engineers. Given they make up more than 50% of the population one could reasonably come to the conclusion that this is disproportionately low. If this was an engineering scholarship, this would fall within the exemption. In contrast, woman are 52% of UK lawyers - not a disproportionate number for either gender and not engaging the exemption. However, female judges are only 39%, arguably disproportionate, so if the course is a post-graduate one preparing people to enter the judiciary, that’s probably ok. Women are 75.5% of teachers, so a scholarship for male students in that profession is ok too.	It is entirely legal to discriminate on arbitrary grounds. What is not legal is to discriminate on the basis of a protected category, for example race. The law say that you cannot favor or disfavor a customer because of their race. Federal law specifically prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin, but not age or gender (disability is more complicated). Moreover, the grounds are not arbitrary. The establishment is at legal risk if a customer does not wear eye-protection, and you have no right to compel them to assume that risk: it's a perfectly normal business decision. The law states that "Customers are not allowed to use a tanning device unless the customer uses protective eyewear", and verifying that you have such eyewear is the minimal way of assuring compliance with the law.	Yes, they are. A business can decide not to do business with someone for pretty much any reason. The obvious prohibited reason is due to your race. But I don't see how eBay would even know your race. Some State laws might protect you, but I don't think there's any that applies in this case. For example, California might give you a means of appeal if someone stole your identity and they performed those transactions, not you. But I don't know of any Federal or State law that would change the very, very basic principle of law that a property owner gets to decide who can and cannot access their property. eBay owns eBay. One key benefit of ownership is precisely that you can make decisions that other people consider to be unfair, discriminatory (other than the specifically prohibited categories) and draconian. Other people don't have to agree with your decisions for them to be lawful.	Discrimination in employment The starting point is: discrimination is legal unless there is a law that says it isn't. So for example, when I advertise a plumbing position, I can discriminate on the basis of if a candidate is or is not a plumber and, further, I can discriminate on how good a plumber I think they are. What I can't do, in the united-states is discriminate against someone on the basis of age if they are 40 or older. It is legal for me to discriminate against someone on age if they are younger than 40. Why? Because that's what the law says. The full list of what constitutes illegal discrimination in employment is a person's race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information. It is also illegal to retaliate against a person because he or she complained about discrimination, filed a charge of discrimination, or participated in an employment discrimination investigation or lawsuit. Elections aren't employment Voters are free to vote for the candidate of their choice based on whatever reason they want. If I want to decide that the only candidates I will vote for are female homosexuals between the ages of 27 and 62 with one leg and a pirate accent, then that's my right.	Is it legal to retaliate against an employee who answered falsely when asked an illegal question? It depends. It is important to ensure we understand the distinction between (1) questions which are illegal in and of themselves, and (2) the illegality of hiring, discharging, or failing to hire based on a candidate's/employee's answer(s) or attributes. You yourself might have been aware of the difference beforehand, but your question is a good occasion for clarifying a general misconception. In instances of the first category, it would certainly be illegal to retaliate against the employee insofar as the falsehood is traceable to the employer's violation of the law. Examples of this category are sections 432.3(b) ("An employer shall not [...] seek salary history information, including compensation and benefits, about an applicant for employment") and 432.7 ("An employer [...] shall not ask an applicant for employment to disclose, through any written form or verbally, information concerning an arrest or detention that did not result in conviction") of the California Labor code. Scenarios of the latter category are more intricate, since an employer might prove that his decision to discharge the employee falls outside of conduct sanctioned by statute. For instance, 42 USC § 2000e-2(k)(1)(A)(ii) does not outlaw --at least at a federal level-- questions about the individual's protected categories (such as sex, religion, or national origin). It only outlaws the decision making that is influenced by the protected categories which are the subject matter of the interview questions. The example you gave ("what would your husband do if you got this job?") serves to illustrate the difference, putting aside that questions of that sort might be intended to indirectly ascertain the candidate's marital status. Let's assume that the employer seeks to hire a waitress, and that the jurisdiction at issue outlaws discrimination on the basis of employee's marital status but not the questions about it. The employer has a cognizable interest to avoid employing any waitress whose husband is an overly jealous person with propensity to attack male clients. The waitress's lie when answering that question (for instance, by fraudulently representing that she is single or that her husband is ok with her employment as waitress there) contravenes the employer's legitimate interest to protect its clients. In that context, the employer's discovery that the employee lied during the interview gives reasonable grounds for discharging that employee. After all, the employee's intentional misrepresentation only strengthens the employer's suspicion of being at greater risk (of liability toward clients) than the employee is willing to admit. For the employer to prevail at law, it would need to be proved that the reason for discharging the female employee was not her marital status itself, but the employee's concealment of a risk that is a matter of employer's lawful concern.	Some are, some aren't. For instance, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits all employment discrimination on the basis of race, including discrimination against whites. On the other hand, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act explicitly only protects people who are at least 40, and the Supreme Court held that it only applies to discrimination against older workers in favor of younger workers in General Dynamics v. Cline. While both laws forbid discrimination on the basis of X, the Supreme Court held that Congress clearly meant to limit ADEA to discrimination against older workers. You specifically use veteran status as an example. Veteran status is protected by the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. The point of the law is explicitly to make it easier for people to serve in uniform without messing up their career. The law specifically bans discrimination against veterans (or a couple other service-related categories) on the basis of service. It does not ban discrimination in favor of veterans. In fact, the federal government (which is supposed to be a model employer under USERRA) gives veterans a preference in hiring decisions. Congress's goal in enacting Title VII was to make race a non-factor in employment; their goal with USERRA was to encourage military service.	In general, employers in the United States are free to fire you for your speech. The First Amendment does not apply to anyone except the government (other than a narrow set of circumstances where private parties act on behalf of the government or take on government roles, like when private universities employ campus police). If the officer was being fired from a job at a private company, this would not be an interesting question -- the answer would clearly be "no, there is no First Amendment claim here." That’s not to say labor laws might not come into play (for instance, federal law prohibits firing an employee for organizing a union, and some states prohibit firing for off-duty political speech); however, labor law protections exist by statute and are not derived from the First Amendment. What makes this interesting is that the government is involved. Unlike private employers, government agencies are bound by the First Amendment. In Pickering v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court held that this does restrict them in their role as employer and that they can't necessarily fire an employee for speech. Pickering imposes a balancing test, where the harm to the employee's First Amendment rights is weighed against the government's interest in efficient operation. Courts have given particular leeway to police departments punishing speech that would undermine public trust and confidence in the department. A police officer expressing racist views, even privately, can seriously hamper the effectiveness of the department if the speech gets linked back to them. For instance, see Pappas v. Giuliani, where the Second Circuit upheld the firing of an NYPD officer for anonymously mailing racist diatribes from home in his off-duty time. Another answer suggests that the main question is a public safety one: whether the officer could be trusted to carry out his duties without bias. But that's not the only legitimate consideration for the government employer. The courts have repeatedly held that public perception of an agency is a legitimate concern, especially when it comes to agencies (like the police) whose job requires maintaining good relations with the community. In Pappas, the officer was assigned as a computer operator who had no contact with the public, but he was still a police officer whose speech had a high potential to undermine NYPD community relations.
Can articles of impeachment be repealed? Suppose the House of Representatives of the United States impeaches a federal officer such as the president or a federal judge, etc. Can they repeal that act before the Senate tries the case?	It's never happened so there is really no definitive answer. There are plausible arguments both ways. Many impeachment cases have been dismissed in the Senate before a trial is complete, or before a Senate trial is commenced, because a resignation has made the process moot.	Perhaps. The relevant law is assembled into notes on 3 USC 102. The original act of 1963 defines President-elect in this manner: (c) The terms 'President-elect' and 'Vice-President-elect' as used in this Act shall mean such persons as are the apparent successful candidates for the office of President and Vice President, respectively, as ascertained by the Administrator following the general elections held to determine the electors of President and Vice President in accordance with title 3, United States Code, sections 1 and 2. There is no specific statutory provision directing the Administrator of the GSA to ascertain who is that President-Elect. The administration is apparently taking a position similar to that taken by the Clinton administration, that states determine who has been elected, and the states have not officially determined who has been elected: nor has a candidate conceded. If a court orders the Administrator to make the ascertainment, I expect that the administration would appeal the ruling up to the Supreme Court. This letter, addressed to the Administrator, gives the legal rationale.	No. The federal perjury statute applies only when there has been an oath taken to assert that the false statement was true, or the false statement was otherwise submitted under penalty of perjury. There is another statute concerning false statements generally, but it is also limited in such a way that it would not apply to the state of the union speech.	Mr. Comey answered this in his testimony. LANKFORD: Okay. Fair enough. If the president wanted to stop an investigation, how would he do that? Knowing it is an ongoing criminal investigation or counterintelligence investigation, would that be a matter of going to you, you perceive, and say, you make it stop because he doesn't have the authority to stop it? How would the president make an ongoing investigation stop? COMEY: I'm not a legal scholar, but as a legal matter, the president is the head of the executive branch and could direct, in theory, we have important norms against this, but could anyone be investigative or not. I think he has the legal authority. All of us ultimately report in the executive branch to the president. LANKFORD: Would that be to you, or the attorney general or who? COMEY: I suppose he could if he wanted to issue a direct order could do it anyway. Through the attorney general or issue it directly to me. This issue also came up in United States v Texas. The obligation to refrain from interference with the FBI is a norm, not a legal requirement. And, like many executive powers, an act that is sometimes legally permitted can become illegal given an improper motive. It is also possible for Congress to find legal acts to be untenably corrupt.	When a US Senator or Congressperson poses a question to a private company about some behavior or action of the company, does that carry any legal weight? In other words, (a) is the company required to answer? and (b) if the result is "bad" (however that is defined), can the Senator or Congressperson impose any penalty. Is it all just "showboating" on the part of the politician? Individual members of Congress cannot compel a company to testify, although a failure to respond might result in legislation being adopted in a way contrary to the preferences of the person being asked, while a response might influence legislation in a manner that the person being asked likes. Congressional committees have subpoena power which if disregarded may be enforced in federal district courts on pain of the non-responsive person being held in contempt of court, which is essentially equivalent to the power of a court to subpoena someone's testimony.	Your parsing is incorrect. The semicolon after "from the same" starts a new clause. It should be read as: [Part 2] They shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, [Part 3] be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; [Part 4] and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place. So they are privileged from arrest while attending sessions, or while going to and returning from those sessions, except in cases of treason, felony, or breach of the peace. As a separate privilege, they shall not be questioned anywhere (except in Congress itself) regarding their speech and debate in Congress. But if they are neither attending, going to, or returning from a Congressional session, and the crime is not related to their speech or debate, they have no immunity. Also, to echo user6726, the privilege from arrest while attending Congress or traveling is not the same as immunity. If they commit a crime on the way to or from Congress, they can still be arrested after they get home, and subsequently tried and convicted.	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.	As an example, POTUS does not undertake the entire pardon process on his own, instead they are preliminarily processed by the Department of Justice, which makes a recommendation. Only POTUS can "grant" the pardon, and we lack substantive information on how deeply he gets involved (does he just sign documents based on staff recommendations? does he do his own research?). I don't know what physical form Clinton's 450 pardons on January 20, 2001 took, but a president might use an autopen (Obama did use such a device). Questions have been raised and definitive answers from SCOTUS are lacking as to whether hand-to-paper signatures are demanded by the Constitution. DoJ at one point thought it was okay. This article lists the Constitutional functions which cannot be delegated: reporting to the Congress on the state of the Union; convening either or both Houses of Congress and adjourning Congress; signing and vetoing bills; receiving ambassadors and public ministers (recognition); appointing and removing ambassadors, ministers, and certain other public officers; nominating federal judges; and making recess appointments However, the Constitutional function of negotiating treaties or numerous functions as commander in chief of the armed forces is generally delegated, within the executive branch. Numerous statutory functions can be delegated (and Congress may say explicitly that some function can be delegated, in passing the law). The matter of implied power to delegate statutory function is the topic of a couple of centuries of litigation, but as an example in Williams v. United States, 42 U.S. 290 SCOTUS held that a law prohibiting the advance of public money in any case whatsoever to the disbursing officers of government except under the special direction of the President does not require the personal and ministerial performance of this duty, to be exercised in every instance by the President under his own hand. SCOTUS has not established bright lines regarding the extent of permissible delegation.
Misdelivered merchandise -- can you legally (if not morally) keep it? The FTC says: If you receive merchandise that you didn’t order, you have a legal right to keep it as a free gift. However (for example) Maine's website says: A person is guilty of theft if the person obtains or exercises control over the property of another that the person knows to have been [...] delivered under a mistake [...] and [...] the person fails to take reasonable measures to return it. Violation of this paragraph is a Class E crime. These two appear to contradict. Does this mean this is actually different across states? Is the FTC potentially giving people advise that might get them in trouble with their state? What's the rule on whether you can legally keep merchandise that was mailed to you by mistake?	Reading the examples from the ftc site what they mean is if someone sends you a good (intending for you to be the one who owns it) and asks you to pay for it, then it counts as a free gift If a good was accidentally sent to you but intended for someone else, then you keeping the good is theft.	No. This would not be illegal. You are not trespassing or breaking and entering since you have permission to be on the premises, and you are the rightful owner of the guitar so you are not depriving him of property that belongs to him. If you did this with the assistance of a law enforcement officer, rather than Bob's family, without a court order describing the property to be retrieved, this would be called a "civil assist". If the guitar were collateral for a loan, it would be a self-help "repossession" (a.k.a. "repo") authorized by the Uniform Commercial Code if it could be accomplished without a breach of the peace, and it would not require a court order. If you did this pursuant to a court order the case you brought to retrieve the guitar would be called a "replevin action" and you would also need to obtain a "writ of assistance" to authorize a trespass in the presence of law enforcement to retrieve the guitar. Also, Bob would still be be guilty of the crime of theft of the guitar, even though you got it back, because he took it with an intent to permanently deprive you, its owner, of the property that belongs to you. You could also probably sue him for conversion or "civil theft" in some jurisdictions, but your damages would be nominal except for punitive or statutory damages under a civil theft statute, because you ultimately got the guitar back, and so you suffered only minimal economic harm.	The contract between you and the company is for the supply of the goods. How they get them to you is irrelevant; they may have them in stock, or they may order them and ship them on, or they may send an order to the factory to ship them directly to you. There is nothing saying that they have to be in stock anywhere. The law you refer to says that they must ship within 30 days unless they provide a specific date. In effect "shipped within 30 days" is an implicit term in the contract. If after 30 days they have not shipped the goods then you are entitled to rescind the contract (i.e. get your money back). Where things get interesting is if they took your money knowing that they would not be able to ship within 30 days, or at least being reckless (i.e. not caring) about it. It does rather sound like this may be the case. If so then it may rise to the level of fraud, and the FTC or state authorities may take action. Try writing to the FTC. A single event won't get any action, but if they get lots of complaints then they might.	Here is an excellent (and extensive) explanation of jurisprudence regarding the "good faith exception" to the admissibility of evidence found due to an error. In short: Yes, the contraband found in Unit B would be evidence admissible in court. (Of course, evidence found in Unit B would only support charges against whomever had a nexus to that property. If the owner of Unit C had no access to Unit B, then evidence in Unit B would not per se implicate him in a crime.) Law enforcement will not return seized property if it believes the property is "contraband." As an example, in Pennsylvania a person can petition a court for return of property seized by law enforcement: Rule 588 requires the petitioner to establish entitlement to lawful possession of the property, but the motion will be rejected if the State successfully argues that the property is contraband, or "derivative contraband" (which has been defined in case law to mean there is "a specific nexus between the property and criminal activity").	"Fraud" is roughly lying to get something that isn't yours - for example, my money. It turns from attempted fraud to fraud at the point where I would be defrauded if we both take no further action. That would often be the point where I hand over the money, for example if you offer goods for sale that don't exist and that you don't intend to deliver. If you fill out a form and forge my signature to get money, and send it off to someone who will give you the money, it would be fraud at the point where I lose my money if we both take no further action. That might be the second where you drop the letter in the mailbox.	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...	Following the guidance of the police In summary: If the item is hazardous or dangerous you should report it to the police using the emergency number. If the item is non-hazardous and found in a private place, hand it to the owner of the premises - it's their responsibility to attempt to find the owner and the property becomes theirs if they can't. If the item is non-hazardous and found on public transport, hand it to the operator - they have their own by-laws about lost property. If the item is non-hazardous and found in a public place, if it has a serial number, hand it to the police - they may be able to trace the owner if it is a government document, hand it to the issuer if it is of low value, make reasonable efforts to find the owner "these could include asking people nearby or in offices or shops. You could also consider leaving a note with your details. If you can't find the owner there's nothing more we can do and you should dispose of the item." if it is of high value, make reasonable efforts to find the owner and if you can't hand it to the police.	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.
Senate Impeachment rule change? Although a 2/3 majority is required for the Senate to convict an impeached US President, some of the rules governing the Senate trial can be amended by a simple majority of the Senators. Could a simple majority of Senators vote to make the conviction vote a secret ballot? EDIT in light of some interesting answers: By secret, I mean no record exists to ascribe a particular vote to a specific senator. Black balls, pieces of paper with "Convict" or "Don't convict" printed on them, whatever. Obtaining individual "Yays and Nays" to record in the Journal after the secret ballots have been collected and counted could prove impossible, but would that invalidate the result of the original, secret ballot?	Yes the Senate could adopt a secret ballot rule, but other constitutional provisions combined with high partisanship make it practically impossible that the final results will be done through secret ballot. As other answers have mentioned, Article 1, Section 3, provides for the Senate to have sole power of trying impeachments. Similarly by Article 1, Section 5, each House may adopt its own rules. That means that yes the Senate can create its own rules that say the conviction vote will be done by secret ballot. However, adopting these rules only achieves a pyrrhic secret ballot. The very same section that provides for each house to make its own rules (Article 1, Section 5) also states: ...and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the desire of one fifth of those present, be entered on the Journal. This means that if any vote is taken including this secret ballot vote, after doing so any member can ask for the Yeas and Nays of all members to be put into the Journal. The journal is the official record of each House. Thus while the vote was first taken in secret at least any member of the Senate will have access to the subsequent recorded vote, provided at least 1/5 of the Senate wishes to have a recorded vote. While not all is lost, the Senate could declare that this record itself is to remain secret, all 100 Senators and most likely many of their staff members will know how each Senator voted. Additionally, the Speech and Debate Clause states that: for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place. Thus if a Senator were to publicly read the vote results into the record of a public committee hearing or during a filibuster or for really any other procedure (as rules of germane debate are very very lax in the Senate, but that is an issue for another question) that information could easily become public record. So while yes the rules can be changed to use secret ballot, a fifth (20 Senators currently) could ask for the Yeas and Nays to be entered on the Journal and this defeats the purpose of the secret ballot. So the only reasonable way to keep a secret ballot as the final dispositive record of a vote is to convince more than 4/5ths of the Senators to not ask for a recorded vote. In this sense it is certainly allowed and possible for the Senate to vote by secret ballot.	It refers to the voters in the state who cast votes. "Elector" isn't a special term invented for the Electoral College, it just means "person who votes in the election." For President, the real election is technically when the Electoral College votes, so those are the "electors." For Senate, the real election is when the people of the state vote, and so every qualified voter in the state is an elector. The provision means that a state has to set the same standards to vote for Senate as to vote for its own legislature; this has always been true for the House, and limits the extent to which a state can undermine the concept of popular election of Congress.	Bob should certainly expect to be impeached by whichever side his testimony injures. Their attorney will confront him with the transcript of his previous testimony, and likely read it out loud for the jury to hear, and force him to acknowledge that he said something different before. This is pretty standard trial tactics. Bob would not be treated as formally admitting that he committed perjury, though I think it's fair to say that he has effectively made that admission. One side will treat him as having lied the first time; the other will treat him as lying now. It's possible that he will have some explanation for the discrepancy -- he was high, he has memory problems, he misunderstood the question -- but in your hypothetical, the explanation would have to be pretty amazing to justify such a complete reversal.	No. There are few if any checks on any President for any Pardons issued (a general Impeachment may be the only check but there has never been a strong call for impeachment for a pardon.). Further more, the protection against Double Jeopardy is in effect meaning future Presidents cannot prosecute the pardon recipient for any crimes that were pardoned by a previous president, though they may prosecute any future criminal incidents perpetrated by the pardoned person that are not related to the events surrounding the pardoned crime.	Yes, so long as you are still a US citizen, it does not matter if you no longer maintain residence in the United States. If you no longer have any sort of residence that can be claimed as a current residence, you simply register at whatever the last residence you used was when you lived in the United States (even if someone else lives there now). You would then have an absentee ballot mailed to you overseas. However, if you don't maintain any sort of residence in the United States, you will only be eligible to vote for federal offices (president, senate, house). You won't be allowed to vote in state or local elections. The keywords you'll need for voting are: UOCAVA, which is a program that allows for easier voting overseas (in some cases the ballot can actually be emailed to you and you are only responsible for printing it out, filling it out, and mailing it back). FPCA, which is the form you fill out. It actually doubles as a registration and an absentee ballot request, so you only have to fill out one form. The absentee request is good for all elections in the calendar year it is submitted, so you only have to fill it out once for both the primary and the general.	The US election authorities already record who voted in which elections, and that information is a matter of public record. When I was active in politics some years ago, and at one point a candidate for local office, my campaign and others routinely purchased from the state a "voter list" for each district. This list showed each registered voter, with that person's name, address, age (to the nearest year), party of registration if any, and in which of the last several (I think 10) elections that person had voted. These were delivered in electronic form, and could be sorted and analyzed in whatever way the purchaser pleased. I understand that similar lists are available in every US state, I think from a legal point of view, a picture would reveal no more information than these already-public lists, and since they have not been successfully challenged as unconstitutional, I don't see that the pictures would be subject to such a challenge, unless it could be shown that taking such pictures had a chilling effect, that is, that taking them made certain categories of voters, such as minority voters, less likely to vote. I am not aware of any specific federal or state laws on taking pictures of voters. But if there were a chilling effect, that would probably violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Federal Fourteenth amendment. That clause has been central, or at least significant, in most challenges to voter restrictions, both successful and unsuccessful. But since, as far as I know, no state or other US jurisdiction has tried this, there is no caselaw on point, and one cannot be sure how such a case would be resolved. Whether this would be good policy is a very different question, and where it would be politically acceptable is yet another. Neither of those are on topic here on Law.se, although they might be on Politics.SE.	They are not given independence from statute. This clause just says that conviction is not the end goal of the prosecutor. If in light of the evidence, the prosecutor comes to believe a person is not guilty, they are not to proceed with the prosecution. They must not hide exculpatory or mitigating evidence in order to get a conviction.	The 24th Amendment states: Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. But, no one in incarcerated in prison (and hence loses the right to vote) merely for failing to pay taxes. Usually, one is incarcerated in prison on tax charges for fraud in connection with one's tax obligation which is different from failure to pay. (A misdemeanor conviction does not result in the loss of an ability to vote, even while in jail.) Refusal to pay, on grounds other than lacking the money (inability to pay isn't a criminal offense), when done without full compliance with other tax return filing obligations, is tantamount to tax litigation abuse and abuse of process, not mere failure to pay a debt.
What rights does a minor have when they have a child with a non-minor in New Hampshire? Title pretty much says it all, my friend had a kid with a girl at 16 (she was 19), and recently, she up and left him. She's still in the state, and their ages are 17 & 20 respectively now. Looking through state laws regarding how custody works, I can find no mention of dealing with minors, so my question is if minors do have rights to children they had, to begin with. The primary law I'm looking at to try and help is NH RSA 461-A:6, some pertinent text from the law is as follows: I. In determining parental rights and responsibilities, the court shall be guided by the best interests of the child, and shall consider the following factors: (a) The relationship of the child with each parent and the ability of each parent to provide the child with nurture, love, affection, and guidance. (b) The ability of each parent to assure that the child receives adequate food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and a safe environment. (c) The child's developmental needs and the ability of each parent to meet them, both in the present and in the future. (d) The quality of the child's adjustment to the child's school and community and the potential effect of any change. (e) The ability and disposition of each parent to foster a positive relationship and frequent and continuing physical, written, and telephonic contact with the other parent, including whether contact is likely to result in harm to the child or to a parent. (f) The support of each parent for the child's contact with the other parent as shown by allowing and promoting such contact, including whether contact is likely to result in harm to the child or to a parent. (g) The support of each parent for the child's relationship with the other parent, including whether contact is likely to result in harm to the child or to a parent. (h) The relationship of the child with any other person who may significantly affect the child. (i) The ability of the parents to communicate, cooperate with each other, and make joint decisions concerning the children, including whether contact is likely to result in harm to the child or to a parent. (j) Any evidence of abuse, as defined in RSA 173-B:1, I or RSA 169-C:3, II, and the impact of the abuse on the child and on the relationship between the child and the abusing parent. (k) If a parent is incarcerated, the reason for and the length of the incarceration, and any unique issues that arise as a result of incarceration. (l) The policy of the state regarding the determination of parental rights and responsibilities described in RSA 461-A:2. (m) Any other additional factors the court deems relevant. I have been unable to find in this law or others how the situation is dealt with if one of the parents is a minor, but my friend mentioned that they had been court ordered for mediation, so I would assume they at least treat a minor somewhat like a non-minor in this circumstance. Any further information would be much appreciated.	The applicable state law is here. Section 461-A:2 guides the interpretation of the chapter: I. Because children do best when both parents have a stable and meaningful involvement in their lives, it is the policy of this state, unless it is clearly shown that in a particular case it is detrimental to a child, to: (a) Support frequent and continuing contact between each child and both parents. (b) Encourage parents to share in the rights and responsibilities of raising their children after the parents have separated or divorced. (c) Encourage parents to develop their own parenting plan with the assistance of legal and mediation professionals, unless there is evidence of domestic violence, child abuse, or neglect. (d) Grant parents and courts the widest discretion in developing a parenting plan. (e) Consider both the best interests of the child in light of the factors listed in RSA 461-A:6 and the safety of the parties in developing a parenting plan. II. This chapter shall be construed so as to promote the policy stated in this section. The law gets no more specific than to refer to the fact of being a parent. The law does not favor males over females, or vice versa, and the law does not discriminate between a parent who is a minor versus a parent who is a legal adult. The rights of parents are equal, ab initio. However, the recognition of the rights of a father does depend on the legal establishment of paternity whereas the law takes maternity to be self-evident. This may have been dealt with at birth, or may require a legal process if paternity is contested. If that part is sorted out, then disagreements about custody etc. which can't be worked out through agreement possibly with a mediator can be resolved in court. The court will determine what constitutes the "best interests of the child". That is all there is to it, legally. That does not mean that a judge making a decision is absolutely immune from thinking that the minor father is less able take care of the child. Starting next year, a minor can seek emancipation, but until then (and until there is emancipation), the minor's parent have veto power over the father's wishes.	Anyone has a right to report illegal activities that it is aware of to the authorities. This is in fact where 99.9% of police investigations start. In addition, students of a school (or, more generally, members of any organisation) are eligible to be investigated/disciplined by the school in accordance with the rules of the school providing that the investigation and punishment are in accordance with the law. This would normally permit (require?) notification of any child's parent or guardian. In loco parentis does not arise - the school is acting as a responsible citizen; not as a substitute for the children's parents.	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.	Such sad and tragic circumstances, my sympathy to all involved. General I do not know the specifics of English law as it applies but I believe it is similar enough to New South Wales, Australia that the general overview that follows is not likely to be far wrong. Before a court intervenes there has to be a dispute and someone with standing must bring an action to the court. We can surmise that a dispute arose about the best medical treatment for the child between the child's parents and the child's medical professionals - if there was unanimity there would have been no legal proceedings. Ultimately this is an issue of the welfare of the child. Medical professionals are under a legal obligation to report issues of child welfare to the relevant authorities. In the UK, the government authority responsible for child welfare is the Department of Education. We can presume that they intervened in accordance with their policies and procedures and their understanding of the law and the dispute could not be resolved. It is likely the DoE that brought the matter to the courts or the parent's disputing a DoE decision. The court will decide such issues in the best interest of the child. In deciding what that is, they will consider all the evidence including the parent's wishes, the child's wishes (not relevant in this case but it can be for older children), other relatives, medical opinion etc. They will also consider what the law is, including precedent and make their decision. If you read the linked article about the high court trial the judge is quoted as saying: “It is with the heaviest of hearts but with complete conviction for Charlie’s best interests that I find it is in Charlie’s best interests that I accede to these applications and rule that GOSH may lawfully withdraw all treatment save for palliative care to permit Charlie to die with dignity.” “I dare say that medical science may benefit objectively from the experiment, but experimentation cannot be in Charlie’s best interests unless there is a prospect of benefit for him.” “Charlie’s parents have sadly but bravely acknowledged and accepted that the quality of life that Charlie has at present is not worth sustaining, for he can only breathe through a ventilator, and although they believe that he has a sleep/wake cycle and can recognise them and react to them when they are close, they realise that he cannot go on as he is lying in bed, unable to move, fed through a tube, breathing through a machine.” “Understandably, Charlie’s parents had grasped that possibility, they have done all they could possibly have done, they have very publicly raised funds. What parents would not do the same? But I have to say, having heard the evidence, that this case has never been about affordability, but about whether there is anything to be done for Charlie.” “But if Charlie’s damaged brain function cannot be improved, as all agree, then how can he be any better off than he is now, which is a condition that his parents believe should not be sustained?” This decision was reviewed by the European Human Rights Court who “endorsed in substance the approach” taken by the British courts and declared “the decision is final”. Is it "symptomatic of a Single-Payer healthcare system" Probably not. Almost universally, child welfare cases are decided on the "best interests of the child". This judge in this case within this legal and cultural system decided as he did - and I do not doubt that it was a difficult and emotional task. Change the judge, change the case, change the law and change the culture and you may change the decision but, then again, maybe not. Perhaps in a place with a different culture towards health care, the medical practitioners would not have formed the opinion that the experimental treatment was not in the best interest of their patient and there would have been no dispute that required government intervention. Legal basis Governments can pass laws that impact the people in their jurisdiction. The UK government has passed laws that allow them to interfere in the normal relationship of parental authority. The UK government is not unique - all countries have such laws. Further, the UK government controls who enters and leaves their borders and in what circumstances. Did the NHS (or the hospital) take custody of the child away from the parents? Almost certainly not - this was not a custody battle. Or does the NHS get to decide upon the welfare of its patients once they are in the system? Of course. Every medical professional/hospital/clinic everywhere in the world has a legal and moral responsibility to provide treatment in the best interests of their patients. They will get sued if they don't. Why were the parents not able to take Charlie away on their own recognizance, like (presumably) adults can refuse treatment and leave the hospital? Because an adult can decide for themselves, a child cannot. Other people have responsibility for deciding for the child and when, as here, people with overlapping responsibilities (parents and medical professionals) have divergent views, the government intervenes through executive or judicial action.	If an adult had physically restrained the miscreant brat, they could be sued for / charged with battery (which does not mean "beating up", per Cal Penal 242, it is the "willful and unlawful use of force or violence upon the person of another". In either case, there is a defense that can be mounted, the "defense of others" defense, to the effect that the person had a reasonable belief that it was necessary to prevent physical harm to others. Which means, the jury would imagine themselves in that situation and guess how likely it is that someone might get hurt. Lofting 5 lb chess pieces at a 2 year old could poke out an eye, especially since they haven't learned to duck at that age – however, I question (as would an opposing attorney) the characterization "quite dangerous". At any rate, it would depend on the level of danger posed. There is also a "proportionality" requirement for the defense of others defense: "The defendant used no more force than was reasonably necessary to defend against that danger" (CalCrim instruction 3470). The battery might not have been necessary, since simply getting between the criminal and his victims could have been sufficient. As to whether there would actually be a lawsuit, that depends in part on the mind-set of the parents. Assuming that the level of force did not rise above simple bodily contact, it is unlikely that a jury would vote to convict / find liable, but certainly not impossible. If under those circumstances the results would not be in serious doubt, then it is unlikely that the person would be prosecuted (the prosecutor wouldn't bother with such a case). We may also assume that a decent attorney would persuade the offended parent-client that it is not a good use of their money to pursue he matter. Still, the risk is not negligible, since you don't know whether you'll have bad luck with the jury, or whether the child suffers from eggshell skull syndrome and then you would be is serious trouble. I don't think the fears are unrealistic, though they may be improbable, and they could be definitive for people who live in fear.	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.	It's basically a question about the rules of court. While I can't say for sure about this case, a scheduled court date that isn't canceled, even in a stayed proceeding, is to be held. Non-appearance of a party or their representing lawyer is a bad idea as it might incur contempt of court. Such a court date can be used to (once more) inform the court and other parties of the stay. Paperwork that might have been delayed in postal service is then given over under the eyes of the judge, pretty much ensuring that the other parties did get them and nobody may cry foul play. Possibly the meeting can be used by the attorney to reschedule other court dates or depositions if the stay has a specific time length. Also note, that not all stays are for the whole case but might only rule to stay parts of it: a divorce case that includes a case for visitation of a child might stay the visitation part till a related case about where the child will live in the future is solved, but continue on the parts that try to sort out the divorce itself. Such non-stayed proceedings do proceed even under the stay of some others.	If a line in your will bequeaths something that you don't have the power to give (e.g. you bequeath something that you don't own at the time of your death), that line has no legal effect. If I died and left you the house at 10 Downing Street in London, for example, you wouldn't actually be getting it. If your will contains enough of those lines and/or they seem excessively unreasonable, it may cause the validity of the will to be challenged on the basis that you weren't competent to prepare and sign it. If the people reading it think it's reasonable, it may have a social effect based on what it conveys to them, which could lead to voluntary compliance with your wish (especially if the main obstacle to that being realized is a mistaken understanding of and desire to respect your wishes). That could help make peace, for example, if a surviving parent's remarriage would otherwise be opposed by children (or the surviving partner) or others based solely on a mistaken understanding of the wishes of the deceased. It could also make for a really awkward moment, depending on the views of and relationships between survivors. Addressing user662852's comment on the question: You can also use a will to name a guardian for anyone you have guardianship over, which is usually more important for children (e.g. see "Why Every Parent Needs a Will.").
Secretly recording job applications to incite the manager into EEOC violation I am planning to start targeting small businesses owned by veterans, and apply for jobs while wearing a hidden recorder. I plan to bait them by stating during my request to apply for a job, "soldiers are nothing more than hired killers and deserve contempt." If they terminate the interview at that point I will then sue them for discrimination based on my political beliefs, which is illegal in my state (california). Rinse, repeat. I know that recording a private conversation is illegal and won't be admitted in court, but I plan to get around that by doing this in a public area of their business where other people are around. This will also help keep me from being physically assaulted by stating my belief. Can this tactic of inciting a strong emotional reaction that betrays someone into admitting an illegal discrimination be used to destroy veteran businesses? Thanks for any help you can give. I'm very excited by this plan and looking to tighten down the loose ends. Murderers don't deserve to have the economic power to run businesses.	It sounds like you've read about two party consent and public spaces. But while anyone can sue, it's winning a case that's relevant. "My client respects the applicant's beliefs, but choosing to express beliefs in such a way during a job interview indicated sufficiently questionable judgement that my client was unable to consider the applicant further for the advertised position." "It has also become apparent that the plaintiff was not acting in good faith in making an application for employment." Court finds for the defendant and orders the plaintiff to pay costs.	That's an old idea that has been tried several times before (such as the first, being Unvarnished: Website Lets You Review People (And Trash Them) \| HuffPost, which no longer exists); and one of the latest incarnations is Peeple (mobile application - Wikipedia). There are lots of legal liabilities, including defamation and harassment/stalking, even with the Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act \| Electronic Frontier Foundation which (mostly) protects the website owner from others' speech posted on the site (your mileage may vary due to jurisdiction). The only way such a site would survive is to do what Peeple and other sites have done: greatly limit the speech allowed, such as limiting to only positive reviews, giving the subject complete control over what does appear on their profile, only allowing "opt-in" profiles, verify identities, etc. You would have to implement full GDPR compliance; but various lawsuits will either shut you down before you get far enough to launch or soon after and force you to greatly limit the scope of the site. Most lawyers would advise you to find something else to do with your time and money.	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.	I did not write "confidential" on my letter, but I assumed a business proposal is automatically considered as a confidential material. An incorrect assumption unfortunately. Unless you have a confidentiality agreement (NDA) with the first company, they and their agents are not under any legal obligation to keep information you share with them confidential. How is the legal situation here? There is none on your side. You lied about a direct question asked and were caught in the lie. Company A had no obligation to keep what you sent confidential. Even if they did, that may not (depending on how the confidentiality agreement is worded) keep the employee of company A stating that they had received the same proposal. Chalk this one up to a lesson on confidentiality and honesty in business. There are no reasonable assumptions of confidentiality in business unless you specifically state that they are confidential or are provided as part of a confidentiality agreement.	Regardless of the context of the first solicitation, Officer Jones' second solicitation was made in willful refusal to accept Betty's unambiguous "no" for an answer; this is sexually coercive behavior, specifically postrefusal sexual persistence. If this question is assessed from the perspective of the "average" woman, then after her initial declination, extraction of a "yes" cannot be considered uncoerced. Here's a question: how many times does she have to say no before it starts to count? Before it counts against her finally being exhausted, harassed, or intimidated into capitulating? Because by that logic, he never has to stop; he can continue to harass her until he finally accomplishes his objective (grounds to arrest her) - in which case, why bother with the pretense? If it takes 200 "no's" to wear her down to "whatever", then the first 200 "no's" just didn't matter as much as the first "whatever", so why bother with the formality of pretending like the first mattered when it clearly does not? To demonstrate the significance of her initial "no, thanks" and his subsequent refusal to accept it from another perspective: if Betty and Jones were coworkers in the same office, if he continued to solicit her after being told no the first time, that would be the definition of sexual harassment on his part and it would not matter how genial or friendly or casual he thinks he's being; furthermore, if her workplace failed to intervene on her behalf, they would be engaging in sexually discriminatory behavior by creating a hostile work environment, regardless of how genial / friendly / casual, etc. It's hard to see how this could act as evidence of her having committed a crime in one context while being grounds for termination of his employment in another context. HTH.	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.	According to this article, the Malmö Administrative District Court found that the intent of the user is immaterial to whether a camera is being used for surveillance, so even if that is not why you are doing this, it counts legally as "surveillance". The law requires a permit from the länsstyrelse (county? government), according to the Kameraövervakningslag (2013:460) (article 8 states the requirement for permit, art. 16 tells you who to apply to). I believe that a tennis court would be considered a "public place", even if privately owned. Art. 17 tells you what goes into an application (there is probably a form), and art. 18 says that the kommun gets to weigh in. Presumably it would be critical to have a consent form signed before any recording happens, and you would include that in the application.	In general, employers in the United States are free to fire you for your speech. The First Amendment does not apply to anyone except the government (other than a narrow set of circumstances where private parties act on behalf of the government or take on government roles, like when private universities employ campus police). If the officer was being fired from a job at a private company, this would not be an interesting question -- the answer would clearly be "no, there is no First Amendment claim here." That’s not to say labor laws might not come into play (for instance, federal law prohibits firing an employee for organizing a union, and some states prohibit firing for off-duty political speech); however, labor law protections exist by statute and are not derived from the First Amendment. What makes this interesting is that the government is involved. Unlike private employers, government agencies are bound by the First Amendment. In Pickering v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court held that this does restrict them in their role as employer and that they can't necessarily fire an employee for speech. Pickering imposes a balancing test, where the harm to the employee's First Amendment rights is weighed against the government's interest in efficient operation. Courts have given particular leeway to police departments punishing speech that would undermine public trust and confidence in the department. A police officer expressing racist views, even privately, can seriously hamper the effectiveness of the department if the speech gets linked back to them. For instance, see Pappas v. Giuliani, where the Second Circuit upheld the firing of an NYPD officer for anonymously mailing racist diatribes from home in his off-duty time. Another answer suggests that the main question is a public safety one: whether the officer could be trusted to carry out his duties without bias. But that's not the only legitimate consideration for the government employer. The courts have repeatedly held that public perception of an agency is a legitimate concern, especially when it comes to agencies (like the police) whose job requires maintaining good relations with the community. In Pappas, the officer was assigned as a computer operator who had no contact with the public, but he was still a police officer whose speech had a high potential to undermine NYPD community relations.
Can the buyer have right to withhold the last payment on a item Picture this, a buyer comes to a company and lays out a specification of he or she wants, within that specification the buyer notes that they are withholding the last payment unless he or she has seen the product and has been granted reasonable accommodations to see, touch and check off the product meets specs. Can this senario be legally binding and what are the appropriate steps and applications must be taken for this to be in effect when it comes to online purchases or when the customer is remote and speaking to an agent.	As a buyer, you can write anything you want (aside from anything illegal) into a contract, i.e. to withhold the last payment on a item until you check off the final product specs, but that won't make a difference unless the manufacturer agrees to the contract. A contract that is agreed to (written and agreed to (typically signed), or verbal and verbally agreed to) is legally binding; a contract not agreed to is little more than a wishlist. If this involves, as you say, online purchases or when the customer is remote and working through an agent, a contract can still legally binding, but the contract may be more complex. You may need to draft more stipulations into the contract with all involved, (agent and manufacturer); but again, those mean nothing if the contract is not agreed to. See Contracts - Legal Information Institute for an outline of the steps of making a contract: An agreement between private parties creating mutual obligations enforceable by law. The basic elements required for the agreement to be a legally enforceable contract are: mutual assent, expressed by a valid offer and acceptance; adequate consideration; capacity; and legality. The enforcement of breaking a contract is a completely different situation. You may draft arbitration arbitration (Legal Information Institute) into the contract; or may go to civil court.	Termination. The binding provisions may be terminated by mutual written consent of the parties; Provided, however, that the termination of the Binding Provisions shall not affect the liability of a party for breach of any of the Binding Provisions prior to termination. It basically says that you and the company can free each other from the contract or any part of it — by signing another agreement. This is limited though: if either of you have breached the original contract and become liable (e.g. one of you owes the other heaps of money for damages), then those liabilities will remain. ... which is nonsense of course — because you always can free each other from any liabilities to each other if you both want it.	Is a text message legally binding? Yes, but the terms of the message need to be clear enough to ascertain the parties' intent at the formation of that contract or agreement. A contract does not even need to be in writing. There are also oral contracts and implied contracts, the latter referring to contracts which are inferred from the parties' conduct. A contract such as the agreement you describe here is binding regardless of its form. It is just easier to prove the existence of a contract if it is in writing. You did not specify your jurisdiction. If it is in the US, the price tag --rather than the downpayment-- of the object of the contract (i.e., the puppy you intend to buy) determines whether your complaint would need to be filed in Small Claims court. Generally speaking, parties to a dispute in Small Claims court have to represent themselves. Two remarks are pertinent. First, developing writing skills is utmost important not only for litigating a dispute, but also during the process of formulating the terms and conditions of a contract/agreement. Your post indicates that you seriously need to work on that. Second, the end of your post reflects that one of your managers violated labor law(s), which to most of us would be more worrisome than the controversy about the puppy. Legislation in most or all jurisdictions outlaws the act of withholding an employee's compensation regardless of its form (salary, commissions, and so forth). You might want to gain acquaintance with the labor laws of your jurisdiction so you can assess whether or how to proceed (does legislation require the employee to "exhaust administrative remedies" prior to filing in court? are administrative remedies optional? do these exist at all?), even if only to ascertain whether the deadline for filing the corresponding claim has elapsed.	It will vary by jurisdiction. This is a complicated area of law, but usually an advertisement or a display of goods in a shop is not an "offer" (in the contract law sense of the term), but an invitation to treat (or "invitation to bargain" in the US). The "offer" is the shopper saying "I'd like one of those please" or putting the goods on the band for the till. The "acceptance" is the checkout girl saying "that'll be ..."	Yes You asked for work to be done in the expectation you would have to pay for it and they did the work - that’s a legally binding contract. It appears that you did not agree on a price and possibly not on a time for making payment. If that is so, you agreed to pay a reasonable price in a reasonable time. They have issued an invoice stating what and when they believe is reasonable. You dispute parts of that invoice. That’s fine, people are allowed to have disputes. You have paid the undisputed amount I hope? Notwithstanding, your negotiations with the other party can go back and forth and things can be put on and taken off the table. But you don’t have a deal until you have a deal. At any time, either party can walk away and assert their rights. Or make a take it or leave it offer, commonly called playing hardball. Since it is undisputed that you owe them something, they can refer the debt to “collections (be that internal or an external debt collector). You should pay the undisputed amount immediately and you can continue to dispute the remainder. They will make a deal, initiate legal action, or let the matter die.	A "land contract" is not a way of renting property, it is a way of purchasing property on an installment basis without bank financing. It is Ohio's version of what in some other places is known as "contract for deed". See "What is a Land Contract in Ohio" and "How Land Contracts Work" The actual law is Section 5313. In a land contract, the buyer has equitable but not legal title. The buyer normally pays all taxes and fees, and is responsible for maintaining the property, just as if s/he has bought the property. But if the buyer defaults, all payments and equity would be forfeit to the seller. Until the buyer has paid 20% of the purchase price, or made 5 years of payments (whichever comes first) a single missed payment constitutes default and can lead to the buyer being evicted with all payments to date going to the seller, the buyer coming out of the deal with nothing. Also, if the seller still has a mortgage and defaults, the buyer may lose everything paid to date. The buyer does not have the protections that a lease gives a tenant, nor the protections that legal title gives a purchaser via a traditional mortgage. Land contracts are often used when the buyer cannot qualify for a mortgage. The buyer pays interest, and it is often at a higher rate than the current rate on a mortgage. Land contracts are often a form of predatory lending, but for some buyers they make sense. A buyer needs to carefully review the contract with a lawyer knowledgeable about land contracts, and consider the risks and benefits of this form of financing. As I understand it, there cannot be a valid land contract for one apartment in an apartment building. A land contract must be for title to the land and all fixtures, including all buildings, on it. (There was at one point some unclarity if the question referred to an apartment. It is now clear that it refers to a house, so this statement is not relevant to the OP, but may be to others.) It is not clear just what the OP's landlord (LL) has in mind. It may be that LL plans to offer a "land contract" in which the purchase would be completed only after a very long time, with the idea that the OP would simply default when s/he wanted to move. Such a default could harm the OP's credit. There seems no benefit to the OP in such a scheme compared to a lease, unless LL will lower the price significantly, taking into account maintenance costs and taxes, which OP may well be expected to pay under a land contract. Note that a landlord can't legally force a tenant to sign a document cancelling a lease, or to sign whatever s/he will call a "land contract". Nor can s/he cancel the lease without the tenant's consent except for good cause as specified in the law (such as not paying rent). S/He could become uncooperative on other matters if a tenant doesn't do as s/he wants. If a tenant does cancel his or her lease, s/he will lose some rights. Others are guaranteed by law as long as the tenant is paying rent. If one signs a "land contract", what happens depends on its provisions. OP needs to very carefully consider just what is being offered, and its risks and any possible benefits. Details of the contract will matter. No matter exactly what LL has in mind, this is not at all a usual procedure for a landlord. OP or anyone in a similar circumstance should be very careful.	Yes there is If no estimate is provided, the reasonable time is 30 days. Findlaw's page on Shipping Goods and the 30-Day Rule says: If the business is unable to ship within the promised time or within 30 days, the merchant must promptly tell the customer by mail, telephone or email, and give a new shipping estimate and give the customer a chance to cancel their order and receive a full refund. This offer to cancel or accept the new shipping date must give the customer sufficient time to make a decision. In other words, you can't call to inform a customer you can't make a shipping time and then demand an immediate answer. If the 10-12 estimate has passed, and the merchant has not notified the customer "promptly", say withing a week, the customer is entitled to demand a full refund,m with no "restocking fee" and the FTC can enforce this. The FTC has wide ranging powers to enforce the 30-Day Rule. Businesses can be sued by the FTC for injunctive relief, damages of up to $16,000 per violation, and redress for the consumer. Additionally, state and local agencies can sue [a merchant] for violating consumer protection law And This FTC page says: The Rule requires that when you advertise merchandise, you must have a reasonable basis for stating or implying that you can ship within a certain time. If you make no shipment statement, you must have a reasonable basis for believing that you can ship within 30 days. That is why direct marketers sometimes call this the "30-day Rule." If, after taking the customer’s order, you learn that you cannot ship within the time you stated or within 30 days, you must seek the customer’s consent to the delayed shipment. If you cannot obtain the customer’s consent to the delay -- either because it is not a situation in which you are permitted to treat the customer’s silence as consent and the customer has not expressly consented to the delay, or because the customer has expressly refused to consent -- you must, without being asked, promptly refund all the money the customer paid you for the unshipped merchandise. ... When you learn that you cannot ship on time, you must decide whether you will ever be able to ship the order. If you decide that you cannot, you must promptly cancel the order and make a full refund. If you decide you can ship the order later, you must seek the customer’s consent to the delay. You may use whatever means you wish to do this -- such as the telephone, fax, mail, or email -- as long as you notify the customer of the delay reasonably quickly. The customer must have sufficient advance notification to make a meaningful decision to consent to the delay or cancel the order. The page goes into significant further detail on a merchant's obligations. All of this applies to "goods a customer orders from the seller by mail, telephone, fax, or on the Internet." It would not apply to goods ordered in person at the store.	You say the permission was "public", therefore I am going to assume that it cannot be argued that there was no agreement. There are two possibilities: If Company B has given consideration for the promise then there is a binding contract and Company A may be able to end it but could not seek redress for when it was in place. If there is no contract then the principle of promissory estoppel should have essentially the same effect. An agreement, including an IP licence, does not have to be in writing nor does it have to have any particular form.
Can a public school in the USA force a 14yr old to create a Twitter account for a passing grade? My youngest is a freshman & signed up for a program the school refers to as "co-lab". At my insistence. 2yrs ago, I attended a board meeting where the formation of the program was introduced. At the time, I was jumping out of my skin, I was so excited.it incorporates 5-6 subjects into 1 5-6hr block. Without getting into the boring details, the bottom line is what they proposed vaguely resembles what is in play. All the subjects are still being taught, but separately instead of seamlessly together. He has As & Bs in all but 1 subject - Digital Literacy. The sole reason being that the school expects him to create a public Twitter account, with his real information, in order to promote the program & the results of the program. The results being, if I understand correctly, their personality, family history/tree, how their life experiences have shaped them into who they are today. These details were NOT part of the initial proposal nor part of anything sent home to me, to my knowledge. On 2 separate occasions, during school functions I attended, his reluctance to do this step has come up. He has stated that he does NOT want to create an account on FB or Twitter. He's not comfortable with that. No questions asked, I turned back to the teacher & said - you have your answer. I will not force him to do that. Yesterday, I received a call from the teacher regarding this, after reviewing his progress report which shows him failing that subject. She explained his failing grade was due to his resistance in creating the acct. He tried to compromise with them & created a fake acct using a nickname a teacher had given him in 8th grade. (HE informed me of that, not the teacher). During the call, not knowing he had attempted that already, I suggested that as a compromise. But they won't accept that. Their claim is that it needs to be seen by the public, he needs to create a digital footprint, yadda, yadda. When asked how this would affect his grades in the other, now separate, subjects, she could not give me an answer. This class is ONLY available for a freshman. It will have nothing to do with his next 3yrs of education. Yet his information will forever be out there even if never utilized or deleted after. There's a parallel story to this which has bugged me, but this is the crux of THIS situation. My question is, is this public school allowed to force him to create a digital footprint on an already worldwide controversial platform, POSSIBLY holding his entire freshman year over his head? At the very least, forcing him to retake the one class, which may end the same way? Given the current environment, I'm one pissed off Mama bear. And he's ready to cave to the bullies, something I drilled into both my boys to never do. Thoughts?	You say: the school expects him to create a public Twitter account, with his real information, in order to promote the program & the results of the program. This is a cut-and-dried case of compelled speech. Your son is being required to say certain things in public in order to pass this course. The Supreme Court has decided that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate". This is subject to the legitimate interests of the school, but it is hard to see how compelled speech on Twitter can be defended as a legitimate interest. You also say this is to "promote the program and the results of the program". It sounds like the students are being required to say certain things about the course. If your son were to create the account and then post only material critical of the school, such as complaints about compelled speech, would that result in a passing grade? It sounds like it might be an issue. Compelled speech at school was considered by the Supreme Court in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943), which is the case about students being required to salute the flag. They found that requiring students to salute the flag was unconstitutional. Public education, according to the Court, should “not strangle the free mind at its source [or] teach youth to discount important principles of our government as mere platitudes.” Instead, education should enable students to make informed choices about what to believe. From the judgement itself: the refusal of these persons to participate in the ceremony does not interfere with or deny rights of others to do so. Nor is there any question in this case that their behavior is peaceable and orderly. The sole conflict is between authority and rights of the individual. That is very much the case here. Your son's refusal to make the required public speech is not causing any difficulty for the school authorities. In conclusion, your son has made a decision not to create a Twitter account under his own name and say certain things within that account. This is entirely his constitutional right. You might consider contacting the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who have a history of engaging in cases like this. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) might also be interested. Edit: Zack Lipton in comments below makes the point that much student work can be considered a kind of compelled speech (e.g. "Write an essay on Hamlet" or "Submit an entry to this poetry competition") and asks how this is different. Its a good question, and I have to say it does suggest that there is a difference of degree rather than kind. However I would argue that posting to an international forum widely used by adults is a different matter to a school assembly, or even a national essay competition. It would also depend a great deal on what has to be posted to get a passing grade.	Generally speaking, if a person sends you an email you can publish it. Like if they call you a bunch of nasty names, or threaten you in some way, that information is yours and you can publish it. However, I'll give you three scenarios where you should not publish an email sent to you (and I'll edit to add more if they come up). Private facts. There is a tort called publication of private facts. A plaintiff must establish four elements to hold someone liable for publication of private facts: Public Disclosure: The disclosure of facts must be public. Another way of saying this is that the defendant must "give publicity" to the fact or facts in question. Private Fact: The fact or facts disclosed must be private, and not generally known. Offensive to a Reasonable Person: Publication of the private facts in question must be offensive to a reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities. Not Newsworthy: The facts disclosed must not be newsworthy. Stated differently, the facts disclosed must not be a matter of legitimate public concern. From Digital Media Law Project Note one thing - the offensive fact does not need to have been completely private for you to be liable, it must not have been generally known. In other words, someone like you who has a really low "public" bar needs to be careful. Also note that your buffer system might not help if the facts you publish are about someone other than the email sender; you are the one who published them. Stolen Information If someone sends you some intellectual property of a third party it is not yours to publish. Trade secrets, copyrighted works, prototype photos, etc. The sender might be breaking the law by sending the stuff to you but you're the one who published it so you can join as co-defendants. Barrett Brown was indicted for sharing a link to some stolen information. A link! He's in prison on other charges. Copyright held by the original sender (ht to @Dave_D) If the sender is the original author of the email, then the sender holds the copyright to the body of the email. Publishing the email violates the copyright. However, you could account for this in your buffer. Maybe. I am not sure is that is explicit enough.	You can make as many "manual copies" of math homework for yourself as you like. The seemingly arbitrary number of "7" came into being because with the invention and popularity of devices for copying, private persons could make copies without considerable loss of quality. As it was impossible to control who made a copy and whom it was given to, a compromise was found: buying a copying machine (tape recorder, cd burner, dvd burner) or empty media (empty cassette tapes, empty CDs) came with an extra fee on top to be paid by the consumer, that would go to the copyright holders in general, with the assumptions that that would cover the "normal, uncontrollable, private between friends" copying. Like if you burn your mom a CD. Or gift your girlfriend a mix tape. Or copy a page of the book and hand out the excercise to your two study buddies. So there was a court decision that "more than seven" was more than what you would normally consider a private copy covered by this fee. If you make more than seven copies of a cassette for example, it would be okay to assume that you no longer did that "for a close friend". Obviously, copying something from a book as you describe, by writing it down with a pencil on a notepad, is in no way "a lossless copy". Even if you type it into an app, manually copying something into another medium is not lossless. Ever. It is also for your very personal use, you don't give it to anyone, not even close friends. So yes, you can make as many copies as you like, for yourself. If one breaks, and you make another, that is fine. If one breaks every day and you need 700 over the course of two years? Fine. But if you made 700 exact copies to give them to your "700 closest friends", that is not how the law thinks "closest friends" work. That is where the arbitrary number 7 comes from.	I think this shows a misunderstanding of the meaning of the GDPR. A data subject has the right to demand information, correction, deletion etc. about some of their data held by some institutions, depending on the legal basis for the data processing. One John Smith does not have the right to see the data of any other data subject named John Smith, and he cannot even demand to know if there are other John Smiths in the database. The data controller has to make reasonable steps to ensure that an individual who seeks account information is in fact the individual who is the data subject. In the case of an email, that's usually easy -- if John Smith can access the mail account [email protected], one can assume that he is the John Smith who opened the account. If not, then not. If the data controller has the birthplace and birthdate in their records, they can possibly match that against some government-issue identity document, too, but why would they have that data?	No. In order to practice law, one must establish an attorney-client relationship. Participation in Internet forums absolutely does not establish an attorney-client relationship. Everyone involved in law spends a disproportionate amount of time disclaiming this, so nobody inside the field will be confused on this point. I believe this is also directly stated in the Terms of Service. And as Jen notes, upvoting/downvoting is not even agreeing with the legal validity of the answer. Take the tour or read help pages for what voting means. It's perfectly conceivable for a psychic who knows how to sway people could write a better voted answer than three lawyers.	I don't believe Canada uses the public official/figure distinction. American defamation law uses the distinction to determine whether to require proof of actual malice, but Canada does not require proof of actual malice. Canadian defamation law has a lot of other parallels to American defamation law, though, especially in terms of privilege. I'd expect the University could claim any of several available privileges, including truth, qualified privilege, and fair comment. And because it's a government institution, it's conceivable that it might even claim absolute privilege, though I definitely don't know enough about their interpretations of the privilege to say one way or another. For a broad primer on defamation law in Ontario, you can check out this report from the Law Commission of Ontario.	There is no generally applicable law that that effect in the United States, although, of course, there are laws in fifty different states, plus the District of Columbia and U.S. territories, that I have not comprehensively reviewed, and particular school districts might have policies of their own. Such a picture would probably be considered an "educational record" for purposes of a federal law known as the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (the definition is set forth below), so sharing this collected picture outside the school might pose an issue in some circumstances as a violation of federal educational privacy laws. But merely collecting images during class and using them for internal purposes of the school would not violate these laws. Also, there is no private cause of action (right to sue) under FERPA and, in 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Gonzaga University v. John Doe that students and parents may not sue for damages under 42 USC § 1983 to enforce provisions of FERPA. As an FAQ on the subject explains: Q. What penalties apply to the misuse or improper disclosure of confidential information? A. The penalty for noncompliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA) can be withdrawal of U.S. Department of Education funds from the institution or agency that has violated the law. This applies to schools, school districts, and state education agencies. The Family Policy Compliance Office of the U.S. Department of Education, charged with reviewing and investigating complaints, seeks to promote voluntary compliance with the law. A third party who improperly discloses personally identifiable information from student records can be prohibited from receiving access to records at the education agency or institution for at least 5 years. State laws on privacy may also apply penalties. . . . Q. What are the consequences of a third party’s misuse of education records? A. School officials must inform third parties receiving information, as allowed under FERPA, of the requirements concerning redisclosure of information. If a third party is found to have improperly redisclosed personally identifiable information from education records, the school may not allow that third party access to information for at least 5 years. If the school releases these records to third-parties as a matter of policy, without parental consent, at most, parents might either seek prospective injunctive relief barring the school from engaging in that conduct in the future in a declaration that the policy violates FERPA, or make a complaint to the U.S. Department of Education. An educational records are defined for purposes of FERPA (paraphrasing) as follows: FERPA Defines an Education Record Education records include a range of information about a student that is maintained in schools in any recorded way, such as handwriting, print, computer media, video or audio tape, film, microfilm, and microfiche. Examples are: Date and place of birth, parent(s) and/or guardian addresses, and where parents can be contacted in emergencies; Grades, test scores, courses taken, academic specializations and activities, and official letters regarding a student's status in school; Special education records; Disciplinary records; Medical and health records that the school creates or collects and maintains; Documentation of attendance, schools attended, courses taken, awards conferred, and degrees earned; Personal information such as a student's identification code, social security number, picture, or other information that would make it easy to identify or locate a student. Personal notes made by teachers and other school officials that are not shared with others are not considered education records. Additionally, law enforcement records created and maintained by a school or district's law enforcement unit are not education records. Part of the education record, known as directory information, includes personal information about a student that can be made public according to a school system's student records policy. Directory information may include a student's name, address, and telephone number, and other information typically found in school yearbooks or athletic programs. Other examples are names and pictures of participants in various extracurricular activities or recipients of awards, pictures of students, and height and weight of athletes. Each year schools must give parents public notice of the types of information designated as directory information. By a specified time after parents are notified of their review rights, parents may ask to remove all or part of the information on their child that they do not wish to be available to the public without their consent. U.S. school districts, in carrying out this FERPA mandate, typically request parental consent to share images of children attending a school with third parties as part of their usual annual enrollment paperwork for children attending the school. And, almost all but a a handful of parents usually consent in this context as a matter of course. The only other fairly widely recognized state common law or statutory right that is closely on point is the right of publicity - i.e. the right to receive fair market value compensation for commercial use of a person's image, for example, in connection with an advertisement. Even this right isn't uniformly available in every U.S. jurisdiction and would not limit non-commercial use of a child's photo by the school. Also, whether the school was public or private would matter. Public schools are eligible to claim governmental immunity to many kinds of claims that could arise in tort from an alleged privacy violation, but have more governmental rules and regulations to comply with than a private school (if it receives no federal funds, it doesn't even have to follow FERPA). There is not a widely recognized common law or statutory right apart from FERPA to not have your image (or your children's images) shared publicly without their consent in the United States (although sometimes a special situation may apply in the case of a particular child, if, for example, the child is in a witness protection program, or is the subject to a protective order imposed due to threats from a parent's ex-spouse, for example). Also, a private school could almost always make a of waiver legal publicity rights (if they exist at all) in its enrollment materials mandatory for all students. But, because attendance at a public school is mandatory (or more correctly, mandatory as a matter of last resort if the student can't arrange adequate private schooling or home schooling), a public school has less freedom to require parents of students to waive any legal rights that they do have as a condition of participating in mandatory school activities. European Union laws and regulations regarding data privacy would not apply to this fact pattern if the students and school are all located in the United States, despite a global internet medium of international commerce that is used to facilitate this domestic educational activity.	This depends on how far along you're waiting for court rulings to set in, and if you count laws of Congress passed under the 13th amendment's enforcement clause. There were quite a lot of things that got ruled as violations of the 13th and 14th amendments (mostly the 14th), but many were not ruled or legislated that way for decades. Some were even ruled to have an essentially opposite effect of what the current (overturning) precedents do. "Separate but equal" was challenged on 13th amendment grounds, but was upheld in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), and wasn't overturned, on 14th amendment grounds, until 58 years later in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Your particular situation sounds like peonage, which was outlawed by Congress in 1867 via the enforcement clause. This law specifically banned "the voluntary or involuntary service or labor of any persons as peons, in liquidation of any debt or obligation, or otherwise." However, peonage cases continued to make their way into the courts for more than 40 years thereafter, such as Clyatt v. United States (1905)— which ruled that peonage was involuntary servitude— and Bailey v. Alabama (1911). These cases affirmed that the 13th amendment abolished not just chattel slavery but essentially all forms of involuntary or indentured servitude (except as punishment for a crime). Though exactly what qualifies as "involuntary servitude" is still something courts decide on a case-by-case basis; the draft doesn't, nor does mandatory community service to graduate high school.
Am I legally responsible for being a developer of a code, if my customer uses it illegally? I am from an Europe country, I work online and get orders on freelancer websites. Few months ago, I had a customer hiring me to do some Bitcoin-related coding, I'm one of their developers for 6-7 months now. I have already created 2 of their main projects (they have like 7-8). The code I wrote had nothing illegal in itself as far as I understand (basically I wrote a system in which users sign up for my customer's services, and get notifications, deposit addresses etc, and I delivered the source) Today, I saw some very bad claims about them online, which I'm not sure if true or fake. But I'm still really worried... I have only received money for my programming, even lower than usual fee (because I needed the money). My question is, am I responsible for what they do with my code? I don't know anymore if their business is legit, should I stop working for them immediately? or I can continue if I'm not sure? Am I already in trouble? P.S. I have generalized anxiety issue, and this constant stress doesn't let me sleep, so any help is really appreciated.	As a baseline, you may assume that your code will be used legally. It sounds like this still applies in your case: there is an entirely reasonable and legal use for login code, so you had no reason to assume that there might be a problem. This puts you legally in the clear. To be liable, you'd need to know or at least reasonably suspect that your code would be used to violate the law.	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.	Provided you are in one of the 170+ countries signatory to the Berne Convention (the current 10 non-signatories are, exhaustively: Eritrea, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, San Marino, Iran, Iraq, Ethiopia, Somalia, and South Sudan), then copyright comes into existence at the moment a work is fixed in a tangible medium, not when it is published. The initial copyright owner is the author of the work. In cases of employment, the "author" might be the natural person who authored the work, or the corporate person who employed the natural author. To clarify your thinking about registration: copyright registration is a public record of authorship (or copyright ownership). Registration does not create a copyright, but is merely a recording of the copyright that was automatically created at the moment of original authorship. Depending on circumstances and jurisdiction, Alan might have a legitimate claim to copyright on his own work. However, he will be quite hard-pressed to find a convincing theory of law that allows him to publish the unpublished copyrighted work of other people without their permission. This leaves him either to admit defeat -- he cannot possibly own the copyright of his coworkers' code, so he cannot have legally reproduced it -- or else make the baldfaced lie that the code has no other authors other than Alan himself. For your company to disprove such a claim, you may employ sworn testimony of your coworkers, you may employ code analysis to show differing coding styles (suggestive of multiple authors), or you may show code backups or version control history showing the progressive authorship of the work over time by many people. (Sure, a Git history is possible to fake, but a realistic history with feature branches, "whoops, undid the typo in the last commit" messages, etc. would lend significant weight to your company being the original authors.)	If I understand your question correctly, you have some clients who have paid you for services that you have not yet provided and, indeed, they have not yet requested. Is this correct? The accounting term for this is a "prepayment". The correct accounting treatment is to increase an asset account (your bank account) and create a liability account (Prepayments or something similar). You need to talk to your accountant about how to treat these for consumption and income taxes. Legally, these people are now creditors of your business - just like all of your suppliers and employees. There is no legal requirement to escrow or otherwise treat this as trust money. Basically, if your business goes bust they will lose their money. This is something that you should have dealt with in your contract with your customers - if you are running an online business then you should get a lawyer to revise your terms of service to cover things like how they can ask for a refund (and how long you have to get it to them) and how long (or if) they forfeit the funds. As it stands the money effectively becomes yours after whatever time under a statute of limitation applies to transactions of this type and size (under whatever law applies to the contract) since after that time they cannot sue to get it back.	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.	The DMCA prohibits circumvention of technological measures that effectively control access to a copyrighted work. So you can't legally "crack" the software, period -- even if you own a disc containing the software and have a valid license to use it, a license to use the work is not authorization to circumvent access controls. So if the disc is copy-protected, by my understanding of the DMCA, you're kinda screwed. (The company might be willing to provide you a replacement copy, even if only to maintain the illusion that the software is "licensed, not sold". But you can't make one yourself.) Likewise, if you have a copy of the disc but have lost the license key, you're screwed. Even if you could prove beyond any doubt that you are the licensee, there's not any law i'm aware of that would compel the copyright owner to provide you another license key. And courts have held that distribution of license keys without authorization is a violation of the DMCA. So whoever might provide you another key, if they're not the copyright holder, has broken the law. If you managed to copy the disc from a friend (without circumventing any kind of copy protection), and had your own license key, you might be in a better position. Many EULAs allow you to make a backup copy. Even if they didn't, copyright law does, so there's a possible case for fair use.	The general rule is that the author of the software owns the copyright, so that would be the student. This is regardless of whether the student writes the code for fun, or for a thesis. If a student is hired to write that code, then it kind of depends on the university rules, and who hires the student. In the case of a "work for hire", the employer owns the copyright. However, it is non-trivial to determine whether that principle is applicable in the case of a student hired by the university. In part, it depends on which country this is in because work for hire laws are not exactly the same everywhere, and in part it depends on the details of the employment my a university. In a typical US institution RA appointment, it would come down to university policy – some universities declare that copyright in all student-written software is retained by the student. You would need to look for something resembling an "IP Policy" – here is a sample, note that such policies are subject to revision.	Makerbot's explanation of the Terms is accurate This is comparable with most other services that host and display User-created content - even with SaaS providers, as per Interpretation of content ownership/usage in service provider agreement. They are correct that they are asking for the lots of broad rights, but it's all qualified with (my emphasis): 3.2 License. You hereby grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company and its affiliates and partners, an irrevocable, nonexclusive, royalty-free and fully paid, worldwide license to reproduce, distribute, publicly display and perform, prepare derivative works of, incorporate into other works, and otherwise use your User Content, and to grant sublicenses of the foregoing, solely for the purposes of including your User Content in the Site and Services. That is, if they use your User Content for a purpose other than including it in the Site and Services (and you have not agreed to this use), you may be entitled to relief in the form of an injunction or damages.
Would there be any legal repercussions to the senate's actions during the impeachment trial? In an interview with CNN at the Doha Forum in Qatar, Lindsay Graham said "I am trying to give a pretty clear signal I have made up my mind. I'm not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here". In an interview with Fox News, senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said "Everything I do during this, I’m coordinating with White House Counsel." I'm still doing a lot of reading about what is involved in an impeachment trial (as I'm an Australian, and this is very interesting to me), but the main question I have is: If someone in the senate says "I'm not going to bother looking at the evidence, I'm just going to vote against impeachment", or if someone else says "I'm working directly with the president to ensure we both get the outcome we want", is that illegal? Are there any repercussions for that? If I were on trial and I said "I spoke with the jury beforehand to get the outcome we both want", I'd probably be in a lot of trouble. Likewise, if I were a juror and announced before the trial "I don't care about the evidence, I've decided they're already guilty / innocent", I'd also be in a lot of trouble. Are there similar repercussions for members of the senate? Or is an impeachment trial completely different from your everyday trial?	Impeachment is unique in that it is a question of politics, not a question of law, that is being discussed at trial. The other exception is that the Senate, not the Supreme Court, is the High Court of Impeachment (that is, legal precedence is based on what the Senate says, not what the Supreme Court or any other appellant court says). There are a few minor details, but the main part of the trial will play out like a criminal trial, with the Managers (people named by the house to argue the case) taking the role of the Prosecution and the Senate as the Jury. Because the trial is purely political in nature, a jurist decision to on the matter before evidence is presented at trial is entirely legal. It's actually perfectly legal to have your own opinion prior to trial start in a normal criminal jury and to vote on that ground... but the attorneys will dismiss you from the pool if they find even a hint of this. Unlike the judicial system, the jurists of Impeachment Trial are the same 100 people (presently) and cannot be dismissed for any reason, including comments about how they will find in the trial. Jury Fixing or tampering is when the decision a jurist makes is colored by some outside motivation to the jurists own convictions (i.e. the crime boss has your family and won't kill them if you find his hired goon innocent.). It could be an issue if a senator was given some pork to vote against his/her choice, but Impeachment is incredibly rare in the U.S. system and there hasn't been any case where this was an issue (If Articles of Impeachment are brought, this will be the 20 case to reach the trial stage since the adoption of the Constitution, and the 3rd for a President.).	There's no settled legal answer to this, but there seems to be a general consensus that this would not be legal under the Impeachment Clause, which says: The President ... shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment. There would be two main issues here: 1. Can a president pardon himself? It's never been tried, so it's never been challenged, so the courts have never had a chance to say whether it's legal. The main argument in favor of self-pardons is that the constitution grants broad pardon authority for any offense against the United States, making an exception for impeachment, but not for self-pardons. The response to that is that the constitution uses all kinds of broad language that everyone agrees is not as broad as it sounds; Congress is not allowed to abridge the freedom of speech, but perjury laws are nonetheless constitutional. There are several theories as to why the self-pardon would be illegal, but they mostly come down to two main ideas -- that our legal system does not permit anyone to be the arbiter of their own case, and that a person subject to impeachment may not be pardoned. 2. Can a president issue secret pardons? Again, it's never been tried, so it's never been challenged, so the courts have never had a chance to say whether it's legal. And again, the primary argument in favor of secret pardons is that the Pardon Clause grants broad pardon authority without requiring that pardons be publicized. The main arguments against are (1) that presidential pardons are inherently public acts, as they have no effect if the justice system doesn't know about them, and (2) that the Presidential Records Act requires official White House records to be transferred to the National Archives.	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.	That remains to be determined. This article (100 Tex. L. Rev. 56 (2021)) discusses the possibility. To start, the Constitution does not directly say that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted. The lack of an express presidential immunity and the fact that an attempt by Madison to create such an immunity is an indication of "original intent". The view that an incumbent president cannot be indicted, prosecuted, convicted or punished is a policy stance set forth by the Dept. of justice, but is not constitutional law. Alito in Trump v. Vance points to some apparently negative consequences of allowing indictment of a sitting president, but this was in a dissenting opinion. Practical considerations of policy might argue for not prosecuting a sitting president, but the Constitution itself does not expressly forbid it. As we know from numerous SCOTUS rulings, the court is also capable of finding implicit support for a rule in the Constitution. For example theimpeachment provisions do not demand or even hint that impeachment must precede trial and punishment. An argument that prosecution would "incapacitate" the president is met with the fact that there is a provision for replacing an incapacitated POTUS with VPOTUS as acting president. The idea that a trial interferes with a person's ability to do their job (or that they can't adequately participate in their defense if they are doing their job) has not actually prevented ordinary people with jobs from being prosecuted for their crimes.	Does the Special Counsel's non traditional prosecutorial decision making put the president above the law since he is unable to be prosecuted? All federal government employees, including the Special Counsel, are required to conform to the interpretations of the law provided by the Office of Legal Counsel in the absence of a directly applicable court order to the contrary. But, the fact that the federal government attorneys are effectively prohibited from prosecuting the President for crimes while the President is currently in office does not put him entirely above the law. This does not preclude state and local prosecutors from charging the President with state crimes while he holds office, and if those crimes do not arise from the President's conduct in an official capacity while serving as President (in which case Presidential immunity bars actions). This does not preclude federal prosecutors from charging the President with federal crimes committing while the President held office or before the President held office after the President ceases to serve as President. This does not preclude a federal court from declaring that the Office of Legal Counsel opinion by which the Special Counsel is bound on this issue is invalid, although it is challenging to think of a procedural context in which this issue could be squarely presented to a court. The OLC opinion could also probably be overridden by Congress in a law (that would probably have to overcome a Presidential veto), as the claim that the OLC decision is one that it is constitutionally required to arrive at is a weak one. This does not preclude individuals or Congress from bringing suit against the President in a civil action, including a contempt of court proceeding in a civil action prosecuted by someone other than a federal government attorney. This does not preclude Congress from impeaching the President and removing him from office. Nonetheless, the Office of Legal Counsel opinion referred to by the Special Counsel certainly does significantly impair the extent to which a President can be punished for violating federal law as a practical matter. This seems to directly contradict the "no man is above the law" principle outlined by the 14th amendment of the constitution. I'm not sure what makes you think that the 14th Amendment is relevant in this case. Section 1 of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution sets a minimum threshold for citizenship and sets for constitutional obligations that apply to U.S. states. Sections 2-4 of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution govern issues particular to the Reconstruction era. Section 5 of the 14th Amendment gives Congress the authority to pass legislation enforcing the other sections. There isn't really a "no man is above the law" concept expressly stated in the U.S. Constitution (in contrast, France has had such a provision since the French Revolution). But, to the extent that one can construed a provision of the U.S. Constitution as setting forth such a requirement, it needs to be in a provision that applies to the federal government, rather than one applicable to state governments.	Yes. The absence of immunity for a U.S. President's unofficial acts was established both in the Nixon Administration and later in the Clinton Administration. In practice, a prosecutor would be loath to file such charges absent very, very solid probable cause, and a court would often be very deferential in accommodating the President's schedule and, for example, in allowing appearances by telephone when allowed by law, or by electing not to seize the President's passport as a bail condition to be free pending trial, as would be common for someone facing felony charges pending trial. But, ultimately, the President does not have the right to either defer the charges until the completion of his term, or to any immunity from charges for his or her unofficial acts.	While there are certainly statutory and procedural vehicles for sanctions, they are almost never requested or allowed when moved for, and are almost never imposed by judges. Something very severe needs to occur and not just your typical discovery violation ("speaking objections" during depositions, being late with responses, failure to cite to affidavits, affidavits citing conjecture rather than fact, et). It would have to be something quite serious....like misleading the court or directly failing to comply with a direct order or ruling on a motion. It is exceedingly rare. It is most seen in Federal Court.	united-states Procedures differ on such things. The closest I know of to an outcome of "not enough evidence" is the classic "scotch verdict" of "Not Proven. In the US, the prosecutor can wait to proceed with a criminal case while s/he does (or has done) as much investigation as s/he thinks is advisable. But once the trial starts, it normally proceeds to a conclusion. If there is not enough evidence to convict, the result should be "not guilty" and that will bar any future trial of the same person for the same offense under the doctrine of Double Jeopardy. Circumstantial evidence, as described in the question, can be enough to convict, if the jury (or judge in a bench trial) is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty. Exactly how much evidence it takes to convince a Jury varies, and there is not a clear standard other than the phrase " beyond a reasonable doubt". The judge, or a later appeals court, can set aside a jury verdict for insufficient evidence, but only by finding that no reasonable jury could have convicted on the evidence pre3sented, taking it in the light most favorable to conviction. Judges are reluctant to set aside jury verdicts unless they appear badly wrong. If further evidence is found during the trial, which tends to show the accused is not guilty, the prosecutor can request that the trial be halted. This may or may not bar a future re-trial of the same defendant, depending on whether the dismissal is 'without prejudice", a decision the Judge makes. But once evidence has been started to be presented, dismissals are usually "with prejudice" meaning that double jeopardy applies. The defense can also request a dismissal, most often at the end of the prosecution case. In rare circumstances the Judge may dismiss without a request from either prosecution or defense. These will most often be "with prejudice" It is possible for the trial to be recessed while new evidence is evaluated or sought, but this is rare and usually only for a short time -- a day or two, perhaps. In general a prosecutor is not supposed to schedule a trial if there is any reasonable chance of additional evidence coming to light. It can and does happen, but the system tries to avoid it, and does not easily accept that it has happened. This answer is US-Specific, and different answers may apply in other places.
Interstate Call Recording Can I record a call from Virginia to Maryland? I live in Virginia (one party communication state). My phone has a Virginia number, and it can record calls (made while being physically located in Virginia). Federal law regarding communication follows the one party communication law. Maryland has a two party communication law. I've read that the law will default to the state where the recording device is physically located. Does this mean that it is okay for me to record my calls to Maryland since it conforms with Virginia, Federal, and default laws?	The answer is, "No, it will not default to the state where the recording device is located." Whether your recording is legal or not may depend on where the device is located, but it may depend on other things as well. For example, to sue under Florida law, "the persons bringing suit must be Florida residents or the improper "interception" must have occurred in Florida." Thus, if the someone from NY is recorded while in Florida by someone in NJ, Florida law does not apply. The rules used to determine which state's laws apply under which circumstances are explained thoroughly here. The issue of which state's laws apply is what is known as "conflict of laws." The basic idea is simple: Because you and the insurance company are citizens of different states, you have "diversity of citizenship." If the laws in your states differ, the court must decide whose law applies -- is it the state you called from, the state you called to, or federal law? Unfortunately for you, choice of law is hard even for lawyers to get a handle on. There are several different approaches states use to answer questions about conflict of law. Which approach a state uses to settle conflicts of law will determine whose law that state's courts will apply. To get a correct answer, you need to talk to an attorney who understands conflict of law and the admissibility of wiretaps.	Washington state dedicated a section of their code to explicitly make this illegal (to install it, not just use it). RCW 46.37.685(1)(b) says It is unlawful for a person to have an installed license plate flipping device on a vehicle, use technology to flip a license plate on a vehicle, or use technology to change the appearance of a license plate on a vehicle. and it is illegal to sell them. Georgia does not seem to have a specific law on the topic, but the same effect holds under GA Code §40-2-41, which says: Unless otherwise permitted under this chapter, every vehicle required to be registered under this chapter, which is in use upon the highways, shall at all times display the license plate issued to the owner for such vehicle, and the plate shall be fastened to the rear of the vehicle in a position so as not to swing and shall be at all times plainly visible... It shall be the duty of the operator of any vehicle to keep the license plate legible at all times. No license plate shall be covered with any material unless the material is colorless and transparent. No apparatus that obstructs or hinders the clear display and legibility of a license plate shall be attached to the rear of any motor vehicle required to be registered in the state. We can start with the question of whether the vehicle must be registered: yes, it does. Then we can ask if "which is in use upon the highways" is true. This is not obvious, because that clause could be interpreted as meaning "which is at some time or other in use upon the highway", or else as "at those times when it is in use upon the highway". I strongly suspect that the courts would find in favor of the first interpretation, not the second, especially since the law also says that you must "keep the license plate legible at all times" (not "at all times when you are on the highway"). Finally, a plate flipper clearly "hinders the clear display and legibility of a license plate", and the law prohibits the attachment of such device, not just its use. So obscuring your license plate is just not legal.	If this is Florida, then a will has to be written. If there is no written will, the estate falls under the law of intestate succession, part 1. Per § 732.502, every will must be in writing, signed, and witnessed (therefore a voice mail is not a will). If there are any relatives, they may be entitled to a share; otherwise, the estate goes to the state, where it is sold and the funds go into the state school fund (§732.107).	GDPR seems quite clear that if you are recording calls, video and/or audio, you must get consent. Wrong. The GDPR requires that your have a legal basis for processing personal data. Consent is a legal basis but there are others. With respect to note taking, the GDPR only applies to “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.” So, if they notes are not about an individual (and many B2B phone calls will not be) or are neither automated nor filed, the GDPR does not apply. If they are captured by the GDPR, you need to have a legal basis for the notes. Again, consent is one but it is not the only one.	For regular firearms you only have to comply with the laws of the state to which you are moving. Since Utah (presently) has no state-specific restrictions on ownership or possession of AR-15 rifles that means in this case, as you say, "no problem." (The only exception would be registered NFA items – e.g., machine-guns, suppressors, SBR, SBS, DD, AOW – for which the BATFE typically requires notice when you are moving them interstate. But if you have gone through the trouble of registering such an item, you probably already know that.) Finally, you have to exercise some care in the actual interstate transportation of firearms: If you are passing through a jurisdiction where possession of them is restricted then you have to follow the rules provided in the Firearms Owners Protection Act. In particular: Under FOPA, notwithstanding any state or local law, a person is entitled to transport a firearm from any place where he or she may lawfully possess and carry such firearm to any other place where he or she may lawfully possess and carry it, if the firearm is unloaded and locked out of reach. In vehicles without a trunk, the unloaded firearm must be in a locked container other than the glove compartment or console. Ammunition that is either locked out of reach in the trunk or in a locked container other than the glove compartment or console is also covered.	Generally speaking, what isn't illegal by law is legal. It's possible for law enforcement agencies to share crime rates, maps, and their data, but within any laws regarding access and sharing of that data. Such crime data may be publicly available, but that depends on local and state laws. The local or state agency would have to enter into a legal licensing agreement - if local and state laws allow such sharing - with the GPS company to provide the data, update it, and reasonably assure that it is accurate. The more realistic reason GPS systems might choose to not show crime data may be public relations. If a GPS user lives in an area that has been objectively identified by data as having a higher than baseline crime rate, i.e. for carjackings, that user may not be very happy with that designation. Worse, what happens to public relations when data errors show an area is wrongfully identified as high crime? What kinds of lawsuits could result? Real estate agents suing since bad data from a GPS unit soured the sale of a house?	You may want to select a state where you have some sort of presence. According to this article, personal jurisdiction can be waived, but subject matter jurisdiction can not, and "for pragmatic reasons some states deny subject-matter jurisdiction to specific claims, such as those arising in other states". In other words, if nothing about you, the other party, or the case has any relation to the state, the court doesn't necessarily have to listen to the case. And if that happens, the provision about them submitting to the jurisdiction is worthless. Beyond that, are you OK with going to court in the location you select? Do you know whether all your terms and conditions are valid in that location? Do you know whether one place or another has more favorable interpretations of the laws, or more favorable local rules, when it comes to the types of disputes you are likely to have? You probably want a lawyer to help you decide.	There is, in general, a rule that all matters connected with a single transaction or event should be included in a single legal case. Different jurisdictions apply this diffidently, and I haven't yet researched this in Maryland specifically. Also, if you agree to pay a part of what the landlord claims, you will quite likely be asked to sign a settlement agreement as part of the transaction. This is likely to include a release of all claims connected with your tenancy at the apartment. If it does, and you sign the agreement, you will be giving up any claim you might otherwise have because of the failure to properly notify you. You may want to consult a lawyer about this. A one-time consultation might not be very expensive. If you sued the landlord, you could do so in small claims court, where legal costs are significantly lower than in other courts.
What would happen if my girlfriend got pregnant? What would happen if my girlfriend got pregnant and gave birth to our child? Who would get custody of our child? How much child support would I have to pay? Would either of us have to drop out of school? What are the worst-case and best-case scenarios? I read the Indiana Parenting Guidelines, and they said that, to start off the first year or so, the non-custodial parent only gets one night per week. Ideally, I want to split parenting responsibilities like my parents did. But she said that all her life she wanted to be a stay-at-home home school mom like her mom was. What if she quits school and her job to stay at home, will I have to financially support our family all by myself? What if I lose my job, do I have to go to court to lower child support? What if one of us moves to a different state? What if we get married? What if we get divorced? Will I have to pay alimony? What if I go crazy or flee the country? I feel scared, and I am looking for honesty and reassurance. I am also starting to see the value of abstinence (if it's not already too late). Update: In order to narrow down the scope, my question is: How can we set up shared earning/shared parenting marriage in our situation?	From the legal perspective, the most important step is establishing legal paternity. IN Code 16-37-2-2.1 covers the process of establishing paternity via affidavit, which has to be executed in a prescribed and timely manner and with cooperation by both parties. Paternity can also be established by court action (very complex). With legal paternity established, then in terms of parental rights and responsibilities, it is immaterial that you are not married. If you don't live together, then the question of custody and visitation, and child support, would need to be resolved (with a lawyer involved). This article surveys the situation with Indiana Law w.r.t. unwed fathers (see especially section III), though most of it is about the situation where actual paternity is distinct from legal paternity.	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.	Nothing in the description strikes me as illegal or unlawful, so I am unsure of the grounds your friend would have for legal action. The questions a lawyer would ask (in addition to that) would be likely to include : How does your friend quantify the damage? The law is great for pursuing financial compensation, but does not handle abstract concepts. Has your friend used psychological counselling services, and what was the cost? What additional financial costs has your friend borne? If your friend has written to the University and has expected a response, what is the evidence of diminished trust? (The letter suggests otherwise.) Would a reasonable person (the proverbial "man in the street") be psychologically damaged by the events experienced by your friend? Is there evidence of a pre-existing condition? You've also mentioned yourself as a witness. Did you witness the eviction, or would you be attesting to your friend's state of mind? If the latter, what are your psychological qualifications? In the main Western jurisdictions, the answer to the question "can my friend sue?" is usually "yes", but whether they stood a chance of winning the suit would probably be a better question to ask. Your friend would only be likely to win a case against the University or the Security company if they could demonstrate unlawful or counter-contractual activity by staff, and were able to demonstrate financial damages that had been caused by that activity.	It would be up to your HOA agreement. If you signed a contract agreeing to pay for services then yes. If not then no. An HOA agreement is just a contract like any other and you would have to abide by what you agreed to. Also, they may not have an actual contract for you to sign, but by moving to the community you would be agreeing to follow the by laws of the HOA. If you have a disagreement with them that can not be resolved, you can let a judge decide in court, but that could cost more than just getting the service. https://www.wishtv.com/news/local-news/indianapolis-man-battles-homeowners-association-over-solar-panels/ So to sum it up, you can refuse but they have the right to take you to court if they choose. I would assume a judge would rule in your favor since it's an issue of what goes on in your own home, but there is really no way for anyone to say what someone else will do.	Given there was no answer here, I will state what I know about child abuse response, but note I am not a lawyer nor am I in Illinois, so my statements are likely generalized for most US states (individual laws vary by state, and I reside in Pennsylvania). In most US states, the police and child/youth services (that's what it's called in Pennsylvania but all states have similar services) work side by side and a complaint by the child to a police officer will have an emergency action taken to protect the child. The child is identified as a victim and the police and child/youth services have the obligation to protect the child and to keep them from harm. This is the main goal of police and children/youth services - to keep the child safe and act in the best interest of the child. Usually, a complaint to a child abuse center can take time to process. When a police complaint comes in it is more immediate, with police having more 'influence' with CYS (child/youth services). Especially when the child is in deadly danger (they were just stabbed, after all), the police may arrest the mother or abusive sibling or intervene therein to remove the child from the parents care with CYS-equivalent services working to find suitable alternative living situations for the child as a result of a order of removal/protection authorized by a judge. (PA at least had emergency situation response plans for these situations where a judge is just a phone call away). As well, the child will likely be made a ward of the state if the courts determine the mother cannot care for the child or is a threat as such (not caring enough to stop the brother may count), insomuch that the child may be removed from the dangerous situation and placed in the care of a willing relative or if none can be found will be placed in temporary foster care in a safer environment. Note that nothing happens rapidly without the initial complaint to the police. At age 16 the child is likely going to be taken more seriously (compared to a 12 year old, for example), and has the right to be allowed to reach out to hospital staff to ask to speak to a police officer - otherwise it takes a child abuse complaint from someone who knows the child and situation and that can sometimes take longer to process (though, the distance factor in the original question may make a complaint from overseas given a lower priority due to not knowing the person on a more personal in-person level)	Both parents are legally responsible for the financial costs of raising a child. If you don’t have day-to-day care of the child, you may have to pay child maintenance to your partner or she may apply for maintenance and name you as the parent who has to pay maintenance. You are allowed to deny that you are the father of the child and if she wishes to pursue it further, you both may be asked to take a DNA test in order to prove or disprove that you are the father. You cannot force her to do this. It must be voluntary on both sides. If you're just looking to force her to have a DNA test based on the morality of raising a child then whilst I admire your attitude, unfortunately this is not something you can force her to do. For more information on this matter, head over to this article on the citizens advice website. I hope this helps	If one day the child goes around to the father's house, perhaps in a state of upset, and says, "That's it, I'm staying," what is the legal position of the father? An eleven year old child really has no say in the matter. A judge in a custody case may consider what the 11 year old has to say but is unlikely to give it much weight. (In contrast, a judge is likely to give a lot of weight to the views of a child who has a job, who is doing O.K. in school, and is a year or two from becoming a full fledged adult.) This is up to his parents to resolve absent circumstances not present here (e.g. the child has made bona fide allegations of child abuse, or the parents are both incarcerated). And, if the parents can't resolve the dispute, it is up to a court in a case where parenting time is at issue (probably either a legal separation or a divorce in this case). For example, while (as noted below) the police will not generally drag a child kicking and screaming to the other parent without a court order, if the child is at his father's house, the father can absolutely drag the child kicking and screaming to the child's mother's house, no matter how much the child doesn't like it. Moreover, while the father will not be violating any law, if he does not do that, a child custody judge is likely to look dimly upon a parent who intentionally withholds visitation from another parent without good cause, when the court considers what kind of child custody arrangements to put in place. And, the court has extremely great discretion in these matters. The judge is also likely to be pretty unhappy with both of the parents for failing to be capable of communicating or cooperating over child rearing related issues, because they are apparently so focused on not getting along with each other over their issues with each other. In particular, if the mother calls the police claiming "child abduction," what will be the police position? Will they come to the door of the father? Will they drag the child kicking and screaming back to mother's house? It is not generally illegal for a married parent in a situation where there is no child custody order in place to have that parent's child with them over the objection of the other married parent. Absent a court order to the contrary, the police will probably call this a "civil matter" and will be unlikely to take any action until there is court guidance, absent exigent circumstances like evidence of recent not previously adjudicated claims of child abuse or neglect. The way to resolve this would be with a court filing of some sort seeking to resolve the parenting time issue, if necessary, on an emergency basis. Post-Script Whether or not the parents want to end the marriage, this situation is long overdue for court intervention. I've had couples who "pull the trigger" too soon, but this would not be a case of that type. Either the father or the mother needs to find a solicitor (if at all possible to afford that) and get the court system involved. If there is a breakdown in communications over matters related to the child, and the child is not cooperating in the face of an ambiguous parenting situation involving two parents who can't communicate about their child, the situation is out of control. Prompt court action could prevent a more negative outcome in the future by creating stability and structure in the situation.	E can leave at any time E is not detained and there is no basis to detain her. As a child, that decision can be made by a parent. E can be subpoenaed to testify but she does not have to talk to law enforcement (and would be wise not to).
Does GDPR disclosure apply to European citizen temporarily in United States? For some background: the EU "[Data Protection Directive][1]" is a European Union directive which regulates the processing of personal data within the European Union, as explained in [this Wikipedia article][2]. Among these regulations is the rule that individuals have right for a copy of the data that has been collected about them. The question is, what about cases such as an EU citizen who is in United States on, say, a temporary 2-year work assignment sent by their employer? Let's say that during his stay in USA he becomes a member of an international organization that stores some details about him, or creates an account at some website that gathers information about his online behavior. Questions: Would data collected by the EU citizen in this case also be subject to the GDPR disclosure laws? Would the EU citizen have to return to EU in order to be able to request a copy of his data?	No GDPR applies to people (not just citizens) who are in the EU. It has no applicability if both parties are not in the EU.	The conditions for lawfulness of processing are spelled out in Article 6 of the GDPR. As for it being legal for website operators to log the IP-addresses of visitors, this is covered by the following paragraph (also pointed out by phoog in a comment). The paragraph 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) You are not the only web site that logs IP addresses for the purpose of security. Every web site I've ever worked on - from those controlled by large corporations to tiny NGOs - do this. This security practice will not be impacted by the GDPR (if it were, I am sure we would have heard about it by now). there is the EU cookie law too If your website are going to be accessible to European citizens and not only accessible by your friends and familiy, you have to comply with the EU cookie directive of 2002 (a exemption for "personal websites" does not exist).	Since you are from Europe, GDPR applies to all your processing activities per Art 3(1) GDPR, regardless of where the users are located. If you would like to avoid GDPR compliance, you would have to manage your business from abroad so that you no longer have an European establishment, and would have to avoid offering your services to people who are in Europe. So let's assume that you have no European establishment. Then, GDPR can only apply per Art 3(2) to those processing activities that relate to offering goods or services to people who are in Europe. For determining this, IP-based geolocation is indeed common. Very likely, you do not need consent for this. GDPR does not require consent for everything, just a legal basis. There are six potential legal bases in Art 6(1), though the relevant ones are consent, necessity for performing a contract, legal obligations, and necessity for a legitimate interest. For things like security checks, it would be common to claim a legitimate interest. Complying with GDPR can hurt revenue. However, data subjects have a right to data protection, but you do not have a right to a particular business model. Similarly, paying taxes can "hurt revenue", but it's not really optional. If your business model can't deal with GDPR compliance (or with taxes), it might not be a sound business model. In Europe, many newspapers have since moved from advertising-only to a consent-or-pay model. That is, the user is given a choice: You can read articles without tracking if you buy a subscription. You can access articles for free if you consent to tracking. The legality of this is hotly debated. In principle, such an approach can be compliant, but the details are problematic, for example that you can only buy subscriptions rather than individual articles, and that these subscriptions are often orders of magnitude more expensive than what would be earned through ads. But this might actually be easier to solve for a mobile application than for a website, due to the availability of in-app payment and micropayment infrastructure. In any case, GDPR limits how much you can "encourage" consent – per Art 7(4), you cannot make access to your service conditional on consent. There must be a way to use your app without consenting to anything, unless that consent is actually necessary for the app to work. For example, consenting to camera access is necessary for a QR code reader app to work. It is extremely unlikely that ads would be necessary in this sense. Users also must not suffer detriment for declining or withdrawing consent. From this, the EDPB has developed the concept of "permissible incentive" in their guidelines on consent. In this post, "Europe" means EU/EEA/UK as appropriate.	Yes, you could do this be means of the EULA, provided you are not in the EU yourself. You only have to comply with the GDPR if you are offering a product or service to people that are in the EU. If you are making it clear that whatever you offer is not available to Europeans, you make your site exempt from the GDPR.	I assume this refers to the case covered here: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/22/facebook-fined-mishandling-user-information-ireland-eu-meta The gist is: Under GDPR you can only transfer personal data from inside the European Union to the outside if you have procedures in place that ensures it is still protected to European standards. Facebook was found to have failed in that regards, specifically when it came to access by US spy agencies. It seems indeed quite plausible that it is not possible to transfer personal data from the EU to the US in a way that is compatible with both EU and US law. The EU and the US are in negotiations to find a way to make this legally possible. But until then, it seems that if you do have a European subsidary and want to keep all of your account data in the same place, it needs to be a place with robust privacy protections. That doesn't require it to be in the EU, but something like US, Russia or China would be illegal.	When you are the data controller, and are transferring data under your control into non-European countries, you need to protect that transfer. Slack proposes that you use the “standard contractual clauses” (SCCs) mechanism, which is incorporated into their DPA. To enter into SCCs, you as the controller must be convinced that the data importer on the other end is also able to enter into these SCCs. This cannot be the case if the data importer is subject to non-European laws that could require disclosure without legal basis. In the Schrems II judgement, the partial adequacy decision for the United States was invalidated. SCCs can still be a valid transfer tool. However, exactly the same reasons that invalidated the adequacy decision also call into question whether US-based companies can enter into SCCs: electronic communications services can be compelled to disclose personal data to US intelligence agencies without suitable options for redress by the data subjects. Slack is such an US-based company that is probably within scope of these spy laws. If no sufficient legal protections are available, SCCs might still be permissible by implementing supplemental measures that effectively prevent access to the personal data by US intelligence agencies, such as end to end encryption with keys that never leave Europe. The EDPB has issued recommendations on such measures. However, such technical measures are generally incompatible with SaaS services such as Slack. Thus, you must perform an analysis of the available legal and technical measures: If you find that Slack is subject to relevant US laws and that you cannot implement supplemental measures, then the data transfer is probably illegal. Otherwise, a transfer based on SCCs combined with suitable supplemental measures might be legal. In this answer, “Europe” means the UK for the UK GDPR, and EU/EEA for the EU GDPR.	If the website containing the GDPR-wall processes any personal data of users who hit the GDPR-wall, the GDPR applies to that website. This can be as simple as writing a logfile of all visits to the website. In this case it will be illegal if the website owner does not comply with the GDPR. However a supervisory authority would probably not spent any time on such a minor violation. As long as the the website with the GDPR-wall does not process any personal data, the GDPR does not apply, so nothing in the GDPR can forbid the GDPR-wall. Some related remarks: The GDPR does not require a "privacy policy" on the website if the website does not process any personal data. If personal data is processed based on consent, that consent must be freely given. Also it may not be disruptive. So a cookie wall asking for consent would be illegal. But the GDPR does not care about any other disruptive popups, as long as they are not related to asking for consent. Using GeoIP is a perfect way to implement such a GDPR-Wall, because it would block everyone from within the EU, but nobody else. So it blocks exactly those for who the GDPR would apply. In such a case it would not be reasonable to expect anything more from a website owner. A user which uses a proxy, can not expect to be protected by the GDPR, because it bypasses a restriction set by the owner of the website. A webserver does use the IP-address of all incoming requests, to send the reply back. That could be considered a processing of personal data, but everybody seems to agree it is not. I am not sure why. But I do agree that it would be very impractical if that is considered processing of personal data. I added an example from the Washington Post So you have to pay $9/month for a GDPR compliant subscription. Because the price you have to pay is not unacceptable high, I think it would be valid to offer the premium version this way. This does not force you to choose one of the other subscriptions. In december 2018, the Austrian DPA (DSB) has confirmed that a similar offer is lawful. On derstandard.at you get a choice between free access with tracking and advertising, or pay 6 Euro/Month for tracking free access. Because 6 Euro/Month is cheaper than subscribing to the printed edition, the DSB accepted that as a valid choice. More information can be found on noyb.eu or, (with more details but in German), on wbs-law.de.	Yes If you are in the EU, or your players are in the EU and your service is targeted at some part of (or all of) the EU, then this pretty clearly falls within the scope of the GDPR. Such a service would be collecting data associated with natural persons. At least some of it would be made public along with an online identifier, and other parts would be processed and stored, even if disclosed only in anonymized form. (By the way it is a non-trivial task to anonymize data well enough that it is no longer persona data under the GDPR. But let's suppose yoru methods are good enough.) Under GDPR Article 6 the DC must have a lawful basis for such processing. If the basis is "consent" then the consent must be freely given, whch means giving consent may not be a condition of using the service. Under GDPR Article 13 a notice must be sent to the Data Subject (DS) when the data is collected from the subject, including some 11 items or categories of information about the collection process, the Data Controller (DC), the purposes of processing, the legal basis of processing (which the DC must define), who will receive the data, the data retention period, and various rights of the DS. Such a service must be prepared to respond to data access and data erasure requests, under articles 15-17, and data restriction requests under article 18. It must provide a method for a DS to easily make such requests. Other GDPR provisions may well apply in addition to these, but that is enough to show that such service is very likely to be within the scope of the GDPR, unless none of the DSs are present in the EU or the related market area.
Is harmlessly appearing to be a school bus driver a crime? Hypothetically, if someone who owned a school bus legally drove said school bus to a bus stop 3 minutes before the stop would ordinarily be made, allowed schoolchildren to board without speaking, then proceeded to drive them to their normal destination of school, unharmed, would this possibly result in charges being levied? If so, what charges could be brought against such an individual?	Setting aside kidnapping, child-endangerment, etc., there are a host of laws requiring the bus and the driver to have special licenses (ie, a commercial drivers license), inspections (including a physical and regular drug tests), training, insurance and so on. Breaking any of these laws is a crime. In most states, these crimes are treated as misdemeanors or gross misdemeanors, so the largest penalty will be something like a year in jail and/or $5,000 fine. In other words: Even before the prosecutor gets to the serious stuff, the driver is in trouble. For those of you who want to dig into the details, this page breaks out what you need to do to become a school bus driver in CA. This page links to the manuals for drivers and buses in WA, along with a list of all of the specific laws and administrative codes involved.	There is, in most countries at least, no law requiring a business to treat a customer fairly. In general, a business may refuse to serve a would-be customer for any reason or none, provided that the reason is not membership in a protected class (racial, religious, ethnic, or sexual bias, mostly). Exactly which classes are protected depends on the local law (in the US, there can be such laws at all of federal, state, and municipal levels). If a customer is asked to leave and does not do so, s/he could be charged with defiant trespass (or local equivalent). More likely, security, or the police, could simply escort the customer out of the business, using as much force as is reasonably needed for that purpose. Unless there are grounds for action not mentioned, I see no basis for a successful suit by the customer.	I'll preface this by saying I live in Australia where the lowest jurisdiction that can make an act a criminal offence is the state; local governments simply do not have that power here, Question 1: If I understand this right you have a law that you do not enforce that carries moderate sanctions and you are asking that a law that you do not enforce with greater sanctions will be a greater deterrent? Well ... no (see here). If you want to stop the behavior you have to enforce the sanctions that you have in a fair and impartial way. I would suggest that you make it very clear that starting in early September the laws will be enforced - that gives people fair warning. Then, each weekend in September you bring in enough police (State Troopers?) to enforce the law. Its not going to take many $250 fines to make people stop. Question 2: No comment. Question 3: No comment. Question 4: Sounds like a good way of getting the city sued for negligence; just because people are breaking the law does not make it legal to hurt them. If you are serious then fencing the entire area may be worthwhile but the area would still need to be policed.	As mentioned in a comment by @Dancrumb, the exact policies of each local police department will be different, and there are thousands of them. There is a relevant requirement at the Federal level according the Department of Justice, but it is not clear to me to what extent this applies to peers and not just supervisors: An officer who purposefully allows a fellow officer to violate a victim's Constitutional rights may be prosecuted for failure to intervene to stop the Constitutional violation. To prosecute such an officer, the government must show that the defendant officer was aware of the Constitutional violation, had an opportunity to intervene, and chose not to do so. This charge is often appropriate for supervisory officers who observe uses of excessive force without stopping them, or who actively encourage uses of excessive force but do not directly participate in them.	In the US, obscenities, insults, racial slurs and so on are legal, owing to the First Amendment. An actual, believable threat to maim you would not be legal, under Cal. Penal 422, but "I oughta punch you" would not be a criminal threat. Some forms of aggressive driving constitute reckless driving, if they are driving "in willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property". It is also against the law to follow too close (you must follow reasonably and prudently). Exceeding the speed limit is a violation of Veh. Code 22352, even if it's to pass a guy on a bike. Of course, we can't tell if you are obeying the law, but even if you were doing something illegal in your biking such as blowing away a stop sign, "the other guy was bad" is not a defense against a citation for illegal driving.	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.	TITLE XXI Section 263:1-a 263:1-a Allowing an Improper Person. – No person shall knowingly permit a motor vehicle owned or controlled by him to be driven by a person who is not properly licensed or otherwise entitled to drive. Any person who violates this section shall be guilty of a violation, and if the license or driving privilege of the person allowed to drive is under suspension or revocation, the owner or person in control of the vehicle, notwithstanding title LXII, shall be fined not less than $100. I would also hazard that allowing someone to use your vehicle knowing they intend to commit a crime would make you an accessory but I don’t think that’s the answer they’re looking for here.	Theoretically speaking, this is not theft. You are correct in that theft requires specific intent: to permanently deprive someone from the use and enjoyment of one of their lawful possessions. In real life, it is a matter of evidence of course. Saying you were only borrowing can be proven otherwise based on your actions. I should also mention that if you "borrow" something an there were obligations attached to that borroeing (e.g. "you can borrow it but you mustnt use it like this, or you must return it in a week") then failing to abide by those obligations can be sufficient to show intention to deprive. Furthermore "borrowing something" and consuming its entire usefulness for yourself counts as the permanent deprivation of the use of the possession from the owner. E.g. "borrowing" concert tickets and returning them after a concert (see s.6 Theft Act 1968) R v Lloyd, Bhuee & Ali [1985] QB 829 also tells us that the condition of something borrowed once returned may be indicative of whether there was an intention to permanently deprive someone of their rights to property.
Buying a business in Germany Therr is Person A with SoleTraderCompA and person B with no company. Person A wants to sell to B, B wants to buy. Both residents of Germany. How can this be processed? Transfer obligations etc. eg. Does B have to open a UG (limited liability) and buy STCompA? Any ideas would be appreciated.	It's important to be absolutely clear on what is being sold. Using English translations may affect the outcome. Assuming "SoleTraderCompA" is an Einzelunternehmen, the sale would be an asset sale. The company isn't sold, because the company is legally identical to person A! Instead, person A makes an extensive list of all assets he's selling (goods, real estate, intellectual property, etcetera). "SoleTraderCompA" might be a trade mark, in which case the trade mark can be sold. Person B can also be an Einzelunternehmen, and as part of its business operations buys aforementioned assets from person A. But in general, any legal entity can buy the assets of person A, including a GmbH or AG.	There is no law against driving a hard bargain If you were describing real estate owners rather than YouTube channel owners we’d have a term for them: a motivated seller. There is no law against using the fact that someone is desperate to sell to negotiate a lower price: that’s just good business. In general, common law legal systems do not involve themselves in whether a price agreed between two parties was fair: if you want to sell your original Picasso for $1 or pay $1m for a used tissue, that’s up to you. If you have ethical issues with that, don’t do it but it’s not illegal. Legal issues can come up where you are the cause in some way of the motivation. A lender foreclosing on a mortgage is ok. A lender offering to buy the property to avoid foreclosure is not. The first is just enforcing the terms of the contract, the second looks like undue influence and unconscionable conduct. Some countries have laws against profiteering and you would need to look at the legal definition to decide if this is or isn’t profiteering. In the US, it isn’t because their laws only deal with profiteering that damages the government. Some US states have laws against price gouging but these are usually to prevent charging too much, not too little. Which clauses of YouTube's Terms of Service would be violated? None. YouTube does not have any terms about selling your digital assets and we know it happens. Which US sanctions would be violated? It’s impossible to say without reading the sanction. If it’s illegal to transfer money to the sanctioned people then the whole plan falls over because you can’t pay for the channel in the first place.	First of all, this is not insider trading: insider trading is using non-public information to trade a publicly tradable security. What this could be is misuse of confidential information - a civil tort. The disclaimer does not create a legally binding contract for a number of reasons but it does alert the recipient that the information is confidential: if they use it then they can be sued for damages (probably successfully). However, given the nature of the information, it is almost impossible for your friend not to act on it and Company B should realise this. Legally he is doing the right thing, consulting a lawyer and informing Company B of its colossally massive stuff up. Ethically he may need to withdraw from the negotiations.	Yes. The European Enforcement Order is an explicit procedure for uncontested claims like this. That means no German court is involved (unlike Dale M's answer suggests). The Greek Court files an EEO, and this can be enforced directly in Germany without going through German courts again. That means you can face wage garrisons, bank account freezes etcetera.	I've found Commission Decision 2003/675/EC which sheds light on what exactly happened here (more digestable press release here). Basically, there was a dispute involving Nintendo and its various independent distributors who had exclusive distribution rights in their respective territories, Bergsala AB for Sweden. Note this wasn't simply a matter of Bergsala's rights being violated, but rather a scheme to reduce parallel imports/exports which the Commission found to be anti-competitive. For most parties, this was brought to an end in December 1997 (see section 2.2.11 on pgs. 54-55). So no, there was no change in the law, but the anti-competitive scheme stopped in late 1997. Weirdly this should have resulted in the possibility for more imports, but since those imports would no longer have artificially higher prices, perhaps the advertisements and/or imports were no longer worth economically worth it. Or perhaps Bergsala pivoted to greater enforcement the exclusive rights it did have, even if this didn't include the ability to block parallel imports according to EU competition law. In any case, trade of Nintendo products in Europe was greatly altered in late 1997. Please take my summary with a grain of salt, I'm not very well versed in the field of commerce and I've already misunderstood the decision at least once; check the cited decision for proper details.	That really sucks. I've had similar experiences when handling the probate proceedings of lawyers who were not good about returning original wills to clients. I am providing an answer under general principles without researching Oregon specific accounting, record retention and probate laws, to at least give you a start although I recognize that a better answer would research these questions. The accounts/clients from her business were sold to another woman. Is it legal for us to transfer everything to her possession? Probably yes. There should be a government agency in Oregon that regulates accountants that has rules regarding that question. The linked rule seems to govern this situation. It says in Rule 801-030-0015(d) that: (d) Custody and disposition of working papers. (A) A licensee may not sell, transfer or bequeath working papers described in this rule to anyone other than one or more surviving partners or stockholders, or new partners or stockholders of the licensee, or any combined or merged organization or successor in interest to the licensee, without the prior written consent of the client or the client’s personal representative or assignee. (B) A licensee is not prohibited from making a temporary transfer of working papers or other material necessary to the conduct of peer reviews or for the disclosure of information as provided by section (1)(b) of this rule. (C) A licensee shall implement reasonable procedures for the safe custody of working papers and shall retain working papers for a period sufficient to meet the needs of the licensee’s practice and to satisfy applicable professional standards and pertinent legal requirements for record retention. (D) A licensee shall retain working papers during the pendency of any Board investigation, disciplinary action, or other legal action involving the licensee. Licensees shall not dispose of such working papers until notified in writing by the Board of the closure of the investigation or until final disposition of the legal action or proceeding if no Board investigation is pending. So, a transfer to a successor firm appears to be permitted. What if she refuses to take the documents? Her probate estate could retain them and stay open, they could be returned to clients, or there could be a rule established by the Oregon body that regulates accountants that authorizes a central depository of such records. In Colorado, for example, in the case of law practices with no successors, original wills and estate planning documents can be deposited in the records of the court with probate jurisdiction that has jurisdiction over the territory where the decedent's practice was located. But, I could not locate any provision of this kind in Oregon law. Is it legal for us to destroy/shred/etc. the documents? In many cases, yes. Some states, by statute or regulation, and others by custom, allow business records to be destroyed as a matter of course, normally one year after the longest statute of limitations that could apply to a dispute where the records would be relevant (often seven years since the longest normally applicable tax statute of limitations is six years). Destroying tax returns is usually not a big concern because a transcript of the old tax returns can be ordered from the tax collection agency where they were filed. But, business records related to purchases of property and capital improvements and depreciation, and related to divorces, can be relevant for decades after they were created, so the more honorable course of action would be to make at least a cursory effort (such as a postcard sent to a last known address of each client with a deadline for requesting a return of their file) to return the files of clients that include original business records as opposed to mere copies of tax returns. Oregon has a seven year retention rule for most purposes pursuant to Rule 801-030-0015(e) which is linked above: (e) Retention of attest and audit working papers. (A) Licensees must maintain, for a period of at least seven years, the working papers for any attest or compilation services performed by the licensee together with any other supporting information, in sufficient detail to support the conclusions reached in such services. (B) The seven-year retention period described in paragraph (A) of this subsection is extended if a longer period is required for purposes of a Board investigation as provided in paragraph (d)(D) of this rule and OAR 801-010-0115(3). The referenced rule in that rule states: (3) Requirements upon resignation. Upon resignation, a former licensee is required to: (a) Surrender the CPA certificate or PA license to the Board; (b) Take all reasonable steps to avoid foreseeable harm to any client, including but not limited to providing written notice of resignation under this section to all clients and inform all clients of where client records and work papers will be stored and of the clients’ right to secure copies of all such records and work papers at no cost to the client; (c) Maintain client records for a period of at least six years, or return such records to the client; and (d) Continue to comply with the requirements of OAR Chapter 801 Division 030 pertaining to confidential information and client records. (e) For the purpose of subsection (b) above and unless otherwise required by the Board, a resigning licensee of a registered firm is required to give written notice to only those firm clients for which the resigning licensee was the sole or primary CPA on an engagement, an engagement leader, or the client relationship manager. In practice, the consequences of destroying a record that shouldn't have been destroyed are likely to be minimal, because any recovery would be limited to the assets of the estate and there is a time limit for making claims against estates which is quite strict, and your grandma has no license to revoke. But, again, the honorable thing to do in order to honor her legacy and do right by her former clients would be to either transfer the records to a successor firm or to attempt to return them, as she would be required to do if she had surrendered a license during life.	Yes. You can build your business with that. Yes. Also, a trademark is not a trade name and vice versa. This is a common mistake. A trademark is a brand affixed to some kind of product. A trade name is the name of a business. They are not the same things. The fact that you have a business with a particular trade name does not mean that you necessarily have a trademark in that name. You do not necessarily need to have a trademark in your trade name and often you can't because it is not a branding of your product. Probably not. Certainly, you cannot get a principle register trademark for this. You could file a state trademark registration if you sell it in a U.S. second or perhaps a supplemental trademark registration, which don't necessarily give you legal rights, but do conclusively establish that you were using the mark in a particular place from a particular time which would discourage anyone else from trying to get a trademark of their own and oust you from using yours. Sometimes trademark examiners are lazy and let generic marks get registered even though they shouldn't. Hard to say. They shouldn't be able to get a trademark in the U.S. on that basis, but the quality of trademark examination varies from country to country, and from examiner to examiner. Every once in a while I see an approved registration for a mark that should totally be disqualified and I shrug my shoulders and ask myself why I always clear a clear "no" from the PTO when I try to submit a mark like that and somehow the bozo who submitted that mark got it approved when it should be clearly ineligible for registration - for example, "Palisade Red" for red wine made in Palisade, Colorado. A lesser level of trademark registration such as a state trademark or a supplemental register mark discourages an otherwise lenient examiner from approving an already dubious mark and strengthen your case if you ever need to seek to have their mark cancelled.	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).
Implications of changing terms of a free license (LGPL, Apache, MIT, Eclipse, etc) after I started using software on old terms While creating my software (as a developer / startup owner) I rely on the fact that I can use some (software) library for free. I also rely on the fact that I can use it for commercial purpose and that I can keep my code private (not open-source). So, I created the product and launched it widely in the market. But what if after that the license suddenly changes (in the future)? Do I have (legally speaking) 100% firm guarantees that I can continue use it on the same terms (as I started), or it will be a possible "stub-in-the-back" at any time? And I will have to discontinue my business immediately?	In general, unless the license contains a clause which allows it to be modified at a later date through some defined means (publication, revocation of existing license etc) then you are free to continue to use the existing version of the software under the original license terms. So make sure you pin your versions! Look out for clauses such as exists in the GPL which allow the recipient of the distributed binary or code to choose what version of the GPL to apply if the original author does not state (GPLv2 Clause 9) as they then allow recipients to bind you, the distributor, to versions you might not agree with (eg the switch to GPLv3 with its patents clauses).	The first question is whose law you are concerned with, since in principle you might have violated copyright law in any country, and might be sued under the laws of multiple countries. The US has a concept of "fair use" which is notoriously difficult to apply. When you are sued in the US, you can defend against the allegation by arguing certain things: telegraphically, this includes purpose and character of use, nature of the work, substantiality in relation to the whole, and effect on market. Plus there is a 5th factor to be considered, transformativeness. The court then weighs these factors to decide if the use is "fair". By reading existing case law on the topic (conveniently available from the US Copyright office) you might develop a fact-based opinion of the risk: you would be vastly better off hiring an attorney who specializes in US copyright law to do an analysis for you. Do not hire a programmer to give you legal advice (do not hire an attorney to debug code). You would "fail" on the test of substantiality in that you are copying a highly substantial portion of the original work(s). You would "win" on nature of use (research especially non-profit and commentary are the underlying purposes that drive fair use law). It's not clear how you would fare w.r.t. nature of the work, which is intended to distinguish the extremes "news report" and "literature and artistic work" where copying news is at the fair use end of the spectrum. It is not clear how you would fare on "effect on market", but probably not so badly: are you avoiding some licensing fee? Coupled with the tranformativeness consideration, you are most likely having no effect on the market, since the product that you will distribute is not the original work, but a scientific conclusion about the work. Germany has different laws, and this article would be relevant if you cared about Germany. There was a change in the law that expanded the analog of fair use pertaining to research use. That law allows 15 percent of a work to be reproduced, distributed and made available to the public for the purpose of non-commercial scientific research. That, b.t.w., does not refer to what you are planning to do (unless you also publish quotes); for personal scientific research you may reproduce up to 75 percent. Since this is a new law only a year old, you could become part of the cutting edge in testing the limits of the law. So the standard disclaimer applies: ask your attorney. But note section 60d of the law which legalized data mining, and is squarely on point: (1) In order to enable the automatic analysis of large numbers of works (source material) for scientific research, it shall be permissible to reproduce the source material, including automatically and systematically, in order to create, particularly by means of normalisation, structuring and categorisation, a corpus which can be analysed and to make the corpus available to the public for a specifically limited circle of persons for their joint scientific research, as well as to individual third persons for the purpose of monitoring the quality of scientific research. In such cases, the user may only pursue non-commercial purposes. (2) If database works are used pursuant to subsection (1), this shall constitute customary use in accordance with section 55a, first sentence. If insubstantial parts of databases are used pursuant to subsection (1), this shall be deemed consistent with the normal utilisation of the database and with the legitimate interests of the producer of the database within the meaning of section 87b (1), second sentence, and section 87e. (3) Once the research work has been completed, the corpus and the reproductions of the source material shall be deleted; they may no longer be made available to the public. It shall, however, be permissible to transmit the corpus and the reproductions of the source material to the institutions referred to in sections 60e and 60f for the purpose of long-term storage.	The GPL does require you to keep any existing copyright notices: You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you [...] keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty [...] The GPL also recommends adding a notice to each file: Copyright (C) yyyy name of author - This program is free software[...] From my reading of the GPL, if the software you modify contains such notices, which is likely, you must preserve them. This effectively attributes the original author. However, as far as I can see, there is no requirement to have a list of acknowledgements (as is customary in scientific papers), which lists all the software you used. How to attribute parts that are integrated in source form? (Where licence information is given in the file header) If you keep the original file header (and possibly add to it), that should be enough. How to attribute parts that are integrated in binary form? As far as I can see, there is no additional attribution required for distribution in binary form. The GPL requires you to supply the source code along with the binary form, so the attribution in the source code will be available.	Is this work for hire? There is an arguable case to be made that you are an employee for copyright law purposes and, if so, the copyright belongs to the company. The closer an employment relationship comes to regular, salaried employment, the more likely it is that a work created within the scope of that employment will be a work made for hire. But because no precise standard exists for determining whether a work is made for hire under part 1 of the definition in section 101 of the copyright law, consultation with a lawyer may be advisable. Second, if you do own the copyright, there is clearly an implied licence with the company to allow them to use it. It is arguable that the licence is exclusive since the software is bespoke and made specifically for the company. Can you sign an agreement now Yes, but … It is clear that the purpose of signing the agreement is to screw the company over (with the compliance of 2 of the directors). That’s a contract entered into in bad faith and possibly for an illegal purpose and would likely be found invalid. You need to understand that the company is a distinct legal entity from its owners and it has its own rights. People make the mistake of thinking the owners are the company: they aren’t. The two rebel founders are on dangerous legal ground. Assuming they are the directors of the company, they have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of the company. That is, they must put the company’s interests ahead of their own. It is clearly not in the company’s interest to have a rival business start so they cannot plan to do that while they are directors - they need to resign first. You are not so much at risk - as an employee/contractor your duty is to follow the directions of the company (the company - not a faction within the company). However, if you aid the other two in what might be a crime, you could be in trouble.	They certainly can make that a license term and revoke the license if you do not comply. However, revoking the license is all they can do to "forbid". Or they could sue you for damages without revoking the license. That said, you are free to consult how to use their software so long as you do not hold a license so that you are not bound by the terms AND you do not break the law e.g. copyright. How to do it is up to you to figure. Maybe you could simply consult users that do have a license — on their premises and devices.	Can you locate your license (generally not a trivial task)? It may appear under Help-About and a click to view EULA. The EULA specifically addresses redistribution of parts of the software and number of installations you can make with a single license. They do not say what uses you make make of the software, except that "You may not rent, lease, lend or provide commercial hosting services with the Software". There is no express prohibition against commercial or non-commercial political use of the product: anything not prohibited is allowed. The fact that they say nothing about the content that you create with Word means, they have declined to have a say in the matter. (I am not sure about the wording of the "Educational" versions of Office: those are somewhat negotiated between the institution and MS).	It doesn't make a difference if the product is free or commercial use, if it's initiated by a company or an individual. What you are considering would be a "derivative work" and without explicit permission from the copyright holder, it is considered a violation.	The agreement linked in the question seems to be or to purport to be, for a non-final, non-production version of the board. I have seen such agreements used, both for hardware and software, used when beta-test versions of products are being distributed to those who agree to do such testing, often in exchange for a reduced price on the final product, or an early look. I have also seen similar language used when an evaluation version of a product is provided free, or at a much reduced price. In such a use, it would be a reasonable contract, it seem to me, and I see no reason why if it were agreed to by both parties in such a situation, it would not be binding. Often such agreements also include a non-disclosure aspect, but this one does not seem to do so. I cannot see how such an agreement could be made applicable automatically, without both parties having chosen to agree to it, and indicated this by signing, clicking, or in some other positive way. I doubt that it could be made automatically applicable, on an "by using this product you agree" basis. I don't know of any physical consumer product, or appliance, sold with such an agreement in ordinary commerce. I am not sure what would happen if a manufacturer wanted to require all purchasers to sign such an agreement. I don't know if it would be binding. I would think that the purchaser's rights under the First Sale doctrice, could be modified by a valid contract agreed to by the purchaser. I do not think that they could simply be revoked by a contract of adhesion, which the purchaser had no choice to decline before making the purchase. As the OP says this was not signed or agreed to in any way, I can't see how it binds the OP.
Is it legal to enter school from my garden? My back garden is back to back with my children's school.The fence belongs to me and there is no fence from the school at this side. My question is if it is legal for me to enter the school from my garden to pick-up or drop-off my kids? My logic is this: as the garden is back to back with school's open area, which everyone can access while they are in the school. I am allowed to be in school to pick-up or drop-off my kids, and I am allowed to get to the fence of my garden (from school side), and then as the fence belongs to me, so I am allowed to climb over it to enter my own house?	In general, permission is not granted to enter the premises of another by climbing a fence unless it is explicitly granted. That the fence is on your property, but adjacent to the school's property, is a complication. The school, observing that there is a boundary fence, might reasonably rely on that to exclude people from entering other than at desired entry points. So it might be that your entry over the fence would be unauthorized and thus technically trespassing. If you were to put a gate in your own fence, the school's reliance is probably less reasonable. Or if you were to formally notify the school that you intend to enter the school grounds over your own fence. However, in practice, you are not trespassing until you are notified by the owner or owner's agent or someone with proper authority. If there is no sign, there can be no claim that you were notified by one. So until a school official or employee notices you using the fence and orders you to stop, there is no issue.	I don't know of any legal reason to care whether people consider reverse graffiti to be graffiti, since graffiti is not itself a legal concept. The act when done without permission is, however, trespassing, which is against the law. Painting a building is legal, if done with permission; painting a building in a pattern is legal, if done with permission. Strangely enough, cleaning a building without permission, whether entirely of selectively in a pattern, is illegal. There are in fact specific laws about defacing property, so the illegality of the act does not rely solely on trespass laws. The NYC law is here, the California law is here, and there are many similar laws. In Washington, illegality arises from a more general prohibition against causing physical damage, which is defined here, and boils down to "costs money to fix". These laws are not limited to "applying opaque material to a surface".	It may be discrimination; not all discrimination is illegal. Details vary by jurisdiction, for example discrimination on the following bases is illegal in Australia: race colour sex sexual preference age physical or mental disability marital status family or carer’s responsibilities pregnancy religion political opinion national extraction social origin A medical condition like an allergy is not necessarily a physical disability. The school is arguably fulfilling its obligations under WHS legislation by banning nut products if that is what a risk assessment indicates. It may also be necessary to ban milk products if that is required for your daughter's safety. If (and I do not know) nuts pose a greater risk than milk then banning the former and not the latter may be perfectly justified. Ask to see the risk assessment.	So I can block children under 13, but I can't tell them that? You can tell them after they fail, you cannot tell them on the asking screen. Then what is the correct way to block children under 13 to access my website and still comply with COPPA? I agree with you that it is odd that they recommend using a cookie but they do!* So you have a entry page with a simple question, "Please indicate your age" and then block based on the response. That's it. Note that the rule is neutral. This means that you do not need to disguise your purpose or try to trick people into entering their correct age. *I think that what is happening here is that any parent who wants to complain to their legislator can be met with the response, "If your kid is so sneaky that they are using different computers to lie about their age what do you want us to do about it?" The fact is, this scheme keeps innocent kids from seeing stuff they shouldn't; the sneaky ones are going to find a way.	The answer is a clear maybe. The school has a set of rules and by not attending you have broken those rules. The rules may (probably do) allow for consideration of extenuating circumstances but, in general, it doesn't have to. There is probably an appeals process, you need to investigate this. That said, if there are no provisions for extenuating circumstances and/or no appeals process then this may make the contract "unconscionable"; in many jurisdictions this makes the contract void. That doesn't mean you get the marks; it means you get your money back. The circumstances of your court appearance matter: the school may grant special consideration if you are called as a juror or witness; they might not if you are a defendant. Ultimately you had a choice, to follow the rules of the court or the school; there are consequences either way.	Farmer's Market is private property, which means that the owner gets to set the rule according to which you are allowed to enter and remain on their property. There is no fundamental right to be in a business, either under the US Constitution or California's. While you have a constitutional right to put a soapbox on the public sidewalk and denounce or extol whatever you like, there is no such right on another person's property. You also have a right to express racially and sexually abhorrent content on the street. Your right to express your viewpoint ends at the store's doors. The manager has a property right to withdraw the implicit permission to enter and remain that is implicit in running a publicly accessible store. Your constitutional right to say whatever you want has to do with government action,not private action. You have no right to compel individuals to listen to your viewpoint on private property. It is a business decision, well within the rights of the property owner, for him to find your conduct unacceptable and grounds for expulsion. You do have a recourse: shop somewhere that doesn't care what you say to their customers.	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.	Entering onto someone's land without lawful excuse is trespass Permission is lawful excuse. You don't have express permission. You have implied permission to enter in some circumstances, for example, to approach someone's front door or to reasonably recover your property. You would also have lawful excuse if you were a police, fire or ambulance officer discharging their duties or if you were in physical danger if you didn't enter - running from an assailant across someone else's property is not trespass. Among others. Whether the field is fenced or not or if that fence has an opening or gate does not give you permission although it can remove some implied permissions, not least that you do not have implied permission to enter over the fence. If its not your field, stay out of it.
Is there any evidence of (attempted) bribery of Ukraine by Trump I asked on out Politics site, Why is Trump not being impeached for bribery?, and one answer (with 5 upvotes currently) said The answer to this one is simple - the only logical reason to drop this article of impeachment is because there is no evidence that bribery, as it is legally defined, took place. Adam Schiff's definition of bribery is wholly irrelevant ... It certainly seems to me - a layperson - that there appeared to be, at least, attempted bribery (or, possibly, corecion). How do the legal experts here see it - not opinion based, obviously - given publicly available information, is there a case for bribery? I can see that the Democrats might consider that there is a case, but not want to muddy the waters with too many articles of impeachment, or that poster on Politics may be correct. Does anyone see a legal case for (attempted) bribery in the publicly available information?	Proof is for a courtroom Or in this case, the Senate. Proof is what you get when the trial is complete, the evidence has been considered and the verdict is in. Is there evidence? The Federal crime of bribery : that the defendants acted with corrupt intent to engage in a quid pro quo, that is, “a specific intent to give or receive something of value in exchange for an official act.” United States v. Sun-Diamond Growers, 526 U.S. 398, 404-05 (1999). There is testimony from a number of witnesses that the President did that. That’s evidence.	You are correct that the existence of a lawsuit -- on First Amendment or Fifth Amendment grounds -- is not a strong basis for believing that Acosta will have his pass reinstated. People file losing lawsuits all the time. But that doesn't really tell us anything about the merits of his case, which I discuss below. Temporary restraining order: The standard for TROs is well-established: This court may issue a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction only when the movant demonstrates that: there is a substantial likelihood plaintiff will succeed on the merits; plaintiff will be irreparably injured if an injunction is not granted; an injunction will not substantially injure the other party; and the public interest will be furthered by an injunction. Morgan Stanley DW Inc. v. Rothe, 150 F. Supp. 2d 67, 72 (D.D.C. 2001). I'd normally expect the court to be pretty speech-protective in a First Amendment TRO case, but because this is the White House, they'll probably give a fair amount of extra weight when figuring out how to balance everything here. I would not, however, expect either of the factors that you mentioned -- that this is a Fifth Amendment case and that few people have press passes -- to do much to change the court's analysis. I suspect it's going to come down to who is more credible about what happened and why. Fifth Amendment: The Constitution does not promise us much at all in terms of outcomes. What it does promise is that the government will go through reasonable procedures to arrive at those outcomes. As you seem to have identified, that's exactly what Sherrill was about. Sherrill does not say that everyone has the First Amendment right to a White House press pass; it says that that everyone has the Fifth Amendment right to due process when the White House decides whether to grant or deny a press pass -- especially because of the First Amendment interests implicated in those decisions. The basics ingredients of due process are notice and an opportunity to be heard by a neutral decision-maker, and that's all that Sherrill calls for: a publicly disclosed procedure by which the journalists can apply for credentials and appeal adverse decisions. Here, it's unclear whether the White House has provided Acosta with any notice or any opportunity to appeal his decision. If that's the case, they've almost certainly run afoul of Sherrill. But again, you are correct that this does not mean he gets his press pass back. If they find that the White House violated the Fifth Amendment as explained in Sherrill, the remedy will simply be to force it to go through the prescribed procedure. First Amendment: If it turns out that they use that procedure as a pretext to punish Acosta for protected speech, we would be out of Fifth Amendment territory and into First Amendment territory. If a court found that the White House had revoked his pass because he was from CNN, because they didn't like the questions he was asking, or because he didn't provide fawning coverage of the president, it is virtually certain that the White House would be forced to restore his credentials. But if they determine in a fair way that Acosta should have his pass revoked because he was violent, because he was infringing on other people's ability to do their job, or because he was otherwise violating established rules, a court would probably say that any of those was an acceptable justification. In that case, CNN would need a new White House correspondent.	No But they aren’t suing over defamation against Trump; the are suing over (alleged) defamation of the campaign: the Campaign "assessed the potential risks and benefits of again seeking Russia's help in 2020 and has decided to leave that option on the table."	The law you cite says that the Secretary shall furnish such committee with any return or return information specified in such request That includes specific individual returns. That it was intended to include such returns is made clear by the provisions restricting identifiable individual data to executive session. Whether this ought to be the law might well be debated. Whether the House ought to use this law as a way to get at Trump's returns could also be debated. Those are matters of politics, or perhaps ethics, not law. Whether some other provision of law overrides this provision in this case is pretty clearly going to be argued in court, and we will see what the decision is. I won't try to predict it here.	An indictment is issued by a grand jury when they are convinced, on the basis of evidence presented to them by the government, that there is probable cause to believe that the person committed a crime. However, the indictment only has to state the charges, i.e. the grand jury's conclusion; it doesn't have to describe the evidence that led them to this conclusion. In particular, the grand jury can hear the testimony of witnesses under oath, and has subpoena powers to compel testimony. But testimony before a grand jury is sealed and must not be revealed by anyone except the witness themself. A good source for learning more about the grand jury process is the Handbook for Federal Grand Jurors. The authoritative source is the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, Title III. So, there must have been some evidence that he committed a crime, at least in the grand jury's view. But we, the public, don't get to see it at this time. If the case goes to trial, evidence will be presented publicly at that time, though it won't necessarily be the same evidence that convinced the grand jury to indict. (Note that this answer is about the US federal criminal justice system, since that's what's involved in the Collins case. Some states may have a similar system; others may not.)	A prosecutor's discretion is almost unassailable. The main reason for this is to prevent prosecutors from having to defend in a legal forum every single decision made. In a civil matter, prosecutors have absolute immunity form being personally sued for their actions (again, to prevent a prosecutor from being sued from every single defendant). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutorial_immunity Misconduct by prosecutors may be resolved by reversal or retrials of court proceedings. But this is not something that really has criminal penalties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutorial_misconduct#:~:text=In%20jurisprudence%2C%20prosecutorial%20misconduct%20is,is%20similar%20to%20selective%20prosecution. Occasionally, a prosecutor may be subject to discipline from the state's Bar. This is rare, and is not much of a deterrent. https://publicintegrity.org/politics/state-politics/harmful-error/misconduct-and-punishment/ Theoretically, a prosecutor who out and out breaks the law can be prosecuted. Examples seem to be rare, and are more about government malfeasance (expense reports, misuse of government equipment, etc.). Due to the above standards, proving criminal conduct around prosecutorial discretion will be extremely difficult, as will finding a fellow prosecutor willing to even go down that road. It is in no prosecutor's interest to set the precedent of prosecutors being jailed for their behavior. So, why has nothing happened? Because in general, prosecutors can get away with almost anything. And I will add, Because America seems to like it this way.	There is a factually similar impeachment case. But there might be a court case fitting these facts as well. No such case is annotated by West under 14th Amendment, Section 3 either with the note or on its list of citations. It is also not mentioned in a law review article looking a WV civil war era jurisprudence up to 1872 when WV's new constitution was adopted. I suspect that the case you are looking for is a pair of related cases (neither of which involves West Virginia), one tried by the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court alone on a habeas corpus petition when riding circuit, and a related decision of the Texas Supreme Court involving the same defendant. Griffin's Case, 11 F. Cas. 7, 2 Am. Law T. Rep. U. S. Cts. 93; 8 Am. Law Reg. N. S. 358; 25 Tex. Supp. 623 ; 2 Balt. Law Trans. 433; 3 Am. Law Rev. 784 (Circuit Court, D. Virginia, May 1, 1869) and In re Caesar Griffin, 25 Tex. Supp. 623 (Tex. April 1869). The official summary of the fact and procedural posture of the main case on point was as follows: Caesar Griffin, a negro, was indicted in the county court of Rockbridge county, for an assault with intent to kill. He removed his case as under the law he had the right to do into the circuit court for that county, and was there tried by a jury which found him guilty and assessed his punishment at imprisonment for two years in the penitentiary. He was accordingly sentenced by the court to that imprisonment While on his way thither, in the custody of the sheriff of Rockbridge county, he sent out this writ which was served on the sheriff. That officer produced the petitioner in the district court then in session in Richmond, and made return to the writ that he held him by virtue of the conviction and sentence of the circuit court for Rockbridge county, making the record of the trial and conviction there a a part of his return. This return the petitioner traversed, denying that there was any court or judge in Rockbridge county as pretended by said pretended record, and that the paper exhibited was any record as alleged. The state of Virginia appearing by the attorney-general, Mr., Judge H. W. Sheffey, the judge of the circuit court for Rockbridge by Bradley T. Johnson, Esq., and the sheriff by James Neeson, Esq. they joined issue on this traverse. The petitioner then proved that Judge Sheffey had been a member of the house of delegates in 1849. That in 1862, he was speaker of the house of delegates, and that his votes were recorded for affording men, money and supplies to support Virginia and the Confederate States, in the war then flagrant with the United States. It was admitted that he was duly appointed on February 22, 1866, by the then government of Virginia, to be judge of the circuit including the county of Rockbridge; that he immediately entered on the duties of that office, and that he has ever since and still is discharging the functions of the same. The cause was argued at great length in the district court, before the district judge in December, 1868, who ordered the discharge of the petitioner, whereupon an appeal was prayed by the sheriff under the habeas corpus act of 1867 [14 StaL 385], to the circuit court, and the petitioner admitted to bail. Before the circuit court could meet other writs of habeas corpus were sued out by other parties convicted of felonies, two of them of murder, on the same ground as in this case, and the petitioners were discharged. A motion was then made by James Lyons, Esq. in the supreme court of the United States for a writ of prohibition against the district judge, to restrain him from further exercise of such power. The supreme court advised on the motion, and never announced any conclusion, but shortly afterward the chief justice opened the circuit court at Richmond, and immediately called up the appeal in Griffin’s Case. This statement is necessary for a full understanding of the pregnancy of the chief justice’s statement that the supreme court agreed with him as to the decision he rendered in this case. In consequence of the failure to oust the state officers disfranchised under the fourteenth amendment by these and similar judicial proceedings, congress in February, 1869, passed a joint resolution directing that all such officers should be removed by the military commanders of military districts into which the late Confederate States had been divided. Thus all the old officers of the state government of Virginia were removed except a very few, and new ones appointed not obnoxious to the denunciation of the federal bar — the supreme court of appeals of Virginia; the judges thereof having been removed by the major general commanding, he appointed as judges in their stead, a colonel of his staff, and two others, who had held or did then hold commissions in the United States army. The president judge of the court performed his functions and drew his pay as colonel and judge advocate on the staff, overlooking the execution of the laws of the military, and at the same time those of presiding judicial officer of the state. The procedural posture of the case and its result match your description even though the state does not, and there is a supreme court connection even though it is not a U.S. Supreme Court decision. The West Virginia association is probably a mental mangling of that case with a somewhat similar case from right time frame, a WV murder conviction overturned due to all white jury requirement by U.S. Supreme Court in Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303 (1880).	Will he break any laws by saying that (assuming the actual truth cannot be found out)? The statement made outside the courtroom is not itself perjury, since it is not made under oath. But that doesn't mean that there wouldn't be legal consequences. It would be powerful evidence in a perjury prosecution (surely enough for a conviction even standing alone long after the trial is over but within the statute of limitations for perjury in the jurisdiction from the date of the sworn statement, if any), and would be a waiver of 5th Amendment rights against self-incrimination, generally, in the perjury case. It might also be strong evidence (enough to convict standing alone) in a timely obstruction of justice prosecution. This statute of limitations could also run from the date of the sworn statement, or from the date of a false unsworn statement that caused a conviction to be reopened. If the statement made in court was favorable to the prosecution, it might bring these charges after the conviction in the underlying case is final. But, the out of court statement would probably be grounds for the party benefitting from the original statement to seek a mistrial or to have a judgment set aside if the verdict or judgment is consistent with the sworn statement. If the out of court statement was made before the trial was over, the witness could be recalled and the out of court statement could be used to impeach the in court statement. It might constitute a probation or parole violation. If the witness were testifying pursuant to a cooperation agreement, the out of court statement would probably breach the deal and deny the witness the benefit of the cooperation deal. The out of court statement might constitute contempt of court if made while the proceeding in which the statement was made was still pending. Depending on the nature of the statement, the out of court statement might constitute defamation for which some one whose reputation was tarnished might sue for money damages. (There is immunity from civil liability for in court statements.) It would violate the ethical rules of many professions. For example, an attorney would probably be disbarred for doing that. Arguably, in this situation, the statute of limitations could run from the later unsworn statement date rather than the date of the sworn statement. If the witness is a state or federal government employee, this could lead to impeachment proceedings, in the state legislature, or Congress, respectively. The aftermath of the Lewinsky Scandal (link below) involving Bill Clinton touches on many of these possibilities: Further investigation led to charges of perjury and to the impeachment of President Clinton in 1998 by the U.S. House of Representatives. He was subsequently acquitted on all impeachment charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in a 21-day Senate trial. Clinton was held in civil contempt of court by Judge Susan Webber Wright for giving misleading testimony in the Paula Jones case regarding Lewinsky and was also fined $90,000 by Wright. His license to practice law was suspended in Arkansas for five years; shortly thereafter, he was disbarred from presenting cases in front of the United States Supreme Court. Easier and Harder Cases The easier cases are those where it is undeniably clear from other evidence that the witness lied under oath, and the out of court statement merely puts the cherry on top of an already solid perjury case. The hard cases aren't the cases where "the actual truth cannot be found out". Instead, the hard cases are the cases where there is strong evidence that the statement made in court, under oath was true. For example, suppose Ted Cruz is asked in court: "Were you the Zodiac killer?" (A crime ridiculously attributed to him despite the fact that it is something that happened when he was a small child who live many hundreds of miles away.) And he says, "No" in court, but then leaves the courtroom and says in a press conference on the court house steps: "I am the Zodiac killer, I lied about that under oath in court today." Similarly, suppose that a DNA test on a certain blue dress shows a perfect match to President Bill Clinton and Bill Clinton says under oath in court, that the substance tested came from him on a certain day, in a certain place, when a certain person was wearing it, in a certain way (also confirmed by a witness and surveillance video). Then, he leaves the courtroom and says in a press conference on the court house steps: "Someone else was the source of that genetic material. I never met that person, and I was in Kenya on the day alleged and I've never set foot in the White House. I lied about all of this under oath in court today." In these cases, there is no plausible way to make an obstruction of justice or perjury charge stick, or to upset a verdict or judgment consistent with the truthful sworn statement. Contempt of court is still possible, as would professional ethics violations, but other consequences would be less obvious, because the act would come across more as absurd instead of something that genuinely confounds the truth. The legal consequences associated with the conduct in the original post are mostly aimed at sanctioning genuinely fraudulent conduct. Our legal system is more confused about how to respond to lies so blatant that they only amount to feeble and ineffectual gaslighting that no reasonable person familiar with the circumstances would believe (but that might incite crazy conspiracy theory thinking supporters). The harder case would lie in the uncanny valley between a bad joke and a pathetically weak attempt to mislead people, even though the law is clear about how to deal with clear sarcasm and convincing attempts to lie that can't be clearly proven or disproven with other evidence.
Are there any recommended or prescribed time limits for ambulance to reach a special need patient in case of emergency? When I look for ambulance and how fast it should come, I find information regarding allowed driving speed. However, for planning hospitals and roads, one should no how much time is on average required to reach a hospital. Depending on the region and the roads it can be quite different than approximating from the actual distance like in this contribution. Are there any norms on that, or laws, or regulations? How does this compare internationally? Special need patients: - common issue, prenatal and newborn deceases require specialized teams and specially equipped environments - rare genetic deceases may require for specialized emergency teams	The National Fire Protection Association is an international organization that publishes standards related to fire safety as well as rescue services provided by emergency services. They publish a standard, NFPA 1710, which outlines emergency response time goals. Unfortunately, the only places I can find the actual standard requires membership in the NFPA to view it. I have, however, been able to find summaries. In this summary you can see Emergency Medical Services (EMTs, Paramedics) are expected to leave the station within one minute of a call being dispatched. Note that being dispatched isn't the time from when one initially calls emergency services; it is the time from when emergency services is able to determine what is needed and issue the dispatch request. This article describes how fire and rescue organizations differ in how they measure responsiveness including identifying how some organizations start measuring response time at the point a call is first received. First arrival on scene for EMS is targeted at four minutes after "turnout," when EMS is dispatched. EMS treatment levels include: First responder (includes provisioning of an Automatic External Defibrillator (AED)) Basic Life Support (BLS) Advanced Life Support (ALS) Note that this standard is based on how quickly life sustaining measures can be delivered to the person or people who need them. Transportation times to hospitals will depend on the specific transportation protocols that will be implemented once EMS has assessed the situation. The State of Maryland, as an example, manages protocols through the Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems (MIEMSS). Their current protocol is available for reading. On page 17, one of the steps EMS has to determine is the "mode of transportation." Maryland's protocols highlight that transportation isn't to the closest hospital but, rather, to the closest appropriate hospital. The closest appropriate hospital is determined by EMS in consultation with their support system. The protocols and infrastructure that Maryland has put in place are designed to get the patient stabilized and to the most appropriate treatment facility based on the patient's need. The NFPA is a recommended code and it is up to each state or local governing body to determine if and how they will implement them. For the State of Maryland, the MIEMSS is an independent state agency appointed by the Governor.	This effectively comes under duty of care. Firstly, in England and Wales there is no obligation to be a Good Samaritan - in other words, there is no obligation to be a rescuer. Until you intervene to try and rescue someone, you do not owe that person a duty. As soon as you do intervene, however, you do owe them a duty. Specifically, you owe them a duty not to make the situation worse (Horsey and Rackley, Tort Law, 3rd ed., OUP 2013, p. 75). The specific situation Horsey and Rackley give is that of resuscitating a drowning child and breaking a rib as you do so: this may be 'making the situation worse' (Horsey and Rackley, pp. 75-76). Does this mean that you'll be liable if you give someone first aid and in doing so, you make the situation worse? Not necessarily, because, as Horsey and Rackley point out, duty is different to liability. Using the drowning child example again, they state: So, for example, while someone who intervenes may owe a duty not to make the situation worse, their actions would still be judged against those of a 'reasonable person' in the circumstances (and so if a reasonable person would have tried to resuscitate the child in the same way, there will be no breach of their duty and therefore no liability to pay compensation.) (p.76) The 'reasonable person' standard corresponds to what you mentioned in the question about lack of expertise. If a doctor intervenes in such a situation, the standard of care they'd be expected to give would be higher than, say, for someone who's simply done a basic first aid course. The question is whether or not you've acted as the reasonable person in your situation would have done. On that basis, then, your tutor is pretty much correct: so long as you take such care as is reasonable based on your expertise, or lack thereof, then under English and Welsh law, you're unlikely to be liable.	Reading those clauses, you can see that you can park in an emergency. You can park with your vehicle dies and you can't move it. You can park if it is specifically allowed (maybe a sign saying "unrestricted parking allowed here"). Otherwise, you may park on a parking lane (or roadway, or shoulder) but subject to conditions also listed: "unless there is a clear passage for other motor vehicles, and your vehicle can be seen for 60 metres (200 feet) along the roadway in both directions". Regardless of the name of the piece of road, you are allowed to park there but only if your car is clearly visible, and there is room to get around you.	There is no time limit on performing a legal abortion. §2599-bb of the bill says that a physician may perform an abortion when, according to the practitioner's reasonable and good faith professional judgment based on the facts of the patient's case: the patient is within twenty-four weeks from the commencement of pregnancy, or there is an absence of fetal viability, or the abortion is necessary to protect the patient's life or health It is left to ordinary language interpretation to understand what "abortion" is. The ordinary meaning of abortion does not include act that follow birth or a child. The law as amended still defines homicide as conduct which causes the death of a person under circumstances constituting murder, manslaughter in the second degree, or criminally negligent homicide and deleted the clause which included the clause an unborn child with which a female has been pregnant for more than twenty-four weeks (this is how abortion past 24 weeks was formerly illegal). The definitions say that A person, when referring to the victim of a homicide, means a human being who has been born and is alive Once a fetus becomes a person by being born, the homicide statute prohibits killing the person. So apart from the fact that killing a person is not "an abortion", the law does not make it legal to kill any man being who has been born and who is alive. As for what constitutes "health", that is not delimited by law, that is, it says simply "health", not "physical health". In general, "health" without modifiers means any kind of health. In fact, in Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 it was found that whether a particular operation is necessary for a patient's physical or mental health is a judgment that physicians are obviously called upon to make routinely whenever surgery is considered	Every State in the union has some form of involuntary mental health hold. Regardless of whether or not the patient claims it was an accident, it is incumbent upon the hospital or facility where the individual is held (which is typically at least 72 hours) to do an in-depth analysis of whether the person is a danger to themselves or others. While in this scenario it may've been an inadvertent overdose, the empirical evidence suggests it could have been intentional as the practitioner cannot see into the thoughts and motivations behind the patient's actions. Even taking the patient at face-value, addiction to the extent of overdose is also a mental health issue, which may cause a person to be a danger to themselves. From a clinical perspective, it is much more likely than not that one of the two scenarios occurred, versus a truly mistaken overdose. One would need to mistake their actions numerous times in a day to take so much as to overdose. If you look at it from the inverse perspective, if the facility failed to keep a person who'd just overdosed, or the first responder failed to initiate a hold and the person later died, minimally they would be liable if sued by the family in an action for wrongful death. The unfortunate facts are that if a person was set on committing suicide, it unlikely they would be forthcoming with that fact, for this very reason (the mandatory hold), so a person's word cannot be the determining factor. Even if someone was not intentionally trying to take their life, having taken enough Xanax to cause medical overdose would suggest the potential that even if not suicidal, the individual was at a minimum abusing the medication by taking much more than prescribed (or in a way that is contraindicated - such as with alcohol or other depressants) and potentially suffering from benzodiazepine addiction. Either way, if the hold was not initiated or cut short - and then someone ended up dying from an overdoes - the responsibility and potential liability is the same. A person who is suicidal can reassess what may be a snap decision, or have a chemical imbalance stabilized, or a severe addiction identified in that amount of time. For the person who ctually takes so much medication as to mistakenly cause overdose, this is certainly inconvenient; however, 72 hours is a short time in the grand scheme of things to potentially save a life. The law will nearly always err on the side of safety and prevention.	Basically, it is up to the court. The relevant law is the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE). You don't give much in the way of specifics, but it sounds like you confessed something to the police at the side of the road immediately after the accident, and now wish to dispute that confession. If you are taken to court and the police want to introduce your confession as evidence then you (through your lawyer) can ask the court to rule it out. You may be able to do so on a number of grounds. Was the confession properly recorded at the time? Were you treated in an oppressive manner, such that you felt you had to say what the police wanted to hear. Did you think you might get more favourable treatment if you said what the police wanted? For instance, did you think you might be allowed to go home once they were satisfied? Were you given a proper rest, or were you in a mental state that might cause you to say things without understanding the consequences (it sounds like this would be your main argument, but consider the others too). [Edit] If you needed medical treatment that would also be relevant. Were you properly cautioned (that speech beginning "You do not have to say anything...") before the police asked you questions. If you think you may be facing criminal charges then you should get yourself a lawyer sooner rather than later. A lawyer will know all about this and be able to navigate the relevant legal processes on your behalf. A bit of background: back in the 1970s the police frequently attributed incriminating statements to suspects when arrested, such as "Its a fair cop, guv", or "Who ratted on us?". The rules in PACE were made to stop such "verballing".	Yes A police officer (or other emergency service driver) will turn their lights and siren on as soon as they have a need to do so. This may be in response to something they've seen or in response to an emergency call. Since you can't see and hear what they can see and hear this may seem sudden or arbitrary to you. Your obligations, as spelled out in the 2019 California Drivers Handbook (p. 74) are: Emergency Vehicles You must yield the right-of-way to any police vehicle, fire engine, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle using a siren and red lights. Drive to the right edge of the road and stop until the emergency vehicle(s) have passed. However, never stop in an intersection. If you are in an intersection when you see an emergency vehicle, continue through the intersection and then, drive to the right as soon as it is safe and stop. ... You have to get out of their way. However, they are still obliged to drive safely subject to the circumstances (e.g. that they are on the wrong side of the road traveling fast) and, in the event of a collision, you may not necessarily be at fault.	The COVID restrictions are new enough that there are few court decisions on how to interpret them. There are frequent requests for court injunctions seeking temporary relief. Some pass, some are denied. The website might accuse locations listed there of breaking the restrictions. Making such an accusation in public sounds like a very bad idea, especially if there is no solid documentation. But the aggrieved party would be any location falsely listed. The site may or may not be hosted in Germany. If it is not, it becomes a really interesting question which law applies. You might inform the authorities, but beyond that, forget it.
Can a landlord charge me for one day of unpaid utilities after my lease has expired? My lease expired several months ago and I just received a bill via email from my old apartment complex for unpaid utility charges. Apparently my gas company started billing me for service the day after my move-in date, so there was one day of gas service that was billed to the property management company instead of me. I lived in that apartment for over a year and never heard anything about this. The charge didn't show up on any of my monthly bills and I have a copy of my account statement on move-out showing all charges paid with zero balance remaining. The new bill has a due date set a year and a half ago. The bill claims I owe approximately $2 for gas use and $50 for a "gas cost recovery fee" that isn't mentioned anywhere in the lease. I do feel morally obligated to pay something, but this charge is more than most of my monthly gas bills. Additionally, I'm worried that if I pay this bill it sets a precedent for the company to be able to go back and find other things to charge me for. Is this charge legal in Georgia?	Is this charge legal in Georgia? No. It seems unlawful. First, it appears that the landlord was negligent and failed to mitigate damages. Since in general utilities are billed monthly, it is unreasonable for the landlord to have waited this long for a $2 charge that occurred on the first day of your tenancy. Second, legislation typically sets a deadline for a landlord to send a former tenant an itemized bill to cover for damages other than normal tear and wear. According to O.C.G.A. § 44-7-34(a), that deadline in Georgia is 30 days. Whereas the $2 charge is right (at least from a moral standpoint, as you mention), the $50 surcharge is devoid of merit.	Yes. Usually a lawyer can charge until a court formally withdraws him from representing you in a case for representation in that case (even if a new lawyer has entered an appearance and you have fired him). A terminated lawyer, even after withdrawal, can also charge you for legal fees incurred to collect the lawyer's bill from you if the fee agreement allows him to do so. Many lawyers don't charge their clients for billing matters, but the law allows lawyers to charge clients for billing matters if their fee agreement says that they can. The post-termination charges you describe in the question sound like costs of collection of the bill, so they are legal if they are authorized by the fee agreement.	Possibly In most contracts, the parties sign in their capacity as people (or agents for other people). However, some contracts are signed in the capacity as the owner of a piece of land and the contract transfers with the land. The liability rests with the current owner and, if unpaid, creates a lien over the property. These are particularly common in contracts with utilities or where the contract involves the a structure on the land. Surprise, surprise, the situation you describe involves both. You need to refer back to your contract for the land as these types of contracts are usually disclosed (unless they are a function of local law because everyone just knows - I don't know anything about Pa. law on this) and the original contract with the gas company. Your settlement may have also involved you paying a figure to purchase the gas in the tank as at the date of settlement. For example, in new-south-wales, council rates and water rates attach to the land as a matter of law and the vendor pays the purchaser for any amount they have paid in advance (or vice-versa if they are in arrears). Electricity and piped gas don't; the vendor ends their account on or before settlement and the buyer opens a new account on or after settlement and each pays for their own use. Propane for portable bottles doesn't but for fixed installations does as a matter of contract with the gas company.	Is It Too Late To Collect The Bill? Probably not. There is a statute of limitations for collecting unpaid medical bills that varies in length in different jurisdictions, and the age of the bill in the question is approximate, so it is hard to know for sure if this one is too old. The relevant statutes of limitations in most U.S. states would be at least three years and in some it could be as much as ten or twelve years. If I recall correctly, in Canada, the relevant statute of limitations would be determined at the provincial level. Given that this was "a couple of years ago" realistically, it is probably not barred by the statute of limitations yet. Are Interest Charges Allowed. Generally yes. Most jurisdictions allow for pre-judgment interest at a statutory rate from the date due in the absence of a contrary agreement and if the provider's paperwork with you provided for another interest rate, that would apply instead. So charging interest is allowed. The existence of a dispute wouldn't change this result, although it would, of course, mean that if some portion of the bill was disallowed in a later lawsuit that interest would be owed only on the portion that the court found was actually owed. The Provider's Remedies A Lawsuit If these bills are not paid, they can sue. Statute of limitations, or errors in billing, or failure to seek reimbursement from the police as arranged with them, would all be legitimate defenses in lawsuit brought by the provider. Given the modest amount allegedly owed and the existence of defenses, this might not be a very attractive one for the provider to choose to bring suit to collect. Credit Reporting On the other hand, in lieu of suing, the provider could simply report it as a bad debt with a credit reporting agency through their collections company. This would look bad on your credit (for up to seven years in the U.S., although you could insist on filing a rebuttal statement as part of your credit report, I don't know how disputes about credit reporting work in Canada). Paying them would almost admit that there was a late payment for credit reporting purposes, but also might prevent the incident from entering the credit reporting system at all.	england-and-wales The household that doesn't pay its water bill cannot by law be cut off or restricted from the water supply. However, there have been reports that some companies have disconnected households anyway, claiming the premises were not occupied. In some circumstances the gas or electricity supplier may disconnect the domestic consumer that is not paying its bills. However, "Suppliers must take all reasonable steps to avoid disconnecting an energy supply for debt. It should always be a last resort and avoided wherever possible" (Ofgem, the regulator). The question asks for "possible" repercussions, not probable or usual. So here are some "possible" repercussions. The utility company may pursue the debt; first by mail, then via a debt collection agency and may ultimately seek court orders to resolve the matter one way or another. Generally, utility companies and the regulator Ofgem don't want things to get to court and will try to agree a repayment plan with the debtor and/or (in the case of electricity or gas) offer to install a prepayment meter. There are payment support options for households in financial difficulties but the question seems to be about outright refusals to pay. All creditors pursuing a debt are expected to follow the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims. This should be followed before a court order for a County Court Judgment for the debt can be made. Failure to follow the protocol does not invalidate the debt but can affect the court's decision. If the creditor wins a county court judgment (CCJ) against the debtor, the debtor will be obliged to pay the debt at a rate the court decides is appropriate. A CCJ is recorded on the Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines. The Register is checked by companies to determine the credit-worthiness of applicants for credit cards, loans, mortgages, some bank accounts and rental agreements. If the debtor pays the full amount within one month of the CCJ, the record can be removed from the Register. If the debtor pays later, they can get the record marked as 'satisfied' - it will stay on the register for six years but searchers will see that the debtor paid the debt. If the debtor sticks to the payment plan the record can reflect this. Otherwise the record of the debt remains on the Register for six years. If the debtor still refuses to pay, the debtor may expect visits from bailiffs who will ask for payment and, failing that, the bailiffs might try to remove property to sell at auction to raise money to cover the debt and the bailiffs' costs. The creditor may seek an order for an attachment of earnings or an attachment of benefits / benefit deductions. In this case, the employer or benefits agency is ordered to divert money from the wages or benefits to the court that made the order, and the court sends the money to the creditor - the debtor doesn't receive that money. (The benefits attachment is likely more appropriate for non-payment of council tax.) The creditor may seek a third-party debt order, which orders the debtor's bank to freeze money in the debtor's account to the amount of the debt. The creditor may seek a charging order, which secures the debt against the debtor's property (e.g. their home if they own it). This can be followed up with an order for sale, which obliges the debtor to sell that property and the debt will be paid from the proceeds. The creditor could seek a court order that allows them to change the utility meter on the property to a prepayment meter. In this case the debtor has not been disconnected as such but they must pay (or get help to pay) in advance for their electricity or gas consumption. As noted earlier, the last resort is disconnection of the gas or electricity supply. In terms of criminal law, I don't know if any such debtors have been charged with illegal abstraction of electricity or gas but those seem like "possible" charges.	In the lease agreement we stipulated that rent would be 50% off until the building received full services and then the full rent payment would be due. Ouch. I bet the lease agreement also says something like "no other agreements verbal or otherwise are in effect for this agreement." So what you did was release the landlord from the responsibility to make the building habitable. Pretty sure you will need a lawyer to unwind this.	The landlady is trying it on. The purpose of a deposit is to protect the landlord from being left out of pocket by: damage to the property rent arrears Reasonable wear and tear does not constitute damage. It seems unlikely that the stiff tap is as a result of damage. The hob is not so clear cut: the landlady could argue that it was damaged, albeit by accident, and the cost of repair taken from your deposit. If she insists that the only remedy is to replace the hob, she should make an appropriate deduction to reflect the fact that it is several years old and will be replaced by one that is new (thereby gaining her some value). It would be reasonable for you to expect to see the written report from the gas inspector who has condemned the whole hob in that case. But I find it hard to believe that: the plastic knob cannot be replaced doing so would make the hob unsafe, if the knob can be removed for cleaning it's my understanding that if the hob is indeed broken, I only have to pay what it was worth at the moment before it was broken. Your liability is to return her to the position she would have been in had the damage not occurred. If that means replacing a removable plastic part instead of the whole hob, that would be a reasonable remedy.	Under an assured shorthold tenancy, when the fixed term expires, it automatically becomes a periodic tenancy (also called a rolling or month-to-month tenancy) if no other action is taken. For periodic tenancies, the default requirement is: The notice you give must end on the first or last day of the period of a tenancy, except when your tenancy agreement says something different. The first day of a period of your tenancy is the anniversary date each week or month of when your tenancy began. This is often the same date that your rent is due, but not always. (the above taken from this Shelter guide.) The contract merely restates this. So in other words, yes, this is normal. In this instance, if you give notice on or before 25 Dec, you'll be required to pay rent up to 24 Jan. However, if the landlord finds a new tenant and their tenancy starts after you move out, but before 24 Jan, then you are only liable for rent up to the start of their tenancy.
The controlling language in German employment contracts I am about to be employed in Germany under an American company which has a branch office in Germany. Recently I got a contract from them that has side-by-side translations with German on the left and English on the right. I found a critical anomaly in the contract about currency format used to state my yearly salary. On both the sides german and english they have used american currency format Example: German: EUR 45,000 -----------> English: EUR 45,000 which is only correct for the English format, as in German it only mean 45 EUROS instead of 45000 :o My questions are: Should I get it in the right format in German part? IN such cases in germany which language is the binding language when not explicitly stated in the contract?	Can you ask the company to add the spelled out of the number to the text? If this will make you more comfortable. Also, I sometimes found an English text from European body that use the format of 12456 (no thousand mark at all) or 12 456 (use space).	According to US law, the GPL is a license, not a contract. This means it is valid without consideration, it also means if you are in violation of the license, then you are committing copyright infringement, instead of being in breach of a contract. In Germany, the GPL is a contract. And that's fine, because German law doesn't require consideration for a contract to be valid. It's interesting in that the GPL license doesn't require you to state whether you agree to the license/contract or not. But if you don't agree to the contract then there is no contract, and you have no right to use the software.	There is no internationally-enforceable mechanism regarding how other people call something, or what alphabet can be uses to write a word. I can legally call that country between Bangladesh and Thailand "Burma" or "Myanmar", I can call Україна Ukraine, The Ukraine, or Ukrainia (the latter seems to be old-fashioned, but it's still legal). As a diplomatic matter, the US government seems to have settled on certain designations so that it uses the version "Myanmar" for official purposes although it includes "(Burma)" in popular communications (State Department travel advisories). If it wanted to, the US could call The Republic of North Macedonia by the name "Macedonia", though there would be political protests. The EU, NATO, UN etc. can likewise set its own rules regarding names of countries. There are many additional complications in the case of countries that are not universally / widely recognized, such as Trasnistria and the Republic of Somaliland. If the president of the Republic of Somaliland sought to address the UN, his problem would not be what people would call his country, it is that the Republic of Somaliland is not "recognized" by the UN (it has no official status), or anyone else. The question of "sameness" of language is a prominent feature of nationalist movements. Claims are made that Flemish and Dutch are "the same" or "different", likewise Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian, Montenegrin; Dari, Farsi and Tajik. Thus there is no real chance of litigating the matter of whether Moldovan and Romanian are the "same language" and which name should be used. But if the EU parliament wants to, it could rule that the language of Moldova is to be called "Romanian", or "Moldovan".	Where your office is, is your designated workspace. You get the public holidays wherever your official office address is. If you live and work in Hessia, then you get the 11 public holidays there. If you live in Hessia but work right over the border in Bavaria, you get 14 public holidays, even if you live in Hessia. Now, where do you work in case of remote work? That depends on what your official work address is. Do you connect remotely to an office in Bavaria where you are located on paper or do you have no such office? If you have an office you work at officially, then that is your agreed-upon, designated workplace, and in our example, if that's in Bavaria you get the 14 public holidays. If you don't are designated to work in an office in Bavaria and may log in remotely there, then your agreed-upon, designated workplace is your home address, and if that is in Hessia, you get the 11 public holidays there. Where your company's central is... Now, let's assume the company is seated in Brandenburg, which has 12 public holidays. That doesn't matter at all: the Feieratagsrecht of the place you work (officially) dictates your public holidays. So either the laws of your designated location apply: either Hessia's 11 public holidays if your home is the designated workplace, or Bavaria's 14 if the office you connect to is the designated workplace but you remote-connect to it. It would by the way matter if you are designated to be in a location for that exact day: you could be designated to work in a location that has no public holiday on that day, then you don't get that day. However, the Brandenburg company can decide to say "You get our extra holidays in addition. Have fun with the extra free day" - that'd be extra in the contract, not the legal requirement.	If you operate from outside Germany but within the EU, it is generally sufficient to satisfy your own country's regulations. This is a foundational principle of the EU single market, though it's not quite realized yet and has exemptions for consumer protection purposes. However, the German TMG law which includes the Impressumspflicht explicitly enshrines this principle. So from the German Impressumspflicht perspective, you're good to go. However, you will not be able to operate anonymously, because of your country's laws. GDPR requires you to clearly state your identity and contact details in your privacy notice. If you engage in internet-based commerce, the EU eCommerce Directive will have caused your EU member state to pass legislation that requires you to disclose: your name the geographic address where you are established contact details incl an email address if applicable, registration numbers from trade registers or similar if applicable, your VAT ID Note that you must have a VAT ID for cross-border B2B sales within the EU. You state that you are not selling anything via your website, and are instead collecting payments via another website. What the consequences of this are would depend on the laws and caselaw in your jurisdiction, but you will have to make these disclosures on at least one of the two websites. About Germany going after bloggers who show ads: income from ads is taxable income, and operating a business requires registration. However, the German Impressumspflicht is rarely enforced by the state. Instead, other market participants (competitors) trawl the internet for potential violations and then send a cease-and-desist letter. They can do this because skirting legal obligations distorts the level playing field, which harms those competitors. There is a thriving cease-and-desist industry built around this, but it only affects businesses that operate within Germany.	It's right in the contract In the event I fail to take delivery of the vehicle purchased by me within forty-eight (48) hours after I have been notified by you that it is ready for delivery and pay the total contract price in the manner indicated, my deposit in the amount of $300 may, at your option, be retained by you to compensate you in whole or in part for any loss sustained by you. Your right to retain my deposit shall be in addition to and not instead of any other right or remedy provided by applicable law including, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, the sale of the car or truck I agree to purchase. If the amount of my deposit exceeds actual damages sustained by you, you will promptly refund the difference to me. The car was ready on day 3. As a result, the Customer was obligated to pay and take delivery of the vehicle until day 5. Because the customer did not follow through with the purchase, the deposit is used to compensate the salesman in the amount that covers the costs of preparing the sale and having the car on the lot for those days that the salesman could not sell it to someone else. At the end of day 5, the contractual obligation to hold the car for the customers in exchange for the deposit ended, and the other clauses of the contract (car for rest of payment) become void. The car salesman is in his right to sell the car because the actual sales contract has fallen through and the holding fee/deposit expired, as the very quoted paragraph shows. Based on the final sentence of the quoted portion of the contract, to get a part of the deposit back, one would need to establish that the losses are less than the contractually fixed amount of 300 USD. When I had my car at the workshop and could not get it back on the day it was done with repairs, I was also informed that holding my car for more than a day would incur storage fees of up to 15 € per day. Similarly, the last time I bought a car, I was told that the sale included a fresh inspection and oil. Those are costs to the seller and can be accounted for in the deposit. The inspection costs about ~120 € for a new TÜV certificate and exhaust check and the materials for an oil change come for about 70 €. This leaves about 70 € cover for the mechanic and salesman's wages for about one hour. That's 300 €, or about 330 USD today. As such, costs to prepare a contract and transfer, inspect the car for roadworthiness as well as storage fees most likely are reasonably assessed to be in the 300 USD area.	Basically, "in the course of your employment" means "while you are working, or should be working, for the employer". If you're not using company resources or time to create or acquire the works in question, and the works are unrelated to company business, they're quite unlikely to become the company's property. (Particularly since the company almost certainly doesn't have an interest in controlling the distribution of your vacation photos.) When you let your personal side projects and the company's stuff get intertwined, that's where the troubles begin. Works made on company time, or using company resources, or to do company-related things, may be claimed by the company, and this agreement basically says you'll cede ownership of the works to them, patents and all, for whatever amount of money they decide it's worth paying you.	The problem with "as soon as possible" is that one could then say "Well, I've got a lot of bills, so it's not possible to pay you until Uncle Bill dies and I get my inheritance". A good contract leaves no doubt about who does what, when. A specific date is best, though if there is a certain amount of backing and forthing, "July 30" could be "tomorrow", and therefore "within 14 days of acceptance" would still identify a specific date -- provided that the date of acceptance is there in the contract. (It usually is, but doesn't absolutely have to be).
Is accepting an EULA considered binding, if I am an employee testing a company product? I work as a software engineer and the product I work on displays an EULA the first time it starts. Due to the nature of the job, we have to reinstall it on a somewhat regular basis - so this happens fairly frequently. The software, however, will not function if the license has not been accepted (no surprise there). This means I have to accept the license in order to do the job. Then, under these circumstances, is my acceptance of the software EULA considered legally binding? Edit for clarity: I develop the software whose EULA is in question, and I am directly employed by the copyright holder of said software (and the second party to the EULA). I'm not concerned about anything nefarious happening (I wouldn't stay very long at a company where I feel like I have to watch my back) - this was simply a matter of curiosity that struck me this morning while I was reinstalling an instance of the product.	The question is a bit sparse on relevant details, but yes, a EULA is binding, even when you agree in the course of employment. It may not be you who is bound, though. In case 1, you install a program at word to do something, the EULA says "don't copy any of these files", you see a cool file and decide "Neat, I'm taking a copy home. I can do this because I installed the program at work and am not bound by the EULA". Wrong. Case 2: you are installing software on behalf of a customer. It's not you that is bound by the EULA, it's the customer. Case 3: you work for the company that develops the software and holds the copyright, either fixing bugs or testing the security of the system by trying to crack it. In that case, you have special permission from the copyright holder that overrides whatever restrictions would normally from from the EULA. I don't know if that covers the kind of case you are concerned with. To reduce the matter to a simple sentence, just because you agree to something in the course of a job does not mean that the agreement is invalid.	Is this work for hire? There is an arguable case to be made that you are an employee for copyright law purposes and, if so, the copyright belongs to the company. The closer an employment relationship comes to regular, salaried employment, the more likely it is that a work created within the scope of that employment will be a work made for hire. But because no precise standard exists for determining whether a work is made for hire under part 1 of the definition in section 101 of the copyright law, consultation with a lawyer may be advisable. Second, if you do own the copyright, there is clearly an implied licence with the company to allow them to use it. It is arguable that the licence is exclusive since the software is bespoke and made specifically for the company. Can you sign an agreement now Yes, but … It is clear that the purpose of signing the agreement is to screw the company over (with the compliance of 2 of the directors). That’s a contract entered into in bad faith and possibly for an illegal purpose and would likely be found invalid. You need to understand that the company is a distinct legal entity from its owners and it has its own rights. People make the mistake of thinking the owners are the company: they aren’t. The two rebel founders are on dangerous legal ground. Assuming they are the directors of the company, they have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of the company. That is, they must put the company’s interests ahead of their own. It is clearly not in the company’s interest to have a rival business start so they cannot plan to do that while they are directors - they need to resign first. You are not so much at risk - as an employee/contractor your duty is to follow the directions of the company (the company - not a faction within the company). However, if you aid the other two in what might be a crime, you could be in trouble.	As far as I can tell, whenever GitHub redistributes code, it adheres to all of the requirements of the GPL/BSD etc. For example, it never gives away code without including the license text, and it doesn't claim to add unpermitted restrictions to the code. The section you're concerned about is this: That means you're giving us the right to do things like reproduce your content (so we can do things like copy it to our database and make backups); display it (so we can do things like show it to you and other users); modify it (so our server can do things like parse it into a search index); distribute it (so we can do things like share it with other users); and perform it (in case your content is something like music or video). That section isn't worded very precisely, but I understand this to mean they want to reproduce your content in full, not just the code without the license text attached. They want to display your content in full, as you provided it. They want to modify it internally (i.e. they are not redistributing this modified form) in order to allow searching. To the extent that they display code-snippets as search results, that is likely defensible as fair use (search engines are frequently cited as examples of successful fair use defenses). GitHub appears to be acting consistently with the GPL when it reproduces, displays, modifies, and distributes code that you upload. If I'm correct about these facts then nothing that GitHub does with the code goes beyond what the many contributors to a GPL project have explicitly permitted, or what is otherwise permitted by fair use law. If you had some code with a more restrictive license, you might not be able to simultaneously comply with that restrictive license and GitHub's License Grant. Consider the scenario where you have some code that is licensed exclusively to you, and you are not given permission to reproduce or distribute it. In that scenario, the code's license prevents you from agreeing to GitHub's request for a license grant.	The GPL doesn’t require you to distribute the software to anyone. The only requirement to distribute something is that if you do distribute the software to someone as a binary, you must also distribute the source code to them at no additional charge. The focus of the GPL is ensuring freedom for people who have copies of the software, not ensuring that the software is available to the world at large. Because your final deliverable is source code, you’ve already complied with the requirement to distribute source alongside object code. You have to comply with the requirements in section 5: a) The work must carry prominent notices stating that you modified it, and giving a relevant date. b) The work must carry prominent notices stating that it is released under this License and any conditions added under section 7. This requirement modifies the requirement in section 4 to “keep intact all notices”. c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy. This License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged. This License gives no permission to license the work in any other way, but it does not invalidate such permission if you have separately received it. d) If the work has interactive user interfaces, each must display Appropriate Legal Notices; however, if the Program has interactive interfaces that do not display Appropriate Legal Notices, your work need not make them do so. You have to license the software to the company that hired you under the GPL v3 (since parts of it were licensed to you under GPL v3), so you can’t stop them from distributing it to the world. But nothing requires you to distribute it to the world.	The GPL does not explicitly specify a time within which the source code must be provided, which probably means a "reasonable time" is allowed. What is "reasonable" would eventually be evaluated by a court, if the matter ever got that far. But please note that only the copyright holder (or the holder's authorized agent) can sue for infringement. The license does not give other people a right to sue for infringement, and I doubt that any license could grant such a right. One could inform the copyright holder who could sue, but the holder need not sue, and undertaking such a suit would involve expense, time, and effort. Whether the offer to provide the source constitutes a binding agreement is not clear, and may well vary in different jurisdictions. The question does not state any particular jurisdiction.	The general rule is that the author of the software owns the copyright, so that would be the student. This is regardless of whether the student writes the code for fun, or for a thesis. If a student is hired to write that code, then it kind of depends on the university rules, and who hires the student. In the case of a "work for hire", the employer owns the copyright. However, it is non-trivial to determine whether that principle is applicable in the case of a student hired by the university. In part, it depends on which country this is in because work for hire laws are not exactly the same everywhere, and in part it depends on the details of the employment my a university. In a typical US institution RA appointment, it would come down to university policy – some universities declare that copyright in all student-written software is retained by the student. You would need to look for something resembling an "IP Policy" – here is a sample, note that such policies are subject to revision.	Unless you have a legally valid IP right related to the specification that statement is meaningless. When a software license is granted it is based on the copyright of the code. The copyright of the spec. just stops people from copying the spec - it does not protect the information in it. You can restrict copying of the spec. under copyright, you can make up a name for the spec (like USB or Bluetooth) and get a trademark and only allow the trademark use in limited cases(doesn’t stop implementation of the spec), or get a patent that would be necessarily infringed if something complying with the spec was created and used, sold, made, etc. or you can keep it secret and only show it to people who contractually agreed with your terms.	You need to know two things about the GPL: The GPL is a license which requires that when you distribute binaries, you distribute the source code with them (binaries being the things you can directly run) The GPL is copyleft - any project using something licensed under the GPL must also be licensed under the GPL The easiest way to comply with the first point is to simply make the software open source by making it available to all online. Many, if not all, large projects licensed under the GPL do this. The other way of complying is to simply give anyone else who has a copy of the binaries, or who makes use of them, a copy of the source code. In your case, all you need to do is send your friends a copy of the source. As long as no one else uses this project, I think you satisfy the requirements of the license. You must, however, also license your code under the GPL. This means, as mentioned in the comments, that you must somehow make your friends aware that if they redistribute your code, they must also do so under the terms of the GPL. This can be as simple as including a file called LICENSE in the root directory of the source code, containing a copy of the text of the GPL. This further means that your friends will be able to share your code with other people without letting you know. You could politely ask them not to, but you can't stop them. (That said, you have no reason to be worried - only big breaches of license misuse by large companies ever tend to get chased up. However, it's great that you want to be careful about this! Software licensing, especially FOSS licensing, is very important.)
Can I appeal to the court against an arbitration? If I have a dispute and arbitration is suggested, I have a number of questions: Can I be compelled to arbitrate? If I don't think the tribunal has jurisdiction, what can I do? If I disagree with the award, what can I do?	Different jurisdictions have different laws about arbitration and there can be a distinction between domestic and international arbitration. Notwithstanding, most jurisdictions use the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration as the basis for their domestic law so there is a lot of commonality between jurisdictions. 1. Can I be compelled to arbitrate? No, arbitration requires the agreement of all parties to the dispute. However, you may have given your consent to arbitration when you entered a contract or agreed to terms and conditions; if so, then that agreement is binding and you will be required to arbitrate. If a matter for which there is a valid arbitration agreement is nevertheless brought before a court, a party can argue that the proper venue is arbitration and the court will almost certainly agree and refuse to hear the case. Arbitration agreements are subject to what is called the "severability" principle which means that they remain binding even if the contract they are contained in is ultimately found to be void. So it remains within the power of an arbitrator appointed by a contract to validly decide the contract that appointed them is void. 2. If I don't think the tribunal has jurisdiction, what can I do? You make submissions to the arbitration tribunal on jurisdiction and they are required to consider if they have it or not. This is the "competence-competence" principle: an arbitrator is competent to decide if they are competent to hear the dispute. Depending on the size of the matter, the tribunal may rule on their competence in the final decision or issue an interim ruling. If a party thinks the tribunal has wrongly decided they do or don't have jurisdiction then they can, within the limited time usually allowed, ask the court to review the decision - in the meantime the arbitration continues. 3. If I disagree with the award, what can I do? Not a lot. Arbitration is intended to be a final and binding method of dispute resolution. Because, unlike a court summons, it was agreed to by all the parties (see above), the legal attitude is "you made your bed, you lie in it". Article 34 provides that a court can set aside the decision for: incapacity in the arbitration agreement. Since the arbitration agreement is itself a contract it can be void for all the same reasons a contract can (see What is a contract and what is required for them to be valid?) that you weren't told about the arbitration that the dispute is outside the scope of the arbitration agreement that the arbitration tribunal wasn't composed as agreed the matter is not subject to settlement by arbitration by law (e.g. workplace disputes are often excluded from arbitration) the award is against public policy (e.g. the award requires illegality) Article 35 provides that a court can refuse to enforce an award for all of the reasons above plus if a court has set the decision aside under Article 34. Appeals are rarely allowed and even more rarely successful. For example, stats from the UK under s68 and s69 of their domestic Act (equivalent to Article 34 and 35 respectively) indicate that success rates for challenges are about 3%.	When it says "any e-filed document submitted in support of, in opposition to, or in connection with any motion or application must be delivered to the courtroom clerk assigned to the Department in which the motion or application will be heard" this appears to apply to motions and other requests and not to complaints. This said, the easiest way to determine the answer would be to call the clerk of the court's office and ask. An answer from a clerk of the court would be definitive and easy to secure.	Does this create precedent? NO This was a Crown Court case, only the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal can set precedent which it did with similar circumstances in R v Hill 1989	Discovery Basically, you ask. If your opponent thinks your request is out of bounds they object, give their reasons to the judge, you give yours and the judge orders them to produce the evidence or not. A lot of people think court cases have big “ah-ha” movements when a witness reveals something unknown on the stand. This rarely happens because there are no secrets in litigation - both sides have to clearly explain their case before, usually well before, they go to trial.	Are there any legal terms which can make it clear that such questions are about the "outside of reach" rather than "outside of claim of reach" situations? Enforceability Laws that claim but cannot reach lack enforceability. Note that enforceability is case-specific and subjective. The US may or may not be able to reach out to those it deems to be criminals on the other side of the world; those may or may not care.	People make mistakes. My assessments come with information on how to dispute them, and if yours don't you should be able to get that information. File a dispute or whatever it is you do to challenge the assessment. Include the information about you being outside the district and not having he measure on your ballot. If you're just outside the district, you might have been mistakenly included. You'll either get a revised assessment or you'll be told that you have to pay the tax. You don't have a reasonable complaint unless and until your challenge is denied.	The court clerk was right. A judge is not supposed to interact with a party (at least not in the absence of the adversary) except during court hearings for which the adversary was notified and given an opportunity to attend. Also, there is no need for you to prove the mere fact that you went to court. That in itself is either inconsequential or palpable from the hearing transcripts. When you file in court papers such as a motion or a response to a motion, you may --and should-- bring an extra copy for the clerk to stamp it. That a clerk does with no objections. The stamp reflects the date on which you file your document(s). That stamp incidentally evidences that you or someone on your behalf went to court but, again, that sole fact is inconsequential. There is no such thing as "motion to appeal". A litigant may initiate an appeal, or appellate process, once the judge has decided a case in its entirety or in part. If the ruling to be appealed does not close the case, the upper court might refuse to review the issue(s) appealed until the whole case has been decided (that refusal is known as denial of the appellant's leave to appeal). Your description nowhere indicates that the judge has already made any rulings or that there have been any hearings on your matter. Your mention of prior motions suggests that you should gain acquaintance with the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure and of Appellate Procedure. Those rules cover several aspects of litigation, including motion practice, the allowed methods of service, and the requirements to file an appeal in upper courts.	Generally speaking, you have to disclose that the defendant is a minor in the complaint and their deadline to respond is tolled until the court has appointed a guardian ad litem for them. So, while it is possible, it is arduous. Also, since someone below the age of eighteen can claim minority as a defense to an executory contract (as opposed to a contemporaneous exchange of goods or services for cash), and in some cases, to other contracts, you have a better shot at suing for malperformance and nonperformance of work. Finally, even if you can sue, collecting a judgment from a minor, who is likely to lack both employment and any significant assets, is very challenging. A minor's legal guardians or parents would not be responsible for a judgment entered against a minor in these circumstances. there was no written contract for the job and the only information I have of them is their phone numbers. The lack of a written contract isn't a serious problem in a short job that was performed by both sides. You will need to be able to locate them to physically serve them with process to sue them. If you have their names, approximate ages, and the general vicinity of where they live or work, this isn't an insurmountable burden, but it is a bit of extra work that could turn out to be easy or could turn out to be a major obstacle.
Can a state stop implementation of a bill passed in the parliament? Yesterday Indian parliament passed citizenship amendment bill which seeks to provide citizenship to religious minorities which have to come to India before Dec 2014 as a refugee due to their persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. I know it can be challenged in Supreme Court if the President of India signs it which he is most likely to do. Today Kerala Chief Minister said that he would not allow it to be implemented in his state. So does a state in India has power to stop implementation of a bill unilaterally?	India is a quasi-federation Powers are split between the state and national government as detailed in the constitution. India is a halfway point between full federations (e.g. USA, Australia) and unitary nations (e.g. France, Austria) - it still has sovereign states like a federation but the national government has much more power to intervene. Notwithstanding, citizenship is solely the province of the national government - Indian states have no power over it.	I fear that it may mostly be defined by common sense and context, rather than any particular statute. I've certainly not been able to find anything quite as explicit as, for example: An Act of Parliament is an Act passed by the Parliament of Canada and definitely not in any way an Act of a provincial legislature. Nevertheless, if you'll bear with me while I slog through a sea of clauses that all imply the above, then the best places to look for usage and definition are the Constitution Acts, 1867 and 1982, as they form (the basis/bulk of) the Canadian Constitution. I've also (credit to Zizou212) included some definitions from the Canadian Criminal Code. Looking at the Constitution Act 1982 (as amended, via the Canadian justice department's website) and taking the crudest possible approach (i.e. looking for instances of "Act of") there is, in the main body of the text, only one reference to Acts of Parliament, or to Acts of the provincial legislatures, namely in the notwithstanding clause (section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms): Parliament or the legislature of a province may expressly declare in an Act of Parliament or of the legislature, as the case may be, that the Act or a provision thereof shall operate notwithstanding a provision included in section 2 or sections 7 to 15 of this Charter. Not, I fear, not a full answer to your question, but it's worth noting that a distinction is drawn between "Parliament" and "the legislature of a province". For context, section 32, directly above, reads, This Charter applies (a) to the Parliament and government of Canada in respect of all matters within the authority of Parliament [...]; and (b) to the legislature and government of each province in respect of all matters within the authority of the legislature of each province. We're getting closer. I would argue (though IANAL) that from these two sections alone it's pretty clear that Acts of Parliament are Acts passed by the Parliament of Canada ("This Charter applies [...] to the Parliament and government of Canada") while Acts of "the legislature" of each province are Acts passed by the legislature of that province ("This Charter applies [...] to the legislature and government of each province"). Going back to the original question, I think it's pretty clear that "Parliament" – with a capital P – is (fairly) explicitly the Parliament of Canada. Note that it's the only body of the 4 mentioned there that gets a capital letter, and I imagine that it's because it's the only one referred to by its proper name. Whereas "the legislature and government of each province" is, presumably, just a common sense descriptor and a stand-in for the proper names of those governments and legislatures – it would be tedious to say "the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, and the National Assembly of Quebec, and [...]" – while "the government of Canada" is, I assume, not capitalised because it's also just a descriptor (the 'proper' name being Her Majesty's Government) but I'm descending now entirely into the realms of wildest speculation, as the Constitution Act 1867 is perfectly happy to use the phrase "Government of Canada" (though those were, seemingly, more capital-heavy times). Furthermore, as Zizouz212 pointed out, the Criminal Code of Canada contains an interpretation section: In this Act, Act includes (a) an Act of Parliament, (b) an Act of the legislature of the former Province of Canada, (c) an Act of the legislature of a province, and (d) an Act or ordinance of the legislature of a province, territory or place in force at the time that province, territory or place became a province of Canada; Again, the mention of "Parliament" alongside – and distinct from – provincial legislatures, makes fairly clear that it's the Parliament of Canada. Going back to the typesetter's nightmare that is the 1867 Act, we can eke out a few more puzzle pieces in the definitions: In the Constitution Act, 1867, Part IV: There shall be One Parliament for Canada, consisting of the Queen, an Upper House styled the Senate, and the House of Commons [...] The privileges, immunities, and powers to be held, enjoyed, and exercised by the Senate and by the House of Commons, and by the members thereof respectively, shall be such as are from time to time defined by Act of the Parliament of Canada Part V: There shall be a Legislature for Ontario [...] There shall be a Legislature for Quebec [...] the Legislature of each of the Provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick shall [...] continue as it exists at the Union Part VI: It shall be lawful for the Queen, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate and House of Commons, to make Laws for the Peace, Order, and good Government of Canada, in relation to all Matters not coming within the Classes of Subjects by this Act assigned exclusively to the Legislatures of the Provinces [...] In each Province the Legislature may exclusively make Laws in relation to Matters coming within the Classes of Subjects next hereinafter enumerated Between those three Acts, I'm hoping there are enough bits of context to make clear that Parliament only ever refers to the Parliament of Canada, and not to the provincial legislatures. If, however, you want one more bit of evidence, I can offer the pre-amble to the Canada Act, 1982 the Constitution Act's slightly older, British twin. This was the law that finally patriated the Canadian Constitution, passing (at the British Parliament in Westminster) an Act that defined how Canada could amend its own Constitution, and renouncing any power for the British Parliament to do the same. In that text, (emphasis mine) there are, by necessity, two Parliaments discussed and accordingly it's always made very clear which one is being talked about: An Act to give effect to a request by the Senate and House of Commons of Canada Whereas Canada has requested and consented to the enactment of an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to give effect to the provisions hereinafter set forth and the Senate and the House of Commons of Canada in Parliament assembled have submitted an address to Her Majesty requesting that Her Majesty may graciously be pleased to cause a Bill to be laid before the Parliament of the United Kingdom for that Purpose. Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows: The Constitution Act, 1982 set out in schedule B to this Act is hereby enacted for and shall have the force of law in Canada and shall come unto force as provided in that Act. No Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed after the Constitution Act, 1982 comes into force shall extend to Canada as part of its law. ...ergo, in the main body Constitution Acts etc., "Parliament" was presumably felt to be clear enough.	Let's back up. It's premature to say that SB 8 "avoids the constitutional restrictions on banning abortions". The constitutionality of SB 8 has not been resolved; the Supreme Court said so explicitly (page 2). In fact there is good reason to think that is unconstitutional under existing interpretation of the Constitution per Roe v. Wade and the like. (Whether the court will actually follow existing interpretation is another question, of course.) But the courts do not determine the constitutionality of laws just because someone asks them; they only do so when it needs to be decided to resolve a particular case. For instance, if a person is charged with a crime, they can challenge the constitutionality of the law under which they are charged, and courts will address that question unless the case is resolved some other way. There are also ways that a person who wants to violate the law can pre-emptively sue the government to prevent them from enforcing the law, if they can show such enforcement is likely to affect them. The issue in SB 8 is that since it wouldn't be the government enforcing the law, it's unclear who an abortion provider can pre-emptively sue. In Whole Woman's Health v. Jackson, they tried to sue the State of Texas, its courts, and a private party who they thought might be likely to sue them. The SCOTUS majority found that none of those defendants were relevant. However, if and when an abortion provider actually does get sued, there'll be a clear case which has proper parties and is ripe, and courts then will have to consider whether SB 8 is constitutional or not. So if your hypothetical gun control statute were treated similarly, the law might avoid pre-emptive challenges, with a chilling effect on gun sales. But sooner or later, someone would probably violate the law (maybe deliberately as a test case), and the courts would consider whether it was constitutional or not. Under prevailing interpretations of the Second Amendment, they'd probably find that it wasn't. A key difference, of course, is that abortions are much more time-sensitive than gun purchases; being temporarily blocked from having an abortion is much more consequential in most cases than being temporarily blocked from buying a gun. The other subtext is that, although SCOTUS said their decision in Whole Woman's Health is not based on the constitutionality of SB 8, it's widely suspected that several of the justices are not all that keen on the constitutional right to abortion found in Roe v. Wade, and might look to overturn Roe when it comes up. As such, they may not be very motivated to look for procedural avenues to block SB 8 in the short term, since they might be inclined to uphold it in the long term. The dissenters in Whole Woman's Health certainly thought those avenues were available. But in the case of your hypothetical gun control bill, if a majority of justices were pretty convinced that the law was unconstitutional, they might try harder to come up with grounds to block it pre-emptively.	The ICERD would not apply to the natural born citizens clause by its own definitions. Part 1, Article 1, secs 2 and 3 read: This Convention shall not apply to distinctions, exclusions, restrictions or preferences made by a State Party to this Convention between citizens and non-citizens. Nothing in this Convention may be interpreted as affecting in any way the legal provisions of States Parties concerning nationality, citizenship or naturalization, provided that such provisions do not discriminate against any particular nationality.	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.	Not in US courts. It would be more accurate to say the UDHR overrides nothing and is not US law. It is a nonbinding UN General Assembly resolution; while it is very powerful persuasive authority and much is customary international law, it is persuasive authority only. See Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692. The US has ratified the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, which unlike the UDHR is a treaty, meaning that is a legal obligation for the US. However, the ratification was subject to many reservations and declarations, whose net effect is that the ICCPR is not in and of itself enforceable in US courts. The US considers the US Constitution to provide the rights in question, and basically assumes no further obligations. Even if it was possible to enforce the ICCPR in US court directly, Reid v. Covert established that the Constitution overrides treaties in US court. While as a matter of international law treaties override domestic law, this is not necessarily enforceable in domestic court.	S88 Closing roads and public places: ...totally or partially prohibit or restrict public access, with or without vehicles, to any road or public place... S91(1)(a) Power to give directions: direct any person to stop any activity that may cause or substantially contribute to an emergency That is what "this Act otherwise provides"; S6 that you cited only works "unless": Unless this Act otherwise provides, this Act does not limit, is not in substitution for, and does not affect the functions, duties, or powers of any person under the provisions of any enactment or any rule of law. Also, from another angle, "functions, duties, or powers" are not the same thing as "rights": the Act does not limit the former (unless provides otherwise), but nowhere does it say it does not limit the latter.	Under the present constitution . . . Are there any consequences of the fact that the Constitution of Massachusetts and the Constitution of the United States use two different names for that state? No. Lots of the language in the United States Constitution is no longer in place or in common usage or is invalid due to subsequent amendments, and that language is still effective as originally intended. The U.S. Constitution has never been "amended and restated" and can't be understood properly without annotations to its raw text. Might a federal statute be needed for some states (e.g. Vermont, because of what is noted above) but not for others, because of differences in the federal statutes that admitted the state, or because of the lack of any need for admission by Congress in the case of the original thirteen states? Not really. Every state's name is embedded in myriad federal laws and regulations in addition to the statute that admitted the state to the United States, e.g. laws assigning names to post offices, laws allocating judgeships, laws purchasing property, laws appropriating funds, laws assigning states to various districts for purposes of executive branch departments and the judiciary, tax laws (e.g. the Obamacare tax credit), etc. Would a state statute suffice? Would a state constitutional amendment suffice? Would a federal statute suffice without a state statute or a state referendum? Would a federal constitutional amendment be needed? A federal constitutional amendment would not be needed. The Constitution vests Congress with the authority to admit states and to change their boundaries with the permission of the affected states. This would be within the power over states that could be inferred from those powers. A state and the federal government could each pass a statute to call itself something different for various purposes. For example, the official name of the state of Rhode Island is "State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations" but various state and federal statutes authorize the use of the short form of the "State of Rhode Island" for most purposes. As a practical matter a state constitutional amendment would probably be desirable on general principles to officially change the name of a state, whether or not it was strictly required, in part, because a state constitution usually sets forth an official name of a state in its body text. It would be possible for a state to change its constitution and statutes and change its name in a move that the federal government did not accept, and if that happened, the federal government and its officials would probably continue to use the old name and the state government and its officials would probably use the new name. I think it is as a practical matter, unlikely that a standoff like this would persist, but I think that this is the most likely outcome. A federal government move to change a state's name without its consent proactively, however, would probably be struck down as violating federalism concerns. Of course, all of this is speculative, because there are really no precedents for disputes over the changing of a state's name. Context would influence the outcome of any such case.
Can I get sued for copying a 1973 Swedish film? I am a newbie novelist and in my novel, I have copied a small part from the 1973 Swedish film Scenes from a Marriage. I am from India and the film is Swedish. I want to ask, is the film in public domain after so many years? If I get published can I get sued for coping that part?	Under Swedish copyright law, a work such as a movie is protected for 70 years after the death of the "creator". It is unclear who the copyright holder is, but it has not been 70 years since the film was made. Unless it was explicitly "released into the public domain", it is still protected, so you can get sued.	There are three questions relevant to this issue: Who owned the copyright in the first place? Was the copyright transferred? If not, was a license given to the site to use the content? In general, under most countries' laws, the person who creates an original work owns the copyright. The person with the copyright has the right to copy and distribute the work, and the right to prevent others from doing so. In some cases, such as where a work is created as a "work for hire" by certain employees under certain circumstances, the initial copyright is held by a third party. You will need a lawyer familiar with your jurisdiction and your circumstances to determine if this is the case. Finally, even if you own the copyright, you can license others to use your content. This may be in an express written document, or it may be an implied license--implied, for instance, by the act of posting it on their blog. The existence and scope of such a license is, again, something that will have to be determined based on your country's specific laws and your specific situation. The bottom line is: if you submitted articles to that blog, you can't complain that they posted them. Depending on the license in effect, you might be able to get them taken down, or you might not. You need a lawyer, not the internet, to tell you what your rights are in this very specific case.	People running web servers are generally liable for contributory culpability, when some user breaks the law by putting the material on the server. There are legal mechanisms for relieving the server guy from this burden. The best-known mechanism is "DMCA takedown", where you publish contact information so that an offended person can serve up a proper legal claim that you are distributing material that they own copyright to. If you follow the rules, you may enjoy "safe harbor" protection against contributory liability: one of the requirements is that you have to take infringing material down. The specific requirements can depend on the nature of the liability and jurisdiction, but generally involves a "hands off" involvement where the person has no knowledge of what's going on on his server. So just disclaiming responsibility does not work. There are other more serious violations, such as distribution of child porn or transmission of top secret information. Jurisdiction is not totally central to internet questions, and I could sue you (the server guy) in US courts, or (depending on the offense: copyright infringement of a particular item) in UK courts. Nailing this down specifically to Sweden is harder, but recall that The Pirate Bay had a whopping judgment against them.	No. This is fair use under U.S. Copyright law, which allows you to use portions of a Copyrighted piece as long as you are able to demonstrate that you are using the quote in a transformative manor (presumably a character is a fan of the movie and is quoting it because it institutionally appropriate). Consider Arnold Schwarzenegger's catchphrase "I'll be Back" which is worked into almost every movie he's done. The original line was written by James Cameron for the 1984 Terminator Film. At the time of writing, Arnold didn't really think much of the line. Cameron said he thought that the line would be funny only upon repeated viewings and was surprised that it first time audiences laughed at it, having already anticipated the titular character's penchant for machine like understatements. Since then, the use of the phrase was used in Every Terminator Movie (including one where Arnold was not available for filming due to being governor of California during filming... it was said by John Connor (Christian Bale)) and most, if not all movies Arnold has a significant role in, as a sort of in joke for the audience with little suit from James Cameron or the Franchise owners. In addition, no Arnold Parody is complete without some use of the line, and almost everyone has an "Arnold" parody. Fair Use is an affirmative defense, meaning you must say you're going to use it as a defense (and then prove why it falls under Fair Use) rather than assume courts will enforce it for you.	It's not fair use. Fair use is when you do something that normally only the copyright holder can do. Playing a video game is the ordinary, intended use of the work. In the United States, ordinary use is not protected by copyright. 17 USC 106 sets out the rights protected by copyright. The include copying the work, producing derivative works, distributing the work, and so on. None of these are ordinary use. Someone could perhaps argue that you are creating a derivative work. I doubt that argument would work because you are not taking any protectable elements from the work. But if anyone did argue that, it would make sense to also argue that if that's so, your use would still be covered under fair use because it's transformative, does not substitute for the original work in any way, and takes very little of the work.	The creator of the derivative work has copyright in the derivative work. The copyright would protect only the new elements of the derivative work. Wikipedia is a good place to start. In the case of a book with updated grammar, depending on the extent of the changes, it would probably be easier to copy the original directly than to eliminate the updates from a copy of the derivative work.	At least in the United States (and I'm pretty sure this is true around the world), facts and information cannot be copyrighted. Just because a work is copyrighted, doesn't mean every part of that work is copyrighted, and factual information conveyed by the work is a part which is not subject to copyright. Copyright on a collection of facts is limited to the selection and arrangement of those facts, and only if that selection and arrangement has some bare minimum amount of originality. See Feist v. Rural, 499 U.S. 340. In this case, it looks at first glance like the person who made that site made their own selection of which materials and which sources would be included; the one place where they really seem to have copied their selection is from glass catalogs with datasheets from specific manufacturers, who would have a hard time arguing that "everything we manufacture in this widely-recognized class of substances" is an original selection. What the author of the website has done is relinquish his rights in his selection and arrangement of the data. In some places, there are other rights besides copyright that do apply to databases; for instance, the EU recognizes database rights to protect significant investment in compiling a database of stuff. But the US does not have that concept. For citing stuff, that's not really a legal question, and has more to do with academic standards. Ask your adviser or teacher if you have one.	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.
Is it against the law to takes photographs inside of ballot papers in the UK? It being election day in the UK, there's plenty of memes doing the rounds about various aspects (and myths and misinformation) about voting on social media. One that has raised its head again is the question of photography while voting, specifically of one's own ballot paper. Is it against the law to take photos of ballot papers? I did find an article from the Mirror from 2017, which references a Tweet by the Electoral Commission claiming that it could be a violation of the Representation of the People Act 1983 Section 66. I can see some points about it being illegal to communicate information on the polling card, which a photograph shared on social media would seem to fall under. Does this mean that anyone sharing a photo of their ballot paper on social media is breaking the law?	Staff at polling stations have been told to stop people taking selfies - even though it is not against the law. The Electoral Commission fears the craze for taking self-portraits on phones and posting them on social media threatens the secrecy of the ballot. Anyone who inadvertently reveals how someone else votes in Thursday's local and European elections could face a £5,000 fine or six months in prison. Staff have been urged to put up "no photography" signs in polling stations. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-27486392 Its not illegal to take a photo of your own ballot paper, it is illegal to reveal how someone else voted without their knowledge. Thats where Section 66 of the Representation of the People's Act comes into play. This law hasn't been updated since the 2014 BBC article, so the articles claims about lawfulness are still valid.	Law is not science or math or solid logic. However - “The two identical color passport-style photos” makes it clear that for each person in question there are two identical photo documents. External to this passage is the background knowledge of what passport and other identification photos are like. They show an individual. And, the photos are not to prove your relationship, but are a way to connect the people on the documents with the faces of the people in question.	As I understand it, legal procedure in Common Law jurisdictions (e.g. the UK) is primarily based on evidence given by a person. Paperwork exists to verify that someone has not misremembered something, but even when you have paperwork you need to have someone testify that this is the right paperwork and it hasn't been forged. A piece of paper on its own means nothing. In practice of course the two sides will agree to accept routine matters rather than dragging lots of third parties (e.g. the post office employees) into court to no point. In the case of a letter where you need to prove it was received, the sender will testify that they sent the letter and that the copy they have introduced into evidence is a true copy. The proof of delivery merely shows that the item wasn't lost in the post. If one party testifies that they sent a letter and the other testifies that they merely received an empty envelope then someone is lying, which is a crime meriting further investigation.	One can argue both ways. On one side, yes, zero representation in the Senate for all states is equal suffrage in the Senate. On the other side, no, depriving all states of all representation in the Senate deprives them of their suffrage in the Senate (without needing to consider the question of whether the suffrage is equal). Since this question has never been considered by a court, we can't do much more than speculate how one might rule. There has never been an amendment proposed to modify the composition of the Senate -- at least not one that was seriously considered. The spirit of the law works in favor of the second interpretation. Furthermore, a strict application of abstract logical reasoning was probably not the intention of the framers. A strategy that might seem more likely to succeed would be to introduce amendments reducing the Senate's power in the legislative process, similar to the evolution of the House of Lords in the UK. If the goal were to sideline one state, this might work, but if the goal is to address the complaint that the Senate is undemocratic because people in smaller states have proportionally more influence there, there's no way the amendment would pass 3/4 of the states' legislatures. The number of states with one or two representatives is 13, by itself a sufficient number to block the adoption of an amendment.	You have misread the DMLP page. In Pennsylvania, it is illegal to record a conversation if you are a party and if the other party does not consent. The fact that federal law doesn't ban something doesn't mean that states can't ban it. There is generally a presumption that when both the feds and the states can legitimately regulate something, the feds weren't trying to preempt all state laws on the topic. While people often say "federal law takes precedence over state law," the normal rule is that both laws apply; the federal law only blocks the state law if the feds wanted to block said state laws. So far as I can tell, the federal law has never been held to preempt two-party consent laws; the point of the federal law was to restrict recording, not extend it. It's like how federal law doesn't prohibit taking hostages inside the US to coerce a private company into doing what you want (anti-terrorism laws might, I guess, but the federal hostage-taking law doesn't); while the federal law excludes most hostage-taking in the US, that doesn't mean that it's legal to take hostages. Congress sometimes wants to establish nationwide standards for something, but the presumption is that they didn't.	They are not considered public places in the way you mean, and in fact, the Ohio revised code specifically prohibits the kind of behavior you're referencing. Bottom line, any kind of party at the polling place itself is out of the question due to the possibility of limiting access or intimidating potential voters.	If there is a trade mark and if Polaroid owns it and if you infringed it then yes they can force you to remove it. In addition, they could sue you for either damages (i.e. what they lost because of your infringement) or an account of profits (i.e. what you made because of your infringement). That is what trade mark law is for! If the trade mark is registered then this is trivially easy for them to demonstrate. If it is unregistered then it becomes a question of if the mark is clearly recognisable as Polaroid's; IMO they could probably show that it is - those particular border dimensions were distinctive of Polaroid instant cameras for many years. If you want to republish the app, you could probably avoid trade mark issues by allowing users to set the dimensions of the photograph and border, the colour of the border and the location of the caption.	The information in telephone books is public. so are postal change-of-address records. So are records of the ownership of real estate. So are vital statistics such as birth records. So are voter registration lists -- i myself purchased a voter registration list (in digital form) for a municipality which showed people's names, addresses, and the years when they voted, when I was a political candidate for local office in NJ. It cost about $100. I believe that many states also make driver's license information available for a fee to marketers. Credit records are available for certain limited purposes, also. No doubt there are other public sources I haven't thought of. If such a site relies on public records, or other publicly available data, it is not illegal. Many such sites offer to remove names on an opt-out basis, but there is no legal requirement that sites do so. This kind of information is not considered nto be "private facts" under US tort law. Aside from opting out, if the sites provide that option, I don't think you have any recourse. One could ask the local legislature to pass a law prohibiting such sites, or making them require consent, similar to the GDPR that the EU has. But I don't know of any such law in the US to date.
Who owns copyright on works found in a storage unit/attic? So in this question the OP bought the contents of a storage unit whose owner had failed to keep up with payments. In it they found an unpublished manuscript, which they thought was pretty cool and wanted to publish it. There are answers and comments about the ethical thing to do, but I want to put that aside for this question, and just focus on the legal copyright side. In the comments there was discussion on who would own copyright to the manuscript. Since the OP legally owned the original physical manuscript I thought that the copyright would belong to the OP, whereas others posit that it would belong to the author's heirs. The reason I thought it would belong to the OP is because I had heard stories of people finding works of art in their attic, and going on to auction them off (making an unexpected windfall). So I wanted to ask here on SE law (not SE writing) specifically: Who would legally own the copyright of a 'found in storage/attic manuscript/piece of art' and what difference the art medium (e.g., words on paper vs paint on canvas) would make	Note: this answer refers to US copyright law. Other jurisdictions may differ, though the Berne Convention means that the general rules are largely the same. See chx's answer for more details. There are two different "things" you can own when it comes to an artistic/creative object: the physical object itself, and the right to reproduce it (i.e., the copyright). US Law specifically notes that owning the physical object does not imply that you automatically own the copyright, or vice versa: Ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, is distinct from ownership of any material object in which the work is embodied. Transfer of ownership of any material object, including the copy or phonorecord in which the work is first fixed, does not of itself convey any rights in the copyrighted work embodied in the object; nor, in the absence of an agreement, does transfer of ownership of a copyright or of any exclusive rights under a copyright convey property rights in any material object. If you find the manuscript to an unpublished Kurt Vonnegut novel in your attic, you are within your rights to auction off the manuscript to the highest bidder. This is analogous to finding a "lost" Warhol painting in your attic and putting it up for sale. But just because you own the original does not necessarily give you the rights to reproduce it, either for the painting or the manuscript. By default, the copyright in any creative work belongs to its creator, and physical ownership of the work does not also grant the owner the copyright by default. In the case of the Vonnegut novel, the right to reproduce and publish the manuscript would still belong to Vonnegut's estate, unless Vonnegut (or his estate) had explicitly granted that copyright to another party. The analogous situation for the Warhol painting would be taking the painting and selling prints of it, or putting it on a mug or a t-shirt. If Warhol (or his heirs) never granted the copyright in the painting to anyone else, then the right to reproduce it still belongs to them. The medium of expression does not make a difference in the legal principles involved, and who has the right to do what. It only makes a difference in how easy it is to faithfully reproduce it. As noted in the comments, works that are sufficiently old will eventually pass into the public domain. If the work is "unpublished" (as the hypothetical Vonnegut novel would be), this happens 70 years after the death of the author. Anyone could legally publish the novel at this time, not just the owner of the manuscript.	17 U.S. Code § 107, which governs fair use in the US, says (emphasis mine): Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include— (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors. Note that commercial/educational use is part of only one factor. Even if that factor is in your favor, it may not be fair use, and even if it isn't in your favor, it might be fair use. Because fair use is determined on a case-by-case basis, we can't really say whether your use is fair use, with or without the donations. That would be the sort of thing you'd ask a lawyer about to get real legal advice on your particular case.	Photographers own the copyright in their photos, in general the person who creates a work owns the copyright in their work. Otherwise, makers of cameras, chisels and typewriters would own all of the copyrights. Android is just another tool. Property owners don't hold copyright in works involving their property, though they may prohibit photography of their property, enforceable via the law of trespass.	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.	Publication after the author's death is still publication. As you can see in this excellent chart this work is copyrighted for 95 years after the publication date under US law. If it had never been published, it would be protected by copyright for 70 years after the death of Lovecraft, the author (a term which has now expired). However, statements of genealogy would be facts, and as such are not protected by copyright. limited quotes to support those facts would be appropriate in a work of non-fiction, and would normally be permitted as fair use under US law. Such quotes would probably not be appropriate in fiction in any case. The exact wording of the genealogy would probably be protected, but not the relationships (who is the parent of whom, etc).	Depending on where exactly you are in the world, there is some protection for the representation of copyright-expired material if work went into presentation. So you might be allowed to put a Bach cantata into musical notation yourself, since he died in 1750, but you cannot simply copy another publisher's sheet music to save that work. The same might apply to an old newspaper article. If you find a print and scan it, you can upload it, but you may not be able to take it from the database organized by someone else. In austria, there is §40f Urheberrecht, which defines databases (they may or may not be collected editions). §40h clarifies how the right to a private copy in §42 extends only to "private use and neither directly nor indirectly commercial purposes." In germany, there is 87a-e UrhG, which covers databases whose assembly did not represent creative work (e.g. by simply ordering things by date). They are protected if the assembly required significant investment. This "lesser protection" lasts only 15 years, not 70, and there is a "a significant part" test for copying less than the whole database.	No. The images are copyrighted, and you are using them in a way that would leave you with virtually no argument for fair use. The factors for fair use are set out in 17 USC 107, and they indicate that the courts would reject your use: The purpose and character of the use, including whether it is of a commercial nature or for nonprofit educational purposes: There's no indication that your use would be for nonprofit or educational purposes. The nature of the copyrighted work: Works of fiction and art are highly creative works at the heart of the policy for copyright protection. The amount of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole: You are apparently copying entire images, though I suppose you could argue that each image is just one small portion of a larger book or website. The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work: You are trying to create a board game, putting yourselves basically in direct competition with the makers of D&D. I generally prefer a pretty liberal interpretation of what constitutes fair use, but this just has virtually nothing that would make me comfortable arguing in your favor.	The comment is incorrect; creating a derivative work without permission is still disallowed, even for private use. In US copyright law 17USC 106 defines the exclusive rights that the copyright holder has, the right "to do and to authorize". The second of these is: (2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work; Note that the right is the right to "prepare" a derivative work, not the right to "distribute" or "sell" the work. US copyright law defines a derivative work in 17 USC 101 which reads: A “derivative work” is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications, which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a “derivative work”. The laws of other countries are similar to US law on this point. Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Berne Copyright Convention provides that: (3) Translations, adaptations, arrangements of music and other alterations of a literary or artistic work shall be protected as original works without prejudice to the copyright in the original work. However, it should be noted that if a person creates a derivative work in private, and never shows it to anyone else, the copyright owner would never learn of it, and so could never sue for infringement. But if it were shown or described to anyone, and the owner did learn, then he owner could in theory sue. Whether the owner would choose to sue over a derivative work never circulated is a different matter. The real effect of this law is that when an infringing derivative work is distributed and the owner wants to sue, the owner need not prove distribution. Proving creation of the derivative work is enough. The quoted comment asks about whether such a rule is "unconstitutional or something" and says that "You should be allowed to do whatever you want with your own stuff in your own home." The US constitution does not grant any such broad right. There are lots of things one might do in own's own home that are illegal: building a bomb for example. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the US Constitution, sometimes called the Copyright Clause or the IP clause, grants Congress the power: To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. See the LII page "Intellectual Property Clause" and the page Nature and Scope of the Right Secured for Copyright where it is written that: Congress was within its powers in giving to authors the exclusive right to dramatize any of their works. Even as applied to pantomime dramatization by means of silent motion pictures, the act was sustained against the objection that it extended the copyright to ideas rather than to the words in which they were clothed. {Kalem Co. v. Harper Bros., 222 U.S. 55 (1911). For other problems arising because of technological and electronic advancement, see, e.g., Fortnightly Corp. v. United Artists Television, Inc., 392 U.S. 390 (1968); Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417 (1984).} See also the Wikipedia article "Copyright Clause".
At gas station parked pumping gas can an officer search the rental without my consent? I am at the gas station, I go inside and put money on my pump, the gas station is crowded. I have a rental car its a 93 Mercedes the registration tags are expired I am returning the car tomor to either receive new tags or another vehicle. The rental vehicle is currently insured just tags are expired. While pumping gas a officer pulls up aside of my rental and while I have the trunk open grabbing a micro cloth to while my hands he asks what's going on with the registration. I explain to him its a rental and I know the tags are bad am going to rental company tomor because I had work today and just got off. I clean houses as a part time job so the rental is super clean I just shampooed the carpets yesterday. There is no debris/trash in the vehicle no signs of any crime being committed or reason to suspect. I have a small vacuum laying in back seat and my small make up bag zipped closed on the passenger seat. My trunk has cleaning products and equip nicely organized. He had ran the plates and I explained to him the guy who owns the car rental company is Egyptain I give him his name, business name, and his cell number. He calls it I call it no answer because it just passed 6pm and he went home probably. I told him the car is insured its just the tags are bad, which is super irritating because I have been pulled over twice in the last month for it. So if you need to write a ticket for the tags that would save me the trouble explaining this all over again. He asks for my ID I go into the car grab my ID shut the door shut the trunk the keys are around my neck and now he tells me that he is searching the vehicle. I said why? Did I commit some crime? I'm pumping gas. He says you were arrested 9 months ago and I said that's not suppose to be on there and what does that have anything to do with the tags? He threatens me to have the K9 unit search the rental and if anything is found he is going to impound the rental and take me to jail. So I confess I had paraphernalia in my make up bag because I don't want the car impounded because I can't get it out nor afford it and don't want to go to jail. He opens the car without my consent like if I was on probation or paroll which I never have been and gets it out of my make up bag and then writes me a ticket. How are all my rights being taken away from me from just having one arrest 9 months ago and used against me while pumping gas on private property and the car not even being in my name or keys inside or body inside justify search of probable cause? Officers May Not Search A Car Without A Warrant When It Is Parked, Unoccupied, Not Running, And The Keys Are Not In The Car". Does this apply to me? Please help.	Police officers can lie to you He asked to search your car. He’s allowed to do this. You said no. You’re allowed to do this. He lied to you when he said he would get the K9 to search the car - this would not be legal. But he’s allowed to tell you lies. You made an admission of criminal activity. He now has probable cause to search. He legally searched, confirmed your admission and booked you. Seems legit to me.	Each of the 50 states plus non-states has their own laws, but there is nothing general about contract or other law in the US that forces a rental facility to accept customers who don't have / won't get the insurance that they require. It is a reasonable requirement, because it protects their interest insofar as angry customers might sue the facility because their car was broken into, and many of them would mistakenly believe that their car insurance covers theft or destruction of contents (thus leading to a desire to sue, to cover the property loss). It may be just too much hassle and too risky for them to assume the correctness of a customer's claim that they already have adequate coverage and will maintain said coverage, with no practical means to verify the claim.	The police performed an "open air sniff". Federal and Pennsylvania law differ on this. Under Federal law, this is not considered a search and can be done on any vehicle- usually to get cause for a more invasive search. (Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U. S. 405 (2005).) Under Pennsylvania law, an open air sniff requires reasonable suspicion. This is lower than probable cause- all it requires is that a reasonable person could suspect from the facts that a crime may have or could be committed. Being overly nervous during a routine traffic stop driving someone else's car could potentially be considered reasonable suspicion- as I only have your second-hand account, I won't speculate further. If there was no reasonable suspicion, any evidence found by that search, or evidence found by a search justified by it would be suppressed. Fourth Ammendment rights also apply here. The police cannot detain someone solely for the purpose of waiting for a sniffer dog. They have ways and techniques to waste time for this purpose, but if the stop was concluded before the dog arrived, your husband would be free to leave. Again, I have only your second-hand account so I won't speculate on whether this happened. He should speak to his lawyer about specifics of the case.	There is a reasonable chance that the amount that you are borrowing and paying interest on is through a third party, so the dealer can't just waive the interest for the period when they are fixing the car. Legal responses would include canceling the sale, and suing for damages. The problem with suing for damages is that this isn't costing you an extra $15/day (the loan gets paid off at a fixed time, regardless of how much you get to actually drive the car). It would be a considerable stretch to argue that you were deprived of a week's worth of enjoyment for the car because of the wrongful acts of the dealer, and should be compensated. Your attorney would be in a good position to tell you, based on the facts and Texas law, whether that approach would be futile. The legality of the situation primarily depends on what the contract says. It is likely that the contract has clauses that maximally disclaim responsibility to the maximum extent allowed by law. There will be some clause that says something about taking delivery of the car, so you can check whether they have breached the contract on that point: it is possible that there is some escape hatch like "as soon as possible, upon receipt of payment". It seems pretty clear that they concealed a material fact, in order to induce you to buy the car. For example, the manufacturer may have installed a defective veblitzer which had to be replaced, and a reasonable person would not buy a car with a defective veblitzer, thus the veblitzer is a material fact. Or: the veblitzer may have been damaged in a flood. The fact that the car is, by their representation, not safe to drive in its current state, the mind of fact that would push most people into the "no thanks" category. To pursue the fraud angle, you need to be more specific about the defective part in your complaint. The only way to force them to reveal the nature of the missing part is to sue them and compel disclosure of the relevant facts during discovery. Again, your attorney would deal with this. You should bear in mind that if the sale is simply cancelled, you may not be able to recover the loan application or processing fee, and the trade-in will no doubt have been sold, so you can't get the old car back. There are laws against deceptive trade practices which might be applicable, depending on whether they said anything deceptive in their disseminated advertising. Section 17.46 may be applicable, if they patched the car together temporarily with a counterfeit veblitzer.	See the answer to this question. It is remotely possible that it will show up, but the new S.C. law also says that an employer cannot use that information. On the other hand, that law is not yet effective (it becomes effective Dec. 27 2018), so for the rest of the year, the information could be used, if an employer obtains is. There is a law-enforcement exception that arrests can always be used against you if you apply for a law-enforcement related job. Under the current law (has been in effect for a while), the record is "under seal", so revealing the record in the course of a background check would be a violation of the relevant court order. The law specifies a punishment for illegal disclosure: A person who intentionally violates this subsection is guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction, must be fined not more than one hundred dollars or imprisoned not more than thirty days, or both. however, accidental disclosure is not a crime. You might think that you could at least sue them for accidental disclosure, but the law also says Unless there is an act of gross negligence or intentional misconduct, nothing in this section gives rise to a claim for damages against the State, a state employee, a political subdivision of the State, an employee of a political subdivision of the State, a public officer, or other persons. If the government person who releases the information intentionally does so, you can sue. Perhaps an accidental release could be found to be grossly negligent: that would depend on the circumstances.	Traffic offenses, which are generally class C misdemeanors in Texas, and more generally, pretty much any offense for which you are required to appear in person at the court in Texas (which can result in issuance of a warrant for your arrest if you fail to appear) will generally be subject to the right to trial by jury in Texas. Note that this is not a U.S. constitutional requirement unless one can be incarcerated for six months or more for the offense, so, in all other cases, the right to a jury trial in traffic cases is a right that arises solely under the State of Texas Constitution and by state statute and state court rules. But, generally speaking, a parking violation in Texas in punishable with an administrative citation for which only a small fine is authorized, in which there is no right to a jury trial. See, e.g., this regulation governing parking violations on the property of the state capitol in Austin. More pertinent to the question, in particular, this also appears to be the case in the City of Houston (see also here). This process is governed by Texas Transportation Code §§ 682.001 to 682.011. This makes parking violations under municipal ordinances civil offenses punishable by civil fines imposed in administrative hearings before a "hearing officer" (i.e. a parking court judge). Failure to attend the hearing confesses liability but is not otherwise wrongful. An unpaid fine is enforced by a lawsuit rather than a criminal charge. The U.S. Constitution's 7th Amendment does not confer a right to a trial by jury in civil matters which is strictly a function of state law. And, while the Texas Right to a Jury Trial under Article 1, Section 15 of the Texas Constitution is very broad, it does not include reviews of administrative decisions, which are what parking hearings and appeals of them to a municipal court are classified as being.	colorado You have committed aggravated motor vehicle theft in the second degree in violation of CRS 18-4-409(4): A person commits aggravated motor vehicle theft in the second degree if he or she knowingly obtains or exercises control over the motor vehicle of another without authorization or by threat or deception and if none of the aggravating factors in subsection (2) of this section are present. If the value of the vehicle was less than $2000, then this is a Class 1 misdemeanor and is punishable by 6 to 18 months imprisonment and/or a fine of $500 to $5000. Colorado's general theft statute (CRS 18-4-401) requires an additional element, that you intend to permanently deprive the rightful owner of the benefit of the property. So your slide example is not theft. However, they specifically excluded such a requirement from the motor vehicle theft statute. If you drove it on a public road, then you may have committed a few traffic violations as well: The vehicle's registration is presumably expired, so you violated CRS 42-3-121(1)(a). If any of its required safety equipment is not working (all lights and signals, brakes, mirrors, horn, seat belts, etc, as well as a muffler) then you are in violation of CRS 42-4-202(1). The vehicle is presumably not insured, so you violated 42-4-1409(2). You might think your own auto insurance policy covers you when you drive another vehicle, but if it's like my policy, this clause only applies when you drive it "with the express or implied permission of the owner, and within the scope of that permission". If the dump truck has a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) over 26,000 pounds, then it is a commercial motor vehicle under CRS 42-2-402(4)(a)(I), and under 42-2-404(1) you need a commercial driver's license to operate it, which you presumably don't have. (Note that GVWR is the maximum weight, including load, at which it is rated, whether or not it is currently loaded.)	It depends on what you mean by "clean." The police have probably made a record of the incident and included your name. If you're in the United States, the odds are that the public has access to that record under a freedom of information law. But that's a lot of work that few people will bother with. You haven't been arrested or convicted, so the incident probably wouldn't show up if anyone did a background check, if that's what you're worried about.
Can the same entity be a B Corp and an LLC, or an S-Corp and a C-Corp? Fellow Lawfolk, In the United States, can a business file to be any one of the three combinations: LLC & B-Corp S-Corp & B-Corp C-Corp & B-Corp As in: Can you simultaneously be an LLC & a B-Corp, or a S-Corp & B-Corp, or a C-Corp & B-Corp. Thanks for your time.	B Corporation is a private certification affirming that a certain company has achieved "the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose." It is issued by B Lab, a non-profit organization. These are the people involved in issuing a B Corporation certification. Just to be completely clear, you wouldn't be "filing" to be a B Corporation the way you would file to become organized as an LLC with your state's Division of Corporations. You would simply be applying to a private sector body for a certification of your corporate practices. Therefore, a B Corporation certification can be held by any for-profit company of any kind of business structure. You can be a B Corporation-certified LLC, LLP, sole proprietor, corporation, and so forth. You can also be a B Corp-certified S corporation, or a B Corp-certified C corporation. This is just a footnote, since what I'm about to explain next doesn't really answer your question, but provides a useful clarification. In the United States, companies are registered with a state's Division of Corporations (or equivalent), but are also liable for federal income tax. Since different states offer different business structures, the federal government needs to classify all these structures into their own defined categories for the purposes of federal tax calculation. A C corporation is recognized by the federal government to be any business that is taxed separately from its owners. In other words, if I were the shareholder of Apple, a C corporation, I would have to pay my personal taxes on dividends earned from Apple, while Apple has to pay corporate income taxes on its profits, regardless of the (taxed) dividends it has paid out to me. This leads to what is called double taxation. Corporations and LLCs would commonly be regarded by the federal government as a C corporation. An S corporation is recognized by the federal government to pass corporate income on to shareholders, who then pay personal income taxes on corporate income. Therefore, tax on corporate income is only paid once. Sole proprietorships would commonly be regarded by the federal government as an S corporation. Just as a concluding thought exercise: a firm can be organized as an LLC under state law, certified as a B Corporation, and recognized by the federal government as a C corporation. It can actually be all of these three things at once.	You cannot use a trademark in a way that may cause confusion that your goods and services are associated with or endorsed by the trade marked goods and services. If you are clear that they are not then you shouldn't have any problems on that front. You also cannot defame the brand: that is make derogatory comments that are not true. On a practical note, when Pepsi (for example) sends you a cease & desist notice, what are you going to do? They can go to the petty cash tin for $2 million to make your life a legal hell for 18-36 months: how much do you have to defend your rights?	The name of a company is not necessarily a trademark, so you are conflating two different concepts: A company name is the legal identity of the company, like your name is for you. A brand is an advertising construct which identifies certain goods or services. For example, Microsoft is both a company name and a trademark while Windows is only a trademark. Company names are regulated by whomever it is in your jurisdiction who is responsible for this: in Australia this is the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). In general, within the same jurisdiction, you cannot have two company names that are the same. So, if you are not registering your company in the UK you should be fine. Trademark is about protecting brands and ensuring that there is no scope for confusion by the consumer that your goods and services are theirs (and vice-versa). Generally, if there is no room for confusion there is no trademark infringement. E.g., if your brand is about software and theirs is about agriculture then this is probably OK. If you both make software but you are a game company and they make accounting software this might be OK too, or it might not.	Tricky. First, what is better for you? You usually start an LLC to protect yourself (the person) from liability in case things go wrong. Worst case, you lose all the assets of the LLC. So if the LLC owns the copyright, that is an asset, which can be lost if the LLC goes bankrupt. So I'd say it's better for your protection if you own the copyright personally. If you created the software in your own time, before the LLC was started, then you own the copyright. You should create a proper contract saying that the LLC has the non-exclusive right to market the software and keep profits from the sale of the software, and that this agreement can be cancelled by you at any time. Signed by you, as a private citizen, and by the director of the LLC, which happens to be you as well, on behalf of the LLC. That will give you maximum personal protection. On the other hand, investors won't be willing to invest in your LLC, because it basically owns nothing of any value. So if you want investments, then you may be less able to protect your assets, because the investors want to protect their assets as well.	First, shares are a form of raising capital. A company must have some capital, and Bob receives the shares in exchange. So it is not free (the exact minimum would depend of the requirements for incorporating). In both cases, Bob is not only a shareholder but the manager of Bob Limited. Bob will not incur liabilities for being a shareholder, but he can be at fault for his actions as a manager (for example, if he gives false financial data about Bob Limited in order to get credit for investing). Do not confuse Bob the Managerand Bob the Shareholder, as they are different roles. Of course, if you are a trading company and Bob the Manager approachs you asking for credit for Bob Limited, you will have to consider which assets Bob Limited has to cover possible debts, and you will ask him the books or other proof. If Bob the Manager provides you the correct information about Bob Limited and does nothing "funny"1, Bob the Manager is off the hook; you did provide credit hoping to get profits but you knew that there was a risk, and you were given the data needed to evaluate that risk. If Bob the Manager did things the wrong way (he did "cook" the books, he did provide false data or he did appropiate Bob Limited money) then Bob the Manager will probably be prosecuted. But Bob the Shareholder will not be liable for this, he will only lose the assets he did put forward as capital as the Bob Limited value will drop to zero. B) does not change much the situation, Matt still only loses his part of the company2. The difference here is that if Bob the Manager did "funny" things and did not manage the company correctly then Matt may sue Bob the Manager, too. 1For example, using the assets borrowed to buy a nice mansion and then selling it to Bob the Shareholder (or to Bob the Manager) for $1. 2Which is not valued at $50 but as half the net worth of the company. Of course, if the company was valued at $100.000.000 and Bob the Shareholder sold half of its shares for $50, people from the tax office are likely to come asking lots of questions.	I believe that under federal law, the franchise owner cannot avoid overtime in this way. A similar case was considered by the Labor Department in 2005 (FLSA2005-17NA): This is in response to your request for an opinion concerning the application of the overtime requirements of section 7 of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to employees who work at two different health care facilities operated by one management company. It is our opinion that all hours worked at any of the facilities must be combined for the purpose of calculating hours worked under the FLSA. The letter explains the logic pretty clearly, with citations. When an employee is "jointly" employed by two or more employers, then the hours are all combined for overtime purposes. 29 CFR 791.2(b) explains how "jointly" is determined: Where the employee performs work which simultaneously benefits two or more employers, or works for two or more employers at different times during the workweek, a joint employment relationship generally will be considered to exist in situations such as: (1) Where there is an arrangement between the employers to share the employee's services, as, for example, to interchange employees; or (2) Where one employer is acting directly or indirectly in the interest of the other employer (or employers) in relation to the employee; or (3) Where the employers are not completely disassociated with respect to the employment of a particular employee and may be deemed to share control of the employee, directly or indirectly, by reason of the fact that one employer controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with the other employer. Paragraph (1) applies: the two employers (the two restaurants) have an arrangement to share the employee's services (the owner is explicitly dividing their hours). Paragraph (3) also applies: both employers are under common control, since the same person owns both. They certainly are "not completely dissociated". The same logic would seem to apply even if the two locations are different restaurants, or different types of businesses. The 2005 letter explains further: Factors that are relevant in finding joint employment include, for example, whether there are common officers or directors of the companies; the nature of the common management support provided; whether employees have priority for vacancies at the other companies; whether there are any common insurance, pension or payroll systems; and whether there are any common hiring seniority, recordkeeping or billing systems. These also seem likely to apply in your hypothetical cases.	If I do some business travel for your company then I send you a bill for my working time and my expenses, and I expect it to be paid. If your shareholder does some business travel for your company, they can do the same. If they don't charge you for the working time, good for your company. Just expect the IRS to look at this bill more carefully than usual to make sure this is not in reality a dividend payment. For example, if the business travel was "two weeks in a five star hotel in Hawaii, all expenses paid", that wouldn't look quite right and cause trouble for both of you. PS: Cost of travelling to a company’s share holder meeting is not a business expense.	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.
Are the premises of a consulate entitled to the same diplomatic protections as those of an embassy? Embassies, as defined in the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, enjoy certain legal protections for the purposes of protecting their premises and (some) staff from interference by their receiving countries. I'm specifically referencing such protections as restrictions on representatives of the receiving country entering the premises, i.e. a police officer cannot enter an embassy without the permission of the embassy. Do the same protections apply to the premises of consulates?	More or less, but this manual gives details on the "less" part, as interpreted by the US State Department. See The 1963 Vienna Consular treaty for the general agreement. Facilities derive immunity from their relationship to consular personnel and their duties. That means that in some cases, a consulate has no immunity. Diplomatic agents (such as ambassadors) and their families enjoy total immunity. However, some staff only enjoy "official acts" immunity. Immunities only apply to foreign nationals of the sending nation, and not to citizens or permanent residents of the US. Quite often, nations have consular offices outside the capital manned by locals with an interest in the sending nation, and they may carry out business in their own home. The individuals do not have regular consular immunity, they have only official acts immunity, and the premise where they do their business is not unsearchable, unless the premise is used only for official consular business (thus, not their own homes). Under the Vienna treaty, "consular premises" is a term of diplomatic art, referring to a subset of consulates, as the buildings or parts of buildings and the land ancillary thereto, irrespective of ownership, used exclusively for the purposes of the consular post An honorary consul may uses his home for conducting consular business, but it is not immune from search (it is a de facto consulate, but does not qualify as a "consular premise" in the sense defined by the convention). Since such a consul does not enjoy absolute immunity, his residence is not un-enterable, as would be the case for an ambassador or regular consul.	Under US regulations pertaining to Iran sanctions, §560.201, Except as otherwise authorized pursuant to this part, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permit granted prior to May 7, 1995, the importation into the United States of any goods or services of Iranian origin or owned or controlled by the Government of Iran, other than information and informational materials within the meaning of section 203(b)(3) of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(3)), is prohibited. where that acts grants the President the authority to regulate various things but The authority granted to the President by this section does not include the authority to regulate or prohibit, directly or indirectly... the importation from any country, or the exportation to any country, whether commercial or otherwise, regardless of format or medium of transmission, of any information or informational materials, including but not limited to, publications, films, posters, phonograph records, photographs, microfilms, microfiche, tapes, compact disks, CD ROMs, artworks, and news wire feeds. The exports exempted from regulation or prohibition by this paragraph do not include those which are otherwise controlled for export under section 4604 3 of this title, or under section 4605 3 of this title to the extent that such controls promote the nonproliferation or antiterrorism policies of the United States, or with respect to which acts are prohibited by chapter 37 of title 18 So information isn't generally regulated, except potentially under section 50 USC 4604 – which was repealed. For the moment, here is what that law said (huge, not gonna copy). But that doesn't matter too much because the exception to the exception is for exports, not imports: it is legal to import technology into the US. (OTOH, how is it possible to import programs without exporting at least shred of programming technology?) Also under §560.419 The prohibitions in §560.201 make it unlawful to hire an Iranian national ordinarily resident in Iran to come to the United States solely or for the principal purpose of engaging in employment on behalf of an entity in Iran or as the employee of a U.S. person, unless authorized pursuant to §560.505. See also §560.418 with respect to the release of technology and software. You cannot bring an Iranian resident to the US for this purpose, unless you get authorization. It does not say you can't pay a guy in Iran to work remotely. And finally, §560.505 which is about the "authorized pursuant to" clause: The release of technology or software in the United States, or by a United States person wherever located, to any person violates the prohibitions of this part if made with knowledge or reason to know the technology is intended for Iran or the Government of Iran, unless that technology or software meets the definition of information and informational materials in §560.315. There are other clarificatory notes attached to this section. Finally, §560.505 explicitly allows importation of certain non-immigrant services, but what you intend doesn't seem to be covered. So it is not crystal clear, especially since your plan might involve "exporting technology". It's not safe to interpret these regulations on your own, and you need to hire an attorney who specializes in this area, where you would discuss in detail what you will be "exporting" (even if you don't think it is exporting, it could be legally deemed to be exporting). That, I think, is the main legal issue.	US Constitutional law generally recognizes the right of freedom of movement, e.g. in Corfield v. Coryell, 6 Fed. Cas. 546, Crandall v. Nevada, 73 U.S. 35, Paul v. Virginia, 75 U.S. 168. The more recent case Saenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489 affirms the position that restricting the "right to travel violates the Equal Protection Clause absent a compelling governmental interest", and one of the specific rights subsumed under the right to travel is "the right to enter and leave another State". The "compelling governmental interest" is a reference to standard of judicial review known as strict scrutiny, where a law that restricts a fundamental right (the right to travel) is required for a "compelling state interest", is "narrowly tailored" to that purpose, and is the "least restrictive means". It is highly likely that each state has a statute that grants broad powers to the governor in case of a state of emergency. Such an order would then have to be scrutinized strictly, with respect to the narrow tailoring and least restrictive aspects of the question. We would then have to analyze the specifics of the case and order.	The short answer is that there are many different ways that different countries regulate lawyers, and thus, many different ways to go about confirming the legitimacy of a lawyer. There is also considerable variation by country and by the type of legal situation involved, regarding the effect of a good faith reliance on inaccurate advice from a lawyer. The fact that there is so much variation in this is one of the reasons that fraud and corruption in international transactions involving people who are, or who claim to be, lawyers is fairly common. My office gets dubious communications involving people who claim to be lawyers (sometimes hijacking the names, photos, and trade dress of legitimate law firms and lawyers with subtly spoofed contact information) several times a week. One option is to proactively seek out firms using recognized and well-established legal directories with multinational operations and ratings of each lawyer's competence and ethics, rather than responding to cold call style advertising or online commentary and essays. Historically, the leading publication in this niche was Martindale Hubbell, but there are now multiple competitors that use this business model. Another option is to rely on word of mouth referrals and/or corroboration from people in a good position to know, such as embassy staff from your country in the country in question, or from professional employees of large multinational businesses in the country in question. Ideally, rely on more than one source for each law firm you consider retaining.	The Supreme Court rules in US v. Wong Kim Ark ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment, which states All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside It is not disputed that said areas are "in the United States". The court found that "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" is intended to exclude, by the fewest and fittest words (besides children of members of the Indian tribes, standing in a peculiar relation to the national government, unknown to the common law), the two classes of cases,—children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation, and children of diplomatic representatives of a foreign state neither of which are the case in your scenario. Technically, the child is not "eligible" for citizenship, the child has US citizenship, it is just a matter of getting a government official to recognize it (e.g. in issuing a passport).	There are certain requirements of Statehood according to the Montevideo Convention on Statehood of 1933, which is just a codification of international customary law: a permanent population; a defined territory; government; and capacity to enter into relations with the other states. Is it "legal" to buy a piece of land and claim it to be another country than before(either inventing a new one or migrating it to an already existing one)? According to international law, it is. Sure. But just because you say something is the case, doesn't mean it is. Always. Sometimes it is. But for present purposes, let's say that if you found an uninhabited island and said that you were a country, that wouldn't be the case - nor if you bought it from a man living on it. If you found some land that belonged to another country and decided to claim it as that of an existing country, then it would depend on the specific circumstances. That's exactly what happened to the Krim island in the Ukraine(now Russia maybe?), right? I don't think so. As far as I know, the annexation of territory isn't considered sale. In any case, the ownership of this land is still under dispute. So, if it's possible without the influence of these international institutions, trying this in an area with their influence would be easier, right? If trying this means declaring some land you have purchased to be a new sovereign state Nope. You probably still don't meet the requirements for statehood. If trying this means the acquisition of some land by an existing sovereign state Maybe. Probably not. The Montevideo Convention requires that statehood not be gained through force; while member states' interests may be greater where they are more invested, the requirements for acquisition of territory are the same no matter where you are. What would prevent me from creating my own nation? Money, defensibility, recognition, the fact that you probably don't own any land that you "buy" (depending on the jurisdiction and real estate system), the fact that you generally can't unilaterally declare yourself a sovereign state.	An individual obtains due process rights upon entering into the United States. For a recent write-up on this question, see this piece at Reason. The people Trump is talking about generally aren't being denied admission at an established, legal border crossing; they're coming across wherever they can get through, and only being discovered by federal agents thereafter. Because they're already in the United States, they have due process rights. As for cross-border interactions with ICE or CBP, the extent of due process protections is still an open question. SCOTUS took it up last year, but it kicked the case back to a lower court rather than deciding it.	The President has the power under Article II of the U.S. Constitution to faithfully execute the laws enacted by Congress. Any power that the President has to regulate international travel of non-U.S. citizens arises from statutes enacted by Congress that give the President (or the executive branch more generally) that authority. Immigration laws, in practice, give very substantial discretionary authority to the President, and public health laws probably also do so. I don't have chapter and verse to cite to you regarding which specific statutes provide that authority, without considerably more research, but that is the general idea. The primary statute regulating immigration is the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (and more generally, Title 8 of the United States Code). It is not uncommon in the United States for there to be disputes over how much discretion a President has under a particular statute in the United States, because unlike parliamentary systems of government, the execution of laws and the passage of law is split between different branches of the federal government in the Presidential system of the United States, rather than being fused with a Prime Minster who serves at the pleasure of the legislature.
How could Congress legally abolish the death penalty in all states? Let us suppose that a sufficiently large majority of the US Congress, with the agreement of the President, decided that the death penalty should be abolished throughout the nation, both at the federal and state level. How could they make it happen? Of course, they could abolish the federal death penalty with an ordinary act of legislation, and the President could pardon or commute the sentences of all federal prisoners on death row. But 31 states also provide for the death penalty, and in principle, Congress does not have the power to change their laws (Tenth Amendment). Let us suppose that those 31 states (and their legislatures, governors, courts, etc) are intent on preserving the death penalty, so that a Constitutional amendment to abolish it would not be ratified by 3/4 of state legislatures as required. The Supreme Court could effectively abolish it by ruling that it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment (which also applies to the states via the incorporation doctrine and the Fourteenth Amendment). But let's suppose the Judicial Branch is not on board. So how can Congress and the federal government proceed, legally? They could agree to a "litmus test" policy, to appoint / confirm only Supreme Court justices who they could trust to vote for abolition, as above. But this would not be effective until sufficiently many vacancies had opened on the Court and been filled, which could take many years. Moreover, the justices thus appointed could change their minds. The President's power of clemency only extends to federal crimes, right? He/she has no power to pardon crimes under state law, nor to order state prisoner reprieved. So that doesn't help. They could attempt to coerce the recalcitrant states, by denying them federal funding of one sort or another until they change their laws. This presumably would work, but would depend on how stubborn the holdout states were, and how much chaos Congress was willing to cause to the public in the meantime (e.g. no roads getting fixed, no Medicaid, etc). They could make it a federal crime for any state official to perform or authorize an execution. But would this pass Tenth Amendment scrutiny? They could pass a Constitutional amendment banning the death penalty, and specify that it should be ratified by state ratifying conventions, as was done for the Twenty-first Amendment, thus bypassing the state legislatures. However, if the death penalty had popular support in more than 1/4 of the states, the conventions might not ratify the amendment either. Are there any problems or possibilities with these options that I've missed? Are there other options that might be feasible?	Congress could start by repealing the The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. Afterwards Congress could draft a new law that gives prisoners, sentenced to death, a right to appeal to the Supreme Court. Currently, the Supreme Court chooses which cases it reviews, this law would force the Supreme Court to review each death penalty case. Congress could also mandate that an automatic stay of execution would be issued upon appeal. Then Congress could mandate that such a stay continue until a petition for rehearing is denied. Then Congress could make another law saying that any argument not raised in a lower court is not waived when it is not raised in an appeal. Additionally, it could allow the defendant to appeal each issue one at a time and declare that a stay must be issued for each appeal. In brief, the above would indefinitely postpone any execution for the whole foreseeable future. Let's say the above is not enough. Congress could first off prevent any further appeals when the defendant prevails in any level. For example if the defendant wins an appeal at a state Supreme Court, congress could prevent appeal to the federal Supreme Court. Next, Congress could also delay collateral attacks on the conviction by turning writs of Habeas Corpus proceedings into second trial by adding some clause that if the respondent to the writ does not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the petitioner committed the crime from the evidence heard during the proceeding, the writ shall be issued, which essentially means the defendant's original trial is invalidated. In brief, Congress could make it financially impossible to handle appeals of death sentences for states, while providing funds for the defendants sentenced to death. Congress could also add so many procedural safeguards that postpone hearings for a duration much longer than a person's expected lifetime.	An oath of office cannot be legally enforced through the courts, other than to demand that officials take it in order to take office, and to bar people who have taken it and then engaged in treason or sedition from holding public office in any federal, state, or local office, military or civilian, in the United States. This is something which is required of all federal and state and local public officials under the U.S. Constitution, which states in the third paragraph of Article VI: The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States. The U.S. President's parallel oath of office is found in the last paragraph of Section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution. It states: Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation: — "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." But, while taking the oath is required, it is also the case that: An oath is not justiciable. The FBI cannot investigate adherence to oaths because they are not enforceable as codified law. A prosecutor cannot establish that an oath has been broken by proving certain legal elements beyond a reasonable doubt, and a judge cannot adjudicate it. There is one exception to this rule, however. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. So, an oath of office does impose a justiciable duty to not engage in insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or give aid or comfort to the enemies of the United States, upon pain of not being able to hold any state or federal, military or civilian public office without a two-third majority waiver from Congress (in addition to any other consequences that may flow from this conduct without regard to having taken an oath). But, this is a very slight slap on the wrist indeed for committing treason or engaging in sedition (which are criminally punishable by decades in prison or death) after having sworn this oath. Justice Joseph Story noted in his "A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States" (1842) that: A President, who shall dare to violate the obligations of his solemn oath or affirmation of office, may escape human censure, nay, may even receive applause from the giddy multitude. But he will be compelled to learn, that there is a watchful Providence, that cannot be deceived; and a righteous Being, the searcher of all hearts, who will render unto all men according to their deserts. Considerations of this sort will necessarily make a conscientious man more scrupulous in the discharge of his duty; and will even make a man of looser principles pause, when he is about to enter upon a deliberate violation of his official oath. The purpose of an oath of office is simply to deny public offices to people who are not willing to publicly state that the legal system in which the people taking them will operate is legitimate. An oath to support the constitution is the modern equivalent of the feudal European ritual of "bending the knee" to one's legitimate feudal superior. This ritual was highlighted, for example, in the Game of Thrones books by R. R. Martin, which is based loosely on the fights over legitimacy in 15th century England's "War of the Roses". Another legacy of this historical tradition is the duty of someone in military service to salute his or her superior officer. As a historical note, these seemingly toothless rituals have, historically, been surprisingly effective a screening out hard core extremist leaders trying to bring down a government based upon claims that the whole system is illegitimate when new regimes are established, and following civil wars and insurgencies. Many regimes, democratic and non-democratic, in Western political history, have imposed similar requirements. When they have done so, this has seriously influenced the political tactics used by factions that deny the legitimacy of the state and its incumbent leaders. Simply taking the oath undermines one's credibility as an insurgent leader, even if one does so in bad faith. In the United States, oaths of office were also key preconditions to the post-conflict settlements if the Whiskey Rebellion, the Civil War, and some of the lesser known episodes of a century of Indian Wars. As a more recent example, the requirement of an oath of office has materially influenced the 20th and 21st century political tactics of Sinn Féin, a political movement in Ireland, seeking to make the U.K. political subdivision known as Northern Ireland, which it deems illegitimate, a part of the Republic of Ireland. Notably, the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486 (1969), distinguished between a Congressional determination that someone has not satisfied the constitutionally established requirements to have an oath of office administered to them after they have been elected, which can be made by majority vote, and a Congressional determination that a member of Congress should be expelled by a two-thirds majority vote of the house of Congress to which the member of Congress has been elected. A Congressional vote to expel a member of Congress is a non-justiciable question that is not tied to the content of the member's oath of office. Similarly, judicial and executive branch officials in the federal government may be impeached by Congress, and removed from office through that process, only for "high crimes and misdemeanors" and not merely for otherwise failing to live up to their oath of office in a non-criminal manner (although what constitutes "high crimes and misdemeanors" is also a non-justiciable political question). Some legal authorities, however, have held that in some contexts, the oath of office does reflect an intent to empower executive branch officials to refuse to enforce what the President believes to be unconstitutional legislation, when its constitutionality has not yet been definitively adjudicated yet. But, courts have also held, for example, that a member of the U.S. military does not have standing to bring a suit claiming that military action in which he is involved was unconstitutionally authorized. This decision was reached on the grounds that the claim that the service member was forced to violate that service member's oath of office does not constitute a justiciable "injury in fact" to that member for standing to sue purposes. Smith v. Obama, No. 16-843, 2016 WL 6839357 (D.D.C. Nov. 21, 2016) at page 10 (as discussed here).	Virtually nothing. Just before posting the question, I found this article and became intrigued. Jakarta: Indonesia's Constitutional Court has no power to alter the death sentences of Bali nine organisers Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan or make any ruling on their case, says Indonesian law expert Tim Lindsey. Instead, lawyers for the two men hope Indonesian President Joko Widodo will come under political pressure to reassess their pleas for mercy if the court rules that the constitution requires the president to properly consider clemency submissions. In other words, the only person who could make a difference was Widodo1. The only thing the lawyers could have gained would have been a delay in the executions, prompting time for further pleas to the president. This article makes things clearer: The case could have had an impact because it challenged the clemency procedures of the president, specifically in regard to foreigners, but the court could not have overturned the death sentences. Normally, its rulings are binding, but this was not so in this case. 1I don't mean to imply that this was all his fault; I apologize if it seems that I do.	The US President is indeed bound by the Constitution, and indeed by the ordinary laws. Current Justice Department policy is that a sitting president may not be indicted. No court has ever held this, the US Constitution does not give explicit presidential immunity the way it gives limited immunity to members of congress (in the "speech and debate" clause). No sitting US President has ever been charged with a crime, much less indicted, so the matter has never come before a court. An old news story indicated that President Grant was stopped for a traffic offense (speeding, in a horse-drawn carriage), accompanied the officer to a police station, paid an appearance bond for the traffic court, and then failed to appear, forfeiting the bond. Even if this is accurate, no claim of presidential immunity was made, and no court decision was rendered. So no precedent was established by that event, one way or the other. Any President may be impeached and convicted, if Congress sees fit to do so. There is no enforceable standard on just what is and is not an impeachable offense. That is left to the sound judgement of Congress. Nor is Congress required to act if it chooses not to, no matter how strong the evidence may be. Nixon's Vice President , Spiro Agnew, was investigated for alleged corrupt practices. It appeared that Maryland (where he had been Governor) was ready to indict him on several charges. He was persuaded to plead "no contest" in a plea bargain to a single count, and was sentenced to probation with no jail time. At the same time, he resigned as VP. No one knows what would have happened had he continued to insist on his innocence, and claimed before the court that a sitting VP could not lawfully be indicted (a claim he had made earlier in the process). Even assuming that a sitting President cannot be indicted or tried, nothing prevents such a person from being charged and perhaps convicted after his or her term has ended. The constitution explicitly says that if an official is impeached and removed from office, there may be a subsequent trial on any relevant charges. Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States; but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law. (Art I; section 3; clauses 6&7) Whether any statute of limitations would be tolled (paused) while the president was in office cannot be determined until and unless the matters comes before a court for a decision. Note that the US Constitution imposes few duties or obligations on individuals. it is mostly concerned with specifying he structure of the federal government, and the powers of and limitations on its various parts. It also specifies the relations between the Federal and State Governments. It also declares a number of rights held by individuals, most of which can be regarded as limitations on the power of the government. If the President were to be accused of a crime, it would almost surely be one established by statute, not by the constitution directly, because treason is the only crime defined directly by the constitution. However, the official acts of the president are clearly limited by the Constitution, and in a number of cases have been held void as being unconstitutional. One of the more famous cases is Youngstown Sheet and Tube vs Sawyer 343 U.S. 579 (1952), also known and the "steel mills seizure case". During the Korean War, President Truman attempted to take control of a number of steel mills to stop a labor dispute, on the ground that this was hindering the national defense. The US Supreme Court ruled that he lacked the power to do this, and that his action was void.	Short Answer Would a federal tax plan that simply took the amount required to run the government and divided that amount across the states based on population and directly charged the states likely to survive a legal challenge? A federal tax plan along these lines is expressly authorized by Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 of the United States Constitution, but the federal government has never actually imposed taxes on this basis. But, this has never actually been done because there is no practical way to enforce an obligation of a state to pay a capitation tax. It has also not been done because it is politically unpopular with members of Congress from states that have a lower per capita income whose support would be necessary to pass such a tax. This is because a tax effectively imposes a higher tax rate relative to ability to pay on poor states than it does on more affluent states and there has always been a significant disparity between more affluent and less affluent states in the United States). For example, Massachusetts, the U.S. state with the highest per capita GDP ($65,545 in 2018) has more than twice the per capita GDP of Mississippi ($31,881), but would pay the same tax per capita, and, the District of Columbia, which would owe nothing under an Article I, Section 9 capitation tax had a per capita GDP of $160,472 in 2018. Instead, until the income tax was expressly authorized constitutionally in 1913, the federal government was financed mostly with customs duties and to a lesser extent some select excise taxes (also here and here), with several exceptions, some direct property taxes from 1789 to 1802; a short lived Civil War era income tax on the very affluent (1861-1872), which was reimposed briefly from 1894-1895 before being declared unconstitutional; and some estate taxes, either on the theory that they were excise taxes, or in parallel to the income taxes, until the 16th Amendment's authorization of the federal income tax was found to extend to authorization for federal gift and estate taxation. As noted here from 1789 to 1860: Customs duties as set by tariff rates up to 1860 were usually about 80–95% of all federal revenue. Thus, customs duties were as dominant a source of revenue for the federal government for roughly the first third of the history of the United States, as income and payroll taxes are today. I have tried to find examples of direct taxation of the states[.] While what you mean is clear, to avoid confusion, it is important to understand that the phrase "direct taxes" is used in the U.S. Constitution to mean taxes that are imposed directly upon individuals, businesses and private property. The "direct taxation of the states" to which you refer is a form of indirect taxation. Long Answer Sources Most of the discussion in this answer which are not specifically referenced with links or citations to the United States Constitution, is based upon a political science textbook entitled "Congress" that I used in college, an introductory federal income taxation textbook I used as a law school student, and an estate taxation textbook that I used to teach estate taxation when I was a professor for a financial planning program for master's degree students. All are hard copies for which no internet link to the materials themselves is available. Applicable Constitutional Law The United States Constitution (which took effect in 1789) has several provisions related to the federal government's power and the power of the states, respectively to impose taxes: Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 states: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; Imposts and duties are taxes on imports into the United States, while excises are “taxes on the manufacture, sale, or consumption of goods, or upon licenses to pursue certain occupations, or upon corporate privileges[.]" Among the taxes that aren't "imposts, duties or excises" are income taxes, payroll taxes, gift taxes, estate taxes. For constitutional purposes, payroll taxes, gift taxes, and estate taxes are considered forms of income taxes. It isn't entirely clear if a general sales tax of the kind adopted by most U.S. states, or a value added tax, is a constitutional excise tax or income tax, as this question has never been tested (such taxes, when collected in the District of Columbia or Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands by "local governments" fall under the power of the federal government to govern federal territory rather than the taxation power of Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 and the 16th Amendment). Until 1802 (i.e. for the first 13 years of the current constitution), Congress imposed what amounted to property taxes of various kinds under its excise tax power, but the constitutional validity of these taxes has never been established definitively before they were repealed and those taxes have never been reinstated. Imposes, duties and excises could be imposed directly by the federal government on private citizens, so long as they were uniform, while "taxes" prior to 1913, were subject to Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 discussed below. Article I, Section 9, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution which was in effect until 1808 when importing slaves was banned stated that a customs duty could be imposed on imported slaves: The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person. Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 of the U.S. Constitution states that: No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken. The only "tax" other than imposts, duties and excises that could be imposed by the federal government at uniform national rates prior to 1913, was a "capitation" tax imposed directly upon state governments, in proportion to the most recent census. But, no such such capitation tax was ever imposed upon the states. Congress clearly had and still does have the power to impose such a tax, but it didn't and it still doesn't, for political reasons and for reasons of the enforceability of such a tax. Wikipedia notes that: The United States government levied direct taxes from time to time during the 18th and early 19th centuries. It levied direct taxes on the owners of houses, land, slaves and estates in the late 1790s but cancelled the taxes in 1802. And, none of these direct taxes were capitation taxes. The main reason that this wasn't done is that even though these kinds of taxes were mandatory under the Constitution of the United States adopted in 1789, unlike the 1776 Articles of Confederation which did not have any enforcement mechanism to make states pay their share, enforcement of a capitation tax on states was still impractical in reality. This is because state governments do not have income or property that is amenable to being seized for payment of taxes in a manner that prevents mass chaos from breaking out (e.g. if the federal government tried to seize a state capitol building or court house for failing to pay its federal capitation tax). Instead, the premise of a capitation tax is that states will use their taxation power to impose taxes upon their citizens, businesses and the private property in their jurisdiction and then would hand over some of those tax receipts to the federal government until the state's quota for the year, set by Congress, was met. But, since there is no really viable democratic way for a federal court to direct a state legislature to impose and collect any particular kind of taxes to raise those funds, this nominally mandatory tax obligation of the states was economically and legally impotent, and was still mandatory in name only. The other problem with a capitation tax is that for almost all of the time period prior to 1913, there was a great disparity between the per capita GDP of the various U.S. states. For the vast majority of that time period, the commerce and industry of the north (powered to a great extent by hydro power prior to the widespread adoption of coal as a fossil fuel) produced much higher GDP per capita than the agricultural economies of the South, particularly because the infamous "three-fifths compromise" that gave the South Congressional representation based in part upon the number of slaves who lived there (30% or more of the population of many states) did not apply to capitation taxes. After the Civil War, what little commerce, industry and infrastructure that the South had had going in the war was massively degraded, and the population of able bodied men of prime working age was greatly reduced, rendering the South even more poor relative to the North. Even in the heyday of Reconstruction, capitation taxes were not imposed because it was obvious that the South could not afford to pay any significant share of its obligations on that basis. Thus, the South was mostly poorer per capita to start with, and had a higher share of capitation taxes than it did of Congressional seats and electoral votes, which was not a recipe for building Congressional support for a major new tax. Because some Southern political support was necessary to impose new taxes for most of U.S. history and because capitation taxes demanded more taxes relative to ability to pay from Southern states than from Northern one (as customs taxes already did to a lesser extent), these taxes never had the political support needed to be adopted by Congress. Article I, Section 9, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution states that: No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State. So custom's duties can be imposed on imports of goods to the United States, but not on exports of goods from the United States. This isn't a big deal today, where only a tiny portion of federal revenues come from customs duties, but it was a big deal prior to the U.S. Civil War. Historically, this limitation was enacted mostly to prevent the North from burdening the export oriented cash crop agriculture (mostly tobacco and cotton) of the Southern states. Article I, Section 10, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution states that: No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Control of the Congress. Many people are surprised to learn that states have a right to impose both import and export duties. But, since they can collect no more than the cost of carrying out their inspection laws and must turn the balance of any such revenues over to the federal government, there is no incentive for states to have significant taxes of this type. The "weigh stations" found on major highways for large trucks, which are mostly used to gather data used to allocate registration fees for trucks among the states based upon economic reality, are the main practical residuary impact of this constitutional provision. The 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution ratified in 1913 states that: The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. The power of Congress to impose federal income and payroll taxes encompasses employees of state and local governments, as well as private sector employees, even though this means that state and local governments have to file federal withholding tax returns on a regular basis. But, state and local governments are not taxed on their own income (just like other non-profits) and state and local governments are allowed to establish state and/or local employee retirement systems in lieu of FICA taxation on its employees for employees who participate in those programs. State and local governments are also not subject to FUTA (federal unemployment taxes). FUTA taxes are in any case de minimis because state unemployment taxes are a credit against federal unemployment taxes dollar for dollar except for a very small minimum per employee FUTA tax (0.6% of the first $7,000 per year of wages for each employee, for a maximum FUTA tax of $42 per year per employee in most cases), because state unemployment taxes are almost always higher than federal FUTA taxes. Historically, some tax policy makers believed that it was unconstitutional to tax interest from municipal bonds (a.k.a. bonds issues by state and local governments) for federalism reasons. But, case law starting in the late 20th century established that the exclusion of municipal bond interest from taxation is strictly a statutory feature of the Internal Revenue Code and does not have a constitutional dimension. In other words, it is constitutional for the federal government to tax all income derived from municipal bonds, even though it declines to do so for municipal bonds that meet a variety of federal tax law tests. The History of U.S. Taxation From 1789 until 1860, the tax revenue of the United States government (as opposed to the states) came predominantly from customs duties on imports and from some select excise taxes (e.g. on alcohol), and in into the mid-1800s with revenues from federal property such as grazing rights and mineral rights, and federal enterprises (mostly the U.S. Postal Service and profits from manufacturing coins and currency). During the U.S. Civil War, the scope of federal government activities grew dramatically and these were ultimately paid for with an income tax and an estate tax were imposed briefly over constitutional objections but were repealed shortly thereafter, with increased customs duties and excise tax rates, and with confiscation of Confederate property. (The timing was financed with Treasury bonds issued to support the war.) After the Civil War the scope of U.S. federal government activity returned to pre-war levels, and only started to ramp up again with the Progressive era in the early 1900s followed by World War I, which were financed with the newly authorized federal income tax and an estate tax, at quite low rates by modern standards. Per the same Wikipedia link referenced above: Until a United States Supreme Court decision in 1895, all income taxes were deemed to be excises (i.e., indirect taxes). The Revenue Act of 1861 established the first income tax in the United States, to pay for the cost of the American Civil War. This income tax was abolished after the war, in 1872. Another income tax statute in 1894 was overturned in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. in 1895, where the Supreme Court held that income taxes on income from property, such as rent income, interest income, and dividend income (however excepting income taxes on income from "occupations and labor" if only for the reason of not having been challenged in the case, "We have considered the act only in respect of the tax on income derived from real estate, and from invested personal property") were to be treated as direct taxes. Because the statute in question had not apportioned income taxes on income from property by population, the statute was ruled unconstitutional. So, income taxes had been adjudicated by the Courts to be unconstitutional from 1895 to 1913. Federal income tax withholding taxes are younger than the federal income tax which initially applied with any bite only to very high income individuals (rhetorically, if not mathematically, the equivalent of today's "one percenters"), although the income tax base had widened greatly by the end of the New Deal through World War II and its aftermath. The U.S. federal government didn't begin to approach its modern scale of activity until the New Deal following the Great Depression in the 1930s, which was financed with very high income taxes and estate taxes, high customs duties such as the Smooth-Hawley tariffs imposed not long after the crash of 1929 (which were so high that they reduced customs revenue rather than increasing it), and newly imposed payroll taxes. Information tax return reporting (the infamous Form 1099), which dramatically improved income tax collection rates beyond mere wage and salary withholding, was a late 20th century innovation that was adopted based upon the recommendation of free market economist Milton Friedman. Since the 16th Amendment was adopted, the federal income tax (and later federal payroll taxes on certain kinds of income) became the dominant source of income in short order, with customs duties and excise taxes and other forms of government rents and enterprise income (including income from the Federal Reserve also created before the New Deal in the early 1900s) came to be comparatively insignificant sources of income for the federal government. One notable exception was that the excise tax on gasoline and other petroleum based fuels, established as a de facto users fee and significant source of revenue to finance the Interstate State Highway system starting in the Eisenhower Administration, did create a significant source of new excise tax revenues. Federally owned oil and gas mineral interests also became a much more important source of federal revenues after World War II. The automobile had been invented and entered mass production in the early 1900s, but just as the internal combustion engine started to prevail over electric cars at that time and mass production took hold with Ford's Model T bringing some cars and trucks into upper middle class households and into use by businesses and farms, the Great Depression and World War II dramatically reduced private personal consumption, so for the two decades from about 1929 until the several years after World War II that it took to convert factories from war production to civilian peacetime production, the automobile industry's private sector sales were greatly suppressed, domestic civilian road and bridge construction came to a near halt during World War II as government funds were diverted to the war effort, and domestic oil consumption was likewise suppressed. Footnote On Collecting Debts From State And Local Governments In General The same issue comes up at the state level when a court awards a money judgment against a state or local government with taxing power, or holds that a state government has insufficiently funded education as required by a state constitution. Generally, in those cases, a legislative body has to authorize the appropriation "voluntarily" from whatever source of funds it choses to impose, and usually, when push comes to shove, state and local governments do pay the judgments they owe (there are limited federal bankruptcy options for municipalities and states), although there are instances of state governments stubbornly refusing to take the actions necessary to comply with court orders directing that public schools be funded for many, many years. For the most part, however, because enforcing debts against state governments is so difficult, transactions are structured as much as possible to prevent the need to enforce debts in that way through (1) legal limitations on governmental liability, (2) legislative budget rules requiring interest on debt and currently due principal payments to be made first, (3) third-party bonding of state and local governmental construction projects, (4) the creation of publicly owned corporations whose debts can only be collected out of the corporation's assets and revenues, and (5) avoidance of trade credit obligations by paying bills in cash. In connection with the legal limitations on liability, it is also worth noting that, as a general rule, state governments cannot be sued for money damages in any federal court other than the U.S. Supreme Court without their permission, and cannot be sued in the U.S. Supreme Court except by the United States government or another state government or perhaps by another country. So, when a money judgment is entered against a state government (which does not include local governments for this purpose) this happens only with multiple layers of state government consent to the process and the exact source and timing of the appropriation to pay it. When push comes to shove, as they did in California a few years back when it couldn't make payroll, it forced its employees and creditors to accept IOUs in lieu of cash payments, and while they may not have the legal right to do so, they have the economic power to force people to ignore that right.	In the US, only a few states allow conjugal visits by prisoners: California, Connecticut, New York and Washington. Details of implementation for Washington are here (it is called "Extended Family Visiting"). There are various limitations, for example you can't have committed homocide within the last 5 years, you can't be on death row, and so on. Although they don't explicitly say you can have sex, you can, and they have (a small sample of) contraceptive and STD-preventing technology for prisoners to avail themselves of. If you fail to take advantage of contraceptives, then yes it is possible. There is no provision pertaining specifically to mass murder.	Your interpretation is correct. The constitution says that judges stay in office "until and unless they are impeached." That means that congress cannot impose a time limit on any judge's term of office. If it did so, it would be contrary to the constitution. The only grounds for removal are those to do with misbehavior. Therefore, judges have life tenure.	There may be a purpose to have laws which are impossible to follow. (I'm neither a lawyer nor a politician, following points are what I like to call qualified hearsay - they come from qualified people I know personally but were given as a remark or during a chat over a cup of coffee and therefore are not easily substantiable with rigorous sources. You can treat them as a hypothetical ideas for your thought experiments.) Everybody is implicitly guilty Confident citizens and transparent law is the worst enemy of totalitarian regime. You learn to live with ingrained feeling that there surely is something you are guilty of. Merely being addressed by police makes you nervous and malleable; should you stand up against oppression, it is easy for the state apparat to detain or convict you of one or more default offenses. A good example would be the law present in many, if not all, socialist bloc countries saying that knowing of a comrade having commited an offense or merely planing to and not reporting it to authorities is an offense in itself. Whether you did or did not know would be determined by the authorities. Make your laws very strict with a hope thay they will be followed at least to a degree Not laws in themselves, but standards (technical norms) regarding nuclear power stations in the former Soviet Union were strict to the point where they were technically impossible to follow given the state of the art. For example the standards for manufacture of high pressure pipes would state very low level of material impurities that when the actual manufactured material contained twice the level of impurities the pipe will still be very safe to operate. In a centrally planned economy with ever more ambitious production projections and declared zero need for contingency this was one of several ways how to create a bit of a wiggle room. (Source: I once worked for a nuclear power research institute supporting Soviet technology and was told this by an expert on stainless steel.) So there you have a bit of an illustration what may happen if a law is intentionally impossible to follow. Since you labelled your question 'United States', I believe the follow-up question is why would anyone want to propose such a law.
Can Australian citizenship be revoked for a long period of absence from Australia? I moved to work in Australia about 10 years ago, got there a permanent Australian visa as an employer-nominated skilled migrant, and became an Australian citizen by conferral about four years ago from now. A couple of weeks after making the Australian citizenship pledge and getting my Australian citizenship certificate and Australian passport I moved to Europe, and I have never been back to Australia since then. My question is in the title of this post. I am asking this question because I am getting worried that my Australian citizenship might be revoked. The source of my worries is that I vaguely remember reading an article saying something like, "Those who obtain Australian citizenship merely for convenience of travel and do not intend to permanently live in Australia can be stripped of their Australian citizenship." I read that article many years ago and am unable to find it now. I did research on the Internet, but have been unable to find a definite answer. On the one hand, I found no mentions whatsoever of people stripped of Australian citizenship just for a long period of absence from Australia, and I found no mentions of any requirements to stay in Australia in order to retain Australian citizenship. On the other hand, there seems to be a legal avenue to strip people like me of Australian citizenship: I recall that I had to explicitly confirm in my citizenship application that I intended to permanently reside in Australia, and I am afraid that moving to Europe from Australia just a couple of weeks after getting Australian citizenship might be seen as strong evidence that I lied about my intent to permanently reside in Australia. Many sources on the Internet say that Australian citizenship can be revoked in cases of false or misleading information in the citizenship application. The actual reason for moving to Europe was that I had a good job offer from there, had been struggling already for about half a year to find a good job in Australia, did not want to take a low-skilled job like a salesperson at Coles or have a long unemployment gap in my CV, and was running out of my savings. I never had plans to permanently reside in Europe, and I accepted the European offer just to avoid a long interruption of my career as a highly skilled worker, to fix my finances, and to buy some time to figure out how to develop my career further. It is very important to me to retain Australian citizenship, especially given that my career prospects in Europe do not look good and that I am unlikely to get a permanent residence permit in Europe in the foreseeable future. I have retained citizenship of my country of origin, so I am a dual citizen, but my country of origin is a poorly developed country whose cultural values I do not share, and I do not want to end up living there at all. I consider Australia my home, so to speak. So I would be very thankful for any information regarding my question stated in the title of this post.	Not normally The loss of citizenship is dealt with in Part 2 Division 3 of the Citizenship Act 2007. s32A contains a summary of the 5 ways it can happen: There are 5 ways in which you can cease to be an Australian citizen: you may renounce your Australian citizenship: see section 33; or if you did not automatically become an Australian citizen, the Minister can revoke your citizenship in circumstances involving offences or fraud: see section 34; or if you did not automatically become an Australian citizen and the Minister exercised the power under subsection 22A(1A) or 22B(1A), the Minister can revoke your citizenship in circumstances involving a failure to comply with special residence requirements: see section 34A; or you engage in various kinds of conduct inconsistent with allegiance to Australia: see sections 33AA, 35 and 35A; or if you are the child of a responsible parent who ceases to be an Australian citizen, the Minister can revoke your citizenship in some situations: see section 36. Assuming that you went through the normal process of gaining citizenship (i.e. you weren’t given special residence requirements) mere absence from the country for any length of time doesn’t end your citizenship.	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.	No international body has jurisdiction Australia is a sovereign nation which means it has sole jurisdiction over its immigration policy. So, short answer: no international body has jurisdiction. Who does have jurisdiction? As it seems that the decision made is that the points you have been assessed by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) have not met the amount required in their invitation to you. If you wish to dispute this decision the correct venues are, in order, Informal dispute resolution with DIBP - i.e. ask them for their reasoning. Formal dispute resolution with DIBP Review of the decision by the Migration and Refugee Division of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal A case in the Federal Court starting with the Federal Circuit Court and working your way up Appeal to the Minister for Immigration The role of Australian Computer Society (ACS) and DIBP You are mistaken in thinking that these organisations do the same thing: they actually have totally different roles in the process and as far as I can see they have both discharged them appropriately. ACS is tasked with assessing your foreign qualifications and experience. They have done this and they state that your qualifications meet the requirements for a Developer Programmer. They make no statements that you will qualify for immigration, indeed their website specifically says: Applicants must have a clear understanding of their personal visa requirements as set by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) or should obtain professional assistance from a Registered Migration Agent (MARA) before applying for an ICT skill assessment. If you had received your qualifications at an Australian university and your experience was in Australia, this step would not have been necessary. In a completely separate process, you have put in an expression of interest with DIBP. DIBP have invited you to apply and would have specified the points total you needed to meet. With everything you provided, including ACS assessment of your qualifications, DIBP has assessed your application and found that you did not meet the requirements that they set for you. You are not entitled to a refund of the application fee: that's whay its called an application fee and not a success fee: you pay the fee to make the application. DIBP have done all that the law required of them and, as a government body performing a government duty, your relationship is not contractual so you have no grounds to sue for it. Where you went wrong On the face of it, your self-assessment of your points seems wrong to me based on what you have posted. For example, you have given yourself 5 points for having a post graduate Specialist Education Qualification - that is a Masters by research or a PhD in one of the nominated areas (Computer Science is one). ACS have equated your qualifications to a Bachelors degree - this doesn't cut it. You have also claimed 5 points for the Australian Study requirement. Have you actually studied for 2 years in Australia? On the other hand, assuming you have certified experience of between 3 and 5 years from ACS (I can only see 11 months in the letter but there may be more that you didn't post) you should have got 5 points for that. You may be entitled to 55 points but probably not more than that. It may not be too late to amend your application but you should hire a migration agent now to help you do this. However, if you don't qualify, you don't qualify and your money is gone. Skillselect Terms of Service The terms of service that you agreed to include: That the Department of Immigration and Border Protection is not liable for the completeness or accuracy of any information provided by me where I do not provide information that is true and correct in all respects. That the Department of Immigration and Border Protection accepts no responsibility for the completeness or accuracy of any of the information contained on or accessed through this website including SkillSelect and makes no representations about its suitability for any particular purpose. I should make my own judgement about these matters. That to the extent permitted by law, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection is not liable for my loss, expense or damage arising from my access and use of, or reliance on, the information contained on or accessed through this website whether or not caused by any negligence on the part of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection or its agents. As previously mentioned, you do not have a contract with DIBP and are therefore not protected by Australian Consumer Law and have limited, if any, access to negligence law. If you can demonstrate that DIBP were grossly or recklessly negligent you might have a case for reimbursement. However, they did tell you not to rely on anything they said and that you should seek your own legal advice.	If I did not sign promotion bonus document, my career would be over. Is this duress? No. The premise is hardly true or even logical, and what you describe falls short of duress. Not every imbalance of bargain power implies duress. First, it seems that you could have declined the bonus, thereby preempting the sanction/remedy for leaving within 12 months. Second, it seems hard to prove (and unrealistic) that your career would have been over if you refused to sign the document. The employer can easily refute that allegation by pointing out that there are many others who did not sign that employer's document and yet work elsewhere as investment bankers. You would need certain, additional context to reasonably allow for a conclusion that your career altogether depends on what happens with this single entity. Third, your mention that "the bonus mitigates the horrendous weekly hours" reinforces the idea that signing the document was your preference (namely, for the purpose of obtaining some additional, non-compulsory stimulus) rather than employer-inflicted duress. The rationale and decision for acceptance of those conditions reflects that you knowingly exercised your freedom of contract. A party is not entitled to void a contract only because he belatedly changed his mind about conditions of which he was aware beforehand.	Unfortunately, there are no EU visa’s for non-family members on the basis of a romantic partnership or relationship. The EU recognizes family members to be facilitated entry and residence as follows: Article 2 Definitions For the purposes of this Directive: 1. ‘Union citizen’ means any person having the nationality of a Member State; 2. ‘family member’ means: (a) the spouse; (b) the partner with whom the Union citizen has contracted a registered partnership, on the basis of the legislation of a Member State, if the legislation of the host Member State treats registered partnerships as equivalent to marriage and in accordance with the conditions laid down in the relevant legislation of the host Member State; (c) the direct descendants who are under the age of 21 or are dependants and those of the spouse or partner as defined in point (b); (d) the dependent direct relatives in the ascending line and those of the spouse or partner as defined in point (b); 3. ‘host Member State’ means the Member State to which a Union citizen moves in order to exercise his/her right of free movement and residence. Some Member States, potentially Italy included, recognize domestic partnerships as equivalent to marriages. Maybe you and her are able to come to peace with this idea that for a longer stay, you two would have to make deeper commitments. Maybe that is a non-question, and can work well if that is the case in Italy. Other than that merely on this basis, there is not much room to consider. If there are other facts that may be relevant, for e.g., she may apply to a university and get a student visa; maybe the familial tie you mentioned or other familial ties or ancestry may entitle her to naturalization and citizenship, but these questions vary from state to state; if she’s from a widely recognized less democratic country where she was subjected to or has a well-funded fear of persecution as a member of a social, ethnic or “racial” group or for political opinion or faith, asylum may be another option.	That is private. Who you work for is not information that is disclosed publicly by any state actor in Germany, just like your taxes. In fact, that or who you are employed at is often regarded as personal and private information. Nigh impossible through agencies Public agencies like the Fiskus (tax), Agentur für Arbeit, and immigration are not allowed to give any information about a person to anyone but that person or another agency that has the right to that information. Yes, (generally speaking) the tax office may not even say that a person exists (or doesn't) and what their tax number is to anyone but the person in question.	I cannot find any relevant judgements from June 2007 that were published by the Irish High Court using the judgement finder. However, over 50 similar cases were issued at the High Court regarding this matter, and all but 10 were settled prior to a bundle of four cases being issued before the High Court which ultimately referred the matter to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). This bundle of four cases was Metock & Ors. v Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform [2008] IEHC 77 which ultimately became Case C-127/08 at the ECJ. It's unclear why the 15 June 2007 judgement hasn't been uploaded, or why it took until 14 March 2008 for the High Court to refer the matter to the ECJ. In conclusion, Ireland was ruled to have wrongly interpreted the relevant Directive and the Court held that non-EU family members of an EU citizen can move to an EU Member State without needing to have resided in another EU Member State prior to that. Directive 2004/38/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States amending Regulation (EEC) No 1612/68 and repealing Directives 64/221/EEC, 68/360/EEC, 72/194/EEC, 73/148/EEC, 75/34/EEC, 75/35/EEC, 90/364/EEC, 90/365/EEC and 93/96/EEC precludes legislation of a Member State which requires a national of a non-member country who is the spouse of a Union citizen residing in that Member State but not possessing its nationality to have previously been lawfully resident in another Member State before arriving in the host Member State, in order to benefit from the provisions of that directive. Article 3(1) of Directive 2004/38 must be interpreted as meaning that a national of a non-member country who is the spouse of a Union citizen residing in a Member State whose nationality he does not possess and who accompanies or joins that Union citizen benefits from the provisions of that directive, irrespective of when and where their marriage took place and of how the national of a non-member country entered the host Member State.	In general the act must be a crime in both countries for an extradition to proceed, but the extradition treaty between countries A and B likely has more specific provisions as well. C's involvement is generally limited to consular assistance, but there have been instances where countries have offered to incarcerate their citizens for convictions in other countries. The country of citizenship certainly does not have priority to extradite or try its citizens, and it is unlikely that the country seeking to prosecute would have much interest in another country taking over the case.
In which states can railroad companies take land in eminent domain? In Property, fifth edition, by Dukeminier and Krier, on pages 843–54, we are told that in Vermont, railroad companies have the power of eminent domain: they can take land that they need for building tracks. What they take is an easement, but it seems just barely short of fee simple: the land reverts to the permanent owner or successor only if the railroad stops running trains along the track and thereby abandons the easement, but until then it seems to be entirely theirs. Railroads seem to continue operating on a particular track for well over a century sometimes. So my questions are: In which states in the U.S. do railroads have this power? Might that be the reason why many railroad rights-of-way are held in easement rather than in fee simple?	TL; DNR: 1) It is not clear which states gave railroads the power to seize property. It is clear that eminent domain has been used to take land for railroads in every state. However, not every railroad had the power to take land; some governments took the property and then gave it to the railroad. 2) No, railroads didn’t have to use easements because they got to use eminent domain. Railroads had to use easements for the same reason they got to use eminent domain – they were using their property to serve the “public interest”. As a result, they got various subsidies and special deals. In return, they were subject to heightened government control. That control included not always having fee simple ownership of their land. Here are some details: 1) Like many private businesses – from grain mills to canals to shopping malls and hotels – railroads got some of their land via eminent domain. Who could take the land, and under what conditions and restrictions, varied from state to state (and over time). Unfortunately, as far as I know, there is no list online telling which states gave which powers to railroads. There may be such a list in one of the treatises on eminent domain, such as Nichols' "The Law of Eminent Domain," or on railroad law. (By their nature, treatises are exhaustive.) However, there is enough information online that you could make a fairly complete list in a few hours; my search for railroad+eminent+domain+(state name) got plenty of hits for every state I tried, including Hawai'i. Recent changes to state laws show how much state laws vary. In response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Kelo v. City of New London, many states made it harder to use eminent domain for development projects. Some of states (South Dakota) explicitly target railroads, while others (Vermont) explicitly exempt railroads. 2) It’s an oversimplification to say railroads either: a) own their land outright (ie, fee simple); or, b) have an easement. Railroads use other forms of property, including fee-simple with conditions and licenses. What these forms of property share is reduced railroad control over its property. As mentioned above, the reason is simple. To encourage railroads to serve the public, they got subsidies. In return, their rights over their property was attenuated. Thus, railroads couldn't set rates at will. One of the valuable rights they gave up was the right to sell the property once they were no longer using it for railroading. 3) The issues of eminent domain and ownership of railroad rights of way are not merely of academic interest. For example, many people today are interested in what to do with abandoned rail rights of way. Who gets the land, under what conditions, and at what price? Can the land be sold outright, “railbanked,” (using it in ways that allow an easy conversion back to rail in the future), turned into trails, utility rights of way, and so on. Not surprisingly, advocates for each of these uses argues that their use is most consistent with existing rights. The growing interest in high speed rail raises again the issue of how to get the land for rail projects. If you want to know more, there is a nice short summary of the history of railroad rights to rights of way in this article from the Vermont Law Review. Her footnotes have lots of good references.	In this answer, I address title question: "If someone catches a Pokemon that is on my property, is that theft?"1 The Pokémon is an entry in a database, presented by Nintendo to users in their mobile app and can be included in a user's collections after that user completes some in-game actions. It isn't your property. It isn't even their (the users') property. Further, a Pokémon appears for all users can be captured again and again by multiple users until it disappears for all users. One user capturing a Pokémon doesn't make it unavailable for others. The Pokémon doesn't "become subject to" any property rights of the owner of the real property that it happens to be virtually overlaid on. Said another way, it doesn't "incur" any of their property rights. Capturing it in-game is not theft. 1. The question in the question body is "does [a Pokémon] incur any kind of property right for the property owner". Incur means "to become subject to". That is different than the broader verb "implicate". This question does not ask (and this answer doesn't answer) whether the Pokémon can implicate the property owner's property rights (e.g. via attractive nuisance, trespass, etc.). Some of that is addressed at a separate question.	That is the case in the state of Washington, for example. All property acquired during a marriage is considered community property. This can make things complicated since there are state-specific rules that can arise in case of a divorce (Enovsys LLC v. Nextel Communications, Inc: the couple declared no community property at the time of the divorce, meaning the wife who was not a party in in infringement case, had no standing – and therefore the infringement suit could procede). This page goes into details. There are 9 US states with community property regimes: it is also the law for Sweden, Germany, France and Italy. In the US, permission from one author is sufficient to constitute "having permission" w.r.t. copyright: an owner of the copyright can license the work, and you do not have to get permission from all owners. This does not invalidate an open source license: spouse 1 can grant such a license even if spouse 2 refuses to grant such a license. Rodrigue v. Rodrigue, 218 F.3d 432 partially answers the question in Louisiana specifically w.r.t. copyright. A lower court held that the state-specific quirk of giving a non-author an equal interest in copyrighted IP must be swept away in the interest of uniformity of federal law. The lower court indeed rejected an argument based on 17 USC 301 which declares federal law to be superior to legal or equitable rights that are equivalent to that set out in Title 17: but community property law is not equivalent to Title 17, it's much broader. The higher courts reasoning is a tall wall of words which boils down the their conclusion that "we disagree with the district court only to the extent that it held the conflict between Louisiana community property law and federal copyright law irreconcilable absent congressional intercession", and having found a way that didn't involve Congress, they declared the work-creator to be the sole owner of the IP created during the marriage. See also the myriad citations contained therein. What this case in particular shows is that the specifics of the states community property laws will have an effect on how a courts would rule on such an IP question.	Precedents And General Considerations There are cases of similar things happening in Protestant churches and it ends up being quite case by case fact specific with details of how title is held to property, the exact language of governance documents, since Protestant churches are organized at a governance level, and hold property titled in a variety of ways. Usually, the leadership determined in according to the pre-schism governing documents ends up getting the property. But there are property ownership issues specific to the Roman Catholic Church which don't have such clear precedents, because the Roman Catholic Church, due to its great antiquity, wasn't set up in the manner of modern non-profit corporations and associations the way that most modern Protestant churches are, for reasons partly historical, and partly because most Protestant churches are set up either as foundations or as democratically governed institutions with written governance documents tailored to modern legal conventions that are controlling, whereas the Roman Catholic Church, since its inception, has been a non-hereditary monarchy in perpetual succession managed by the College of Cardinals under Canon Law. For this reason, a determination of what would happen in the case of the Roman Catholic Church schism, in which more than one faction of the church claimed to be the legitimate successor to the pre-schism church's property, is even more uncertain and fact specific than in the Protestant church precedents. Among the facts that would matter are the stances taken by the respective factions. If one faction forms a new corporate form of organization and registers with the German government as a new church for church tax purposes, it would essentially cede all of the Roman Catholic church's property, even if it won over 95% of the members of the old Roman Catholic Church and 95% of its lesser clergy, particularly if the new faction did not have the backing of the Pope or the senior members of the pre-schism Roman Catholic Church hierarchy. This is a fairly common fact pattern in Protestant church schisms and is, for example, how schisms in the New England Congregational Churches played out when it was disestablished in the 19th century. Many of New England's formerly established churches, which were organized at a Congregation by Congregation level had board of directors who adopted a Unitarian Christian theological stance, rather than the Trinitarian theological stance shared by the vast majority of Christian denominations. Trinitarian Christians left when this happened and established their own new churches, leaving the property of the rump Unitarian Congregational church in the control of its board of directors. Governance And Title Issues The most common form of ownership of Catholic Church property, globally, is called corporation sole, although the Catholic Church owns property in a variety of means. As explained at the link: In the case of the Roman Catholic Church, ecclesiastical property is usually titled to the diocesan bishop, who serves in the office of the corporation sole. The Roman Catholic Church continues to use corporations sole in holding titles of property: as recently as 2002, it split a diocese in the US state of California into many smaller corporations sole and with each parish priest becoming his own corporation sole, thus limiting the diocese's liability for any sexual abuse or other wrongful activity in which the priest might engage. This is, however, not the case everywhere, and legal application varies. For instance, other U.S. jurisdictions have used corporations at multiple levels. In the jurisdictions of England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland, a Roman Catholic bishop is not a corporation sole, and real property is held by way of land trusts, a tradition dating back to the suppression of Roman Catholicism by Henry VIII during the English Reformation and the Penal Laws of Ireland. For example, some church property is owned by affiliated non-profit corporations with their own boards of directors, that aren't truly titled in the church itself which own lots of Catholic hospital property. Control of property held in this fashion would be determined by the board of directors for these non-profits, which might be afforded discretion to determine which Roman Catholic church is the true one, or even if that decision needs to be made at all. If the governing documents don't require direct input from the church into succession to the board of directors (e.g. if the board fills its own vacancies rather than having vacancies filled by the local Bishop), it may not be necessary to resolve the dispute at all. Even if the governing documents call for the hierarchy of the church to play a part in filling vacancies in the board, German courts might defer to the board regarding which faction's church officials are the ones with the authority to do so. Other moveable property like the clothing and toiletries and personal effects of individual priests doesn't have a certificate of title, but would probably be treated as owned by the individual priests. For property held in corporation sole, title is vested in the current holder of a particular title in the Catholic Church hierarchy. So, for example, a Cathedral in Bonn might be titled in the Archbishop of Bonn in a corporation sole, which means that the Archbishop has the authority of the shareholders, directors and officers of a regular corporation while in office, but when a new Archbishop takes office, that title passed to the new holder of the office, and the succession is understood to be governed by Roman Catholic Canon law as ultimately interpreted by the Pope. One possibility is that the Archbishop sides with the Pope's party, keeps office, and continues to own the property despite having lost many parishioners in the Diocese. This is pretty straightforward. But there are alternative possibilities. Suppose that the sitting Archbishop sides with a faction not supported by the Pope? At first blush, this would suggest that this Archbishop's faction gets the Cathedral and its contents. But suppose that the faction supported by the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church canon law establishment promptly removes the dissenting Archbishop, after he has already broken away. Does the property revert to the newly appointed Archbishop as his successor, or, by casting his lot with the faction that has broken away, has the Archbishop removed the property he holds in corporation sole from the Pope's faction and instead shifted the succession of that particular Archbishop's post to the new faction? This question doesn't have a clear answer. If all of Germany's Bishops and Archbishops and Cardinals and most of its priests united behind a breakaway German Catholic Church, German courts might be inclined to side with the incumbents in those posts, rather than Papally appointed replacements. But there is really no way to have certainty about what would happen in the situation in advance. In the Great Schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, of 1054 CE, the affiliation of the local bishops is what largely prevailed in determining which faction of the church ended up controlling church property. The Precedent Of The Reformation Isn't Helpful During the Reformation, in the 16th century, what happened is that the secular feudal lord or king decided either to stay Roman Catholic, or to join the new Protestant Lutheran or Calvinist or Episcopal or Presbyterian church in the region, as the case might be. If the lord or king stayed Catholic, the Catholic church hierarchy got the Roman Catholic church's property in his domain, and the Protestant converts were persecuted as heretics. In the case that the lord or king sided with the Protestants, the Roman Catholic church property went to the feudal lord's new Protestant church, together with all priests and other members of holy orders who didn't refuse to swear allegiance to the new Protestant church, and all of the residents of his domain were converted to Protestantism (or faced persecution as heretics if they didn't) whether they wanted to or not, because this was considered to be a decision for the lord rather than for the individual. But obviously, that isn't what would happen in Germany today. Historical Succession Fights Within The Roman Catholic Church The other historical precent might be more apt, but equally unclear. There have been several times in the history of the Roman Catholic Church in which the succession to the Papacy was contested. In 20/20 hindsight we call the winners of those succession fights "Popes" and the losers of those succession fights "anti-Popes". The most recent spate of antipopes were Clement VII (1378), Benedict XIII (1394), Alexander V (1409), John XXIII (1410), although there was also a final antipope, Felix V (1439) (who abandoned his claim after less than a year voluntarily). The first antipope was Saint Hippolytus (217). There were 31 antipopes in between them (give or take depending upon how you count them and who you conclude qualifies). As Wikipedia explains: An antipope (Latin: antipapa) is a person who, in opposition to the lawful pope, makes a significant attempt to occupy the position of Bishop of Rome and leader of the Catholic Church. At times between the 3rd and mid-15th centuries, antipopes were supported by important factions within the Church itself and by secular rulers. Sometimes it was difficult to distinguish which of two claimants should be called pope and which antipope, as in the case of Pope Leo VIII and Pope Benedict V. . . . The period in which antipopes were most numerous was during the struggles between the popes and the Holy Roman Emperors of the 11th and 12th centuries. The emperors frequently imposed their own nominees to further their own causes. The popes, likewise, sometimes sponsored rival imperial claimants (anti-kings) in Germany to overcome a particular emperor. The Western Schism—which began in 1378, when the French cardinals, claiming that the election of Pope Urban VI was invalid, elected antipope Clement VII as a rival to the Roman Pope—led eventually to two competing lines of antipopes: the Avignon line (Clement VII took up residence in Avignon, France), and the Pisan line. The Pisan line, which began in 1409, was named after the town of Pisa, Italy, where the (Pisan) council had elected antipope Alexander V as a third claimant. To end the schism, in May 1415, the Council of Constance deposed antipope John XXIII of the Pisan line. Pope Gregory XII of the Roman line resigned in July 1415. In 1417, the Council also formally deposed antipope Benedict XIII of Avignon, but he refused to resign. Afterwards, Pope Martin V was elected and was accepted everywhere except in the small and rapidly diminishing area that remained faithful to Benedict XIII. Liturgical councils or actual wars and assassinations over the course of history resolved the various disputes, but as the Western Schism which took 39 years to resolve illustrates, the need for practical resolution of the question on the ground could come to head much sooner, and would have to be resolved by German secular courts in the meantime (possibly assisted by certified questions to the German Constitutional Court as freedom of religion issues under the German Constitution might be implicated) in the context of specific questions of control over specific items of tangible personal property and of real property came up. Pending final resolutions of these disputes on the merits, the German courts would probably impose some sort of temporary orders to adjudicate the immediate question of control pending adjudication of the issue on the merits, which might take some time to resolve, probably with many appeals (assuming that the dispute remained live, rather than being settled in some sort of agreement between the leaders of the respective factions claiming authority over the property). A Precedent of An Orthodox Church in Germany Commentator K-HB made on a comment on March 19 at 19:34 that is one of the most important precedents in this case, which I reproduce below with a few corrected spelling/punctuation issues: There is sort of a precedent from the conflict around St. Salvator in Munich. The church is property of the state (Bavaria) but was given for use to the Greek-Orthodox parish in 1829. In the 1970s the parish (or the crucial people) seceded from the Greek-Orthodox hierarchy. Bavaria wanted the church back in order to give it to the "official" Greek-Orthodox Church. After many years of litigation up to the German Constitutional Court and the ECHR [ European Court of Human Rights] Bavaria won. But if you read the judgments, you see that it belongs heavily on the individual case (historical background and current situation). The Role Of Germany's Church Tax One factor that might be decisive in resolving this is that German has what is commonly called in English language sources a "church tax" which is a voluntary deduction from worker's paychecks, along with taxes, that is automatically delivered to the church with whom the worker is officially affiliated in German government records. In that system, there are currently about 8 million people who are registered as Roman Catholics who participate in the system and have their payroll deductions turned over to the Roman Catholic church. The details of the administrative process in the German church tax system that determine who in the Roman Catholic church is authorized to receive the church tax payments from Roman Catholics in Germany would probably be highly influential in how secular courts adjudicating property ownership disputes between the factions would resolve those questions.	The situation you describe is ordinary condemnation not inverse condemnation. If the government is actively taking legal/transactional effort to acquire the lot it is a condemnation. An inverse condemnation is when the government takes property without court process or trying to pay for it, and you sue for compensation for the property that was taken. If the government just bulldozed a sidewalk in someone's front yard without asking, and the owner sued the government for compensation, that would be an inverse condemnation case. The short answer is that the government has every right to condemn property adjacent to a highway for use as a sidewalk. This is a classic public purpose. Generally, the government must first attempt to acquire the property out of court by making an offer for the land, and, if it is unsuccessful in getting the owner to accept its offer, it will bring an eminent domain action to seize the land for public purposes. In the eminent domain case, the government will win on its right to condemn the land and to take immediate possession of it pending a determination of its value, because the government has the right to seize land to build sidewalks. Then, the rest of the eminent domain case will be over the fair market value of the land taken.	The Validity of State Wealth Taxes Yes. States can impose wealth taxes, although this doesn't clarify the validity of a federal wealth tax. States have broader taxing power than the federal government in terms of kinds of taxes that they may constitutionally impose. A state may impose any tax (1) that does not unduly discriminate against a federally protected constitutional civil liberty (like freedom of the press), (2) that does not purport to tax the federal government (arguably any other sovereign) without its consent, (3) that does not unduly discriminate against interstate commerce, and (4) that has some rational basis. Apart from these specific limitations and (5) any found in state law or the state's constitution, (6) a state's taxing power is plenary as to conduct or activity or property that has a sufficient connection to the state to provide it with jurisdiction. A recent U.S. Supreme Court case repealed some clear rules of the road regarding what states do not have the jurisdiction to tax, effectively increasing state tax jurisdiction considerably, for example, to impose sales taxes on Internet retailers. the biggest problem for a state like California trying to extract revenue from its uber-wealthy populace would be that they would simply move their residence and use any other possible legal loophole to avoid having to pay. This is true. The primary question regarding the validity of a state wealth tax would not be whether a state could impose a wealth tax, but what assets could a state make subject to its state wealth tax. This might be easy to answer in the case of real property, but hard in the case of intangible property or property held via entities. Federal statutes may, however, establish which states have jurisdiction to tax which assets with a state wealth tax as part of the power to regulate interstate commerce, or by ratifying a compact reached between multiple states which have state wealth taxes. Still the facts that many countries in the European Union impose or have historically imposed wealth taxes that generate significant tax revenue, despite the easy ability to the affluent to relocated to other countries in the E.U. that is closely analogous to that of U.S. states seeking to do the same thing, suggest that this is not an insurmountable task, even if there might be some leakage of untaxed wealth at the margins. The Validity of Federal Wealth Taxes In contrast, Congress may only impose taxes expressly authorized by some provision of the U.S. Constitution as amended. The applicable case law on the issue of the constitutionality of a federal wealth tax is not entirely settled. The gift, estate and generation skipping transfer tax system has been held to be constitutional, but since this is a tax imposed on transfers of wealth, it is arguably a tax in lieu of an income tax treated separately for ease of administration (since gifts and inheritances are within the core definition of income in the Internal Revenue Code at Section 63, but then specifically exempted from income taxation in lieu of donative transfer taxes like the gift and estate tax, in a separate statutory Section 102 of the Internal Revenue Code.). Federal property taxes in areas not in exclusively federal jurisdiction (e.g. Virginia rather than the U.S. Virgin Islands) were briefly in force in the 1700s, but were repealed before they could be subject to a constitutional challenge. Income taxes, even at 90% marginal tax rates, have been upheld as valid. The analysis and doctrines involved are rather involved for a short answer in this forum, and I am fairly certain that there is published legal scholarship arguing both sides of this question of first impression. In a nutshell, a federal tax must either be an income tax; tax imposed on states rather than individuals on a per capita basis; or an excise tax or duty or tariff. The first two types of taxes are comparatively well defined. The third is the subject of thin, mushy and somewhat inconsistent or indeterminate case law. One could argue, for example, that a wealth tax is really a form of income tax on imputed income from assets that could generate additional value to the owner even if the value that arises from this ownership is not monetized or realized. This argument would be particularly strong if wealth taxes paid with respect to an asset were allowed as a tax credit against taxes imposed on income generated by that same asset, in a manner similar to the foreign tax credit today. A wealth tax clearly isn't a per capita tax on a state government. No such tax has ever been imposed for any meaningful amount of time and has never been a more than nominal source of federal revenues if it has ever generated any federal revenues. There is also a credible argument that a wealth tax is a constitutionally valid excise tax or duty or tariff, focusing on the excise tax component, which is quite ill defined, because the courts have tended to side with the government on issues of the scope of the federal power to tax except in the clearest and most blatant cases of violations of the federal power to tax.	There is no "theft" without a law that defines what "property" is and what "theft" is. Laws derive from the state that has the power to enforce them. A state may issue the laws and decrees and stablish who owns the lands. It can later make changes to that ownership. When the Normans invaded England, Willian I became the legal authority and with that he could award, confiscate and keep lands as he saw fit, without that being considered "theft" in any legal sense of the word. The English government (and all others) still have the authority to take away, redistribute and otherwise change the ownership of lands as they see fit, and nothing of it would be theft. Internally most of them have chosen to stablish some procedures to ensure that this is only done when needed by meeting some tests (eminent domain), but even if they didn't have those (again, self-imposed) restrictions they still would be able to change ownership as they saw fit. That does not mean that a government using that power to punish political opponents or ethnic minorities would not face internal and external protests.	Probably not It’s extremely likely that the adjoining properties have easements for support over the land which gives them the right to build on it. Even if they don’t, he can’t damage their property by removing the essential structures on his land. He could sue for trespass which his neighbors could easily settle by offering to compensate him for his loss - the $50 the land is worth.
What is the legal principle which requires Apple to pay the Irish State €13 billion? In 2016, the EU ruled that the Irish State provided state aid to Apple, which was deemed to be illegal. As a result of this, Apple are required to back-pay €13 billion to the Irish exchequer. From a oblivious viewer, this seems to be slightly unfair, considering that Apple was following the direction of the State's government (or governmental agency). Is there some legal principle, or explanation, which means that even though Apple was complying with the understood law in that jurisdiction, they are now required to pay the EU tax fine to the Irish State of €13 billion? From what I can see, this ruling mostly benefits the Irish State, and punishes Apple, despite the illegal state aid being an action of the state, and not the corporation.	The EU has established rules about member governments subsidising industries. The intention is to ensure that trade in the EU is not distorted by government incentives, so that factories get built in the most efficient location rather than where a government offers the biggest subsidy. This is the mirror image of the rules which prohibit tariffs; governments cannot protect their own industry from competition either by imposing tariffs on imports or by providing subsidies to exports. The Irish government was found to have provided an illegal subsidy to Apple in the form of a tax reduction made especially for Apple. Hence the tax break was invalid and effectively did not exist. Legally Apple therefore had to pay their back taxes. As to why Apple had to pay after being assured that they would not have to, its a basic principle that civil servants cannot change the law merely by saying something. If a civil servant tells you that you don't need to pay tax when you do, then the civil servant is simply wrong. You could use their opinion as a defence against criminal charges of tax evasion, but you would still have to pay the tax.	Is it possible/feasible for the child to retroactively sue the father for the child-support that was not paid throughout the 90s and 2000s? No. Child support is owed to the custodian parent, not the child. If at all, your mother would have to sue. Chances are, your parents, had a child support agreement in place and as long as your father abided by the terms of this agreement, there is absolutely nothing to sue about. Is it possible/feasible for the child to sue the father to get him to pay for his Australian university fees/debts which have accrued (and continue to accrue) over the 2010s? No. There is no legal requirement for any parent (divorced or not) to pay for college education. Once you are a legal adult you are responsible for your own expenses and actions. That's what "adult" means.	I cannot find any relevant judgements from June 2007 that were published by the Irish High Court using the judgement finder. However, over 50 similar cases were issued at the High Court regarding this matter, and all but 10 were settled prior to a bundle of four cases being issued before the High Court which ultimately referred the matter to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). This bundle of four cases was Metock & Ors. v Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform [2008] IEHC 77 which ultimately became Case C-127/08 at the ECJ. It's unclear why the 15 June 2007 judgement hasn't been uploaded, or why it took until 14 March 2008 for the High Court to refer the matter to the ECJ. In conclusion, Ireland was ruled to have wrongly interpreted the relevant Directive and the Court held that non-EU family members of an EU citizen can move to an EU Member State without needing to have resided in another EU Member State prior to that. Directive 2004/38/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States amending Regulation (EEC) No 1612/68 and repealing Directives 64/221/EEC, 68/360/EEC, 72/194/EEC, 73/148/EEC, 75/34/EEC, 75/35/EEC, 90/364/EEC, 90/365/EEC and 93/96/EEC precludes legislation of a Member State which requires a national of a non-member country who is the spouse of a Union citizen residing in that Member State but not possessing its nationality to have previously been lawfully resident in another Member State before arriving in the host Member State, in order to benefit from the provisions of that directive. Article 3(1) of Directive 2004/38 must be interpreted as meaning that a national of a non-member country who is the spouse of a Union citizen residing in a Member State whose nationality he does not possess and who accompanies or joins that Union citizen benefits from the provisions of that directive, irrespective of when and where their marriage took place and of how the national of a non-member country entered the host Member State.	Anyone seriously planning on doing this or anything like it would be well advised to consult a good trademark lawyer with the specifics. Specifics will matter in such a case. That said: Under US trademark law, the key question is whether a reasonable person would be confused into assuming that there is some connection, and that the new firm could be relied on based on the reputation of the old one. if so, this is a trademark infringement unless permission is obtained from the trademark holder (not likely to be granted). Since "orbitz" is a coined term its protection is stronger, there is no natural object or concept this can refer to. "AppleMoving" is less likely to be confused with "Apple Computers" because apples are real things and need not refer to computers. The likelihood of confusion depends on the specific facts of an individual case. Note also that trademark protection is a matter of private civil lawsuits. If orbitz didn't choose to sue for whatever reason, nothing would have stopped OrbitzMoving.	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.	No. There are almost no constitutional lawyers (at least, that I have seen make pronunciations on the subject) who seem to think that this is a serious means of forcing a no deal Brexit; such an attempt would be obviously unconstitutional and would almost certainly be injuncted in court within hours of such an order being issued. Orders of council cannot stymie an Act of Parliament, this is a well established constitutional principle. See https://davidallengreen.com/2019/09/brexit-padfield-and-the-benn-act/	There are answers between black and white. One might honestly believe to be owed €360, and demand that money in a lawyers' letter, and be prepared to write that demand off if the other party does not comply. Going to court has an uncertain outcome even if one is objectively right, and it will take effort and money. As you describe the events, it looks like an intimidation attempt, but the other side will have their narrative as well. Regarding the phone and mail communications, this could be harassment or an attempt to reach a pre-trial settlement. Again, it depends on details. If you feel harassed, talk to a lawyer.	Let's assume that I created a mobile app for iPhone that is tracking rides on a bike [...] So the app is processing that data in the way I programmed it but I as a person do not have access to that data. I assume in such case I am not the data controller according to GDPR because I do not have access to that data is that correct? Yes, as far as I can see that is correct. The GDPR defines a data controller as someone who "determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data" - you just provide a tool, you don't control for what purposes your customers use their ride data. This is also discussed in this question: How does the GDPR apply to software developed by one company and used by another? What if additionally to that I will program my app for example in such way that it will sometimes send current GPS coordinate to an online service controlled by external company such as Apple [...] But still my app would send this data directly to Apple server so I will still not have any access to that data. Does this change anything and does GDPR now apply to me? Yes, and yes. In that case, you are telling Apple to process data for you, so you would become the data controller (because you "determine[s] the purposes and means of the processing of personal data"), and Apple is a data processor for you. That means also the usual mechanisms kick in - you need to inform your users about this processing, you need to make sure Apple plays by the rules, etc. etc. I also do not know if Apple save this request on their servers or if they just automatically convert received gps coordinates to a name and return the answer without saving the request. This is exactly the kind of situation the GDPR is meant to address. Under GDPR, saying "I do not know what X does with the data" is not an option. This is something many companies tried in the past, that is why GDPR explicitly assigns responsibility to the data controller (i.e., you). As explained in a EU document, What is a data controller or a data processor?: The duties of the processor towards the controller must be specified in a contract or another legal act. For example, the contract must indicate what happens to the personal data once the contract is terminated. A typical activity of processors is offering IT solutions, including cloud storage. [...] So, no, you cannot just say "I do not know if Apple saves this request". Instead, you must make a contract with Apple which says whether (and how, and for how long...) they save the request, and you must inform your users about this in your privacy policy. And if Apple refuse to make such a contract with you, you must find a different company to work with.
Is it possible to enter a work into public domain by transfering copyright to a dead person? If I were to find a dead Canadian, who is deceased long enough that all copyrights they hold have expired, and if this person has no heirs, and if this person has no departing legal requests regarding their legal property (eg: a will), could I transfer my copyright to them, and in doing so end up with my work immediately in public domain with no way for anyone else to claim copyright of it?	It doesn't work, just like transferring the copyright to a young person to make it last longer doesn't work. In places where the length of copyright depends on the death of someone, it always depends on the death of the author. You can transfer copyright, but you can't change who is the author. If I write a book, and some copyright law says the copyright ends 70 years after the death of the author, then it ends 70 years after my death. It doesn't matter who owns the copyright. PS. That dead person has heirs. If there are no relatives alive, then the government of their country will inherit everything (in most countries, there might be exceptions). Your plan fails for that reason as well. PS. See "Just a guy's" answer for another, completely different, reason why this scheme doesn't work.	It is certainly possible to transfer a copyright or other IP without an explicit charge, indeed it can be a pure gift, and normally would be when it is left by will, as is common enough. From a paid consultant it might be clearer to include a statement that the transfer is part of the consulting assignment, rather than putting a price of zero in a blank. But one could instead convey a permanent non-exclusive license, granting permission to use or modify the work in any way desired, ans saying that this is provided as part of the consulting process. Then there would be no question of what rights the consultant retained, or that the same or a very similar solution could be provided to different clients. Indeed such a license would not be so very different from a CC-BY license, or any of several open source licenses, although I would not use one of those by name. But the legal effect would be much the same, and the wording could be similar. Otherwise there could be a later claim that the right transferred precluded the consultant from using the same solution for other clients. Even if such a claim was not legally sound, and was not upheld, it could be a distraction and costly of time and energy at least.	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.	Copyright exists from the moment of creation of the work Copyright notices and dates are neither required nor meaningful. They are a courtesy to others. They can also have typos.	For a particular poem(s) the copyright term in ROK is Life + 50 years. In copyright, these are measured as calendar years so it will enter the public domain on 1 January 2019. That is, unless you plan to use it in a country that doesn't observe the rule of the shorter term (like the USA) - in those countries it may still be under copyright based on the term using their individual domestic law. Ask another question if you want this clarified. Copyright in the anthology belongs to the person who created that work i.e. the editor(s) who selected and arranged those particular poems from those particular poets. The duration is measured from the (last of) the editor's death(s). IF you are not copying or deriving from the anthology (i.e. you are only using one of the poets and are arranging them in a different way), this is irrelevant to you.	Copyrights, in general, relate to the right of copying or reproduction. Another’s copyright may be substantially violated and causing harm even if one doesn’t monetize on it: A free access to the work of art may mean that anyone who would otherwise pay for a copy or any sort of license will not pay. This is the reason why in most countries torrenting is illegal. The last question is rather difficult to answer in a meaningful way: If one doesn’t get caught ever then one doesn’t get caught; if one does, then he does. I haven’t found the channel through which such unauthorized copies would enter “the public domain” and therefore it is hard to even make a guess on the probabilities of such infringement to be discovered and one getting sought damages on. There are exemptions under “fair use” rights mostly in common law jurisdictions, and there are examples of non-enforcement or decriminalization in certain other jurisdictions under certain conditions. (See also: Is it illegal to infringe copyright if your boss or your client ordered you to do it?)	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.	If a work is in the public domain, then there are no particular requirements on its use; in particular, it can be used on a book cover without a copyright notice, a public domain notice, or any other kind of notice or mark. Wikimedia Commons' public domain template says, "You must also include a United States public domain tag to indicate why this work is in the public domain in the United States." This is a notice to users of Wikimedia Commons, informing them that if they upload a public domain image to Wikimedia Commons, they must include a public domain tag. That's a policy of Wikimedia Commons. It doesn't apply to people using the image outside of Wikimedia.
Is customer list really a trade secret in California? This is about the lawsuit where our tenants and we, the landlord, are being sued for misappropriating competing beauty salon's trade secrets (i.e. customer list). We are about to sign retainer contract with our to-be attorney and will try to get us dismissed on basis that we are merely the other two defendants' landlord and not employer. So don't have anything to do with the alleged theft of trade secrets. However, to my surprise, the other two defendants went to at least 3 different attorneys and neither was willing to take up the case (I don't know the reason yet - will discuss with them tomorrow). The tenants are young and have limited life experience and are totally at risk of default judgement if they don't take up the case themselves or still can't find attorney. I am willing to help them for free and at least attempt to build some defense by doing the paper work that they would submit under their names (I have an engineering background and I like to take up challenges outside my comfort area). But this left me wondering - is customer list really a trade secret in California that attorneys are afraid to challenge? The plaintiff in complaint states that the customer list is a trade secret that was built over years by providing quality services that helped to establish business' reputation and helps to attract new customers and causes existing customers to return while generating stable income for business. Here are my 2 defense arguments that I came up with to at least build defense against the trade secret misappropriation: Most hair salons attract new customers based on business' reputation that is readily accessible on public websites, like Yelp or Google. Contrary to secretive tech startups, beauty salon customers after receiving service are explicitly encouraged by the employee or employer to post public, non-anonymous reviews describing their experience without any restrictions. Which implies that customer list can't be a trade secret because there is no effort to hide customer identities. Most returning customers are usually seeking their favorite hair stylist. Which means that customer list alone can't be constructed as trade secret. It should be viewed as trade secret only in tandem with their favorite hairstylist that they are explicitly seeking. Which means that the moment their favorite hairstylist leaves the employer the information becomes incomplete and hence can't be a trade secret anymore. Would, in your opinion, something written like above convince court?	The customer list is indeed a trade secret if the shop kept its customer list secret and has an advantage from having that customer list, while others don’t have it. And I would think that is the case, because a competitor laying their hands on the list could for example send special offers to the customers in the list. The question is whether your two hairdressers took that customer list and whether the store has reasonable evidence that they did. If customers find out where their favourite hairdresser moved to that’s no legal problem. Can’t understand why no attorney wants to take the case. To the attorney it doesn’t make a difference whether they took the list or not. If they took the list then his or her job is to end the case with the smallest possible amount of damages being paid. PS. Just read in the comments that there is an accusation of "intentional interference with economic relationship". I would want a lawyer who knows the difference between perfectly legal competition which includes trying to get customers to move their business, and "intentional interference with economic relationship". PS. Really make sure that these guys appear in court. With a lawyer. Not appearing means that if the plaintiff says "Judge, these guys did X, punish them!" and they are not there to say "We absolutely didn't do X, prove it if you can", the judge will assume that they did X.	There is, in most countries at least, no law requiring a business to treat a customer fairly. In general, a business may refuse to serve a would-be customer for any reason or none, provided that the reason is not membership in a protected class (racial, religious, ethnic, or sexual bias, mostly). Exactly which classes are protected depends on the local law (in the US, there can be such laws at all of federal, state, and municipal levels). If a customer is asked to leave and does not do so, s/he could be charged with defiant trespass (or local equivalent). More likely, security, or the police, could simply escort the customer out of the business, using as much force as is reasonably needed for that purpose. Unless there are grounds for action not mentioned, I see no basis for a successful suit by the customer.	The CEO wants to "fool" users You are essentially admitting that the company you are working for is about to deceit its customers and asking whether that is legal. The relevant set of laws is rather sparse and does not give direct answers in regards to oAuth tokens or other details of that level (which is probably making your CEO think he can "handle" the arising questions). Probably the most relevant bit of legislation that applies here is The Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. §§41-58) which prohibits unfair or deceptive practices and has been applied to online privacy and data security policies. I am pretty sure that, in practice, if the users take your company to court, it will be held liable because: users are allowing us to read their CRM data and once we get the data, the data become ours, and we can do whatever we want with it. Is this true? While the users are still allowing you to read their data it is completely up to the Terms/EULA what you can do with it. However, once you have made the users think that they have withdrawn your access (e.g. they "deleted" oAuth tokens), you are no longer authorized to read the current data (although the Terms may still allow you to use the old data you obtained when you had access). Silently continuing to access their data without their knowledge/approval is definitely a deceit. The CEO wants us to download all of their emails and store them in our database There would be nothing wrong with that if it was in the Terms. But if it is not, that would be a blatant (and easily punishable) breach of privacy. Note that you may also be held personally liable for this wrongdoing (if/when proved so). "Just doing your job" claim will not work.	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.	"Civic obligations" are based on one's personal moral philosophy, best discussed on Philosophy SE. On the legal front, in the US, there is no (existing) legal basis for simply declaring some random thing to be "top secret", even if it has great potential to be used for evil purposes. If this is research conducted under the umbrella of the Dept. of Defense, it might be classified, but a garage inventor is not subject to the laws regarding classified documents. Congress could pass a law prohibiting promulgating research on time travel, but even if such a law were found to be constitutional (unlikely, on First Amendment grounds, see this), one cannot be penalized for breaking the law before it becomes a law.	Prove my work is not a trade secret violation Please don't. It's not your job to prove your innocence. The burden is on them to be specific, explain fully, and prove specific claims about your actions. In other words, don't justify, don't explain, and don't defend yourself to them. It's actually best you do not say anything to them, and just forward the letter to your legal counsel (Since you're selling software to be used in the medical field, I assume you already have some kind of legal counsel). For instance, even saying something as innocuous as "Managing patients, Exams, Bills etc are all public knowledge." could be used against you. Because it establishes the fact that you've been working on those features with them and that you've been working on those features with your new company (which doesn't necessarily follow, for all they know, you could have purchased a library module from someone else with those exact features). In other words, even if you were to reply with such an innocuous-sounding statement, you could be saving them months of cross-border discovery and litigation about some of their claims (even if you believed you were being entirely reasonable by defending yourself). But at the same time, don't take what I'm saying to mean that you should lie to them about which features you recently worked on. When I say that you shouldn't be talking to them. I mean that you should not be talking to them. You shouldn't be engaging with them and you shouldn't be giving them any shred of information whatsoever (implied or otherwise). It's not your job to make their job any easier. Do not reply to them. Don't even acknowledge the receipt of the letter (unless you already did by signing for it, which can't be helped). Use a legal intermediary. Give the letter to your own legal counsel (whether you signed for the letter, or not) and leave any reply to him or her (assuming he/she thinks this warning letter even warrants a response). And if this former employer gives you a phone call, kindly refer them to your legal counsel without saying another word.	It is any law protecting me from the people that distrubute a video of me falling the stairs and shared without my permision? No. Your permission is not necessary for distributing or watching that video. The recording was from your workplace, where your entitlement to privacy is quite limited unlike few settings such as (1) your attorney's office in the course of obtaining legal advice for which the disclosure was needed, or (2) your home. Even if such an entitlement existed, your decision to share that recording with the person who was with you generally constitutes a waiver of your right to privacy regarding that incident. The waiver would apply even if California had some legislation akin to the EU's GDPR. Your description nowhere indicates that that person had a statutory or equitable duty of confidentiality. It is also highly doubtful that you would wish to block the distribution of the video if people instead of mocking you expressed something pleasant or encouraging to you. people who I don't even know their names come to me to comment about the video and joke about not falling again. That is not unlawful in and of itself. Since the matter does not involve a protected category such as sex, race, religion, or disability, pursuing a claim of hostile work environment would be quite a stretch. It would also be futile because any relief would not cover outsiders who watch the video and feel like joking about it. The notion of harassment entails a pattern of conduct (meaning that a person engages twice or more in that conduct) that causes a reasonable person to feel annoyed or concerned for his safety. Even if someone engages makes a few jokes that cause you to get annoyed, any petition for restraining orders seems unlikely to succeed. Sooner rather than later, the jokes will get old and people will move on.	I did not write "confidential" on my letter, but I assumed a business proposal is automatically considered as a confidential material. An incorrect assumption unfortunately. Unless you have a confidentiality agreement (NDA) with the first company, they and their agents are not under any legal obligation to keep information you share with them confidential. How is the legal situation here? There is none on your side. You lied about a direct question asked and were caught in the lie. Company A had no obligation to keep what you sent confidential. Even if they did, that may not (depending on how the confidentiality agreement is worded) keep the employee of company A stating that they had received the same proposal. Chalk this one up to a lesson on confidentiality and honesty in business. There are no reasonable assumptions of confidentiality in business unless you specifically state that they are confidential or are provided as part of a confidentiality agreement.
Football field in park being upgraded - rights of neighbouring property owners? We live in Portland, Oregon (USA), in a neighborhood next to a high school which has an adjoining football field. The field is in a publicly accessible park. There is a proposal from the school district to upgrade the field to include stadium lighting, stadium seating and a fence around the field. Access will remain public, but the fence will be locked some of the time. I think it'll always be a park in that no professional sports will be played there. Very infrequently, games will be ticketed. I think that the improvements will destroy the character of the park and force the neighbours to look at stadium lights until late at night (I believe that the lights will also support local adult teams). The proposal has a lot of support from high school parents in the community (who don't live near the field) so I suspect that my view is not the majority view. My question is: what are my rights here? Looking around a bit, I see two possibilities: I have no rights. The district can do whatever they want. I can vote against them in the next election. The constitution protects my (minority) rights and I do have options. I would prefer option 2 as option 1 is not helpful. Is option 2 at all applicable? Can anyone point to a reference document or documents? For background on this topic, see: https://www.pps.net/Page/14612	You have a third option: Sue the district for violating state or local law. There are lots of recent news stories about people doing just this and winning. The US Constitution Can't Help You: The school district is not violating your constitutional rights by installing lights at the stadium. The only constitutional protection remotely connected to your situation is the "takings clause" of the 5th Amendment. It says, "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." Unfortunately, the "takings clause" only applies if there is a "taking." A "taking" is generally understood to be exactly that -- you lose your property. The loss can be literal -- the government takes title to your house and turns it into a football field or freeway on-ramp -- or figurative -- the disturbance from the football field or on-ramp is so pervasive that your property becomes worthless. Since having the lights on will not destroy the value of your property, the takings clause does not apply to you. As one Justice said in a related case, the lesson here is simple: "the federal Constitution does not prohibit everything that is intensely undesirable." State or Local Law Might Help You: Even though you don't have a constitutional claim, depending on what state and city you live in, you may have a claim under state or local law. (These might be statutes, regulations, ordinances, or even your state constitution.) For example, in 2010 a group of home owners in Atherton, California who lived near the local high school sued when the school announced plans to install stadium lights. The suit claimed the lights violated local height limits, and that the night games would violate noise ordinances. The suit, plus a savvy pr campaign, got the school to agree to limits on night games. Atherton is not alone. All the way across the country, in Greenwich, Connecticut, neighbors upset about stadium lights sued and got an agreement about the use of lights. A search using high+school+lights+neighbors+sue turns up plenty of other examples. You will have to talk to a local attorney to find out what state or local laws you can use.	The applicable law is here. Any animal that crosses its owner's property line in the slightest must be restrained. Chicago law also requires fences to be physical fences, not electronic ones. So you can report the situation to the police. This may or may not result in a fine for the owner: that's at the discretion of the city. From a legal perspective, reporting violations to the police and to animal control is almost all you can do. There is, unfortunately, no guarantee that the police will investigate; but if that is not satisfactory, there are political solutions involving your alderman. Theoretically, you could sue the owner, but that would be expensive and probably less effective compared to reporting the violation.	If a trespasser openly and notoriously, exclusively and continuously possesses your property by building a fence on your land for the right time period, they automatically own the land. It still takes a court proceeding to record the passing of title (the trespasser has to prove in court that it is legally theirs). The trespasser would also have to establish that the recent survey was correct (survey errors do exist): was there an earlier survey in connection with the fence that established different boundaries? If (as it turns out) this has become his property, he abstractly has title to it, but only you and he know about it. The trespasser may have an interest in officially changing the property description, because it will officially increase the size of his lot and thus the value of the house+land. This also will increase their tax burden (while decreasing yours). The county has no knowledge of the fence: they go off of the official record, which says that you own that wedge. You also may have an interest in changing the property description, primarily to reduce your tax bite. There could also be issues with your resale of the property, since a mortgage company may require a survey of the property. Whether or not that is bad is hard to say: the consequence could be that the buyer is alerted to the fact that the lot is smaller than advertised and so on; in the current market I doubt anyone would care. If the fence goes away and you start using the land, then it will officially revert to you after a while. If you catch the party and complain within 10 years, you may recover the property (RCW 7.28.010). The limitations statute says that The period prescribed for the commencement of actions shall be as follows: Within ten years: (1) For actions for the recovery of real property, or for the recovery of the possession thereof; and no action shall be maintained for such recovery unless it appears that the plaintiff, his or her ancestor, predecessor or grantor was seized or possessed of the premises in question within ten years before the commencement of the action. That ship has (apparently) long since sailed. There is a different law pertaining to "Adverse possession under title deducible of record" which shortens the limit to 7 years, which is even less useful to the original owner. RCW 7.28.070 also shortens the time limit for an adverse possession case, to 7 years: Every person in actual, open and notorious possession of lands..who shall for seven successive years continue in possession, and shall also during said time pay all taxes legally assessed on such lands or tenements, shall be ... the legal owner of said lands There is another (more recent) tax-related provision, RCW 7.28.083. (1) A party who prevails against the holder of record title at the time an action asserting title to real property by adverse possession was filed, or against a subsequent purchaser from such holder, may be required to: (a) Reimburse such holder or purchaser for part or all of any taxes or assessments levied on the real property during the period the prevailing party was in possession of the real property in question and which are proven by competent evidence to have been paid by such holder or purchaser; This does not require them to have paid taxes, it say that the victor in the dispute may nevertheless be ordered to reimburse taxes paid by the other party (assuming the other party has paid the tax). So there is some chance of getting the taxes back. The reimbursement is at the court's discretion (continuing that section): (2) If the court orders reimbursement for taxes or assessments paid or payment of taxes or assessments due under subsection (1) of this section, the court shall determine how to allocate taxes or assessments between the property acquired by adverse possession and the property retained by the title holder. In making its determination, the court shall consider all the facts and shall order such reimbursement or payment as appears equitable and just. One should also pay attention to the last provision in that statute: (3) The prevailing party in an action asserting title to real property by adverse possession may request the court to award costs and reasonable attorneys' fees. The court may award all or a portion of costs and reasonable attorneys' fees to the prevailing party if, after considering all the facts, the court determines such an award is equitable and just. That means that the victor can request the loser to pay his attorney's fees. This is delicate math, balancing the chance of recovering some paid taxes vs. paying the other guy's costs. You could try calling the assessor to find out how much the decrease in lot size might net you (the land vs. improvement proportion of taxes is all over the map in KC, easily ranging from 60% to 250% depending on year). One additional feature of adverse possession is that it must be "hostile", i.e. without permission. If a neighbor builds on your land, you can explicitly give them revocable permission (to avoid "no you didn't" arguments, explicit and revocable written permission, signed by the neighbor, would bar an adverse possession claim). This raises an interesting question, to which I don't know the answer. Suppose the prior owner gave permission to the fence builder, and did not demand the removal of the fence when he sold the property or right after the neighbor sold his property (there was only on act of granting permission). Does the clock start from your acquisition of the property (whereupon the element of hostility is satisfied)? Or does it start from the point where they acquired the property and were in hostile possession of the land (I would bet a quarter that that's the answer). If (or, given that) the fence was moved further onto your property more recently, there is a chance to recover the newly-taken piece of land. If you grant them revocable permission to build a fence on your property, you would not be subject to an adverse possession taking for the newly-taken land. If at some point you tell them to tear down the fence and they refuse, you can sue them and the court will (almost certainly) order the removal of the fence. The neighbor might then initiate an action to quiet title on the originally-taken piece of land, so you'd be back to where you were 4 years ago. From a practical perspective, this is well-worth the small amount of money involved to consult with an attorney to get legal advice. The legal matter probably will not go away quickly, and they may be presently inclined to settle in a manner more in your favor.	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.	According to this article, the Malmö Administrative District Court found that the intent of the user is immaterial to whether a camera is being used for surveillance, so even if that is not why you are doing this, it counts legally as "surveillance". The law requires a permit from the länsstyrelse (county? government), according to the Kameraövervakningslag (2013:460) (article 8 states the requirement for permit, art. 16 tells you who to apply to). I believe that a tennis court would be considered a "public place", even if privately owned. Art. 17 tells you what goes into an application (there is probably a form), and art. 18 says that the kommun gets to weigh in. Presumably it would be critical to have a consent form signed before any recording happens, and you would include that in the application.	I think that the language In consideration of permission to use, ... Recreational Sports Department ... arising from, but not limited to, participation in activities, classes, observation, and use of facilities, premises, or equipment. would be read as limiting the waiver to cases in some way connected with the RSF. Even so limited it is rather broad, and may not be enforceable. In particular public facilities are not always allowed to obtain a waiver of otherwise valid negligence claims. If it were interpreted to mean "all claims on any matter, even ones having nothing at all to do with the RSF" then I think it would be so broad as to be unenforceable as unconscionable, and as misleading, so that there was no meeting of minds.	You would report unpermitted lock replacement to the home owner. The building code regulates new construction and renovations, and is not a requirement of any and all residences. This seems to correspond to a "secondary suite", which is supposed to be registered with the city (if it is allowed in your city). Here is a link for Vancouver, for instance. Such suites are supposed to be registered and inspected, the inspection being carried out by Development, Building and Licencing: By-Law Compliance & Administration (a division of the city government). This article discusses some of the legal problems that can arise from an illegal secondary suite, however the penalties would land on the property owner, and he may not have approved of this subletting or the basement suite. A less-nuclear first step would therefore be reporting it to the property owner.	In general, permission is not granted to enter the premises of another by climbing a fence unless it is explicitly granted. That the fence is on your property, but adjacent to the school's property, is a complication. The school, observing that there is a boundary fence, might reasonably rely on that to exclude people from entering other than at desired entry points. So it might be that your entry over the fence would be unauthorized and thus technically trespassing. If you were to put a gate in your own fence, the school's reliance is probably less reasonable. Or if you were to formally notify the school that you intend to enter the school grounds over your own fence. However, in practice, you are not trespassing until you are notified by the owner or owner's agent or someone with proper authority. If there is no sign, there can be no claim that you were notified by one. So until a school official or employee notices you using the fence and orders you to stop, there is no issue.
Attorney Sanctions A pro se litigant in NY, who has been litigating a complex matter for over 10 years, is finding that the opposition's papers have increasing false citations and gibberish in them. A good example is a recent appellate rebuttal which contains literally dozens of legal claims, followed by scores of cases. Sounds impressive, except that in only but a few of those citations, does the cited case have anything to do with the claim of the attorney. In other words what on the face is made to appear as a well supported argument, has in fact no support, and dozens of cases which have nothing to do with the point of the argument and would frustrate a reader researching the arguments. This type of false buttressing of arguments has escalated, and the pro se litigant is considering countermeasures. Some may be quite ineffective. However one that has been discussed would be to make a motion to the court, for sanctions against the attorney, with the cause being something like frustration of legal process. There are numerous examples in federal (US) courts of pro se litigants being censured for "gibberish." Probably more applicable is fraud on the court. However, legal texts have printed little on this topic, and there are very few cases similar that come up with searches. However this quote from recent cases seems appropriate: In a recent case, the Court of Appeals described fraud on the court as: willful conduct that is deceitful and obstructionist, which injects misrepresentations and false information into the judicial process "so serious that it undermines ... the integrity of the proceeding" .... What might be effective methods to reduce this frustration of legal process?	The simplest method is to demonstrate the falsity of the claims: this is simpler than pursuing punitive action against the opposition because in addition to demonstrate the falsity of the claims, you have to demonstrate willfulness and deceitfulness of the oppositions actions. In reading appellate decisions, you will often encounter statement by the higher court that the losing part urges so-and-so, or that the lower court applied a law or doctrine incorrectly, and they explain why that is in error. Such snippets are an excellent model for rebutting incorrect legal claims, although they are usually just the "executive summary" of the refutation. If one side cites Bronston v. United States, 409 U.S. 352, Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 and Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 as case-law support for the proposition that courts should defer to the interpretation of government agencies whether the agency's answer is based on a permissible construction of the statute, so long as Congress has not spoken directly to the precise issue at question, a refutation would draw on those decisions to show that the three citations do not support the proposition (in my example, it would be unnecessary to do this because it is patently obvious that this is a wildly irrational argument, but many cases depend on a deeper reading of the case law). Rather than focusing on accusations of gibberish, you could focus on establishing the lack of legal merits behind the opposing side's claim.	In most jurisdictions, the lawyer would have two options: Resign from counsel and never talk about the confession. Take the counsel and defend the client as best they can without mentioning that they know the client is guilty. In most jurisdictions, there is something called "attorney client privilege". It means that whatever a client says to their attorney is confidential (there are usually exceptions to this, but usually none which are relevant for this question). The court can not force the attorney to testify against their client. The job of the defense counsel is to achieve the best possible outcome for their client. If the client pleads not guilty, then the attorney's duty is to do their best to convince the court that their client is not guilty, even when they know it to be false. There are a few limits, for example attorneys are usually not allowed to use underhanded strategies like falsify evidence or compel witnesses. But breaking attorney-client privilege by telling the court about a private confession without the consent of the client would be a major case of misconduct and would in many cases cost the attorney their legal license (at least!). And besides: A defense attorney who knows their non-guilty-pleading client is guilty can actually go through the process without ever explicitly claiming that the client is innocent. In order to convict someone for a crime, the prosecuter must prove the clients guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The defendant doesn't necessarily need to prove they are innocent, they just need to create doubt. The defense attorney can fulfill that duty by raising questions like "If my client had committed the crime, then how do you explain [...]", "What reason would my client have had to commit this crime?", "Does this piece of evidence really prove anything?" or "How can we be sure that the witness is telling the truth when she says [...]?". All very good questions which need to be answered by the prosecution, even if the defense already knows the answers. At no point does the defender have to claim "my client is innocent". The defender just needs to claim "You have not yet proven beyond reasonable doubt that my client is guilty".	If a newspaper publishes an article that is actually defamatory (i.e. publishes false statements that cause you quantifiable harm), and you successfully sue the publisher, you might get a court order requiring them to retract the statements or remove them from their web page. An archive like newspapers.com isn't making false statements, it is making true statements about what the Poughkeepsie Journal published. At any rate, you name is not defamatory, it is (or was) a fact.	In some jurisdictions, California probably being the most well-known in the US, there are Anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) statutes, which allow a defendant to file an anti-SLAPP claim (for sake of clarity I'm going to keep calling that person the "defendant") when the plaintiff's suit appears to have been filed for the purpose of infringing upon the defendant's rights by forcing them to bear the costs of litigation or settle the claim in order to avoid them, and itself has little merit or the plaintiff clearly does not expect it to succeed. In California, if the Anti-SLAPP claim succeeds and the plaintiff's claim is dismissed as a SLAPP, the defendant is normally awarded attorney's fees from the plaintiff. The Anti-SLAPP claim also halts discovery in order to reduce the costs on the defendant, so in effect it allows a defendant to challenge the plaintiff's right to sue them on the particular issue before the defendant has to bear the majority of costs.	This is a good question, which I am going to answer from a practical perspective, rather than a theoretical one, which would probably justify a law review article (applications of the takings clause to criminal justice fact patterns is actually one of my pet areas of legal scholarship, but a lot of it calls for dramatic changes in established practice and precedents reached from other perspectives, making it impractical to pursue in real life). I recently had a case along these lines in my office where my client's property was seized as evidence in a criminal case against a third-party. The crime involved a gun shop where all of the guns that were in the possession of the shop owner for repairs at the time of the bust (i.e. as bailments), including ours worth several thousand dollars in addition to having some sentimental value, were seized as evidence of charges against a shop owner who was fencing stolen goods, making sales to felons off the books, falsifying excise tax returns, etc. He seemed legitimate and had been in business for many years in what was not a fly by night operation. He had all of the proper licenses. Who knew we were dealing with a crook? In that case, we intervened on behalf of our client in the primary case to seek the physical return of the property (basically a replevin claim), as have others affected by the bust. It took a few months and some legal fees, but we prevailed without too much effort, as have the other intervenors. Generally speaking, to make a 5th Amendment claim, you would have to show a total taking and move into some legal gray areas in this context, while it is usually hard for authorities to show a continuing need for possession of third-party property in the face of a demand for its return, especially when photography and other scientific tools can document the evidence in great detail these days. In that case, showing that our client's particular gun was not involved in any illegitimate transaction also simultaneously made it less important as evidence, although that would not necessarily be true in general in these kinds of situations. There is a pending case in Colorado posing similar issues, where a suburban police department essentially destroyed a guy's home in order to catch a felon with no relation to the homeowner whatsoever, who had fled into it and taken refuge there. But, that case, as far as I know, has not yet been resolved on the merits.	Most pro se litigants fail in the court procedure area. There are many intricacies about what must be completed by when. Determining jurisdiction can take a very long time, especially personal jurisdiction. These things set back cases repeatedly. Additionally, many pro se litigants fail a 12(b)(6) motion. This means the other side files a motion saying that the opposing party failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Typically, a pro se litigant fails to state with specificity each element of a claim and how the parties met each element. If the litigant does not know how to remedy the situation, it will not succeed. Most judges in small claims overlook procedural deficiencies so long as they are not too burdensome on the opposing party. If one is unsure how to proceed, contact an attorney.	It might or it might not be fraud. The outcome will depend on how the facts and evidence are interpreted at trial. A more general version of this question is: If two parties discuss and orally agree to X; then sign a contract that states they agree to Y, what are the parties bound to? X? Y? Or something else? In your version, X is a fraudulent statement. And Y is an obfuscated writing. One party will argue fraud. The other will argue not fraud on the basis that all the facts were disclosed in writing. The party alleging fraud will carry the burden of proof. The standard of proof will be preponderance of evidence (more than 50%). Generally speaking, written evidence outweighs oral evidence if not accompanied by substantiating facts. Substantiating facts could be: emails or other written correspondence, a prior history or pattern of making false claims to others regarding this investment, the respective behavior of the parties after the agreement was made or anything else that corroborates the oral testimony presented at trial.	This is not possible, simply as a matter of definitions and legal terminology. Someone who is "represented by one or more attorneys" is by definition not pro se which means representing yourself without an attorney. There are very rare instances in criminal trials involving serious consequences in which a pro se defendant is allowed to have an attorney advisor who does not represent them in court in an agency capacity, but, first, people who do that almost always lose and are almost always mentally ill (although not necessarily eligible for an insanity defense), and second, because courts generally don't allow this in any other circumstance (at least in court). The concept of getting advice from an attorney without having full fledged representation is called a "limited representation" and the law regarding limited representations more generally varies greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and even between different courts in the same place. For example, Colorado's state courts and Colorado's federal courts have different rules for limited representations.
Hotel charged me for damages, claimed I smoked in the room UK I was going over my expenses and found a £200 charge from a hotel I stayed at over a month ago. I called to ask why, and they said that there was a "smell of smoke" and they "found something in the room" to indicate I had been smoking. I'm not sure what they could have "found" but unless I smoke in my sleep I'm sure it's something explainable. As for the "smell of smoke" I imagine it was added to justify the charge but I guarantee they didn't smell any smoke in my room - I don't smoke ordinarily. What is the proper procedure for disputing such a charge? If the hotel don't backdown over their claim, what legal recourse is there? Guessing this would be civil so judgement on balance of probability - anyone know of similar case study cases?	If you paid by a credit card, the proper procedure is to simply do a chargeback. If the hotel doesn't back down, then the credit card network will hold arbitration. I wouldn't expect them to win, since they don't have anything but their word for it. The hotel does have the option of suing you, but it's unlikely that they will do so for £200, and again they don't have much of a case. Their third option is to just report it to credit reporting agencies as a unpaid debt. For this, there's not much you can do other than have the fact that you dispute it included in your file. Theoretically, you could sue them for defamation, but that would be impractical.	The law only addresses possible legal consequences, from which you could surmise what actually happens. If a person stops paying rent, the landlord institutes eviction proceedings, and may sue for the remainder of the rent for the term of the lease: they have an obligation to try to find a replacement tenant, to mitigate the damage. Some relief is available to the landlord in the deposit, from which the unpaid rent might be deducted, but let's assume that after that, the actual damage suffered is $5,000. When you sue a person in your home state, the court serves official notice that the defendant must appear to answer the charges, and the state has jurisdiction over the respondent because they are in that state. Giving notice and collecting on a judgment across jurisdictions can get complicated and expensive, so it would depend on what kind of treaties exist between the countries. There is the Hague Service Convention which may simplify the business of giving notice to parties, which works if the respondent fled to Norway or India but not if they fled to Somalia or Turkmenistan. Since it turns out the US is not party to any multinational treaty recognizing foreign judgments, that country is not obligated to care about a US judgment, so unless the person left assets in the US, you may not be able to collect. You could sue in the person's country (hire a local attorney to pursue the matter). The main legal question would be whether there is any conflict between the lease and local law: while the basic idea of a lease is universally recognized, there may be peculiar conditions or procedures applicable in that country. (Norway has some laws pertaining to "shared utilities" which don't exist in the US, which might put a US lease at odds with Norwegian law, and there are rent-raising rules that don't exist here). It might be necessary that you appear in court in that country to swear under oath that the lease was agreed to voluntarily, or the court may require a special form of 'notarization' not available in the US. None of that renders international litigation impossible, though a favorable judgment might be unlikely in some courts. The cost of litigation might be much higher than what would be awarded by a court.	Sounds a lot like a bad-luck, move-on situation. I can't imagine any reason why the complex would have any duty to watch your bike for you or otherwise ensure that no one steals it. The fact that you bought it knowing that the bike shed had not yet been built and that the security gates were broken would probably count against you. If you know who stole your bike, you'd have a much better case against them, but it doesn't sound like that's the case. If you're looking for a typical contingency-fee arrangement, in which the attorney takes a fee from your winnings, I'd imagine you're going to be especially out of luck, based on two hard facts: The total damages you can collect is probably going to be equal to the price of your bicycle: £400. The average hourly rate at national firms for the most junior lawyer is already more than £200. If you sat down with such a lawyer, explained your situation, discussed your options, and then tasked the lawyer to write a threatening letter to the apartment complex, you'd already have incurred more fees than the value of the bicycle. Probably no attorney is interested in that arrangement -- especially since it's highly unlikely the complex would pay. So unless you're actually willing to pay hourly rates, I can't imagine any lawyer taking this case. Even if you were, no one may take it just because lawyers don't like taking cases that they're going to lose.	You can take action against the shop directly under the tort of nuisance. The available remedies are damages to compensate for interference with your property rights, and injunction to require the defendant to cease the activity which is causing the nuisance. You could also bring a judicial review action against the council if they refuse to investigate the noise. In England, Wales, and Scotland this would be based on Section 79(1)(g) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 which defines "noise emitted from premises so as to be prejudicial to health or a nuisance" to be a "statutory nuisance". Section 79 places an obligation on a local authority to "take such steps as are reasonably practicable to investigate" a complaint made by a person living within its area. Section 80(1) requires that "where a local authority is satisfied that a statutory nuisance exists [it] shall service [an abatement notice]". Section section 80(4) provides that it is an offence to contravene an abatement notice. Torts and judicial review are complex areas of law and you should seek legal advice if you intend to pursue either of these routes. The limitation period for judicial review is relatively short (3 months per CPR 54.5(1)), so if you are seeking legal advice, you should do so quickly if you have already approached the council.	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.	Probably not. Overview You haven't specified a jurisdiction. I will talk about Australia because that's what I'm familiar with. In Australia the most relevant area of law would be tort, specifically negligence. The university would be liable to pay damages if a court found that it owed a duty of care to your friend, that it breached that duty, and that your friend suffered injury ('injury' including loss of property as well as mental suffering) as a result of that breach. Also potentially relevant would be contract law, if your friend and the university had entered into some kind of agreement relating to his security, or equity, if the university had somehow acted to lead your friend to rely, to his detriment, on the university protecting him (promissory estoppel: Walton Stores v Maher). However, I think this is unlikely unless, for some reason, the university had put up signs saying 'Please come onto our land and we will be responsible for your security'. Negligence You have stated that 'it is their responsibility to make sure all students are safe on campus.' It is not clear whether you mean to state that as a fact or whether you are suggesting it as a possible hypothetical basis of liability. I am not aware of a case that establishes the proposition that universities do have such a duty. The judgments in Modbury Triangle Shopping Centre v Anzil (2000) 205 CLR 254 discuss the liability of the occupier of land (such as the university in your example) for injuries inflicted by criminals upon people present on land (such as your friend in your example). In that case, the defendant ran a shopping centre. The plaintiff worked at a shop in the shopping centre. At the end of the plaintiff's shift at 10.30pm, it was dark outside because the shopping centre switched the lights in the car park off at 10pm. The plaintiff was mugged in the shopping centre car park on his way out to his car. The key question there was whether the defendant shopping centre was under a duty to keep the lights on for workers leaving work (along with the question of how the failure to illuminate the area led to the attack i.e. whether the plaintiff still have been mugged if the lights were on). Therefore the question that we are presently interested in, about an occupier's responsibility to protect visitors, is only dealt with as a side issue in that case. But the principle is pretty well-established that, generally, you are not responsible to protect another person from the criminal acts of a third person. The common law has a strong presumption against imposing liability for 'omissions' as distinct from acts, which is another way of saying that the courts don't want people being liable to run out into the street and help people. See paragraphs 27 and 28 and thereabouts in Modbury Triangle. Particular relationships may exist which create such a duty. One is in relation to school children; the school is responsible for taking such care of the child as a parent would. The relevant features of this the school-child relationship include the child's vulnerability as a child and the way the school controls their movements and enviroment during the school day. I presume that your friend is not a child and the university does not control his or her movements. Therefore a court is likely to be looking at the general principle that the university is not responsible for protecting people from the criminal acts of strangers, and then looking (and probably not finding) any special feature of the relationship between your friend and the university that creates an aspect of vulnerability, reliance or control that makes it reasonable to impose a duty of care. Some people think that there is a general principle that if something bad happens to them, some identifiable person with cash must be responsible for paying compensation, whether that is an insurer, the government or a nearby corporation. The common law has not picked up that principle. The common law would slate the responsibility home primarily to the mugger. Sue them. What does the university have to do with it? Conceivably the university might also be liable along with the mugger, but the fact that an injury occurred and nobody else can in practice be held responsible does not in itself make the university liable. As mentioned by Pat W., there may be some other feature that creates a duty, such as if the university had made some change to the environment that allowed made the attack to occur when it wouldn't otherwise have e.g. moving your friend's dormitory so that the only entrance was through a dark alley, or if the attack occurred inside a university building where the university controlled entry (even then not sure that would get your friend over the line).	No You missed the flight. Thai is not responsible for your acts and omissions. As for the check in desk, they are often unmanned, however, Thai have an email address and a telephone number that is manned 24/7. I am surprised that you couldn’t find any Thai airlines staff in all of Bangkok airport given that it is their home base. This is precisely what travel insurance is for. Assuming that the fee was correctly charged under the contract terms in the relevant circumstances you have no right to have it waived. Thai might waive it gratuitously if you ask but they don’t have to.	Certainly, "Tortious interference" comes to mind. While it's a difficult one to prove, there are typically 6 elements: The existence of a contractual relationship or beneficial business relationship between two parties (possible problem here). Knowledge of that relationship by a third party. Intent of the third party to induce a party to the relationship to breach the relationship. (or refuse to enter one). Lack of any privilege on the part of the third party to induce such a breach. (no right to do so via some other aspect of law). The contractual relationship is breached. (the normally-accessible-to-anyone transaction is prevented). Damage to the party against whom the breach occurs The only real "stretch" here is that Tortious Interference is written for cases where you already have an existing business relationship or contract in place. You're talking about a situation where a vendor normally proffers its service to any member of the public, and you'd argue there's an implied contract that they do business with any comer. In real estate particularly, it gets a lot more complicated because of Fair Housing laws. The apartment could get in big trouble being caught refusing to do business with someone, if the reason for the refusal was sourced in something related to race, creed, religion, sexual orientation and a bunch of other no-no's. Even if that's not your motive, if they (plural: victim and attorney) can convince a judge or jury that it is your motive, you and the apartment could owe them a lot of money. Fun fact: conspiracy to commit a Federal crime is a felony, even if the crime isn't. Regardless... I think if you are paying the vendor to snub the customer, courts would find that to be a perverse and unjustifiable behavior, and would see harm in that, especially if it was part of a pattern of behavior that constituted harassment. They would tend to assume the worst motives unless you could show other motives. I suspect they could even get a restraining order blocking you from interfering in their business relationships anywhere. You would also be subject to discovery, and would be compelled to disclose anywhere else you interfered, and pretty much anything they want to ask you. You can't refuse to answer ... unless ... your answer would incriminate you of a crime. But that's the kiss of death in a civil trial, because the jury hears that, and infers you are a crook. Game over lol.
Is there a rule preventing campaign rallies on the House floor? Is there a law or a House rule preventing House of Representatives members using their time on the House floor, or committee floor, to hold election campaign events?	There are several House rules and laws that prohibit Members from using their time on the floor or in committee meetings for campaign activities, including rallies. These prohibitions are discussed in detail in Chapter 4 of the House Ethics Manual, on "Campaign Activity." The general rule covering which resources can be used for campaigns is simple: "official resources of the House must...be used for the performance of official business of the House..., and may not be used for campaign or political purposes." p. 123 The "basic principle" underlying this rule is also simple: "government funds should not be spent to help incumbents gain reelection." p. 123 The ban extends to the use of "House buildings, rooms and offices – including district offices." Since these are "supported with official funds," they "are considered official resources," and, "as a general rule, they may not be used for the conduct of campaign or political activities, and...are not to be used for events that are campaign or political in nature..." p. 127. These rules obviously prohibit members from using the floor or committee meetings for campaign rallies. The House rules also prohibit using tv footage of "House floor...or committee proceedings" in "partisan political campaign material to promote or oppose the candidacy of any person for public office." p. 128. It is also a federal crime to solicit campaign contributions while on government property. In many cases, it is relatively easy to tell when these laws and rules have been broken. Either the Senator called a donor from her office, or she didn't; either she held a campaign rally or she didn't. But in other cases, it may not be so easy to tell when these laws have been broken. For example, suppose a Member throws in several partisan soundbites while speaking on the floor, hoping to make the nightly news. Could this be considered using the House floor for "political purposes"?	The newly elected Congress does all of the work in electing a new President. Under the 20th Amendment, the newly elected Congress takes office on January 3. Then three days later, on January 6, 3 USC § 15: Counting electoral votes in Congress, requires the new Congress to meet in Joint Session to count the electoral votes. If this session does not produce a President or Vice President, there is what is called a contingent election. In a contingent election the House begins immediately to choose a President from among the top three electoral college vote getters, while the Senate chooses a Vice President from among the top two electoral college vote getters. Both Houses use majority rule. The House votes by state, so a majority is 26, while the Senators vote individually, so a majority is 51. If the House does not pick a President by Inauguration Day, January 20th, the Vice President serves until a President is picked. If neither a President nor a VP has been picked by the 20th, the Presidential Succession Act applies, and the Speaker of the House, President pro tempore or a cabinet officer serves as Acting President. It wasn't always done this way: The 20th Amendment was passed in 1933 to take control over elections away from the lame duck Congress. Before the 20th A was adopted, the terms for P, VP and Congress all ended on Inauguration day, March 4. That meant the lame duck Congress had to deal with electoral matters. By giving Congress and the P/VP different expiration dates, the Amendment meant new Congress could deal with the election. Setting the election counting date after the new Congress was seated (on January 6), meant only the new Congress could.	Yes, they can. How would they enforce it? It seems like the HOA would have to be able to request to see the tenant's credit report, background check, proof of income, and rent checks to make sure the rules are being followed. The HOA might have to make a rule giving it the right to audit members on pain of a fine or something. What is to stop the HOA from making the requirements arbitrarily high to effectively prevent renting? (Minimum credit score set to 850, for example.) Nothing. It could ban renting entirely. This comes with one important caveat. If the rental restrictions have the intent or effect of violating fair housing laws, the regulations may be void as contrary to public policy. In some cases, a total ban on renting would expose the HOA and its members to less risks than a rule that does this by implication or via selective enforcement of the rules. Basically, this means that regulations designed to bar renting based upon protected categories under the particular acts that apply (e.g. race, disability, sex, marital status, religion) would be invalid. Also the HOA has to get its members to approve the rule and not repeal it. If the rule is so draconian that it reduces the fair market value of units, the members may decline to adopt such a rule or may get rid of it.	People make mistakes. My assessments come with information on how to dispute them, and if yours don't you should be able to get that information. File a dispute or whatever it is you do to challenge the assessment. Include the information about you being outside the district and not having he measure on your ballot. If you're just outside the district, you might have been mistakenly included. You'll either get a revised assessment or you'll be told that you have to pay the tax. You don't have a reasonable complaint unless and until your challenge is denied.	Probably.* Congress has wide latitude to dictate the procedures of "inferior courts" -- the district courts and circuit courts of appeal. Those courts only exist because Congress created them, so Congress can generally set the terms on which they continue to exist. That power is limited in several important ways by the Constitution, including the terms and compensation of the judges, and standing to address cases, and then further limited by separation-of-powers principles. But the Rules of Civil Procedure and the Rules of Criminal Procedure are a good example of how Congress has already -- and largely unobjectionably -- imposed these types of demands on the judiciary. The rules are generally drafted by the judicial branch, but Congress approves them and gives them the force of law. In both sets of rules, you can already see some requirements on how decisions are worded: Criminal Rule 23 requires the court to "state its specific findings of fact" after a bench trial; Criminal Rule 32 requires the court to "set forth the plea, the jury verdict or the court's findings, the adjudication, and the sentence" in judgments of conviction; Civil Rule 52 requires the court to "find the facts specially and state its conclusions of law separately"; Civil Rule 58 requires that "every judgment and amended judgment ... be set out in a separate document"; Civil Rule 59 requires the court to "specify the reasons [for granting or denying a motion for a new trial] in its order"; and Civil Rule 72 requires magistrates to enter "a recommended disposition, including, if appropriate, proposed findings of fact." The rule you're proposing seems to go well beyond these requirements, but I don't see how it would run afoul of constitutional constraints. I could imagine an argument that this somehow encroaches on the courts' inherent authority, but I'm not really convinced that that authority protects against this. For more information, you can read the Congressional Research Service report on "Congressional Authority Over the Federal Courts." *This answer only applies to Article III courts, but even then does not apply to the Supreme Court, which is co-equal and generally has the authority to set its own rules. When it comes to Article I courts, though, Congress would probably have virtually unlimited discretion to impose the kinds of requirements that you're talking about, and even to say that the court has no jurisdiction to consider constitutionality at all. Congress might even get away with imposing these kinds of requirements on state courts through the Spending Clause	Your school can compel you to pray, if it is a private school. I assume you are asking about a government school. As a limited public forum, the school can limit content (can forbid discussion of a topic), but cannot limit viewpoint (cannot allow only pro-abortion speech while prohibiting anti-abortion speech). If they allow the Godly pledge, they must allow the Satanic pledge (as well as allowing silence). See Good News Club v. Milford Central School, 533 U.S. 98. "The power to so restrict speech, however, is not without limits. The restriction must not discriminate against speech based on viewpoint, and must be reasonable in light of the forum's purpose". While it is true that schools are allowed to limit disruptive behavior, declaring "disruption!" does not automatically suspend the First Amendment. A reasonable person would not find find replacing a few word to be a disruption. If you scream "Satan!", that is disruptive, if you just say "Satan" instead of "God", that is not a disruption.	I think the Washington law and order is fairly clear: you must stay home unless you are engaged in certain allowed activities. The underlying law, RCW 43.06.220(h) empowers issuing an order prohibiting "Such other activities as he or she reasonably believes should be prohibited to help preserve and maintain life, health, property or the public peace". Therefore I can walk my dog. When I do, there are a lot of people also out walking their dogs, so that provides a letter-of-the-law permitted exception to the stay-at-home order. Nothing in the order specifically addresses the situation where you pause your dog-walk to talk to a neighbor (the "appropriate social distancing" sub-rule only applies to recreational departures from your home). It is well-established that the central legal issue is what the "compelling government interest" is, and whether these restrictions fail on grounds of narrow-tailoring or least-restrictiveness. The failure to include "go to your brother's place for lunch, provided you follow appropriate social distancing guidelines" as a permitted activity is a candidate for not being least-restrictive. The problem is that the courts will not engage in an infinite regress of second-guessings about whether certain measures are "truly necessary". There is a SCOTUS challenge where the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld that's state's order, but a SCOTUS order requires the state to reply to a petition by Monday. The "status quo" is that these orders are legal, until someone constructs a compelling argument that they are not, and that matter is then resolved in favor of petitioner by SCOTUS (which has not happened). So far, governors have prevailed at the state level.	It says They shall not confer the right [[to attend any meeting of members] and [to exercise one vote for every share held]]. The elements joined by a conjunction such as "and" should be grammatically parallel. Since the part after the conjunction is an infinitive verb phrase, the thing to which is it joined by the conjunction should also be an infinitive verb phrase. However, it is normal in English to use "or" when joining elements in a negative statement. For example, if it is forbidden to sing and it is forbidden to dance, one could post a sign saying "no singing or dancing." If the sign said "no singing and dancing" it could be interpreted as a prohibition only on doing both at once. So the sentence should read They shall not confer the right to attend any meeting of members or to exercise one vote for every share held. Perhaps less ambiguous: They shall not confer the right to attend any meeting of members or the right to exercise one vote for every share held. But the drafting error is unlikely to change the meaning of the text, since it is fairly easy to identify it as a drafting error.
In the CFAA, what exactly do "Intentionally accessed a protected computer without authorization" and "exceeding authorization" mean? I originally looked at this for web scraping, but upon reading it more, it seems like it could be interpreted to include all types of common mistakes. Does this even include something like a customer who entered his/her personal credentials issued by representatives of the service just for him into the wrong URL on the website as an attempt to "intentionally access without authorization/exceed" even though he thought that was the correct URL, like with different pages of demo and live accounts? Can someone claim that the user intentionally tried to login regardless of good faith thinking it was the right place + right auth vs user clicks on a random button that lied and actually tried to log him in without authorization instead? Does the law anywhere says something like common day activities like this don't count? This law just seems really vague/broad in that it include a lot of reasonable mistakes.	A law has to be "broad" to include a lot of possible crimes and intent of criminals and account for the good faith of non-criminals. "Intentionally access without authorization/exceed" is actually fairly specific; "intent" is the keyword. Someone making a mistake may have intent to login, but no intent to commit a crime. Someone confused by "different pages of demo and live accounts" can easily defend their actions by pointing out that they were confused. It's up to the reasonableness of the pertinent law enforcement and prosecutors to take into account the evidence that reasonable mistakes were made by little old ladies and not charge them with a crime. And for the most part, 98% of the time, law enforcement and prosecutors are reasonable.	You are mistaken: they deny you on your act When you use Tor, your browser is not sending a lot of information. That makes Tor browsers hilariously easy to detect: nobody knows where the real browser is, but it is hilariously easy to block all Tor users for using Tor, or at least those that the server knows are Tor IPs. Using Tor is an action, not how you look. The closest Brick and mortar equivalent would be "Show me your ID please" and you show them a paper cutout of something that has Sample stamped over it. "No shirt, no shoes, no service" in the united-states Yes, most places can deny service based on how you dress or your state of hygine. These two would in most cases not extend to the protections under the Civil Rights Act, which protects some characteristics like race and sex, but not visual factors like "being dressed" or "smelling of cow". There can be a fine line where religious dress code is concerned, but in general and broad strokes, the restaurant can deny you for wearing the wrong clothes. Actually, the slogan is much broader than it appears: as long as an establishment's dress code is not violating discrimination law (like the CRA), they can enforce it under their freedom to contract.	can it be construed as a violation of 66F clause 2 if we try to circumvent the rate limit even though the information is on public domain? No, unless the element of intent to threaten [...] or strike terror can be proved. I'm assuming that by "clause 2" you mean the excerpt you posted. Although circumventing the limit of API calls sounds in "exceeding authorised access" and might even lead to DOS, it does not imply an intent to threaten the security/sovereignty/etc. or strike terror. The statute is premised on such intent. The fact that the information(packets) is(are) on public domain is irrelevant. For instance, an intent to strike terror and/or actually causing a DOS can involve [targeting] a public domain.	Intentional sabotage of a TSA computer system is almost certainly a serious crime and would also almost surely give rise to civil liability, although you might avoid both if you warned the TSA that the phone was set up to intentionally break their system, in which case it might be confiscated as contraband. If the product had a "feature" unknown to you and that you had no reasonable reason to know of that caused the harm, you would ultimately have no criminal or civil liability, although the manufacturer might be strictly liable to the TSA under a product liability theory, and you would probably be detained as a witness to figure out what happened. If the product had a "feature" that broke the TSA computer that could be de-activated and that you meant to de-active but carelessly failed to, you would have negligence liability to the government and might or might not have criminal liability (I'm not enough of an expert in the relevant statutes to know). You might be liable for a strict liability Federal Communications Commission offense for having a device that is in violation of their regulations.	The GDPR gives controllers a lot of latitude. They must decide on the correct course of action taking into account the possible risks to data subjects. Specifically, no notification of the authority is necessary if “the personal data breach is unlikely to result in a risk to the rights and freedoms of natural persons.” In your scenario 1, you suggest that there is no breach because there is no evidence that the data was improperly accessed. This analysis is faulty: the controller is aware that the data was not properly secured, and cannot rule out that the data was improperly accessed. I would argue this fits the description of a “breach of security leading to the accidental or unlawful … unauthorised disclosure of … personal data” (compare the definition of a data breach in Art 4(12)). Thus, a data breach has happened. The question whether the supervisory authority has to be notified of that breach is more debatable. The controller must assess the likelihood of risks to the data subjects. Here, they can perhaps argue that the risk of disclosure is low. However, the nature of the breached data would also be relevant. If in doubt, the controller should make the notification. The goal of the GDPR is not to punish unlucky companies that suffer a breach, but to protect personal data. Thus, fixing mistakes and cooperating with the supervisory authorities is likely the best approach for most companies. In your second scenario, the data is sensitive – its disclosure has a high risk for data subjects. However, the risk of someone intercepting this data is debatable. Does the risk of interception balance out the sensitivity of the data? That's the data controller's call, but I don't think so. A notification would seem appropriate here. As a technical remark, simply offering HTTPS is not sufficient to prevent MitM attacks – users must be forced to use encrypted connections. If a controller sees MitM as a risk, they are required by Art 24 to take appropriate technical measures. Here HSTS and HSTS preload would prevent the connections from being downgraded to HTTP. Instead of offering insecure connections, the site would become inaccessible. A complementary strategy is to not serve content over HTTP, but have the HTTP server only issue a permanent redirect to the HTTPS URL.	It seems like some law must have been breached during the sharing of this information? Possibly, even probably. The scrutiny of your personal account in order to glean personal data (your IP address) and then using that personal data to match accounts may contravene Recital 50 of the GDPR: The processing of personal data for purposes other than those for which the personal data were initially collected should be allowed only where the processing is compatible with the purposes for which the personal data were initially collected. If the website terms which you agreed to don't include this data matching, then that processing is not lawful. The rest of Recital 50 is relevant and worth quoting in full: If the processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller, Union or Member State law may determine and specify the tasks and purposes for which the further processing should be regarded as compatible and lawful. Further processing for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes should be considered to be compatible lawful processing operations. The legal basis provided by Union or Member State law for the processing of personal data may also provide a legal basis for further processing. In order to ascertain whether a purpose of further processing is compatible with the purpose for which the personal data are initially collected, the controller, after having met all the requirements for the lawfulness of the original processing, should take into account, inter alia: any link between those purposes and the purposes of the intended further processing; the context in which the personal data have been collected, in particular the reasonable expectations of data subjects based on their relationship with the controller as to their further use; the nature of the personal data; the consequences of the intended further processing for data subjects; and the existence of appropriate safeguards in both the original and intended further processing operations. It seems to me that an anonymous account could reasonably expect that the "further processing" of data matching is not in the public interest, an exercise of official authority, scientific or historical research or statistical. There is no link between the data matching exercise and the purpose for which IP addresses are normally collected: the operation and physical security of the website. Now, it may well be that the website terms do allow this data matching to discover links between accounts, or in any case prohibit having two accounts and allow reasonable methods to discover such links. It's also possible that a court has ordered the processing (as Iñaki Viggers has mentioned. We don't have that information; but ostensibly one wouldn't normally expect a personal account to be examined in this way, and certainly wouldn't expect any link discovered to be relayed to a third party.	You violated Facebook's Terms of Service, and it's entirely within your contractual agreement with them for them to close your account. You agreed to abide by the contract you "clicked through" when you signed up and opened a Facebook account. They didn't break any laws when you broke your contract with them. You clearly broke the contract by violating the TOS. They are not breaking any laws by not restoring your account. What you see as the value of your personal or business data doesn't really mean anything; it was your choice to use Facebook in the first place, and your mistake to break the TOS. You could try hiring a lawyer to make a case that you see a difference between the personal data you want to retrieve and the business data that caused the violation, but that's up to you; Facebook is under no legal obligation (this could be different, according to your jurisdiction and national laws) to restore any or all access to your account or data, but it's possible they could be persuaded.	No. That is spelled out pretty clear in Article 11. In fact, if you want follow accepted data minimisation principles (and you should), you should not log anything about cookies at your or a third party's website.
Is it considered homicide if an armed robber causes an accidental death? (WV, USA) My friend posted me this scenario: An armed man robs a bank. As he's exiting the building, he accidentally bumps into a lady, and her gun misfires, resulting in her hitting her femoral artery and dying. Is this considered homicide? I assumed that the fact that he created the situation that resulted in her death, it would be manslaughter. What is the answer?	Can be tried as first-degree murder, actually. See below. felony murder doctrine n. a rule of criminal statutes that any death which occurs during the commission of a felony is first degree murder, and all participants in that felony or attempted felony can be charged with and found guilty of murder. A typical example is a robbery involving more than one criminal, in which one of them shoots, beats to death or runs over a store clerk, killing the clerk. Even if the death were accidental, all of the participants can be found guilty of felony murder, including those who did no harm, had no gun, and/or did not intend to hurt anyone. In a bizarre situation, if one of the holdup men or women is killed, his/her fellow robbers can be charged with murder.	I assume this took place in Washington state. There are a number of self-defense provisions in Washington law. The first, RCW 9A.16.110, is primarily about reimbursements for prosecutions of acts of self-defense, but includes an applicable limit on prosecution: No person in the state shall be placed in legal jeopardy of any kind whatsoever for protecting by any reasonable means necessary, himself or herself, his or her family, or his or her real or personal property, or for coming to the aid of another who is in imminent danger of or the victim of assault, robbery, kidnapping, arson, burglary, rape, murder, or any other violent crime as defined in RCW 9.94A.030. This provision is relevant, since executing a prisoner on death row is not a crime (the state Supreme Court recently struck down the death penalty, so I assume this took place before that ruling). RCW 9A.16.020 states the more classic law on justified use of force, saying The use, attempt, or offer to use force upon or toward the person of another is not unlawful in the following cases:...(3) Whenever used by a party about to be injured, or by another lawfully aiding him or her, in preventing or attempting to prevent an offense against his or her person, or a malicious trespass, or other malicious interference with real or personal property lawfully in his or her possession, in case the force is not more than is necessary; Statutory law does not define offense against his or her person. Grabbing a person and strapping them down for some harmful purpose would normally constitute battery under the common law, but in this instance it is privileged, so it is not an offense against the person). RCW 9A.16.030 says that Homicide is excusable when committed by accident or misfortune in doing any lawful act by lawful means, without criminal negligence, or without any unlawful intent. The person is under court order to be executed, and it is not lawful to resist that order. The guard, however, RCW 9A.16.040, may use deadly force pursuant to the legal mandate to carry out the court orde ((1)(b)"to overcome actual resistance to the execution of the legal process, mandate, or order of a court or officer, or in the discharge of a legal duty").	This story is plausible but the technical legal details are probably wrong. It is completely illegal to transport a pistol in a car in New York State if you do not fall into the list of exceptions § 265.01-b: A person is guilty of criminal possession of a firearm when he or she: (1) possesses any firearm or; (2) lawfully possesses a firearm prior to the effective date of the chapter of the laws of two thousand thirteen which added this section subject to the registration requirements of subdivision sixteen-a of section 400.00 of this chapter and knowingly fails to register such firearm pursuant to such subdivision. Since the question mentions the firearm locked in a glovebox I'm assuming it is a pistol. Comments have suggested and certain exemptions in the law suggest that there isn't a licensure or registration requirement for manual action long guns, but I have not found the specific section exempting them from the possession law. There is a long list of exemptions to the possession law in § 265.20, but the only one that could be applicable to a person just travelling through the state might be section 13: 13. Possession of pistols and revolvers by a person who is a nonresident of this state while attending or traveling to or from, an organized competitive pistol match or league competition... Notably, for a regular citizen they must have a New York State carry permit to possess a handgun, and their long guns must be registered with the state: 3. Possession of a pistol or revolver by a person to whom a license therefor has been issued as provided under section 400.00 or 400.01 of this chapter or possession of a weapon as defined in paragraph (e) or (f) of subdivision twenty-two of section 265.00 of this article which is registered pursuant to paragraph (a) of subdivision sixteen-a of section 400.00 of this chapter or is included on an amended license issued pursuant to section 400.00 of this chapter. Neither applies to someone simply travelling through the state to another state who hasn't fulfilled the appropriate license or registry requirements. What may apply, however, is the federal Firearm Owners Protection Act, which in part codifies 18 U.S. Code § 926A: Notwithstanding any other provision of any law or any rule or regulation of a State or any political subdivision thereof, any person who is not otherwise prohibited by this chapter from transporting, shipping, or receiving a firearm shall be entitled to transport a firearm for any lawful purpose from any place where he may lawfully possess and carry such firearm to any other place where he may lawfully possess and carry such firearm if, during such transportation the firearm is unloaded, and neither the firearm nor any ammunition being transported is readily accessible or is directly accessible from the passenger compartment of such transporting vehicle: Provided, That in the case of a vehicle without a compartment separate from the driver’s compartment the firearm or ammunition shall be contained in a locked container other than the glove compartment or console. The notwithstanding in this case preempts state law and affirms that transporting a firearm between two states that allow the person to carry that firearm cannot be a crime assuming they meet the statutory requirements on carrying the firearm and ammunition. However, he failed to meet those requirements by keeping the firearm in the glove box, which the federal law specifically does not protect. Therefore, NY State law is allowed to apply and he can be charged with possession without a license under NY State law. The part about whether or not he stayed overnight being a distinction may be a retelling error or conflating this law with similar state laws that allow transporting firearms that are inaccessible in the vehicle as long as the vehicle doesn't stop in the state beyond minor pit stops (e.g. for gas).	This isn’t self defence Self defence involves reasonable steps to end an imminent threat. How does causing the assaulter to die in 2 weeks of Covid deal with the imminent threat?	There is a defense of provocation This doesn’t apply in this instance because the provocation must be such that it would case a reasonable person to lose control. No reasonable person shoots a six year old.	Despite comments in the Reddit thread you linked, I doubt it's the law in any US state, but it would be matter of policy in any state and in many other countries as well. It's not the emergency medical personnel's job, whether EMTs, paramedics or firefighters, to risk their lives giving emergency aid while a dangerous armed criminal is potentially in the area running around free. Instead they will wait for the police to let them know the area is clear and safe for them to do their job. It's easy to say that since the neighbours were giving aid, the EMTs should have been able to as well, but the EMTs wouldn't have seen the person armed with the knife leave the house and wouldn't have known that neighbours weren't themselves the ones who stabbed the victim. The neighbours also probably didn't fully appreciate the risk they were taking, that the "perp" could come back into the house at anytime. The EMTs on other hand would've heard plenty of horror stories about what has happened to EMTs that haven't waited for police to clear the scene. In other words, this could have happened in any US state, Canada, and in many other countries.	Charged? Of course, the police can charge you with anything at any time Could you be convicted? Maybe. Their best shot is charging you with “Manslaughter by an unlawful and dangerous act” also called constructive manslaughter. The Crown must prove your act: was intentional, was unlawful, leads the reasonable person to realise that some other person is at risk of physical harm, and caused the death. The first two are uncontestable: the protesters are deliberately engaging in an illegal act. No 3 would be up to the jury. No 4 is also up to the jury and would turn on the evidence that the delay to the ambulance caused the death.	He would be thanked and sent on his way. We don't generally punish people for preventing murders, even if they are rogue cops or soldiers. If you wanted him to plausibly land in legal peril, he'd probably need to do more than simply save someone's life. The most obvious possibility, I think, would be if he were to continue inflicting harm on the attacker after cuffing him. At that point, there's probably no justification for a continued use of force, so he could face assault charges there. Also possible would be that the way he handled the situation -- the amount of force he used, the failure to de-escalate, failing to call for assistance -- just violates some police or military policy. I don't know if that would jam him up in the way you're looking for, though.
Can I destroy US currency? From what I understand, destroying US currency is illegal with 0 exceptions. Legal Information Institute says: “Whoever mutilates... cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill... or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association... with intent to render such bank bill... or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued, shall be fined not more than $100 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.” This means that no US currency can be destroyed right? Except we did a chemistry lab on campus where we dissolved US pennies from around the 1960’s I believe. Since we “rendered it unfit to be reissued” then why wasn’t there any consequences? Did we do this illegally? They have been doing this for quite some time, how has there been no problems? My chemistry teacher actually tried to claim that people can burn US currency as long as you don’t go try to exchange it and use it as if it were legal tender. He said you can go exchange partially burned money at the bank, just don’t exchange it somewhere else like a store because “That’s were it becomes illegal”. This is in Minnesota, United States of America Please make sense of this for me, or interpret the law in a different way if I’m wrong, thanks! Link to law: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/333	Yes, and no You can't legally destroy banknotes but you can destroy coins. You can't "fraudulently" alter coins but that's not what you were doing; you were doing a science experiment, not committing fraud. The law prohibits the destruction of "bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt": a coin is none of those things. The first three are obvious, and evidence of debt is a written obligation such as "a promissory note, bond, negotiable instrument, a loan, credit, or similar agreement, or a monetary judgment entered by a court of competent jurisdiction"; not a coin. It's a bit of a historical anachronism because when these legal distinctions were made, coins had intrinsic value; they were actually made of gold or silver or some other precious metal. They were not tokens of value like banknotes and all the rest are; they were physical repositories of value. Of course, in many countries today, coins at the lower end of the scale actually contain more value in their metal than the face value of the coin while those at the upper end contain much less.	Yes, you can borrow tax-free Bitcoin (or really, any currency not your home currency) is a security like a stock or bond. Whenever you take a loan using a security as collateral, that is not a taxable event, and so you do not owe taxes on the money you borrowed. Perfect world, you pay it back and this is not taxable either: the loan/repayment is a non-event to the tax authorities. (Although interest might be tax deductible). When this goes wrong: you default If you default and keep your collateral, at some point, the lender decides you'll never pay, and forgives aka "writes off" the loan. This forgiveness is considered ordinary income and it is taxable in the year forgiven. In the US this is waived if you can show that you were insolvent at the time of default. When this goes wrong: forced sale of collateral The collateral is still your property. The bank just has a lien on it or other form of control, like it's in your brokerage account in their bank such that they can flag it, force sale, and intercept funds. When the bank forces sale of your collateral to pay your debt, that is a sale of the security for tax purposes. The proceeds go to you (as far as the tax person is concerned), even though the bank certainly will intercept the proceeds. So the tax liability goes to you. Note that standard capital gains rules apply, so if you owned it less than 1 year when you signed up for the loan, yet the bank forced the sale after 1 year of ownership, then it counts as holding the security longer than 1 year for tax purposes. (e.g. qualifying for the lower "long term capital gains" rate in the US).	In general, the law seeks to make all parties whole. There is no mechanism for profit-sharing between thieves and their victims. Victims of theft are entitled to receive their money back plus the applicable rate of interest (called the judgment rate). They are not entitled to profits or windfalls above and beyond the statutory judgment rate of interest. What if the act of stealing the money has destroyed the owner's business and has left him with a lot of debt and bankrupt? Criminal statutes provide for the return of stolen funds plus interest. Recovery of damages, as you describe, is provided by civil statutes and common law. So, to recover damages, the victim would need to sue the thief in civil court.	In Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski (2021), the US Supreme Court addressed a case that sought one dollar in nominal damages. I'm assuming you mean only claims involving money damages as a remedy, because there are many claims every year involving no literal money damages and the remedy sought is some other kind of relief (although such relief would still have practical or economic value).	I don't know any specific on the US law, but a special protection of the Swiss coat of arms is very widespread. This comes from a provision in Art. 53 § 2 of the First Geneva Convention 1949: By reason of the tribute paid to Switzerland by the adoption of the reversed Federal colours, and of the confusion which may arise between the arms of Switzerland and the distinctive emblem of the Convention, the use by private individuals, societies or firms, of the arms of the Swiss Confederation, or of marks constituting an imitation thereof, whether as trademarks or commercial marks, or as parts of such marks, or for a purpose contrary to commercial honesty, or in circumstances capable of wounding Swiss national sentiment, shall be prohibited at all times. Because of the connection of the Red Cross and the Swiss coat of arms the US is obliged by international public law to prohibit the commercial use of that arms. I'm surprised to hear that law was repealed. Maybe it was transferred to some other place in the code? Often it is regulated next to the prohibition of the misuse of the Red Cross.	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.	You can obviously write anything into a contract that you like. However, the laws of your country always apply, and the laws can tell you that some things are not valid, even if they are in a contract. Such things cannot be enforced. Things in a contract that are valid according to the laws can be enforced. An extrem example would be a contract saying "user6726 pays gnasher $20,000, and gnasher kills user6726's spouse". Since killing your spouse is a very serious crime, even if we both signed it, and even if you paid the $20,000, you couldn't enforce me doing my side of the contract. What does it mean if we say a contract can be enforced? It means if we both sign a contract, and you do your side of the bargain, and I don't do mine, then you can take me to court. If the court agrees, the court can order me to do what the contract says, and/or to pay you damages. If I refuse, the court has ways to "convince" me to do my side of the bargain. For example, they could send bailiffs to my home, who take my property and sell it in an auction to pay for what I should have paid. They can not in most countries send me to jail. Sometimes one side cannot fulfil their side of the contract. If there is a contract that you build a brand new home for me, and I pay you a million dollar, but I not only don't have the money but am hugely in debt, then I can't pay you. Some people will say that you can't enforce your contract which is legally imprecise. You can take me to court etc., but you can't take money from my empty pockets. I might be in trouble though if I signed the contract knowing that I can't pay you; that could be criminal fraud and I might go to jail if a judge and jury believe that I committed fraud.	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.
What is required to transfer copyright when purchasing an original work (with out a contract)? So this is a follow on question to this. Lets say I buy an original art work (e.g., a painting, not a print) I would expect that the right to make reproductions would now transfer to myself; and would be rather upset if afterwards, the author started selling copies. I am after all paying a premium for the original. (This is assuming a non work for hire situation) Some of the answer on this state however that this is not always the case. This US copyright office circular states: The transfer[of copyright], however, generally must be made in writing... So what I would like to know is: this is then case in other Berne Convention signitories, other than the US (since I don't live in the US). Also if "generally" the transfer of copyright needs to be in writing, then what is then non general case.	The work and the copyright to the work are different property rights Buying one does not give you rights to the other. Copyright laws differ by country so its impossible to say which need transfers to be in writing and which don't. For example, the United States requires them (and also allows owners to rescind the transfer after a number of years) but in Australia, it isn't necessary and the Copyright Act makes a number of presumptions in civil actions (ss126-131) which favor the person claiming the copyright so that, in the absence of contrary evidence, their assertion will prevail.	Those posts are talking about making a modified copy of a copyrighted work. The key word is copy. You are not making a copy. Copyright is not about how a physical embodiment of a copyrighted work is treated. You can burn a book and shred a newspaper. Neither of those actions is making a copy. Also, cutting up a newspaper and pasting a picture on your wall has nothing to do with any “derivative works” issue.	Federal law governing copyright, and state and federal law governing trademark, do not make any stipulations about the person enjoying the particular property right. In lieu of a specific restriction, the person may be an alien, a prisoner, a public employee, a corporation, or an astronaut. There are limits on minors and contracts, but no contract is required to write a book, make a sculpture, or create a distinctive business mark. (Those limits potentially raise questions about a minor signing away their author's rights if they create a work for hire, which you didn't ask about. A contract is typically necessary to profit off of such a creation, but not always). The copyright office even says that you can register copyright (important, registration is necessary to get maximal protection). There is a bit of an issue that a minor has limited ability to sue (for infringement), so in Utah Rule 17 you would need a guardian to sue for you, likewise in federal court (same number!).	The creator of the derivative work has copyright in the derivative work. The copyright would protect only the new elements of the derivative work. Wikipedia is a good place to start. In the case of a book with updated grammar, depending on the extent of the changes, it would probably be easier to copy the original directly than to eliminate the updates from a copy of the derivative work.	German perspective: In German law, there is the concept of Schöpfungshöhe (threshold of originality), which is required for authorship rights (Urheberrecht) to apply to a work. Basically, the idea is that a minimum of creativity is required for something to be protected. However, that bar is rather low. Thus, for example: Literary works are protected practically always. Maps are generally protected, even though you might argue they "slavishly copy nature", because the act of choosing what to show and what not is already creative. However, a faithful photographic reproduction of a painting is not eligible for Urheberrecht to apply (LG Berlin, AZ 15 O 428/15) So yes, a "slavish copy" of a work would not qualify for protection if there is no creativity involved. Note, however, that other types of protection apart from Urheberrecht might apply, such as Sui generis database right.	The CC-ND license seems to be what you are looking for. However, Sec. 2(a) has two conditions, one allowing copying and distribution of the unmodified original (as stated in A), but also allows the user to modify but not distribute a modified version of the work (they may "produce and reproduce, but not Share, Adapted Material"). This would mean that a reader could rewrite your paper, as long as they keep it to themselves. If this bothers you, I think you could not rely on a standard named license, instead you'd have to provide your own – such as CC-ND 4.0 without clause (2)(a)(B). Rewriting a legal document is a risky proposition, even for a legal professional, because you have to carefully think through all of the implications of any new punctuation, adjectives, and deletions. If you contemplate deleting clause (2)(a)(B), you should come up with a line of reasoning that compels you do delete it in order to accomplish your goal, and check that the deletion doesn't thwart that goal. That is why people pay money to lawyers (and also why you need to make your goal clear to that lawyer, lest the agreement be inconsistent with your goal).	Without a license, you have no right to copy or distribute someone else's work. Suppose you copy or distribute against the terms of the license. Either you didn't agree to the license, and therefore had no right to do as you did; or you did agree and still violated the terms of the license anyway. By the law of the excluded middle (accepted or not accepted), you infringed either way.	This is governed by Section 19 of the Copyright Act, 1957 in India (see, e.g. here and here). In the cleanest scenario, the copyright is first registered and then transferred with a written assignment meeting multiple formal requirements of that section that is filed with the copyright registrar. The assignment document is only valid if it is written and duly signed by the assignor or their duly authorized agent or representative. The transfer of a copyright in work must recognize the work and specify the kind of rights assigned and the duration and regional extent of such transfer. Moreover, it must specify the amount of royalty payable, if any, to the author or their legal representatives during the continuance of transfer, and the transfer will be subject to extension, revision or termination on terms jointly agreed upon by the parties. If the time of transfer is not mentioned, it will be deemed to be taken as five years from the transfer date. If the regional extent of such transfer is not stipulated, it will be taken as applicable across India. Disputes over ownership of registered copyrights in India are usually handled by the Appellate Board connected to the Copyright Registrar's office, described in Section 11 of the Act, rather than by the ordinary courts.
What good is certified mail for proof? I frequently read that in important correspondence one should use certified mail. But what good is this, really? All sending a letter this way will show is that I sent a letter and it was received. It does not verify the content of the letter, and the recipient could simply throw it away and deny what it was about. So, what is the point of certified mail for things like complaining to your apartment manager, requesting something with legal significance from your employer, etc?	Assume that this happened in a matter that goes to court. In civil court, there is no "innocent until/unless proven guilty". In civil court, the judge hears everyone's story, and decides which story is more likely to be true. So I tell the judge "I sent a letter by registered mail; this is what was in the letter, and the post office reported to me that they delivered the mail, and someone signed for it". And you say "I never received a letter". The judge will believe me and the post office. You say "I received a letter and signed for it, but there was just a birthday card inside". Who does the judge believe? Does he or she believe that you received a letter with the contents I said and you are lying about it, or does she believe that I sent you an unsolicited birthday card by registered mail? Why would I do that? So they believe me. Now if you said "I received a registered letter containing just a birthday court, so I immediately called my secretary and three other people in the office to see this and to verify there was nothing but the birthday card, and here they are as witnesses", then the court might start believing you.	First, agree w/Dale M re: it would be an egregious and likely career-ending move for an attorney to fake his representation. That said, there is likely no reason why you would be unable to request such proof of representation. Your job consists of protecting the assets of the trust, carrying out any other duties outlined in the trust document, being honest and in communication with the trust's beneficiary, managing the assets, and ending the trust as determined by the trust document. Several of those points (particularly the "protecting the assets" part) argue heavily in favor of your confirming the veracity of any claims involving the trust and/or the identity or true intent of those seeking any information, etc., with respect to the trust. Also, demand letters are letters stating a legal claim and usually asks for restitution or performance of an obligation. It's not entirely clear what constitutes a "demand letter requesting information" unless you have a legal duty to provide that information (and this would - or should - be stated in the demand letter itself). Finally, should you be unable to obtain the confirmation you're seeking, you should consider consulting a trust administration attorney. In most cases, you may use trust assets to pay for expert help (including tax preparers and accountants).	To what degree are such emails admissible in court as evidence, and what weight do they carry? Your own statement, when offered by you as evidence, is hearsay, unless it comes within an exception to that rule. Recorded recollection might be one of the better exceptions. There is also a chance that you could get it in as a business record of the company if you were using a company email account and the company stores all of its email communications. The documents also sometimes come in to provide fair context for a conversation with a party-opponent's statements that are admissible. It appears that Canada does not follow the modern British rule (which repealed the hearsay rule in civil cases in 1995), which if it were available, would come in without any difficulty at all. But, Canada does have what it calls a "principled exception" (which is somewhat broader than the parallel U.S. residual hearsay exception) that is generally available if the document can be shown to be reliable and there is an unavailable witness, or if there proponent of the document can show that it is reliable and necessary for other reasons. Even if the document itself is not admissible since it is hearsay, you could still testify as to what the boss said from your own recollection, and then have your lawyer ask you why you are sure that this is what was said. You would answer that you contemporaneously wrote a confirming letter to the boss spelling out what was said and you reviewed it to refresh your recollection before testifying at the hearing or trial. These kinds of confirming letters are used quite frequently in business and employment litigation. And, in my experience, these statements tend to be surprisingly effective and persuasive, because, while they do not foreclose the possibility that the person writing it was lying or inaccurate in the confirming email account, it does rule out the possibility that you forgot exactly what was said, and you provided the boss with an opportunity to dispute you which the boss didn't feel an obligation to correct. If one party has a coherent account in confirming emails of what was said, and the other party is trying to remember what happened a year or two earlier without notes from the witness stand, the person with the coherent, documented account is almost always going to come across as more credible unless the other side can show that your confirming emails are not infrequently gross misrepresentations of what really occurred. (I've also dealt with witnesses like that now and then.)	It is like an affidavit of sort, sworn out without the jurat and not before a notary. The swearing out of a complaint or rebutting evidence in all Federal civil matters (some states allow for the same) must contain an affidavit or an "unsworn declaration" that swears out the facts to be true and accurate, even though not notarized, and is based on fact and not supposition. It is subject to the same penalties of perjury if one lies as if you swear on a bible and testify in court or on a "sworn" affidavit. Affidavits need not be sworn before God, or on a bible. You have a right to just "affirm" that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth....and not "so help me God". Many courts don't use a bible at all anymore. 28 U.S.C. 1746 relates to these "Unsworn Declarations Under Penalty Of Perjury" It is not b/c you don't believe in God that you'd use this...you always have the option of swearing out even a declared affidavit or testifying without swearing on a bible if you're an atheist. They just leave out the "before God" part. Affidavits are the norm, however, in Federal Courts that have an expedited docket this is typically used when it could take a while to get a notary and the evidence is due. (In some states lawyers are automatically notaries but in others they aren't). The ability to swear out a complaint or contest a deposition without having to wait on a notary can be the difference between making your deadline or not. It's commonly used when records custodians are called to certify the authenticity of documents produced pursuant to subpoena or other formal request. Under F.R.Civ.P 56 declarations usually are not within the type of evidentiary categories that can be used at the summary judgment phase. If it's a small misstatement you would probably be faced with a fine. If it's a total lie, outright, you'd be looking at jail time (say a records custodian removed evidence and swore out it was the complete business record in a fraud case). 18 U.S. Code § 1621 discusses perjury generally (in federal actions).	You should not keep them at all. Mark them clearly with whatever variant of "not living at this address"/"not known at this address" is accepted in your area, or with "return to sender, wrong address" and provide them to the courier agent or post office responsible for your area. Keeping mail that isn't yours opens you to offences like theft or conversion, or of interfering with the post system. Opening mail that isn't yours opens you to offences specifically defined by that action, as well as potential privacy breaches. Destroying mail that isn't yours opens you to offences of property damage.	In the UK and USA (and I imagine other jurisdictions) there have been laws that explicitly provide for orders obliging entities to (A) provide access or information and (B) keep the order secret. For example, in the USA the Stored Communications Act, Fair Credit Reporting Act and Right to Financial Privacy Act authorise the FBI to issue National Security Letters (Wikipedia, EFF, EPIC, Lawfare). These are an administrative subpoena, without prior approval from a judge, for meta-information (e.g. phone numbers dialed or email recipients addressed but not the content) of communications relevant to national security investigations. They typically contain a non-disclosure requirement prohibiting the recipient of the NSL from disclosing its existence or the FBI's demands. There have been challenges on First Amendment grounds to the non-disclosure aspect but, so far as I'm aware, they have all ultimately failed. Some of their non-disclosure requirements may eventually expire under other laws. In response, so-called 'warrant canaries' (Wikipedia) have been developed (and gone a bit further than the original idea) - these are intended to allow entities to relatively passively warn of such an order having been received if not the detail of the order. However, they can be legally risky in that they might be seen by a court as trying to circumvent the non-disclosure requirement and therefore breaking it.	We don't have a lot of details, but if you're in the United States, the answer is probably yes. There are rarely any meaningful rules of evidence in student misconduct cases, so pretty much anything can come in. There may be some small difference in the answer depending n whether you're dealing with a public university or private, but in either case, I can't think of any reason why they would not be able to introduce the evidence if they had it. If there's a question about its authenticity, I imagine that would just be up to the misconduct board to decide. If Person X says "Person Y sent this to me," and Person X seems credible, that's probably going to be enough.	I spent 26 years in Law Enforcement (two years in Fraud, Identity Theft, and Embezzlement) and here is the answer I would often give other people in this situation: By law, recipients are not required to do anything. It can be deleted without a second thought. There is no specific law requiring someone to report this as it doesn't rise to the level of a crime. Contacting the sender or intended recipient can be risky because the other person is unknown. Return addresses online may be masked by redirects or other traps. What is displayed may not be the full picture of the site where they want someone to go. Having information about someone, although private, is not a crime unless there is a specific intent to use that information for a crime: fraud, identity theft, theft, etc. Doctors, banks, and numerous other businesses have access to personal identifying information about people. Unless they were to use it illegally, just having the information is not a crime. Phishing attempts: As far as sending the information on to the intended recipient, that would be very noble; but there is no requirement to do so. This type of transaction is likened to having a stranger call looking for someone else. There are people around the world just hoping to get people to click on their site so they can download everything on the victim's computer. I once taught a class in Internet Safety to senior citizens. The message was simple: Don't put any information on-line that you wouldn't post on your front door. Advances on computer security have made it possible to securely handle more information but still be on-guard; Phishing still happens. Most reputable companies won't send you e-mails asking for personal information, passwords, or account numbers. Hackers, thieves, and criminals have access to personal information regularly. In today's society, it's just a part of life in a digital world. How does one protect themselves? Be diligent about all transactions. For instance: Check bank accounts, credit card purchases, and credit reports regularly. A TV show, Adam Ruins Everything - Adam Ruins Security, clearly outlines a lot of these facts. (Season 1, Episode 2 - First aired October 6, 2015) To recap: 1) Do nothing. 2) Stay vigilant. 3) Be wary. Common idiom - If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
Do pro bono lawyers have to file that they represent a client to claim attorney client privilege? I was watching an exchange between Chris Cuomo and Rep. Matt Gaetz about the relationship between President Trump and his personal attorney Mayor Giuliani. In it Chris said: The great theory here is, that it's one thing to ask a congressman to go and do something, we don't know if this man is the president's lawyer, if he was a proxy for the State Department or he was just acting as a concerned citizen. But it really matters which answer is correct because if he wasn't acting as the president's personal lawyer, and we don't really know that that's true because I don't know how he was getting paid. And if it was pro bono, did he file it as such? Because we can't find any record of it. Did the president report it as such, because we don't find any record of that. Then, Rep. Gaetz replies: There's no obligate Chris, that's a red herring. It doesn't matter whether he is getting paid or not. What matters is whether Giuliani was acting in the interests of And then Chis cut him off to say: It does if you want privilege This followed by some more back and forth, but I think the premise of the question is clear. My question actually is to what extent a pro bono attorney client relationship has to be declared before privilege can apply. On the one hand it seems reasonable to me that there has to be some declaration, otherwise every conversation with someone who is also a lawyer can later be claimed to be privileged (if it suits those involved). On the other hand, there may be conversations early on in the attorney client relationship before it is formally declared that should(?) also be privileged. So, are there any rules governing when privilege applies in those pro bono cases? For this question, I'm specifically asking about the US.	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.	So Maryland is a Defimation Per Se state, and lists accusations of moral turpitude, criminal conduct, or fraud. I would say on the second statement about offering support ot Hamas and/or Hezbollah, which are considered terrorist organizations. Being buddies with Louis Farakhan's buddy is likely not a Per Se defamatory statement but a Per Quod meaning you would have to prove damages from this false assertion. Remember that just because you disagree with his political positions does not mean you aren't capable of sitting down with him for a friendly happy hour debate over politics. Lots of people have good friends who they debate politics with and will still be friendly with. I would make certain that you go through your history of statements on social media and in public to make certain you don't have anything that can be construed as supporting political beliefs that these organizations support (even if you don't support those organization's methods of obtaining their political goal). Do not limit yourself to just material support (donating things of value to them). I'm not for the purposes of this answer going to comment on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but if your political opinions on the matter are in favor of Palestine, the statements above, while hyperbolic, are not totally out of line and thus defamitory, since all of the accused associations against you are also big names in pro-Palestine support circles. Try to also look for any statements where, unprompted, you are critical of the statements of the three false associations. As always, you should discuss specifics with a lawyer specializing in this matter. Most firms will offer a consultation for free so you can discuss the case and the specifics and get advice as to what you should do. I do not think you will be awarded much beyond basic actual damages and legal fees from the guy, since the statements have not caused you any damages such as loss of job or becoming a target of government investigation by law enforcement agencies.	No, you are not obligated to provide the requested information. You're out of trial court and into the court of appeals, where the civil discovery rules have basically no effect. If the case gets kicked back to the trial court, you would likely be required to respond truthfully. To cover your bases and look responsible, the most proper thing to do would probably be to respond to the discovery requests, but answer with nothing but an objection to the requests on the basis that the Rules of Civil Procedure do not apply after the case has been dismissed. At that point, the burden is on the other party to make a motion to compel, which he probably won't do. And if he does, I'd expect the court to deny it summarily based on the dismissal.	The attorney's responsibility is framed in terms of the interest of the client, which is not always money. If the trust has some social agenda, that rather than the dollar amount would be the attorney's responsibility. I would want my property to not be subdivided into smaller lots, and I would communicate that interest to my attorney, but that's just me. Since we don't know all of the facts (about you and the trust), all we can say is that "interest" and "duty" are not always about dollar amounts.	First of all, there are 3 crimes here: the hit and run committed by you the accessory after the fact crime committed by your friend the "attempt to pervert the course of justice" (different jurisdictions call it different things) committed by you and your friend. Second, the lawyer is your friend's lawyer - they have no client privilege towards you. Third, your lawyer cannot help you break the law - any attempt to get them to do so by say, attempting to pervert the course if justice, is not privileged.	The answers to your questions are, generally speaking, contained in the Model Rules of Professional Conduct. It's important to note these aren't mandatory across the country, although some states have implemented Rules that closely track them while others have their own Rules. Start with Rule 1(e), which defines informed consent as the agreement by a person to a proposed course of conduct after the lawyer has communicated adequate information and explanation about the material risks of and reasonably available alternatives to the proposed course of conduct Next up is Rule 1.2, Scope of Representation & Allocation of Authority Between Client & Lawyer. Subject to two exceptions, a lawyer shall abide by a client's decisions concerning the objectives of representation and, as required by Rule 1.4, shall consult with the client as to the means by which they are to be pursued. The two exceptions are in Rule 1.2(c) and 1.2(d): an attorney can limit the scope of representation with a specific client after obtaining the client's informed consent and an attorney is forbidden from counseling a client to engage or assist him in engaging in conduct the attorney knows to be illegal/fraudulent. Finally, as it was mentioned in 1.2, we turn to Rule 1.4, Communications. (a) A lawyer shall: (1) promptly inform the client of any decision or circumstance with respect to which the client's informed consent, as defined in Rule 1.0(e), is required by these Rules; (2) reasonably consult with the client about the means by which the client's objectives are to be accomplished; (3) keep the client reasonably informed about the status of the matter; (4) promptly comply with reasonable requests for information; and (5) consult with the client about any relevant limitation on the lawyer's conduct when the lawyer knows that the client expects assistance not permitted by the Rules of Professional Conduct or other law. (b) A lawyer shall explain a matter to the extent reasonably necessary to permit the client to make informed decisions regarding the representation. (emphasis added) Your question was Are the above distinctions more or less the correct ones? The answer is yes and no. As to the objective of the representation, the client makes that decision. How to arrive at that outcome is not as cut-and-dry. From the language in the above Rules, there is not one party or the other who has the "final say." (I say this notwithstanding the fact that, because the client can't go file something on his own, technically the lawyer has final say as he or she is the one who must file a document with the court). Major decisions in the litigation have to be explained to the client and, after that, the client must give consent approving the decision. How does this work in real life? Frankly, it will depend on the client and the lawyer. And don't worry, the phrase "a doctor or lawyer who treats themselves has a fool for a client" is not only apt, it's common sense. When a person is involved in a conflict, their point of view is skewed in their favor and to represent themselves is risk their blindspots leading to unnecessary potential pitfalls throughout the case.	The President wouldn't be in breach of Insider Trading Laws (Section 10b of the Securities Exchange Act) since he has no information resulting from a position of trust within Twitter (or as a trusted provider of services) and no ability to depress their stocks through intentionally fraudulent practices. [O]ne who fails to disclose material information prior to the consummation of a transaction commits fraud only when he is under a duty to do so. And the duty to disclose arises when one party has information “that the other [party] is entitled to know because of a fiduciary or other similar relation of trust and confidence between them.” The key word here is "insider". The President is not an insider, he's merely the user of a service. He certainly has material information, but not gleaned from a position of confidence or trust. anyone in possession of material inside information must either disclose it to the investing public, or, if he is disabled from disclosing it in order to protect a corporate confidence, or he chooses not to do so, must abstain from trading in or recommending the securities concerned while such inside information remains undisclosed. That being said, it's arguable (and I'm reasonably sure his political opponents would argue it until the cows come home) that his shorting their shares would be a material violation of the STOCK Act, specifically section 6 which requires the President to have disclosed his holdings of shorted stock to the public. It's also pretty arguable that his popularity on Twitter is a direct result of his office as President, and hence making money by publicly and messily leaving their service will result in a breach of accepted ethical standards and potential impeachment even if no specific law has been broken.	The witness can go outside and ask questions of the witness’ lawyers So if, for example, Mr Trump chooses to testify to the grand jury he goes in alone - no lawyers. If he wants to consult his lawyers he needs to ask to do, leave the room and consult them. If I were Mr Trump’s lawyer I would be worried that he wouldn’t know when he should do that.
Can my boss promise a job to someone before posting it? I work in California. I'm due for a promotion for a supervisory role. Before the more senior employees were considered and one was promoted. I got word that my manager promised the job to my coworker before he even posted the job for interviews. There is a history of favoritism at my job. A coworker and I competed for a supervisor job and that's where my manager promised the job to him. However an even more senior Caucasian applicant got that the job. Since my manager broke his promise to my coworker now he has promised him this other job that again we are both competing for. My manager had told me that I was a "front runner" for the other job during my interview, knowing full well that he had already promised the job to my coworker. To me that seems dishonest and deceitful. I'm a minority while my coworker is Caucasian and the manager is Caucasian as well. I'm wondering if this is all murky from a legal stand point. During my interview I'm going to ask some questions to see if the manager is dishonest about it. I'll ask him what my chances are or something along that.	There are two kinds of evidence for discrimination. The primary evidence is direct, that is, statements by an employer, for example "We need to make sure not to hire a ___ for this position". The act of hiring a person that has a certain demographic property is never evidence for discrimination, because discrimination law treats all races and religions (etc) the same, so hiring a European is not intrinsically discriminatory, nor is hiring an African or Asian. Discrimination is also not defined in terms of the sameness or difference of an employee and a supervisor. Another possibility w.r.t. a discrimination claim is demonstrating a discriminatory pattern. However, the law does not demand exact proportional representation of all protected demographic classes. It is possible that certain circumstances would be compelling enough that illegal discrimination could be established, but this would require showing a pattern, and would not be useful in an individual action. There is no law requiring employers to be up-front about hiring decisions. There is also no law requiring posting a job (I assume this is not a government job), and no law requiring consideration of more than on candidate. It might be contrary to company policy. This is not murky from a legal perspective, even if it is scummy from an HR perspective.	if a friend hires someone to fix something in their house, but after the repairs are done, the friend refuses to pay, this would likely fall under theft of service. This is incorrect. The most common distinction is intent. (The federal Canadian criminal code provision for theft (Section 332) requires intent to commit the crime, although "false pretenses" (Section 362) is probably a better match within the Canadian criminal code to theft of services and also requires a showing of intent). If breaching a promise to pay that the person making the promise to pay intended to be honor when the promise was made fails to pay (e.g. due to poor budgeting or losing a job) this is a breach of contract. Similarly, if someone accidentally attaches the wrong cable line to their TV and gets the premium package rather than the regular one, but didn't realize that fact, the cable company might have a claim for negligence or for unjust enrichment, but this would not constitute theft. In contrast, obtaining services knowing at the outset that you do not intend to honor your promise yet deceiving the service provider with your promise is theft. Theft (in the context of a theft of services) is intentionally obtaining services by deceit with an intent not to pay for them at the time that they are obtained. Proving this intent is usually prohibitively difficult and no something that law enforcement will choose to press charges regarding, but with very clear evidence (e.g. an audiotape of the person making a promise to pay bragging immediately before or after making the promise to pay about how he never intends to pay in the first place, or in a case with a pattern of conduct involving many service providers on multiple occasions), charges can be pressed and a conviction can be won. Also, to be clear, it has nothing to do, per se, with the power relationships of the parties. If an employer picks up a bunch of day laborers telling them that they will be paid an agreed rate at the end of the day for the work they are made to do, and the employer not only doesn't pay them at the end of the day but didn't intend to do so in the first place and perhaps has a practice of picking up day laborers and then refusing to pay them without good cause, that is theft of services a.k.a. wage theft. if I play a movie from a streaming service and screen-share on Zoom, I would be committing civil copyright infringement (if it is not fair use), but if I give other people my login credentials for the streaming service, it would be theft of service, I think, depending on the jurisdiction This isn't a good analogy as it implicates copyright law which is quite different from other bodies of law. Some acts are both civil and criminal copyright violations. But criminal copyright violations are generally not a theft of services. In Canada, the typical criminal copyright violation involves the sale or rental of the copyright protected material to third parties for money. how does this distinction affect the outcome for a person liable/guilty of either? Civil law violations are a basis to bring a lawsuit against someone who breaches the law in a civil manner for money damages sufficient to compensate the person bringing the lawsuit for the damages that they have suffered. Theft is a criminal offense. The prosecutor's office decides whether or not to bring charges and if it does bring charges does so (in Canada) in the name of the Crown, at the government's expense under criminal procedure rather than the civil procedure applicable to lawsuits. The victim is usually a witness and is usually consulted, but is not a party to a criminal case. If a conviction is obtained for a criminal offense, the penalty is usually some combination of incarceration, a fine, probation and community service, as authorized by statute, with court costs and restitution to the victim tacked on as an afterthought. The measure of what is owed as restitution is typically more grudging than the measure of the damages that can be awarded in a civil lawsuit. The two remedies are not mutually exclusive. Someone who is prosecuted for committing a crime can also be sued if the evidence supports both civil and criminal claims. Someone who is sued can also be prosecuted if the evidence supports both civil and criminal claims.	Can he/lawyer try to use the payment to me as leverage, for example, offer to give me that payment only if I agree to sign a non-compete or other document? The employer ultimately ought to comply with the written agreements between you two. The employer is not allowed to belatedly impose conditions that alter (to your detriment) the contract(s), let alone when you are no longer his employee. The clause "You will be paid on X and Y when/if they close" does not reflect whatsoever that payment is contingent on your acceptance of a non-compete agreement. Your description does not reflect any legal merits that would justify your employer to further withhold the compensation to which you are entitled pursuant to the deal/sale that got closed. The employer and his lawyer are just being vexatious.	I am not a lawyer: If they sue you it will probably be for fraud, then the DA will investigate and can easily find out who you are. If they can prove that you signed the contract is another story. If the clause in the contract is valid yet another. Getting a lawyer might be wise, especially if your visa depends on a clean legal record. Have you talked to them yet? If you can afford it, you or your new company could pay off he months salary to the old company. In my opinion it's fair, they probably turned down a lot of other applicants an will either need to search again or find a good temp to replace you. Think there was something that you cannot quit a contract before it starts, but another option would be to start working for them and then realizing during the test period that it's a bad match. However, best lawyer up! Search for "Kündigung vor Beschäftigungsbeginn" (Cancellation before the start of employment) Quick google suggests that they might be right if they have it in the contract, but the lawyer will know for sure. Look for someone who does "Arbeitsrecht".	Under federal law, an employer may impose direct deposit as a condition of employment. The Electronic Funds Transfer Act at 15 USC 1693k only says that employers may not require an employee to have a bank account at a particular bank: No person may— (1) condition the extension of credit to a consumer on such consumer’s repayment by means of preauthorized electronic fund transfers; or (2) require a consumer to establish an account for receipt of electronic fund transfers with a particular financial institution as a condition of employment or receipt of a government benefit. If the employee is allowed to choose their bank, then such a condition is legal under this law. The government's interpretation of this law is clarified in 12 CFR 1005 Supplement I at 10(e)(2): Payroll. An employer (including a financial institution) may not require its employees to receive their salary by direct deposit to any particular institution. An employer may require direct deposit of salary by electronic means if employees are allowed to choose the institution that will receive the direct deposit. Alternatively, an employer may give employees the choice of having their salary deposited at a particular institution (designated by the employer) or receiving their salary by another means, such as by check or cash. That said, individual states can create their own legislation, and many have made it illegal under state law for an employer to require direct deposit. You didn't name a particular state so I can't be more specific, but there is a chart here created by a payroll company showing the legality of such policies by state. Note that in some sense, the employee is not really being "compelled" or "mandated" to have a bank account - if the employer insists on using direct deposit, the employee is free to go look for a different job. US law does tend to recognize that there is a major power imbalance in employer-employee relationships, so there are many regulations; but at its root, it's treated as a contract between two independent parties who may each set whatever conditions they want, and enter into the contract only if they can agree. In contexts other than employment, I would expect even fewer restrictions on how a bank account could be set as a condition for something. For instance, it could be a condition for using a particular product or service. Again, if you don't want to open a bank account, you are free to not use that product or service.	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.	In Texas, as in most of the US, the law is "Employment at Will". This means that an employer is free to fire people at any time, for any reason, or none, as long as it is not for one of the few reason forbidden by law, such as racial or age discrimination. Hourly employees are entitled to overtime pay in such cases, but "exempt" employees are not. Nor are they entitled to comp-time as a matter of law, that is at the option of the employer. (The question seems to imply that the employee in question was "exempt" but does not actually say so.) The only really effective recourse against that sort of "death march" is to quit and find a better job, or to threaten to do so while they still need you, unless the conditions return to acceptable ones. I have heard of people in such a situation who "get sick" every day at 5:30pm, because local law forbid requiring ill employees to work. But that is pretty much inviting an arduous and possibly expensive administrative and/or legal battle, and will depend on the specifics of the state/local law. In any case, it is too late for the person in question to try that. On the facts as stated, there might be a valid claim of age discrimination. But additional facts would be needed to establish this, and it would be in my view unwise to try it without consulting a good employment lawyer. Such a lawyer could advise exactly what must be proved and how, and what the probable chances of any recovery would be.	Assumed: United States jurisdiction, no discrimination component to your experiences. There is not a legal limit on how much time an employer requires you to be in another city so long as the employer is complying with wage and hour laws, family leave laws, and the like. They may be in violation of their employment contract with you if the contract specified that you were being hired for a position in one city. A four-week trip does not sound like "time travelling" to me, it sounds like a temporary posting in another city. Similarly, depending on how well the contract is drafted, the state whose law governs the employment, and the company's other behavior you may be able to sue them using material misrepresentation or fraudulent statements about the position you would be taking. If you want more insight into whether you might have a case, take your contract to an attorney. In practice, however, the solution is almost certainly not a lawsuit. The solution may be to start looking for a new job, to communicate better with your boss, or to figure out how much money it would take to keep you working doing the job you are actually doing rather than the one you were hired to do, and to negotiate a salary increase. Try posting your question with a few more facts over at workplace.stackexchange.com for more insight into how to deal with the problem professionally.
Legality of creating a SE replica using SE's content Due to the recent controversy(s) regarding StackExchange, a couple other users and I were discussing the legality of creating a copy of SE and scraping the content. If we did not copy SE's actual code, just the content that users put on the site, and we created another public site that was completely nonprofit, and we attributed all content taken to StackExchange would it be legal? Do we need permission from every single user on SE? Do we need SE's permission? Some relevant portions of the ToS: You agree that any and all content, including without limitation any and all text, graphics, logos, tools, photographs, images, illustrations, software or source code, audio and video, animations, and product feedback (collectively, “Content”) that you provide to the public Network (collectively, “Subscriber Content”), is perpetually and irrevocably licensed to Stack Overflow on a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive basis pursuant to Creative Commons licensing terms (CC-BY-SA), and you grant Stack Overflow the perpetual and irrevocable right and license to access, use, process, copy, distribute, export, display and to commercially exploit such Subscriber Content Any other downloading, copying, or storing of any public Network Content (other than Subscriber Content or content made available via the Stack Overflow API) for other than personal, noncommercial use is expressly prohibited without prior written permission from Stack Overflow or from the copyright holder identified in the copyright notice per the Creative Commons License. In the event you download software from the public Network (other than Subscriber Content or content made available by the Stack Overflow API) the software including any files, images incorporated in or generated by the software, the data accompanying the software (collectively, the “Software”) is licensed to you by Stack Overflow or third party licensors for your personal, noncommercial use, and no title to the Software shall transfer to you. Stack Overflow or third party licensors retain full and complete title to the Software and all intellectual property rights therein.	Stack Exchange have already covered this in a couple of places, from MSE's A site (or scraper) is copying content from Stack Exchange. What should I do?: When should I not report these sites? They follow all the attribution requirements. As mentioned before, there is nothing wrong with copying our content elsewhere on the web, so long as they are following all the attribution requirements given. There is no action we can take against a scraper who follows all the rules. And the old Attribution Required blog post mentions that the actual requirements are: Visually indicate that the content is from Stack Overflow or the Stack Exchange network in some way. It doesn’t have to be obnoxious; a discreet text blurb is fine. Hyperlink directly to the original question on the source site (e.g., http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12345) Show the author names for every question and answer Hyperlink each author name directly back to their user profile page on the source site (e.g., http://stackoverflow.com/users/1234567890/username) By “directly”, I mean each hyperlink must point directly to our domain in standard HTML visible even with JavaScript disabled, and not use a tinyurl or any other form of obfuscation or redirection. Furthermore, the links must not be nofollowed	It seems that you don’t understand what parody is. If you do understand, please explain how it’s even possible to parody computer code. What you can do with “open source” code depends on the licence the copyright holder(s) release it under. For some very permissive licences you can do what you suggest, for most, you can’t.	Video would not be transformed in any way, and discussion would take place on reddit or other discussion platforms. So you are copying someone else's video and reposting it verbatim and in full in vimeo, without adding any additional content of your own? What is even the need for it? If you want to discuss the video in Reddit or similar, you can link to the original video instead of your copy. The usual way that fair use is used is when you include the relevants parts of the work being criticized as part of your video. There are other points to take into consideration; IP lawsuits are very specific of the details of the works involved (for examples it could be easier to consider fair use the inclusion of the full original work if it were a short one that if it were a long one) so it is difficult to give an absolute "yes" or "no" answer. But what you attempt to do seems highly problematic. If your argument were valid, what would prevent me from setting an URL to download the latest Hollywood blockbuster because I am commenting about it on Reddit? Imagine that I start selling copies of "The Avengers XXII: A day at the Park"1 adding just a note at the end saying "I like this movie, but they played frisbee a lot too much" as opinion/commentary/criticism... do you think that it would qualify as "fair use"?2 Coupled with the fact that it seems that copying the video seems not necessary for commenting on it (again, just link to the source) I would consider more prudent3 not copying it. 1Well, technically I would say that I were selling my opinion (which is perfectly legal), with the film included only as "fair use" to provide context to my opinion. 2Answer: No, it would not. 3I am not a lawyer, I am not your lawyer, and this site does not provide legal advice.	This would be fine for two reasons. First, this is not what copyright is for. It's not that this exists, so nothing like it can- it's that someone worked on this, and that work shouldn't be used by someone else without their consent. Your work is not derivative of the effect from the film. Second, Marvel doesn't have a copyright or trademark or someone turning into particles. I don't think such a thing can be and even if it was, they're certainly not the ones who created it. For example, Undertale used it 3 years before and that was a reference to many classic 8-bit games.	Yes, you may The layout of the board and its appearance are not protected by copyright, because they are not expressions or any other type of copyrightable content. Even if they were (say if some protested art was displayed on the board) you are displaying this for instructional purposes, and not harming any market for the board, so fair use is likely to apply (in the U.S.). The device could be protected by patent, but you are not copying or imitating the board, nor showing anyone how to do so, so that would not apply. You are not selling or advertising the board, nor knock-offs of it, so trademark protection would not apply, even if a protected trademark is visible on th board. Just in case, be sure to make clear that your video is not authorized or endorsed by the maker of the board.	Wikipedia and you likely have no contract. If you don't have to click "I agree" to access the data, its likely there is no contract. Therefore this is a pure IP law question. The ONLY IP law issue that I see is copyright. The DATA is not subject to copyright. Only the expression of that data. So copying the html and selling that IS potential copyright infringement. Copying the data in some other format and using that is not. Finally, even if you do copy the full html (i.e. full expression), this MAY be licensed by their terms of use (as you suggested they have licensed some content). That is a more particularized legal question that I can't answer here.	I'm not a lawyer; I'm not your lawyer 1 For the avoidance of doubt, the thrust of this debate is: By placing a logo associated with a certain political movement near my user profile, does StackExchange violate Section 4(c) of the CC BY-SA 3.0? Subscriber Content is Content that is contributed by StackExchange users. The relevant sections of CC BY-SA 3.0 (emphasis added) are: c. ... The credit required by this Section 4(c) may be implemented in any reasonable manner; provided, however, that in the case of a Adaptation or Collection, at a minimum such credit will appear, if a credit for all contributing authors of the Adaptation or Collection appears, then as part of these credits and in a manner at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors. For the avoidance of doubt, You may only use the credit required by this Section for the purpose of attribution in the manner set out above and, by exercising Your rights under this License, You may not implicitly or explicitly assert or imply any connection with, sponsorship or endorsement by the Original Author, Licensor and/or Attribution Parties, as appropriate, of You or Your use of the Work, without the separate, express prior written permission of the Original Author, Licensor and/or Attribution Parties. d. Except as otherwise agreed in writing by the Licensor or as may be otherwise permitted by applicable law, if You Reproduce, Distribute or Publicly Perform the Work either by itself or as part of any Adaptations or Collections, You must not distort, mutilate, modify or take other derogatory action in relation to the Work which would be prejudicial to the Original Author's honor or reputation... Does changing the logo on all pages imply an endorsement of the site/organisation by the user? It is likely, though not definite, that this positioning of the logo will imply that the user endorses the website. However, actions taken by the user - such as creating an account, accepting the Terms, contributing content - are likely to affirm this view. Does changing the logo imply that the site/organisation supports a particular political view? Again, it is likely, not definite, that changing the logo will imply that the site/organisation supports a particular political view. Does changing the logo impute support of a political view to the user? In this case, however, it is highly unlikely that the change of logo would impute to the user support of the political view. In a case such as this, onus of proof is on the plaintiff - were this claim brought in court, it would need to be proven on the balance of probability (or, less likely, on the preponderance of evidence) that a reasonable person would impute support of the marriage equality (and perhaps some other) agenda to the user. Reasonable person does not mean any particular person, nor does it mean, all people. Part of the imputation must come from the purpose that the user subscribes to the site. Perhaps if StackOverflow were a site that promoted marriage equality or judicial activism, this could support an opinion that the user supports this view. However, StackOverflow is about programming, and programming doesn't imply that kind of agenda. Perhaps if the icon had been changed to something that suggested support for object-oriented programming, the icon could be taken to suggest that the user supports this agenda. Neither does the user's content suggest support for this cause - if they constantly made off-hand remarks about it in their posts, then perhaps, again, a reasonable person may make that imputation. In any case, the damages awarded to the user would likely be compensatory rather than punitive - the user would need to therefore demonstrate actual suffering or loss as a result of the change of icon. If there were actual damages or loss, the way in which the user contributed to them - perhaps by posting a thread that would be likely to be inflammatory and attract attention to the user - may reduce an award of damages. In the case of no actual suffering or loss, the user could be awarded nominal damages. Injunctions that could be awarded would need to be proportionate to the breach of license - the court could require references to this user to be anonymised. This is easily done. It is unlikely that the court would require all contribution by the user to be removed - this is unlikely to pass a public interest test. In relation to placing a disclaimer in the footer, US courts have generally accepted disclaimers if they are positioned such that a reasonable user is likely to see it... In the footer? It's not a great place, and easily missed. It could be better than nothing, though, and may help with the likelihood of someone imputing such opinions to a user. Essentially - it's extremely unlikely that a reasonable person would impute support of the marriage equality agenda on a user based on a logo change, because the support is not sufficiently connected to the primary purpose of the site, or the user's activities on the site. Even if the user were successful in showing that this is the likely conclusion of a reasonable person, the remedies available to them would be limited to damages (which limited to actual losses, including suffering), and an injunction (which is likely to be anonymisation). A disclaimer may not, on its own, actually preserve the validity of the license, but it may be useful on determining the likelihood of a reasonable person imputing opinions to a user. 1. This is larger than normal, because I think it is more important than normal.	Both. The user made an infringing copy with the upload, the developer did with the download. Further the ToS between the app owner and the user will not protect them from being sued by the owner of the copyright. They don't have any ToS with them.
What is a technical standard from a Copyright law standpoint? Take for example a technical standard, that covers some communication protocol or any arbitrary mathematical algorithm. It is an idea of some kind. Could this technical standard be patented? Licensed? What is the legal status of such a standard? Could fixing this standard in any tangible form change anything in its patent-ability? As far as I understand, should somebody implement the aforementioned communication protocol or algorithm in software or hardware, then this implementation becomes a separate entity and could in turn be patented and licensed. Am I correct? Could initial standard somehow prohibit creating such implementations? Could it require a license of some sorts for this?	Copyright and patents are two very very different things. Copyrighting a standard means the wording of the standard can not be copied without the copyright holders permission. It does not protect the ideas expressed in the document, just the way those ideas are expressed. IEEE standards, for example, are copyrighted by the IEEE and therefore you can't make a copy of the Ethernet specification, you need to buy it from them. That has nothing to do with implementing an Ethernet device. To implement something described in a technical specification might or might not require one or more patent licenses. The authors of the standard may not even be aware that something they require for the standard has already been invented and patented by someone else. Many standard bodies do impose a requirement on participants in the standard's creation that they offer licenses to any patents they own that are needed to implement the standard on a fair and equal basis to all. It is called FRAND - the acronym for fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing.	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.	Legally, such services have no special status. They're not necessary for copyright to exist, and their status as evidence is not in any way special. This is one of those rare cases where a blockchain actually does make sense. Recently the idea of Non-Fungible Tokens has come up in the context of blockchains, and typically these are very accurately dated. NFT's can be sold, but that is not necessary for them to be created.	Exactly the same way it works over all other content There are no special classes of copyright, there’s just copyright. What a user of a service may do with copyright materials will be spelled out in the licence. If there is no licence, then they are left with fair use/fair dealing.	In my opinion, you are totally free to publish the information. There are two areas of law that can be cosidered - private and public law. In the private law area, you can be liable for revealing trade secrets, but only if you agreed to keep them by a contract. Trade secrets do not exist by themselves (there are minor exceptions, eg. in competition law, but those do not concern us), they must be protected by contracts. Another private limitations, like libel laws, won't apply here. This is not uncommon, but not in cars - you can find clauses like these in software license agreements. Then there is the public area. Is there any regulation, any policy of the state, that prevents you from publishing it? I am not aware you whole legal code of your state, but I doubt there is. It would be a harsh limitation of freedom of speech. Even if the modification could lead to illegal effect (like, modifying toy weapon to kill by rising its power...) it would be only illegal under very rare circumstances. To conclude it - freedom of speech can be limited only if there is sufficient public interest to do so, and I don't see any.	A proof can be protected by copyright. The underlying facts of math cannot. But if one has copied details of the order of the proof, or of the selection of theorems to use, and if several other choices would have been possible, then the new proof may constitute a trivially modified copy, or a derivative work, and in either case making of it might be copyright infringement. However, making and distributing a copy, even with no changes at all, for purposes of comment and criticism, might be fair use in the US, fair dealing in the UK or some other parts of the Commonwealth, or fall under an exception to copyright in other countries (these generally vary significantly by country). This is usually a very fact-driven question.	In my opinion, this should be enough. The GDPR regulation is general - it does not attempt to address these issues directly, precisely for the reasons we see here: You can never predict how the technology will develop. When interpreting the GDPR, we must keep the intended goal in mind. What is the purpose of the "right to erasure"? To prevent anyone from further processing the personal data. If you "crypto-shred" it, it can't be processed anymore, not even theoretically. The encryptec file cannot be used to identify the subject, therefore it is not even personal data anymore. In case it can be decrypted in the future... Well, that is just a speculation. The courts can go to great lengths in interpreting what personal data is (dynamic IP address is considered personal data, since it can be linked to a person by the police with a court order), but i am pretty sure that "it can be theoretically possible in some distant future" is beyond the limit. As for the second question, I am not aware of any applicable case-law, but I guess that current security and technological standards will be used to assess the delay. You have a right to protect your data, the subject has a right to erase them. Those rights must be balanced, neither fully overrules the other. The delay should be short enough so the right to erasure is effective, and it should not extremely long compared to other (economically viable) backup solutions available, in line with current industrial standards.	If you aren't including those libraries, then yes because it's entirely your own work. If you are publishing those libraries, then no because their licenses will limit how you can do that. GPL's and MIT's main features are restricting how you can distribute software that includes the licensed code, and they don't allow the "do whatever you want" of public domain.
Jumping out of the burning building Let's imagine there is a building on fire. And a girl is trapped on a 3rd floor. She jumps out of a window cause this is the only way to escape and lands on a fireman who just came to the site. And.. Kills him by crushing into his body. Can she be accused with involuntary manslaughter? Why/why not?	The crime often called "involuntary manslaughter", or simply manslaughter in the second degree, is when, with criminal negligence, he or she causes the death of another person The standards for "criminal negligence" as well as "recklessness" are spelled out here. The first term is defined as: A person is criminally negligent or acts with criminal negligence when he or she fails to be aware of a substantial risk that a wrongful act may occur and his or her failure to be aware of such substantial risk constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would exercise in the same situation. You can elaborate the above scenario with some details to make this be a criminally negligent act, but I assume the intent is to have this be a tragic accident. So for example, I assume that she did not see the fireman. The law does not require you to die in a fire in case there is a remote possibility that you could injure another person in the course of saving yourself. Unless you add some evil intent on the girl's part ("I don't care if I land on that fireman, that's his job"), a reasonable person would act likewise and save their own life.	They could be prosecuted in any state where there was evidence that part of the crime was committed. Realistically, either State A or State B could prosecute for conspiracy to murder as an additional charge, because the conspiracy clearly spanned more than one state, even if they can't prove where the crime was committed, although physical evidence (e.g. traces of camp sites, footprints, testimony about landmarks, evidence of poop with human DNA from the victim in it), would usually make it possible to show that some part of the crime was committed in the state. There is probably also a federal crime that could be implicated such as "murder involving flight across a state line" (hypothetical, but I'm sure that there is something similar on the books). I'm not going to address the further hypothetical as it is too bizzare and law is ultimately very context specific. Find a more plausible fact pattern, perhaps with a different crime, and ask a separate question if you want to really address the issue.	The answer provided by Dale M is half right, but there are a few things that I think are wrong. Firstly, the actual reality of the situation doesn't matter. What matters is that you act in a reasonable manner, performing assessments of the situation as a reasonable person would do. If you misread the situation, and end up killing a police officer that was acting in a lawful manner, it doesn't necessarily mean you were acting unlawfully yourself. Because police officers are generally exposed to situations where they would be forced to use their firearm, that obviously would impact how a reasonable person would see the situation, but the test for reasonableness would not go out the window. In addition, even if you were found to not be acting in a reasonable manner, there is certainly a question if you would be found guilty of a lesser charge of manslaughter rather than murder. It's possible the self-defence claim would be upheld as an imperfect defence.	Yes. The principle caselaw is R v Hayward (1908) 21 Cox 692 A husband and wife had an argument that led to the husband chasing his wife out into the street. The wife collapsed during this altercation and died. Whist the husband did not physically touch her, he did shout threats at her. The wife was found to have been suffering from an abnormality of the thyroid gland that neither was aware of that meant that fright or shock could cause death if combined with physical exertion. The husband was charged with manslaughter. [...] The husband was found guilty of manslaughter. No actual proof of violence was necessary as long as the defendant’s unlawful act, which was the threat of violence, caused her fright leading to her death. The criminal law acknowledges that an assailant must take their victim as they find them... Source And... The defendant chased his wife out of the house shouting threats at her. She collapsed and died. He did not physically touch her. She was suffering from a rare thyroid condition which could lead to death where physical exertion was accompanied by fright and panic. Both the defendant and his wife were unaware she had this condition. Held: The defendant was liable for constructive manslaughter as his unlawful act (assault) caused death. The egg shell (thin) skull rule applied. He was therefore fully liable despite the fact an ordinary person of reasonable fortitude would not have died in such circumstances... Source	Standing requirements are different in state and federal courts, and from one state to the next. A random individual would not have standing to object to a stranger's abortion in federal court, and likely not in any state court, under normal circumstances, as they are not injured in any meaningful way by the abortion. I don't know what the normal rules of standing are in Texas, but it is likely perfectly acceptable for the Legislature to wave its wand to grant standing to whomever it wants regarding any violation of the law it sees for. That seems to be what is happening here.	It depends... It could be an offence under section 5 Public Order Act 1986: (1) A person is guilty of an offence if he— (a) uses [...] disorderly behaviour ... [...] within the hearing or sight of a person1 likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby. Then there's Causation to consider, which is: whether the defendant's conduct (or omission) caused ... harm or damage. And also recklessness, which can be described as: unjustified risk-taking. In R v G [2004] 1 A.C. 1034 two boys set a fire which caused significant damage. They were charged, and convicted, for reckless arson contrary to section 1 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971: (1) A person who without lawful excuse destroys or damages any property belonging to another intending to destroy or damage any such property or being reckless as to whether any such property would be destroyed or damaged shall be guilty of an offence. ... (3) An offence committed under this section by destroying or damaging property by fire shall be charged as arson. This conviction was quashed by the House of Lords who determined that test of recklessness for criminal damage is subjective and should take account of, for example the defendant's age (in R v G they were 11 and 12). The court determination was: A person acts recklessly within the meaning of section 1 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971 with respect to - (i) a circumstance when he is aware of a risk that it exists or will exist; (ii) a result when he is aware of a risk that it will occur; and it is, in the circumstances known to him, unreasonable to take the risk. But compare this with DPP v Newbury and Jones [1976] AC 500 if someone were to die as a result of being hit by a brick: The defendants, both teenage boys, had thrown a piece of paving stone from a railway bridge onto a train which had been passing beneath them. The object struck and killed the guard who had been sitting in the driver’s compartment. The defendants were convicted of manslaughter, and unsuccessfully appealed, on the ground that they had not foreseen that their actions might cause harm to any other person. Lord Salmon explained that a defendant was guilty of manslaughter if it was proved that he intentionally did an act which was unlawful and dangerous and that act caused death, and that it was unnecessary that the defendant had known that the act in question was unlawful or dangerous. 1Note that there has to be such a person, not a hypothetical one, to be guilty of this offence.	Yes Under Texas law (and pretty much everywhere else) the driver of the vehicle is responsible for ensuring that it is roadworthy. This does not mean that someone else cannot also be liable - the mechanic who fixed the wheel and their employer would also be liable. The claim for damages from a motor vehicle accident lies in the tort of negligence and the standards that the driver has to attain to avoid liability is that of a reasonable person. A reasonable person is not an average person who (probably) just gets in a car and drives but a prudent person who considers the risks to themselves and others and takes reasonable steps to mitigate them. Like looking at the wheels of an unfamiliar car. If the defect were obvious to a layperson from a visual inspection, they would be liable if they had not conducted such an inspection. Similarly, continuing to drive when a car is making a "Knocking" noise even if you didn't know what it was is not something a reasonable person would do. If you knew what the noise was and kept driving we are now moving from negligence into recklessness and the realms of criminal liability like manslaughter.	Not necessarily. Let's say the victim delivered photos of a harm that were alleged to be done by the defendant. That's a crime in itself. But based on this item the DA orders investigation and finds evidence of a real crime. Discovering that the photo was faked can lead to dismissal (with prejudice), but even without the fake photo, there might be a strong case against defendant. Also, the photo could not even be used as evidence in the actual trial stage. A good defense attorney might manage to convince the judge, that the doctored photo should have been discovered such early in the investigation, but I doubt, that one could manage to make everything else in a proper investigation fruit of the poisoned tree unless police screwed up.
Does the "stand your ground" law regarding shooting an intruder apply when the door of the dwelling was not locked? I was wondering, suppose someone enters a dwelling uninvited in a state that has a stand your ground law (or as I am being correct on, Castle Doctrine). If the door was not locked, would the homeowner (or renter) be justified in shooting (and even killing) the intruder if they feel their life or well being was seriously threatened by the intruder? Would it matter if the door was left unlocked by accident or even intentionally or would that play a big factor in the case in determining possible guilt (such as the homeowner was hoping for an intruder to come in so he could shoot that person, perhaps knowing that someone was after him)? Does the law require all necessary precautions (locks, security system...) be taken before deadly force can be used in home defense? For example, suppose someone came home from work tired, forgot to lock the door and fell asleep on the couch, only to be awakened by an intruder who they then shot. Is that shooting justified under "stand your ground / Castle Doctrine" or would the shooter be in big trouble because the door was not locked? I am thinking since this situation could also happen in a car where the driver didn't yet have time to lock the door if an intruder tries to get in and do harm quickly.	Edits added below to outline Florida's laws based on OP's comment Jurisdiction does matter but here is a general answer regarding "stand your ground" laws. States that have so-called "stand your ground laws" each have their own language concerning the law. "Stand your ground laws" are often misunderstood but, generally, just mean that a person has no duty to retreat when using deadly physical force for purposes of self-defense or the defense of others. Your examples are more akin to "castle doctrine" laws which I touch on below. Note that all of these laws vary by jurisdiction. I've provided partial examples from Arizona, New York and California. Using deadly physical force for purposes of self-defense or defense of others is complex law and even a complete example from any particular jurisdiction will not be able to cover all circumstances. Each case will be determined by a judge or jury based on the facts of that particular case. Arizona's "stand your ground" statute, as an example, states: B. A person has no duty to retreat before threatening or using deadly physical force pursuant to this section if the person is in a place where the person may legally be and is not engaged in an unlawful act. "Stand your ground" simply means that a person doesn't have to first attempt to retreat before resorting to the use of deadly force. Arizona's statute regarding justification for self-defense states (emphasis mine): A. Except as provided in subsection B of this section, a person is justified in threatening or using physical force against another when and to the extent a reasonable person would believe that physical force is immediately necessary to protect himself against the other's use or attempted use of unlawful physical force. B. The threat or use of physical force against another is not justified: In response to verbal provocation alone; or To resist an arrest that the person knows or should know is being made by a peace officer or by a person acting in a peace officer's presence and at his direction, whether the arrest is lawful or unlawful, unless the physical force used by the peace officer exceeds that allowed by law; or If the person provoked the other's use or attempted use of unlawful physical force, unless: (a) The person withdraws from the encounter or clearly communicates to the other his intent to do so reasonably believing he cannot safely withdraw from the encounter; and (b) The other nevertheless continues or attempts to use unlawful physical force against the person. Note the phrase, "extent a reasonable person." This means that the actions of a person using deadly force will be measured against what a "reasonable person" would do in similar circumstances. Some states have a duty to retreat, particularly when in a public place, before using deadly force. New York, as an example, has a "duty to retreat" before using deadly force except in specific circumstances (emphasis mine): A person may not use deadly physical force upon another person under circumstances specified in subdivision one unless: (a) The actor reasonably believes that such other person is using or about to use deadly physical force. Even in such case, however, the actor may not use deadly physical force if he or she knows that with complete personal safety, to oneself and others he or she may avoid the necessity of so doing by retreating; except that the actor is under no duty to retreat if he or she is: (i) in his or her dwelling and not the initial aggressor; or (ii) a police officer or peace officer or a person assisting a police officer or a peace officer at the latter`s direction, acting pursuant to section 35.30; or (b) He or she reasonably believes that such other person is committing or attempting to commit a kidnapping, forcible rape, forcible criminal sexual act or robbery; or (c) He or she reasonably believes that such other person is committing or attempting to commit a burglary, and the circumstances are such that the use of deadly physical force is authorized by subdivision three of section 35.20. Castle Doctrine Laws typically refer to what one may do in their own home when it comes to the use of deadly force. Some states have extended the "castle doctrine" to include personal automobiles as well. California's "castle doctrine" statute, as an example, states that if one is in their own home and someone "unlawfully and forcibly" enters the home one can presume that the person in his or her residence "held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily injury": Any person using force intended or likely to cause death or great bodily injury within his or her residence shall be presumed to have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily injury to self, family, or a member of the household when that force is used against another person, not a member of the family or household, who unlawfully and forcibly enters or has unlawfully and forcibly entered the residence and the person using the force knew or had reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry occurred. As used in this section, great bodily injury means a significant or substantial physical injury. In California's statute both the resident and the person using force to gain entry have to know or have reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry occurred. If a person simply entered an unlocked home then the resident would have to have some other reasonable reason to believe that they were in imminent peril of death or great bodily injury. Wikipedia has a reasonable entry on the adoption of "stand your ground" and "castle doctrine" statutes and gives a state-by-state breakdown of both. Note that these laws have seen a lot of change recently and any particular entry for a state may not be accurate. Florida's self-defense laws Florida's "Use or threatened use of force in defense of person" states: 776.012 Use or threatened use of force in defense of person.— (1) A person is justified in using or threatening to use force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force. A person who uses or threatens to use force in accordance with this subsection does not have a duty to retreat before using or threatening to use such force. (2) A person is justified in using or threatening to use deadly force if he or she reasonably believes that using or threatening to use such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony. A person who uses or threatens to use deadly force in accordance with this subsection does not have a duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground if the person using or threatening to use the deadly force is not engaged in a criminal activity and is in a place where he or she has a right to be. Florida outlines the cases where use, or threatened use, of force is justified. Notice that in the law Florida specifically states that the person threatened does not have a duty to retreat. Florida also specifically states that a person has a "right to stand his or her ground" if the person is in a place where he or she has a right to be and is not engaged in criminal activity. Florida statute also specifically outlines the right to use self-defense within one's home and vehicle. Florida has a "castle doctrine" similar to what was outlined above and similar in nature to New York's and California's laws: The person against whom the defensive force was used was in the process of unlawfully and forcefully entering, or had unlawfully and forcibly entered, a dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle, or if that person had removed or was attempting to remove another against that person’s will from the dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle; Florida has a longer list of exemptions related to who may have used force to enter a home including ownership interest in the property or vehicle, children and grandchildren, the person who engaged defensive force was involved in criminal activity and law enforcement officers. Florida's Justifiable Use Of Force is chapter 776 discusses when force can be used. There was an attempt by the Florida legislature in 2019 to change the standard by which use of force could be justified from "reasonably believes" force is necessary to "a reasonably cautious and prudent person in the same circumstances would objectively believe" force was necessary. The bill was withdrawn in May, 2019.	In California (as in all states) there is a justifiable homicide defense which might be used in such a situation. For the force to be justified, you have to reasonably believe you are in danger of being harmed, that you need to use force to avoid the harm, and you may only use the minimum force necessary to eliminate the threat. It then is a matter for the jury to decide whether those principles were followed in your particular instance. The reason why it's hard to predict the outcome is that it depends on a subjective evaluation by the jury, as to whether the shooter had a reasonable fear and whether lesser force was a viable option. The jury's decision is guided by instructions to the jury (#506, #506) which focus on relevant distinctions. The jury will be told that "Belief in future harm is not sufficient, no matter how great or how likely the harm is believed to be", and that you have to reasonably believe there is "imminent danger of great bodily injury". My evaluation is that that does not describe the scenario in the question. There is some possibility of future harm... but not imminent harm. People v. Ceballos (1974) 12 Cal.3d 470" states that "the rule developed at common law that killing or use of deadly force to prevent a felony was justified only if the offense was a forcible and atrocious crime" and "Examples of forcible and atrocious crimes are murder, mayhem, rape and robbery", and that could support application of a justifiable homicide defense in a bank robbery. But in the present instance, the bank is being robbed and the shooter is a by-stander. Despite all of the bank robberies in California, there is no relevant case from which one could draw an analogy.	It could probably be argued that a bullet intentionally shot from a gun is abandoned property, and thus the shooter has no claim to its return. In addition, such a bullet might be evidence of a crime, to be seized by law enforcement, although that would not affect its ultimate ownership, at least not in the US. Intent matters in such cases. A person who shoots a gun probably does not reasonably expect to retain possession and control of the bullet, whatever may have been shot at. Well, someone shooting at a properly controlled target for practice on his or her own property probably retains ownership of the bullet.	Most leases have a provision allowing a landlord to make entry without notice in an emergency, but the better course of action, as noted in a comment by @BlueDogRanch, is to call the police and ask them to make a "welfare check." You would ordinarily be permitted to cooperate with police by unlocking doors in furtherance of their welfare check. The police are trained to do this properly in a way that properly balances the need to aid someone who is sick or ill, the need to preserve evidence if there was a death or crime that needs to be understood legally, and to protect the legitimate privacy interests of the tenant. You are not. You could incur liability for failing to prevent death or aggravating injury, could be wrongfully implicated if physical evidence from you contaminates the scene or you destroy evidence showing the true cause, and could be sued for invading the tenant's privacy if it was found that you entry was unreasonable and that it wasn't really an emergency, which is always easier to conclude with 20/20 hindsight. As it is, your biggest potential source of liability is delaying in calling the police seeking a welfare check. They often respond quite quickly to these by the way, although it is not the very highest priority for law enforcement.	There is a good amount of case law addressing this question going back two centuries. Legally, as soon as you are subject to "excessive force," you are allowed to defend yourself as you would against any assault, even if that force is being used in the course of an otherwise lawful arrest. Furthermore, in some states you are still allowed to resist unlawful arrest. Unfortunately, the matter is no longer as clear as it used to be. (There is a lot of material on this subject; just search for resisting unlawful arrest.) For example, police reflexively invoke a virtual safe harbor by shouting, "Stop resisting!" while battering arrest subjects. Video evidence has uncovered a plethora of examples in which this was done to subjects who were not only not resisting, but even later determined to have been incapable of resisting. If you intend to defend yourself against police, even when justified by law, you need to realize that the system is stacked against you. Police carry the means of escalating to lethal force. So, for example, if you are being beaten but you are potentially able to physically overpower and restrain an officer, you will likely then be met with baton blows or tasers. Since a baton is a deadly weapon, you would be (in theory) justified in shooting an officer attacking you with one. But as soon as any officer shouts "gun!" you will be shot, and most likely killed. Police seem to be given the benefit of the doubt by prosecutors and grand juries when they claim, "I feared for my life." You (even if you survive) will likely have any such claim subject to a full criminal trial. So even though you can legally defend yourself against excessive police force, these days you will almost certainly be unable to in practice.	Is entry into the yard subject to 24 hour notice? Most likely it is. Note that section § 47-8-3 defines both dwelling unit and premises. The latter encompasses the term "appurtenances", which the Black's Law Dictionary defines, inter alia, as "an adjunct; an appendage; [...] garden [...]". At least in the context of fenced backyard, the fact that § 47-8-3 defines dwelling unit and premises separately does not exclude "premises" from the scope of § 47-8-15. That is because the fence is "a structure [...] or part of a structure [...] that is used as a home, residence". Indeed, the existence of the fence suggests that the backyard is intended for only that tenant's exclusive use/enjoyment, with the implications it has on tenant's privacy.	An obvious example would be a contract that gives possession of something to someone else. It's normally legal to use some reasonable amount of force to protect or prevent trespasses against property you own, but if you give possession of that property to someone else you can lose that right. For example, you can use force remove a guest who refuses to leave real property you own, but can't use force to remove a tenant even if they broke the terms of your contract. In most jurisdictions you'd need to get a court order and have the police use force if necessary remove the tenant.	Your question goes to a person's state of mind, which gets tricky; the intention of the law is that to be guilty of trespassing a reasonable person would need to know they had entered into or were remaining in a place they are not supposed to be. Specific requirements for what that means is going to vary by jurisdiction (closed-off area, posted signs, verbal notice, etc). Trespass is knowingly entering another owners’ property or land without permission, which encroaches on the owners’ privacy or property interests (Cornell Law). In your example, John would not be trespassing unless and until Joe asked him to leave and John refused to do so.
Easiest way to modify LLC control? I need to create a two member LLC. Initially the LLC will need to be fully controlled by one person, but in the future control will have to change to be 50/50. What is the easiest / safest way to accomplish this? Make one member a 10% owner and the other 90% and then shift to 50/50? Or do 50/50 ownership at the start and use an operating agreement that specifies 90/10 control and then file a new one to 50/50? Both partners are happy signing any type of updated operating agreement or form to change ownership from 90/10 to 50/50. Trying to figure out which method is easier. Thanks in advance!	First - do it all with an operating agreement in writing; always - no exceptions! Second - what you are describing in fairly simple for any competent lawyer to draft. The voting section of the operating agreement needs to include a provision stating something to the effect that until a Trigger Event occurs, Big Member will have 90% of the voting power of all membership interests; following the Trigger Event, Big Member and Little Member (assuming no other members join the LLC in the interim) will each own 50% of the voting power. The operating agreement (including this provision) is executed at the inception of the LLC, and will be self-executing, that is - when the trigger Event occurs, voting power should automatically shift without the need for any additional action. Have your lawyer make sure there's no hitch in the applicable state LLC law; that equity interests don't shift on the Trigger Event (that would cause tax problems) and, of course, don't forget to (very clearly) define the Trigger Event....	This is neither unusual nor illegal, assuming that the buyback price is specified in the agreement. If your friend does not wish to take advantage of the "nice discount" he can decline the deal, and decide for himself whether he wishes to buy shares without restriction, at the market rate. (It would be interesting to know what happens if he sells his shares and then leaves the company. I am fairly sure the agreement will cover this, but requiring an ex-employee to buy shares and then give them to the company could be considered unconscionable. That might be worth asking a lawyer about).	are there any safeguards you could take to preemptively block such behavior, such as a disclaimer inside the book cover that reads something like The safeguard you outline would be overridden as soon as the author enters any contract that requires assignment of copyright. (I would not delve in the differences between licensing and copyright assignment because that hypothetical author is dealing with a contract of adhesion which readily requires assignment; the author has no option to change the ToS to allow for licensing only) Under contract law, one of the essential prerequisites is that the conditions of a contract be entered knowingly and willfully. By deliberately clicking on a ToS page to move forward with the uploading a copyrighted work, the author is signaling his awareness and acceptance of the ToS. The fact that the author chose not to read the ToS is irrelevant and very unlikely to strike whatever entitlements the website owner formulated in the accepted ToS. For the same reason, the author's safeguard disclaimer does not bind the website owner: It cannot be said that the website owner was aware of that disclaimer at the time of the formation of contract between the author and the website owner. That is, the website owner did not knowingly and willfully accepted the author's safeguard. The website owner is not even expected to know about any safeguards which one of its potential user intends to establish. The length of a ToS document is also irrelevant because the website owner has the valid argument that "the user-author could have skimmed through the ToS or do a search (via Control-Find) of keywords such as 'copyright' or 'property', whence any allegation of 'inadvertent' assignment of copyright is untenable". Is there a way to protect your IP from inadvertently being licensed/stolen/assigned via TOS "agreements", without having to waste your life reading huge one-sided online "contracts" that are "subject to change without notice" anyway? Yes. That consists of not uploading one's works in such platforms. In contract law that would be expressed as "declining an exchange of considerations". There are many other alternatives for an author to promote his work without being required to assign copyright.	If your LLC made 300K before paying salaries, and paid 300K total in salaries, that seems quite reasonable. You might have a point if the order of events was: LLC pays 100K in salaries, LLC gets sued for 200K, LLC raises salaries by 200K. Note that the owners have to pay income tax on 300k earnings, plus whatever else employers and employees have to pay. And an LLC doesn't pay salaries to owners, it pays salaries to employees who be sheer coincidence are also owners. It's a different matter if the company pays dividends. A company must keep dividends low enough so that it can run its business, including paying damages for lawsuits that it knows about. So if the company planned all along to pay 300k in dividends, then is sued for 200k, they likely have to reduce the dividends.	The shareholders can change who is the company director, but the company director runs the company (until he or she resigns or is forced to sign by the shareholders). So the company director is who has the say what happens in the company. If the contract is between Fred and John Smith directly, then I would expect John Smith to give the orders and to pay Fred. However, Tom is company director, so he can order Fred to stay off the company premises. He can't order Fred what to do, since there is no contract between Fred and the company, and the company won't pay Fred if it doesn't want to - it's up to John Smith to pay Fred from his own pocket. The whole setup is highly unusual. I would assume that the situation is unsatisfactory for everyone involved, so likely they will agree that the contract between John Smith and Fred is cancelled, that there is a new contract between Small Company Ltd and Fred, and from then on the company director gives the orders.	You would report unpermitted lock replacement to the home owner. The building code regulates new construction and renovations, and is not a requirement of any and all residences. This seems to correspond to a "secondary suite", which is supposed to be registered with the city (if it is allowed in your city). Here is a link for Vancouver, for instance. Such suites are supposed to be registered and inspected, the inspection being carried out by Development, Building and Licencing: By-Law Compliance & Administration (a division of the city government). This article discusses some of the legal problems that can arise from an illegal secondary suite, however the penalties would land on the property owner, and he may not have approved of this subletting or the basement suite. A less-nuclear first step would therefore be reporting it to the property owner.	The part about "If I'm the owner of the content, surely I have the right to request its deletion" is the problem. Sure, you have the right to request, but you can't legally compel. You have an agreement with them, according to which you got something, and they got something. You can't then take back the thing that you gave them, which is permission to use. You didn't give them the IP itself, which you still hold. Here's an analogy. You may own a car, and can give a person permission to use the car (let's say "if you bring me back a pound of cheese from the store"). You cannot later change your mind (especially after you've gotten the cheese) a say that you retract that permission and therefore they actually stole your car. When permission to use is given, as long as the conditions for granting permission are satisfied, you can't un-give permission.	By "unlicensed" you mean that it doesn't state a license for use (MIT, GPL, etc.)? Those licenses are just a codified bundle of terms of use that cover many many edge cases. You have in place a much simpler agreement that covers the primary situation: you using/modifying the code for your own use. It's just like borrowing a car. You will ask a friend "hey, could I borrow your car for a bit?" "sure!". You know there's a possibility that you'll get in an accident or something weird will happen, but you think the chances of that are minimal and you would be able to work it out. If you ask a car rental company, they'll give you a full contract covering every situation that may happen. Similarly, a large company would be hesitant to borrow a car for corporate use without a legal framework surrounding it. So you will likely be in the clear if you are just using it for a small project with minimal legal/financial implications. If you plan on turning your project into a multi-billion dollar empire, you should revisit your agreement.
Windows 10 Eula Privacy Rights Many are claiming that Windows 10's data collection is much more invasive than previous Microsoft products, even claiming that Windows 10 ships with a keylogger and reports every keystroke back to Microsoft. Most locally, this question on the Stack Exchange network makes some of the same claims. However, it seems that many of those sources have conflated the developer pre-release version of Windows 10 with the official release, and I'm having trouble separating the wheat from the chaff. My goal in asking this question is to look past the sensationalist reporting and see what rights Microsoft holds. The official End-User License Agreement for the final retail release of Windows 10 says the following: Privacy; Consent to Use of Data. Your privacy is important to us. Some of the software features send or receive information when using those features. Many of these features can be switched off in the user interface, or you can choose not to use them. By accepting this agreement and using the software you agree that Microsoft may collect, use, and disclose the information as described in the Microsoft Privacy Statement (aka.ms/privacy), and as may be described in the user interface associated with the software features. The referenced Microsoft Privacy Statement says the following: Microsoft collects data to operate effectively and provide you the best experiences with our services. [...] We get some of it by recording how you interact with our services by, for example, using technologies like cookies, and receiving error reports or usage data from software running on your device. We also obtain data from third parties (including other companies). Microsoft uses the data we collect to provide you the services we offer, which includes using data to improve and personalize your experiences. [...] We use data to help make the ads we show you more relevant to you. However, we do not use what you say in email, chat, video calls or voice mail, or your documents, photos or other personal files to target ads to you. Windows 10 ("Windows") is a personalized computing environment that enables you to seamlessly roam and access services, preferences and content across your computing devices from phones to tablets to the Surface Hub. Rather than residing as a static software program on your device, key components of Windows are cloud-based, and both cloud and local elements of Windows are updated regularly, providing you with the latest improvements and features. In order to provide this computing experience, we collect data about you, your device, and the way you use Windows. And because Windows is personal to you, we give you choices about the personal data we collect and how we use it. Putting aside the technical question of what information the software actually does collect (which would be off topic)... From a legal standpoint, in the retail version of Windows 10: How does Microsoft's claim to user data differ from previous versions of Windows? Does Microsoft have the right to record arbitrary keystrokes or clicks made while using their operating system and send that data to external servers? Does Microsoft have the right to share user usage data with third parties (such as advertising agencies), either at a price or without compensation? Despite saying that they currently don't use data directly from our personal files for this purpose, do they have a right to begin doing so at any time?	(2019 update See comments for my exchange with @benrg updating this 2015 answer. In particular, they do a fair job of representing a much less "paranoid" take on MS's take on users' privacy than my highly skeptical one. Also, the links in the answer below are to the latest versions of the respective documents. Archive.org has 2015 versions at 2015 EULA and 2105 privacy statement.) IANAL. This answer is just a broad picture. It's a simple explanation of Microsoft's own words, as they were at the time of originally writing this (just after the final release of Windows 10). TL;DR: Microsoft does not recognize users' privacy rights. The Microsoft Privacy document does not say anything positive about privacy in this document that isn't contradicted by their own words elsewhere in the same document. Microsoft does explicitly reserve rights to share users' private data with just about anyone and everyone. Microsoft explicitly disallows legal recourse regarding privacy. The Windows 10 EULA comprehensively denies legal recourse related to privacy (and indeed anything other than IP disputes). It's Microsoft's offerings as a whole, not (just) Windows 10 The key document to focus on is Microsoft's Privacy policy document. This policy applies to many Microsoft products and services, including, but definitely not limited to, Windows 10. Microsoft reserve the right to share your private data Quoting the "Privacy" document, Microsoft reserves the right to share users' private data: among Microsoft-controlled affiliates and subsidiaries with vendors or agents working on our behalf as part of a corporate transaction such as a merger or sale of assets [to] comply with applicable law [to] respond to valid legal process [to] protect our customers, for example to prevent spam [to] operate and maintain the security of our services [to] protect the rights or property of Microsoft as necessary to complete any transaction or provide any service you have requested or authorized Do users have any privacy rights? One can presumably fight for one's (perceived) rights even if Microsoft attempts to deny them. However, from the English Windows 10 EULA: you and we agree to try for 60 days to resolve [a dispute] informally. If we can’t, you and we agree to binding individual arbitration ... and not to sue in court Additionally, collective action or any other form of representative action is explicitly disallowed. Windows 10 data collection defaults to "Full" mode You've said that what data is collected is off topic. But I think it's worth recognizing that, with Windows 10, Microsoft have made the most popular install option collect and send to their cloud all data collected from your local device ("Full" collection) and have effectively made it a breach of contract to reduce it below a minimal level ("Basic" collection) that they get to determine and change as they see fit. And they can pretty much enforce the latter; if you hack a system to stop "Basic" data being sent to MS, they explicitly disable updates for that system.	If you don't want someone copying your stuff you don't need a licence at all - that is the default way copyright works. Simply put a copyright notice in the deployment and any splash screen or about screen.	Disclaimer: Not a lawyer or even living in US. I try to write the answer under US law. Other countries law may differ. Make sure you consult a lawyer in your jurisdiction. Here is my understanding of the individual examples: You don't need permission legally, because you are only accessing your own account and your own information. You are the only one damaged by the intrusion and therefore, nobody can really file a lawsuit against you. This is often used by security researchers when the subjects are uncooperative. That being said, if it is an actual pentesting client, you may want to refrain from it regardless. You don't need a permission to modify hardware you own. This is completely legal and not considered an attack. It would qualify as an upgrade, such as replacing a component in your laptop. You are allowed to do that. You should have a permission here. This is an intentional penetration test and you should have permission to do this. The same as 3. This is an intentional penetration test and you should get a permission. Though if you logout immediately and don't mess with the interface, it may not be illegal on the basis that you did not cause any damage or steal any information, or it may be illegal under some circumstances. It may also be impossible to prove that you did not do anything while there.	You must get opt-in affirmative consent to process personal data, including tracking people's use of your site or providing targeted advertising. The banner on StackExchange is likely in violation of the GDPR. Do not copy it. It does not have an explicit opt-in, only an opt out which is onerous (leave the site, then manually go in and delete any cookies they set, which may be hard to identify if they are from 3rd parties). The sites you mention that have a gateway are a more correct implementation. Consent must be acquired before processing of data begins, and it must be explicit.	You wrote: As far as I believe, it is permitted under GDPR to record and store non-anonymized web server access logs, as these can be useful for security reasons. True, Recital 49 GDPR: The processing of personal data to the extent strictly necessary and proportionate for the purposes of ensuring network and information security, i.e. the ability of a network or an information system to resist, at a given level of confidence, accidental events or unlawful or malicious actions that compromise the availability, authenticity, integrity and confidentiality of stored or transmitted personal data, and the security of the related services offered by, or accessible via, those networks and systems, by public authorities, by computer emergency response teams (CERTs), computer security incident response teams (CSIRTs), by providers of electronic communications networks and services and by providers of security technologies and services, constitutes a legitimate interest of the data controller concerned. This could, for example, include preventing unauthorised access to electronic communications networks and malicious code distribution and stopping ‘denial of service’ attacks and damage to computer and electronic communication systems. You asked: My question is whether this anonymization process counts as processing personally identifiable data under GDPR? IP addresses are personal data in some cases, so yes, you're processing personal data. Then, these anonymized logs will be fed into an analytics tool to provide stats on unique visitors, page hits, etc. These are purposes considered compatible with initial purposes according to Article 5.1.(b): Personal data shall be (...) collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes; further processing for (...) statistical purposes shall, in accordance with Article 89(1), not be considered to be incompatible with the initial purposes (‘purpose limitation’); As a matter of fact, you might be required to anonymize the data for those purposes, see Article 89.1: Processing for (...) statistical purposes, shall be subject to appropriate safeguards, in accordance with this Regulation, for the rights and freedoms of the data subject. Those safeguards shall ensure that technical and organisational measures are in place in particular in order to ensure respect for the principle of data minimisation. Those measures may include pseudonymisation provided that those purposes can be fulfilled in that manner. Where those purposes can be fulfilled by further processing which does not permit or no longer permits the identification of data subjects, those purposes shall be fulfilled in that manner. If I were to anonymize the logs and continue to use them exclusively for security reasons, would that change anything? No, you would be processing data in a manner compatible with initial purposes (ensuring network and information security). Or does it not matter what I do with them once they are anonymized? Yes, it does. If you're not using them for "archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes" then you're using them for purposes incompatible with initial purposes. You would need to find new legal basis for processing. does this extra anonymization process on top then take it over the line meaning that consent and a privacy notice would be required? It depends on what you want to do with anonymized data. In your case, for security purposes or security and statistical purposes, you don't need the consent and there is no requirement for the privacy notice (but sure, it would be nice to publish one). For other purposes it might be different.	Downloading commercial software without permission would be infringement, unless an exception to copyright (probably fair use in the US) applied. That the maker and copyright owner no longer supports or sells this software would not change that. The first-pass fair use analysis in the question is reasonable, and a court might find this to be fair use, but it is far from assured that it would be so found. US statutory damages could be as high as $150,000 or as low as $750 if Microsoft sued and won. However, as you say, there is no current or plausible future market for Windows 95, and there are lots of copies on CDs and other media floating around, easily available if anyone wanted a copy. I suspect that Microsoft would not choose to take such a matter to court, even if they became aware of it. If Microsoft does not choose to sue, there is no enforcement action by anyone. Of course they could choose to sue, it is their right to sue.	It is legal for a manufacturer to sell a device which is capable of being misused. For example, a wifi-capable router can be sold even if it is "open" by default. A Bluetooth device has a shorter range than wifi, but in principle can connect to any other device. An owner's legal liability is not different given wifi vs. Bluetooth. Whether or not there is criminal liability for a third person who connects to the device also does not specifically depend on whether the device uses Bluetooth technology, as opposed to some other technology. 18 USC 1030 is the general federal law prohibiting "unauthorized access". In the case of a bed, two legal question arise: is it a "computer", and is it "protected"? It is an electronic high speed data processing device which performs logical, arithmetic, storage and communications facilities, i.e. it is a computer (in the legal sense). It probably is not protected, because it is not "used in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce or communication", that is, it is not connected to the internet (unless it is). State laws tend to be broader, not having the "interstate commerce" limitation, so accessing the bed would violate Washington's analog of the federal law. However, under Washington law, the access is probably not "without authorization". That term is defined as knowingly circumvent technological access barriers to a data system in order to obtain information without the express or implied permission of the owner, where such technological access measures are specifically designed to exclude or prevent unauthorized individuals from obtaining such information, but does not include white hat security research or circumventing a technological measure that does not effectively control access to a computer. The term "without the express or implied permission" does not include access in violation of a duty, agreement, or contractual obligation, such as an acceptable use policy or terms of service agreement, with an internet service provider, internet website, or employer. The term "circumvent technological access barriers" may include unauthorized elevation of privileges, such as allowing a normal user to execute code as administrator, or allowing a remote person without any privileges to run code. One question is whether there is any technological access barrier that the user circumvents (I don't know if it is possible to circumvent "hidden mode"). Since the term "may include ... allowing a remote person without any privileges to run code", and since playing music on speakers involves running code, then the remote user may be criminally liable. On the third hand, the language of that paragraph ("technological access measures are specifically designed to exclude or prevent unauthorized individuals from obtaining such information, but does not include ... circumventing a technological measure that does not effectively control access to a computer") clearly indicates a legislative intent to address deliberately overcoming active access barriers and not accidentally connecting to an unprotected, open system. Plus, the law also says that you are accessing the computer "in order to obtain information", but that is not the purpose of transmitting sound to speakers.	You're misreading the law. You need to keep reading the section you referenced (emphasis added): The disclosure...shall be made in writing and delivered through the consumer’s account with the business, if the consumer maintains an account with the business, or by mail or electronically at the consumer’s option if the consumer does not maintain an account with the business Thus, the option to have the disclosure sent by mail only applies to consumers who do not have an account with the business. Since presumably a large number of sites only maintain personal information for users with accounts, such sites need not provide a mail option. Further, it doesn't say there needs to be a button: you just need the ability to say you'd like it mailed to you in the request somehow, and then they need to comply when you do.
Legality of reading unpaid e-book/research paper (ex. from genlib/sci-hub) What is the legality of reading unpaid e-book/research paper (ex. from site like genlib/sci-hub) (In my case, in Indonesia). is someone eligible to be charged because they downloaded the e-book/research paper from that site? or is it just permissible as long as they keep it themself (They dont sell it & They dont share it to many people)? Edit: Add "research paper from sci-hub" Add country of origin: Indonesia	Most of the works available on Libgen are illegal: they have infringed copyright by putting copies there. Any copying of a protected work, done without permission of the copyright owner, is copyright infringement. That includes downloading from libgen.	There is a subtle difference between NSF policy and enforceable obligation. The primary stick that goes with the carrot is being excluded from future funding. Current policy does not generally force material in the public domain, but it is a possibility in "exceptional circumstances". There no doubt is a paper record somewhere in D.C. indicating whether such a codicil was added to any of these grants. NSF generally does not have contracts with individuals, they have contracts with institutions who have relations (typically employer-employee) with individuals, so even if there were a policy requiring works to be put in the public domain, NSF would have to go after the institution, who would have to go after the author. Since that would conflict with longstanding NSF policy on copyright, it is unlikely that they would want to pursue such an approach. The statement that McGraw-Hill Book Company announces that the material, which is copyrighted, will be available for use by authors and publishers on a royalty-free basis on or after April 30, 1970 is not itself a license, it is a suggestion that a license will com into existence. A present-tense declaration "this work is dedicated to the public domain effective April 30, 1970" can be interpreted as a license effective of a date certain. Similarly, "will be available to all publishers for use in English after December 31, 1970, and in translations after December 31, 1975" does not say that it is in the public domain effective of some date. One might say that the copyright statement is simply not well written and the author really intended the books to be in the public domain as of those dates. But without compelling evidence that the book was actually released into the public domain, a court is very unlikely to abrogate a person's property rights.	When you own something, you get to decide what you do with it There is no obligation to make a copyrighted work available and the fact that it isn’t is not a defence to a copyright infringement. Brenda Books is entitled to either damages or an account of profits. Arguably, they have suffered no damage, so Alan’s profits are the better target. In some jurisdictions, such as the United States, statutory damages (a set dollar amount for each infringement) is available even if there are no damages or profits.	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.	The Apache 2.0 license purports to be irrevocable, but it also presupposes that the supposed licensor has the right to grant permission to copy. In this case, that is untrue, so there never was a proper license and nothing to revoke (the copyright owner grants permission in the form of "a license" which is a legal abstraction, that normally is specified in the license document). An end-user snared by this illegal license might attempt to sue the author because of the legal screw-up but paragraph 9 says that the supposed licensor cannot be held liable. In this case, though, "licensor" is defined not as the person who hands you the license document, but as the copyright owner. So it's the employer who would be not liable under the terms of the document (but since the employer had nothing to do with the license, it's as though the license never existed). The end-user is a secondary infringer (the employee is the primary infringer, in illegally distributing the material). Under US law, that doesn't matter, the user is still liable. Under UK law, secondary infringement includes the element that you have to have reason to know that the copy is infringing, which in the scenario that you describe is not the case.	Under 17 USC 106 (3) one of the exclusive rights of a copyright owner is: 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; Distributing an entire book cannot plausibly be considered to be fair use. Nor does the library exception apply. The exception in sec 109 (first sale doctrine) applies only to: the owner of a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made under this title, or any person authorized by such owner... 17 USC 501 (a) says: (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. Therefore both Bob and Sue have infringed the copyright, and could in theory be sued for doing so. However I cannot see anything in 17USC which makes receiving an unlawful copy an infringement, or any other crime or tort. It seems to me that Alice has no legal liability, whatever her moral position may be, unless perhaps she could be charged with conspiracy to infringe the copyright, which seems unlikely to me in practice, and perhaps not possible even in theory. If Bob has in fact done this only once, for one book, the chancre of the copyright owner learning of it, or filing suit even if the owner does learn, is perhaps not large. But that would be no defense if the owner chose to sue. Some copyright owners choose to explicitly permit actions similar to that of Bob (where e-books are involved), provided that Bob does not charge a fee, regarding it as good advertising. But that is the copyright owner's choice to make, and most commercial publishers do not take that position. Bob could have legally loaned his copy to Sue, and Sue could have legally passed it on to Alice, without anyone infringing the copyright. Making the copy without permission was infringing, and passing on the unlawful copy was also an act of infringement. Receiving one copy or many does not seem to be a violation, unless it is part of a plan to later distribute unlawful copies. Sue did not make a copy. She distributed an unlawful copy, which is also infringement, as the quoted part of Sec 106 says. While in theory the publisher could have authorized Bob to make the copy, this is not plausible and no reasonable person would believe this to be an authorized copy. So Sue has good reason to believe that the copy is unauthorized. So the distribution is infringement.	This appears to mean that the author, while retaining copyright, is allowing anyone to make copies without asking permission from the author. This would seem to be similar to a CC-BY license, or perhaps more exactly a CC-BY-ND license, as the author has apparently not granted the right to create modified versions or other derivative works. This does not require one who makes such copies to distribute them free of charge, unless there is another provision not mentioned in the question. Amazon, or anyone else, would be free to sell copies at any price they cared to ask. If the author wanted to limit the sales price, that would take another provision, and might not be enforceable.	You are granted the free trial as part of a trial, not to permanently use the program. When the user downloaded the trial version of the program, he probably had to accept T&C granting a one-time only say 3‑month trial period. It is a mere breach of contract if you’re circumventing this, but you might still be liable to damages. Circumventing technological protection measures is forbidden, § 95a UrhG. However, these protection measures must be considered effective. Now, lawyers are usually no computer gurus, so they might arrive at completely different conclusions, but I guess/hope editing a plain text file, substituting a plaintext ISO 8601 date, will not be deemed “effective”. (I presume the same effect could be achieved by resetting the computer’s RTC.) Having said that, since you intend to “publish a guide […] detailing how to use this exploit” I suspect it might not be that trivial and thus, from a lawyer’s POV, be considered an “effective” technological protection measure. If it is considered an effective technological protection measure, you might be punishable via § 108b UrhG, but I’m not sure about that. The wording is terribly complex.
Contractor Did Not List His Legal Business Name On Contract. Is The Contract Enforceable? Hopefully someone here can shed some light on this matter for me. Long story short, I entered into a contract with a general contractor for the construction of my new home. I have been moved into the home but there are multiple problems with the construction. These defects have been verified by third party inspectors. Despite the third party reports, my general contractor refuses to fix the problems. My contract states that any disputes must go to binding arbitration through the AAA. This can be an expensive process and it's my understanding that I am unable to recover my legal costs in a judgement. I was reviewing the contract and doing some research on the contractor and came across the following: The general contractor has an LLC. Let's say his legal business name is Smith Homes, LLC. He has also registered a fictitious, or DBA, name with the state called Smith Homes. My construction contract has his business logo in the top left corner. The logo only states the DBA name, Smith Homes. In the top right corner of the contract it does list his state registration number. The contract states the following: "This contract made on 5th day of March 2018, by and between John Doe (my name) hereinafter called the owner and Smith Homes hereinafter called the contractor. The signature line on the bottom simply states "Contractor" and then a place for the general contractor to sign. Nowhere on the contract does it list the full legal name of the contractors business, Smith Homes, LLC. From my research, the DBA name can enter a contract if it is noted that it is a DBA of the legal company name when the parties are introduced at the beginning of the contract. You might write, for example, "Smith Homes, LLC, d/b/a Smith Homes." With all of that said, is this contract enforceable since the legal name of the contractor's business was not stated in the contract? Also, since the contractor signed his name at the bottom of the document, could he be personally liable in a lawsuit? Thank you all in advance!	The contract is enforceable No one is in any doubt that the parties to the contract are you and Smith Homes and everyone knows that Smith Homes means Smith Homes LLC. The written document is only evidence of the contract, the contract is the entire commercial relationship. Contracts are not invalid because they have typos or minor irregularities- otherwise virtually no written one would be. The law can be very pragmatic sometimes.	It's best to use formal names in legal documents. For example, Ringo Starr's musical compositions are credited to Richard Starkey. If you have a business that wishes to do business under a name other than its legal name, you can investigate d/b/a ("doing business as") designation. For the purpose of a single contract or other document, you can usually include language that designates a name for the business such as "this agreement is between Full Name Incorporation, Inc, hereinafter known as Trademark®, and...." You shouldn't do any of this in real life, however, without first discussing it with your lawyer. If you believe that there is business value in calling your company "Foo" when its actual name is "Bar Corp," then surely that value warrants some expense to find a lawyer who will defend the validity of the company's contracts in court, should that become necessary.	There are some consequences for you, under the Seattle Residential Code. Per R103.5 Any person violating or failing to comply with the provisions of this code shall be subject to a cumulative civil penalty in an amount not to exceed $500 per day for each violation from the date the violation occurs or begins until compliance is achieved. $182,500 per year. Also under R103.4, Whenever any building or structure is being occupied contrary to the provisions of this code, the building official may order such occupancy discontinued and the building or structure, or portion thereof, vacated by notice. There should be a notation on your panel indicating permit number and approval, but if you have the permit number, you can check if the inspection was done and the work was approved (I think this will report status). The legal burden of assuring that the work was done correctly and paperwork is in order ultimately falls on the owner, though the city at least initially talks to the contractor. Insofar as a customer taking a picture doesn't count as an actual final inspection, I suspect that some cost- and time-saving short-cuts were taken. Following up on the new information about being a tenant, the primary legal question is whether you have a duty of care towards the landlord, since in engaging this company, the landlord's interest may be put at risk. The landlord may have protected his interest via a clause in the lease saying "you must get written permission to modify the property, and you assume full liability for resulting damages", so first thing to check is what the lease says (perhaps look for a "Tenant's duty of care" clause). In lieu of clear evidence that you caused damage to the owner (economic damage, by negligence w.r.t. his need to have proper permits and the whopping fines that follow), I don't see what the risk to you would be in just washing your hands of the problem.	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.	There are three answers here. First, as is common on this site, you are using the term, "legal" and "illegal." Those are not legally meaningfully terms. A good lawyer won't use those terms to mean allowed or disallowed. We talk in terms of potential civil or criminal liability, or other sanctions and consequences. To say that something is "legal" does not communicate much. Second, all contracts are governed by a duty of good faith. That means that you cannot try to "trick" someone with the terms of the contract and expect to enforce that contract against them and you cannot try to skirt your obligations by finding a tricky form of compliance not within the mutual understanding of the agreement. As with all things, defining good faith is not easy, and depends on the specific context of a situation. It is worth distinguishing between the duty of good faith, and the duties one owes to a fiduciary; good faith is surely far less, but nevertheless still meaningful. Third, a defense to non-performance of a contract is that the agreement as written is unconscionable. A contract that is a grossly unfair deal where the contract was not actively negotiated (i.e. Blindly signing a bad form contract), may fall under this category. Note: I am not your lawyer; this is not legal advice; contact a licensed attorney in your area; do not rely on my statements; I merely am providing a general answer that is academic in nature.	Does Bob have a case/standing? Yes, this is a reasonably straightforward contract dispute. Once you contract to do something and you then don't do it, you are liable for damages. Contractual damages are assessed on an expectation basis - the innocent party is entitled to be placed financially in the same position as though the contract had been completed without the breach. Bob is entitled to have the item and not to be out-of-pocket more than he agreed to pay. But ... There may not be a contract - see What is a contract and what is required for them to be valid? A contract is formed when the parties reach an agreement and most website terms and conditions are clear that this is NOT when the customer pays for it. For example, Amazon says: The Order Confirmation E-mail is acknowledgement that we have received your order, and does not confirm acceptance of your offer to buy the product(s) ordered. We only accept your offer, and conclude the contract of sale for a product ordered by you, when we dispatch the product to you and send e-mail confirmation to you that we've dispatched the product to you (the "Dispatch Confirmation E-mail"). So, here, two things have to happen before Amazon and you have a contract: they have to physically dispatch the goods and they have to send you an email saying they have. If they do one without the other, there is no contract. If your vendor has similar terms, you don't have a contract with them and are not entitled to contractual damages. You would not have a case in equity because they were clear that there was no contract until these things happened. You might be able to argue negligence if they sent the email without dispatching the goods but your damage basis would be different. Tort damage is calculated on a restoration basis, not an expectation basis, so you can recoup your losses but not claim any lost profits. It makes no difference here but if you had had a buyer who was going to pay you twice the price you paid, in contract you are entitled to the lost profit, in tort, you aren't. However, if the contract has a dispute resolution clause, that would normally have to be complied with before you can go to court. In some cases, this may prevent going to court at all, for example, if the dispute resolution clause included binding arbitration or expert determination. If there is a choice of law clause then this will usually be binding, however, if this is a consumer contract in New Zealand then NZ consumer law will apply in addition. Similarly, courts will usually observe a choice of venue clause. With what reasonable time lapse between (false) shipment notification of the original order and placing the eBay order? A reasonable time. Depends on what the product is and what normal delivery times are. For a 5mm screw, a reasonable time is probably measured in months. For an aircraft carrier it's probably measured in decades. Does this sort of a claim fall under the jurisdiction of small claims court (given that the amount is less than the threshold)? Neither New Zealand nor England & Wales (bearing in mind Scotland and Northern Ireland are different jurisdictions) have small claims courts. The correct venue in New Zealand is the Disputes Tribunal which is not a court, and in England and Wales it is the County Court. Procedurally, would it be more advantageous for Bob to file the claim in the UK or in New Zealand? Ask a lawyer in each jurisdiction. Now Bob wants to claim damages from the store in the amount "Total for the eBay order less total for the original store order" — on top of full refund of the original order. Bob is not entitled to a refund. He is entitled to damages. A more accurate way to state the damages is the total for the eBay order and to not make any mention of a refund.	The date and location of the signature merely documents when/where the signature was made, and doesn't have a lot of legal significance for ordinary contracts. This information is probably only useful if you need to argue that you could't have signed the contract because you weren't in that town on that day. Despite this small lapse your contract is perfectly valid, in particular you are required to make any payments that are part of this contract. It doesn't make sense to get this corrected. However, if any actual information (for example, you address) changed, then you should notify the gym to update the information.	It is rather unclear what the facts are, and the legal answer would depend crucially on those facts. My understanding is that you bought a domain from a provider, and they allowed you to use a web server for some period. It also appears that you don't have a clear understanding of the contract, which may have been made online and you might not have retained a copy of the agreement (which would allow you to look at the terms). The assumption that failing to pay substitutes for explicitly cancelling a service is incorrect. If under the contract you agree to pay a certain amount per year, then you have been racking up charges for some time, and you would need to actually cancel. Ultimately, they could take you to court to force you to pay what you owe, although usually there are less drastic intermediate steps. In court, they would produce their documents to show that you owe money, and your attorney would somehow counter, perhaps by alleging that you had a good-faith belief that the contract had been terminated. It is possible that they simply messed up and failed to send you an invoice earlier, which could explain the lack of invoice. At any rate, the fact that you haven't gotten an invoice does not legally entitle you to avoid paying for the service, whether or not you use it. On the premise that they haven't taken back the domain (seems like they didn't), you can legally use it. However, if you do use it, then that would trash any claim that you believed the contract had been terminated (to argue "I thought it had been canceled" entails "and thus I didn't use the service").
When purchasing with excess cash in a shop, is the sale completed when I pay, or only when I receive change I'm asking purely out of curiosity, and would be happy with answers relating to any jurisdiction(s). As an example, Ben wants to buy a banana from Sam's shop. Bananas are priced at £0.50 each. Ben puts the banana on the counter and (a) hands Sam a £1 coin. Sam then puts the coin in the till and (b) gives Ben a 50 pence coin. Was the contract made and completed at point (a) or (b)? Or is the time of sale not legally defined so precisely? Presumably if it was not made until (b), then Ben might not be entitled to walk away with (or eat) the banana without waiting for change. But if it was made at (a), then Ben might not be entitled to change his mind and get his £1 coin back if Sam was out of change and asked him to wait for five minutes.	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.	In the Netherlands, this qualifies as a deceptive trade practice (misleidende handelspraktijk) and is therefore directly illegal. It's likely also an unfair trade practice, (oneerlijke handelspraktijk) as the claim appears intended for end consumers. This means that the seller cannot count on the consumer knowing anythong about stuffase. It is a dutch implementation of EU directive 2005/29/EG, so similar laws apply in other EU countries. But the illegal per se part might vary.	It is cl;early not legal to charge for an optional warranty without ever having gotten approval for it. The customer could simply ask for a refund on teh ground that this was an error, and take it to small claims if that was refused. I am sure it is legal to offer such an optional warranty and point out its (alleged) benefits. I do not know if consumer law forbids making this pitch multiple times in the same selling encounter.	Whether or not this would be allowed would generally call for a more fact rich situation than the one presented in the original question, that would cast light upon why a retailer might be inclined to refuse to accept payment. Hypothetical legal questions that presume that people are acting irrationally for no good reason are generally ill posed and don't have meaningful answers. Sometimes, there might be a legitimate privacy interest implicated if the invoicing party acknowledged a payment from a third party. For example, suppose that the invoice was for a paternity test and payment would confirm that the incapacitated person actually obtained a paternity test. Sometimes, there are legal rights beyond payment that are implicated and the reasonableness of a refusal might hinge on those rights. For example, suppose that the invoice was for an option to keep using an oil well. Payment of the invoice by the deadline would keep the oil well operating and the land owner sending the invoice might prefer that it not be paid so that the oil well would be shut down. Quite a few contracts are structured in this way. Maybe the invoice was for the right to purchase a first edition of a book when it was finally released, for example, and not paying it would free up a copy for someone else at a price that had increased in the meantime. Or, suppose that the invoice were for unpaid taxes and payment of the taxes would prevent property from being seized for sale by tax authorities, and the taxing authority would prefer that the invoice was not paid so that the valuable property could be liquidated. But, it is hard to imagine that there would be any reason that an ordinary retailer with an ordinary bill would ever refuse payment, although I suppose that this might trigger an interest or penalty amount owed under the contract for late payment. If that were the case, the principal of mitigation of damages, which says that a party to a contract must take all reasonable steps to mitigate their damages, might obligate the retailers to accept the payment or forfeit the penalty amounts that the retailer could have avoided as damages by accepting payment. I doubt that an undelivered tender of payment from a third party would eliminate the obligation, but, it might limit the damages that could be claimed as in the scenario above.	Probably not Once you and the store have entered into a contract the price in that contract is determinative. However, most online stores' terms are very clear there is no contract when you place your order or when you get their automated reply; the contract comes into existence later when they do something. For example: With respect to products sold by Amazon AU, your order is an offer to us for you to buy the product(s) in your order. ... The Order Confirmation is acknowledgement that we have received your order, and does not confirm our acceptance of your offer to buy the product(s) ordered. We only accept your offer, and conclude the contract of sale for a product ordered by you, when we dispatch the product(s) to you and send e-mail or post a message on the Message Centre of the website confirming that we've dispatched the product to you (the "Dispatch Confirmation"). ... Now, even without these terms, it's unlikely that your offer and the company's automated response created a binding contract because the company (as in, an actual person acting for the company) did not consent to the formation of the contract. Consent is fundamental: see What is a contract and what is required for them to be valid?. What you received was an "order confirmation" - a reiteration of your offer to the company, not an acceptance of your order. Consumer protection Most jurisdictions have consumer protection laws that make it illegal to display an incorrect price. However, in most, that does not oblige the retailer to honour the price, it just exposes them to fines from the regulator.	According to this Treasury Department web page refers the asker to the : ... Coinage Act of 1965, specifically Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled "Legal tender," which states: "United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues." I take this to mean that taxing authorities must accept cash in payment of taxes. it doesn't say anything about use of coins, say pennies, to pay large tax bills. I had heard that coins were legal tender only up to a limiting amount, but could not find any citation for this. Then I found this Snopes page which says that pennies and nickels were legal tender only up to 25 cents under the Coinage Acts of 1873 and 1879 but the Coinage Act of 1965 (31 U.S.C. 5103) removed this limit, and made all circulating US coins legal tender for any amount. I have not found any source that seems to me reliable that contradicts this.	If the landlord has a right to charge a late fee (and that late fee is not a penalty) then that right accrues from the instant that the rent is late i.e. any time after 5:00:00 pm precisely if that is the time stated in the lease. If only a day is stated then it would be midnight. For case law on the penalty doctrine see PACIOCCO & ANOR v AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND BANKING GROUP LIMITED [2016] HCA 28 which involved a challenge to a bank charging late payment fees on credit cards.	No. There are almost no constitutional lawyers (at least, that I have seen make pronunciations on the subject) who seem to think that this is a serious means of forcing a no deal Brexit; such an attempt would be obviously unconstitutional and would almost certainly be injuncted in court within hours of such an order being issued. Orders of council cannot stymie an Act of Parliament, this is a well established constitutional principle. See https://davidallengreen.com/2019/09/brexit-padfield-and-the-benn-act/
What rights do students of public universities have regarding professional misconduct / lack of rule enforcement? I’ll try to keep the story short, but the university I attend has recently had a tense situation arise between a professor and a student. The professor clearly broke the University’s own rules on conduct and procedure for its staff. The student was uniquely targeted and harassed by the professor, as is clear from all available evidence. MY chief concern is how the administration acted to remedy the issue. They issued a public email stating they would look into it, and that was it. Sent months ago, they haven’t offered anything else. The professor continues to work for the school. Even more scary, the student faces expulsion from the university because the small group of students that support the professor claim the defendant is a threat to their safety. They’ve also attempted “character assassination” on this student. The administration hasn’t protected him/her whatsoever. Naturally, I want no part of a university that runs this way. I’ve been in contact with the administration and basically said if they don’t do anything, I want my tuition and fees back, and my records scrubbed from their system. If they fail to do so, I’m threatening a lawsuit. I feel entitled to my money back because the faculty broke university rules, and the administration did nothing to enforce its own rules. Because of that, my future at the university is liable to the same harassment. Regardless, I’m most likely switching universities, and will absolutely go to court no matter what if the administration fails to act.` What I’m curious about, is if this kind of case would hold up in court. Threatening a major university is nerve-wracking, but I feel an obligation to stand up for this student (who is undoubtedly innocent of any wrong doing, given the endless evidence). Edit: The above was a poor attempt at asking what kind of rights a student has in a public university. And if a student has any rights at all, what is the university liable for if those rights are infringed upon by its own faculty?	There is a grievance procedure whereby a student can file a complain against a professor. (The possibility that there is no procedure is negligible: I can find the document if you name the institution). They may have reviewed the situation and taken whatever action they plan to. The person complaining will receive notice of the outcome, but it is unlikely that the outcome will be made public. Supposing that you are just an interested bystander: your right is to withdraw from the university, write a letter of protest, or continue as usual. You have no special legal privileges in this situation, because you were not directly harmed. You cannot sue a person for making society less livable for you. I cannot sue the university because (as a professor at a presumably different institution) I am only ephemerally harmed by university administrations covering their legal interests rather than punishing the wicked. You have no standing (technical term) in a lawsuit. Now suppose you were actually the aggrieved student and the wrong was a wrongful public accusation of plagiarism (defamation). The defamed student can sue the professor. This is true no matter what the result of the internal disciplinary process is – except that the university might cleverly get the student to agree to shut up in exchange for some desirable outcome.	I don't believe Canada uses the public official/figure distinction. American defamation law uses the distinction to determine whether to require proof of actual malice, but Canada does not require proof of actual malice. Canadian defamation law has a lot of other parallels to American defamation law, though, especially in terms of privilege. I'd expect the University could claim any of several available privileges, including truth, qualified privilege, and fair comment. And because it's a government institution, it's conceivable that it might even claim absolute privilege, though I definitely don't know enough about their interpretations of the privilege to say one way or another. For a broad primer on defamation law in Ontario, you can check out this report from the Law Commission of Ontario.	I suspect that the statute in question may be Section 11-104(1)(F) of municipal ordinances of the Town of Bloomsburg, PA, a university town (home to Bloomberg University of Pennsylvania, a public college) that purports to have special need for regulation based upon the large number of student rentals in the town and apparently applies primarily to house rentals to students. (If not, the ordinance in question may be modeled on this one, or this one may be modeled on the ordinance in question.) This ordinance imposes the following duties on people who have been granted landlord licenses, which the town requires of most landlords renting to students (a landlord is called the "owner" in the ordinance): The owner shall maintain a current and accurate list of the occupants in each regulated rental unit or dormitory unit which shall include their name, permanent address and permanent telephone number which shall be available to the Town for inspection upon reasonable notice. The owner shall notify the Town of changes in the occupancy within 10 days of the change and shall provide the name of the person who is not longer residing in the premises in the event a person departs and the name, permanent address and permanent telephone number of new occupants in the event a new person is added. On its face, this is probably valid. There is not a constitutional right to keep your own contact information or address, or your tenant's identity. Indeed, very similar requirements are routinely imposed upon operators of hotels and motels. And, I strongly suspect that in Pennsylvania, that towns of any reasonable population have more or less plenary authority to adopt ordinances that aren't specifically prohibited by other state or federal laws or constitutions or the town charter. I do not believe that there are any federal statutes that prohibit a town from imposing such a requirement, barring extraordinary circumstances like a duty to cooperate with national security measures, witness protection programs, or a federal organized crime investigation that don't benefit the average tenant. The kind of privacy policy and privacy disclosure laws in place at the national level apply mostly to health and financial information (and far more in Europe), but not generally to legally mandated disclosures of landlords to local governments. The requirements of a privacy policy don't apply here. The main federal privacy laws and some of the most notable state privacy laws are: The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) which affects websites that knowingly collect information about or targeted at children under the age of 13. Any such websites must post a privacy policy and adhere to enumerated information-sharing restrictions COPPA includes a "safe harbor" provision to promote Industry self-regulation. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act requires institutions "significantly engaged" in financial activities give "clear, conspicuous, and accurate statements" of their information-sharing practices. The Act also restricts use and sharing of financial information. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy rules requires notice in writing of the privacy practices of health care services, and this requirement also applies if the health service is electronic. The California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003 – Business and Professions Code sections 22575-22579 requires "any commercial websites or online services that collect personal information on California residents through a web site to conspicuously post a privacy policy on the site". Both Nebraska and Pennsylvania have laws treating misleading statements in privacy policies published on websites as deceptive or fraudulent business practices. But, most of these laws apply only to Internet sharing of information by private firms, and the Nebraska and Pennsylvania laws don't require anyone to actually have a privacy policy. Those laws certainly don't pre-empt local ordinances. There is at least one state law that should supply an exemption to this statute in Pennsylvania pertaining to confidentiality for domestic violence victims that should override contrary town ordinances. Address Confidentiality Program (ACP): Victims can get a legal substitute address (usually a post office box) to use in place of their physical address; this address can be used whenever an address is required by public agencies. First class mail sent to the substitute address is forwarded to the victim's actual address. Probably the most fruitful means by which an ordinance like this one could be challenged would be to argue that the true intent of the ordinances when adopted or as it has been subsequently applied, is to use it for a purpose that the town is not allowed to engage in, such as enforcing immigration laws, suppressing voting rights, imposing a de facto poll tax, or engaging in discrimination against a protected class in violation of state and federal fair housing laws. College students, however, the expressly stated and plausible target of the ordinance, are not generally a protected class under fair housing legislation. There are precedents upholding zoning regulations discriminating against households of "Dwelling units presently being used by three or more unrelated individuals" aimed at students and other kind of populations whom municipal busybodies often find to be undesirable against federal constitutional challenges. See, e.g., Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494 (1977) and Village of Belle Terre v. Boraas, 416 U.S. 1 (1974). California's courts have been more hostile to this kind of legislation. See, e.g. City of Santa Barbara v. Adamson, 27 Cal. 3d 125 (Cal. 1980) (an op-ed arguing that this was wrongly decided in the L.A. Times in 1990 is here), but that isn't very helpful in Pennsylvania, and California rather than Pennsylvania is the outlier nationally on this kind of issue. The general issue over free association and privacy rights in connection with housing and unrelated individuals is discussed in an up to date manner in a 2016 Florida Law Review article. Proving an improper purpose in an as applied or legislative intent based challenge to a facially neutral statute is very, very difficult in all but the most blatant cases (e.g. when town council members openly proclaim their improper purpose is that true purpose of the law). No doubt recognizing the possibility of such a challenge to the ordinance, this particular ordinance has a particularly lengthy and detailed legislative declaration regarding its purpose that no doubt is an effort to take a position that it has a proper purpose in the event of future litigation. This states: It is the purpose of this Part and the policy of the Town Council of the Town of Bloomsburg, in order to protect and promote the public health, safety and welfare of its citizens, to establish rights and obligations of owners and occupants relating to the rental of certain dwelling units and dormitory units in the Town of Bloomsburg and to encourage owners and occupants to maintain and improve the quality of rental housing within the community. It is also the policy of the Town that owners, managers and occupants share responsibilities to obey the various codes adopted to protect and promote public health, safety and welfare. As means to those ends, this Part provides for a system of inspections, issuance and renewal of occupancy licenses and sets penalties for violations. This Part shall be liberally construed and applied to promote its purposes and policies. In considering the adoption of this Part, the Town of Bloomsburg makes the following findings: A. While the Town Council of the Town of Bloomsburg acknowledges the significant contribution that Bloomsburg University, its students, faculty and staff makes to the culture and economy of the Town of Bloomsburg, in recent years, adverse effects of student housing on residential neighborhoods have increased and there has been an increase in destructive student behavior that threatens the health, safety and welfare of the student citizens and non-student citizens of the Town of Bloomsburg. B. Accordingly, the Town Council of the Town of Bloomsburg makes the following findings relating to student housing and its effect on the residential neighborhoods of the Town of Bloomsburg and the effect of student lifestyles on the health, safety and welfare of the student citizens and non-student citizens of the Town of Bloomsburg: (1) When compared to other unrelated cohabitating individuals and traditional families, groups of students have different hours, work and social habits and frequently cause noise, disturbances and problems in residential neighborhoods. (2) There is a greater incidence of violations of various codes of the Town at residential properties where owners rent such property to students. (3) There is a greater incidence of problems with the maintenance and upkeep of residential properties where owners rent such property to students than at owner-occupied residential properties, family-occupied residential rental properties or residential properties that are occupied by unrelated persons who are not students. (4) There is a greater incidence of disturbances which adversely affect the peace and quiet of the neighborhood at residential properties where owners rent to students than at owner-occupied residential properties, family-occupied residential rental properties or residential properties that are occupied by unrelated persons who are not students. (5) A concentration of student homes changes the character of a neighborhood from one with traditional family values to one that cannot maintain those and approximately 90% of the Town's student homes are concentrated in two areas of the Town which displaces middle and lower income housing by absorbing housing units and rendering the remaining units less desirable for more traditional residential use. (6) Since 1994, nine students have died as a result of fires in houses occupied by students; two students have died of alcohol overdose; one student has died as a result of exposure when he fell from a porch at a student party. (7) Since 1997, 155 reports of disruptive conduct under the Town's Regulated Rental Unit Occupancy Ordinance involving student behavior have been filed. (8) Since 1996, 73 prosecutions for unlawfully occupying premises while smoke or fire detectors were not operational have been filed against students. (9) Since 1998, 295 prosecutions for underage drinking have been filed against students and 11 prosecutions were filed against non-student residents of the Town of Bloomsburg. (10) Since 1998, 43 student parties have been raided where arrests were made for underage drinking and furnishing alcohol to minors. (11) There are sufficient differences between student housing and nonstudent housing and the behavior of students and non-student residents to justify different regulations for each class of resident. (12) Dwelling units presently being used by three or more unrelated individuals are being modified for occupancy by two students requiring the relocating of bearing walls and the modification of utilities, sanitation facilities, means of ingress and egress and smoke and fire detection systems. (13) Inspections of dwelling units occupied by two students have revealed little or no life protecting equipment in the dwelling units such as smoke and fire alarms and detectors and fire extinguishers, over-loaded electrical services, heating systems needing servicing and the use of supplemental heaters, all of which create a dangerous living environment. (14) There is a significant occurrence of disruptive behavior in dwelling units occupied by less than three unrelated students as compared to dwelling units that are occupied by owners, traditional families or unrelated persons who are not students. (15) Students who remain in the occupancy of the premises for periods of time after they are no longer students contribute to the above-described problems. (16) Because of the demand for student housing in the Town of Bloomsburg, developers have expressed interest in developing properties for use as dormitories where students live in rooms without fixed kitchen facilities. (17) Dormitory type uses are not covered by the Regulated Rental Unit Occupancy Ordinance which applies only to dwelling units. (18) The Town Council of the Town of Bloomsburg is desirous of providing the same protection and standards for students who reside in dormitories or dwelling units. (19) The Town Council of the Town of Bloomsburg is desirous of imposing the same responsibilities upon owners of dormitory units and dwelling units where students reside. (20) The Town Council of the Town of Bloomsburg finds that Bloomsburg University has sufficient resources and interest to properly manage dormitories owned by it and there is no need to regulate such dormitories. Even though it probably isn't inherently invalid, it is unusual, so it is likely to be challenged if someone can find an angle to do so. And, I suspect that its purposes are not as pure as those formally identified in the text of the ordinance. In conclusion, while I would totally hate to have an ordinance like that one in my town, it isn't obviously invalid and would probably survive a facial challenge in the absence of evidence that is was being applied in an illegally discriminatory manner.	A cease and desist letter is basically a formal way of them saying, "stop what you are doing, and please don't do it again." It is not proof of tortious conduct by you, nor is it proof of illegal conduct by you. It does not open up an avenue for the university to sue you, nor does it open up an avenue for the university to have you committed to a mental institution. Your behaviour after receiving such a letter does matter however. What is most likely their next step should you continue emailing members of the university, is to apply for an injunction. It is possible that should the injunction be granted, you may be liable to pay fees. Breaching an injunction can have serious consequences, including jail. I would recommend against writing a letter apologizing. You are doing the very thing they asked you not to do. If you do feel in inclined to apologize, you should write the letter to the general counsel and ask them to forward it along. They probably won't. Obviously you have to be quite careful with the content of the letter. You are almost certainly within your rights to continue to email their general counsel. In addition, they almost certainly cannot stop you from communicating with the state agency responsible for the university.	As Putvi says, you are being extorted and this is a criminal matter and thus a matter for the authorities in your jurisdiction. However, you have a second problem entirely apart from that - you almost certainly broke academic ethical rules by submitting a piece of work that you did not write as your own (these things are pretty cut and dried in academic circles). This will not go away. Regardless of whether your extortionists are brought to justice, they can still release your details at any point in time and ruin your career, or it can come out in other ways. Own up to this with your university as soon as possible, and see if you can make it right. This will be hanging over you for the rest of your life, and can drop at any moment - these sorts of things have ruined people before.	I feel that a person, not the subject of arrest, should be protected by the 4th amendment if they choose to remain in their vehicle, even if “ordered” to exit the vehicle by an officer. The intuition is fine, but is basically incorrect. I’m most interested to know: How would a driver (1) Politely (2) determine if a given instruction to exit the vehicle must be complied with, and (3) decline the instruction without giving the officer “cause” or otherwise damaging a potential case? From a practical perspective the only workable response is to comply. There are times when this is done without a reasonable suspicion (or in some cases probable cause) or other legal basis, but it is pretty much impossible for you to dispute this one the spot. Most of the time, the officer will have the legal authority to order you to leave the vehicle. If they order you to exit the vehicle despite not having the legal authority to do so, the right course of action is to comply and then to file a complaint with the agency employing the officer or to bring a civil lawsuit against the officer. There are good answers to a basically duplicate question at How can you tell if you have to follow a police officer's instructions?	I see lots of possible issues here, including: Will the Apprendi decision be given retroactive effect? Were the constitutional issues raised at the time of trial, and if not will a court permit them to be raised later? Will a court agree with the law review publication? Will the facts in your case be sufficiently similar to the cited case? Beyond those, in a section 1983 suit many public employees have qualified immunity unless the legal point was already "well established" when the violation occurred. To pursue this you will need to work with a lawyer skilled in this area. No one on this forum can possibly given you a reliable answer as to whether you have a reasonable case.	In this case the Plaintiff, James Maloney, has previously been charged with a crime for possession of nunchucks. He is apparently suing to enjoin further enforcement of the law under which he was previously charged. US Federal courts will only take up a "case or controversy", which means an issue where actual, not theoretical rights are at stake, and in order to vindicate a constitutional right, it must either have previously been violated, or there must be a plausible and immediate threat to it. Claiming that a law is unconstitutional as part of a defense to a charge of violating that law is a common and probably the best known method of challenging a law (or a government action) for unconstitutionality. But there are other ways. One way is to apply for an injunction against enforcement of the law. That is the procedure that was followed in, for example, the recent case where there was a ruling against the ADA in a district court. In order to use that procedure, the plaintiff must present evidence that there is a credible threat that the law will be invoked against him (or her) if the action which the plaintiff claims is protected by a constitutional right is taken. In short, one need not put oneself in a position where one goes to prison or is found guilty of a crime if one loses the case to challenge the constitutionality of a law or of a government policy or action. But one must establish that it is a real "case or controversy", with real parties in opposition to each other, and real rights at stake, not a mere law student's exercise, nor a collusive case, with both "sides" having the same actual goal. In the case reported, the previous criminal charge helps to establish that this is a real issue.
Why's A's expected profit $.04? Paul Davies. JC Smith's The Law of Contract (2018 2 ed). p. 6. On a slightly diﬀerent tack, but in a similar vein, Judge Richard Posner has written:17 Suppose I sign a contract to deliver 100,000 custom-ground widgets at $.10 apiece to A, for use in his boiler factory. After I have delivered 10,000, B comes to me, explains that he desperately needs 25,000 custom-ground widgets at once since otherwise he will be forced to close his pianola factory at great cost, and oﬀers me $.15 apiece for 25,000 widgets. I sell him the widgets and as a result do not complete timely delivery to A, who sustains $1000 in damages from my breach. Having obtained an additional profit of $1250 on the sale to B, I am better off even after reimbursing A for his loss. Society is also better off. Since B was willing to pay me $.15 per widget, it must mean that each widget was worth at least $.15 to him. But it was worth only $.14 to A—$.10, what he paid, plus $.04 ($1000 divided by 25,000), his expected profit. Thus the breach resulted in a transfer of the 25,000 widgets from a lower valued to a higher valued use. 17 R Posner, Economic Analysis of the Law (8th edn, Aspen, 2011) 151. Pls see the emboldenings. Whence did the $1000 hail? Whence did the 25,000 hail? This is B's quantity demanded, not A's?	$1000 is the total amount of damages sustained by A due to his delivery being 25,000 widgets short. We presume these damages represent lost profits. So that is 4 cents of profit lost per widget not delivered; in other words, had he received those 25,000 widgets, he would have been able to earn a profit of 4 cents on each one. 25,000 is the number of widgets that were delivered to B, even though A wanted them. Therefore, A received 25,000 widgets fewer than he wanted.	The key here is the provision "through no fault of his own". A landlord who relies on this provision would need to be able to demonstrate what the cause of the delay was, and that s/he had not been reasonably able to avoid it. Nor could a landlord simply fail to take steps to repair the problem, whatever it might be. If the problem will clearly take more than 30 days to fix (Isay the building burned down), the prospective tenant would have the right to cancel the lease at once. True, in such a case the tenant would be put to the trouble and expense of finding another place at short notice, but then the landlord would have lost his income from the property. The provision allocates the losses between the parties in such a case. If the property is not available at the specified time for the lease to start, but could be available a few days later, the quoted provision would not allow the landlord to just ignore the situation and end the lease. The landlord is allowed only a "reasonable time" to fix the problem, and taking significantly longer than is needed would not be "reasonable".	The part of the statute (which is part of an article of the Uniform Commercial Code model language applicable to the sale of goods) that you are discussing reads as follows: 1) A purchaser of goods acquires all title which his transferor had or had power to transfer except that a purchaser of a limited interest acquires rights only to the extent of the interest purchased. A person with voidable title has power to transfer a good title to a good faith purchaser for value. When goods have been delivered under a transaction of purchase the purchaser has such power even though (a) the transferor was deceived as to the identity of the purchaser, or (b) the delivery was in exchange for a check which is later dishonored, or (c) it was agreed that the transaction was to be a "cash sale", or (d) the delivery was procured through fraud punishable as larcenous under the criminal law. I have put the critical language of (1)(c) for the purpose of understanding what they are talking about when they are talking about "cash sales" in bold. You are asking: Please explain it to me and tell me what a "cash sale" has to do with voidable title. Doesn't cash sale just mean you are paying cash for something? That sounds perfectly innocent to me. Items (1)(a), (1)(b), (1)(c) and (1)(d) involve circumstances which are examples of transactions in which a buyer of goods obtains voidable title from the seller. This means that the sale can be undone if the seller acts promptly enough, but the sale can't be undone if the buyer in turn sells the goods to a good faith purchaser for value (i.e. someone who pays a meaningful price for the goods without knowledge that the seller only has voidable title). If the goods have been sold to a good faith purchaser for value, however, then the seller who could otherwise undo the sale entirely can now only sue the buyer for damages (usually the agreed purchase price, or fair market value if no purchase price had been agreed upon yet). When it says in (1)(c) that "it was agreed that the transaction was to be a "cash sale"," what the statute is describing is a transaction where the original deal was that you will deliver goods to me with the understanding that I will pay you for the goods in full with currency or other "good funds" (like a wire transfer), roughly contemporaneously. But, what actually happens is that you deliver the goods to me and instead of promptly paying you the cash you are owed for the goods, I don't actually pay you anything. This could happen because I was trying to cheat you and get something for nothing, in which case I would have also committed fraud which also falls under (1)(d). More innocently, suppose that I run a small grocery store and you run a dairy that delivers milk for resale to my grocery store every morning at 5 a.m. before banks open, in time for the morning rush of innocent customers milk to put in their coffee on their way to work, before the banks open, and then I go to the bank when it opens every day at 9 a.m. and take out some cash and hand it over to your money collector, when your money collector stops buy my grocery store around lunch time. But, today, I was stunned to discover that all of the money in my bank account had been frozen due to a garnishment on a money judgment against me that I hadn't been aware of because the process server who was supposed to give me notice of the lawsuit against me instead threw the court papers in the sewer and lied on the return of service saying that he'd delivered the court papers to me, so that unbeknownst to me, a default judgment was entered against me. The sale would be voidable in both cases, the one where I was trying to cheat you while telling you that it would be a "cash sale" and the one where I innocently found out that I didn't have the money to pay you that I had no reasons to think that I wouldn't have available to me. And, in each situation, if my grocery store sold half the milk that was delivered to me in the morning rush, those sales would be valid and irreversible, even though I completely stiffed the dairy owner and there was a total failure of consideration in what was supposed to have been a cash sale transaction. But, the dairy owner would have a right, when he found out that he wasn't getting paid at noon and the sale turned out to have been a voidable one, to take back all the milk that hadn't been sold to my customers yet in the hope that he could sell it to someone else who was actually willing and able to pay for it instead. In general, under circumstances when a sale is voidable, if I haven't resold the goods to a good faith purchaser for value, then you can legally force me to return the goods and have the sale invalidated. But, if I have sold the goods to somebody else for a more than nominal price, and the person who bought the goods from me doesn't know that I cheated you by not paying for the goods, then you can't undo my sale of the goods that I didn't pay for to the good faith purchaser for value. Situation (1)(c) is very similar to situation (1)(b), in which you give me the goods and I give you are personal check for the purchase price, but the check is then dishonored by the bank (something that could been my intentional plan to cheat you, but which could also have been my failure to keep track of the balance in my bank account as I wrote checks). Both of these situations involve broken promises which may or may not have been made with no intent to honor those promises in the first place. Situations (1)(a) and (1)(d), in contrast, involve out and out fraud and deceit, but not "fraud in the factum". In other words, what (1)(a), (1)(b), (1)(c) and (1)(d) all have in common is that the goods were voluntarily delivered by you to me, even though your voluntary delivery was obtained by improper means such a deceit regarding who is buying the goods. ("Fraud in the factum", which is also void, involves situations when, for example, I ask you for you to sign what I tell you is a birthday card, when what I have actually done is have you sign a letter authorizing your delivery man to deliver lots of goods to me, and then I use that letter to have goods delivered to me.) In case (1)(a) this would often be a sale on credit or open account to someone you believe to have good credit but who is in fact someone else with bad credit. For example, you make a sale to George Shrub, thinking you will be delivering goods to George Shrub, Sr. who has good credit, but instead you are tricked into delivering the goods to George Shrub, Jr. who has multiple bankruptcies and never pays his bills on time. In case (1)(d) there are myriad possible examples. For example, I may have given you counterfeit money to get you to deliver the goods to me. Or, I may have purchased your cow in a barter exchange for beans that I told you were magic beans, but that were really just ordinary beans. But, in both (1)(a) and (1)d), as well as in (1)(b) and (1)(c), you are voluntarily delivering the good to me and then not getting what you thought you had bargained for in the deal, sometimes with evil motives and sometimes for innocent reasons, so voidable title arises. In contrast, suppose that I snuck into my stockyard one night and stole the goods from you. In that situation, you would have a right to get your goods back not only from me, but even from a good faith purchaser for value to whom I sold the stolen goods, because out and out theft that does not even involve consent procured through fraud or a broken promise, doesn't give me any title to the property, not even voidable title. Similarly, suppose that I pointed a gun at you in your shop and insisted that you deliver the goods to me or else I will kill you. Again, in that situation, you aren't giving me even voidable title to the goods, and you can sue a good faith purchaser for value from me to get the goods that I never had any colorable claim to have ever owned back. The language in the first sentence of (1) goes along with the language about voidable sales of goods in the rest of (1), because the first sentence of (1) covers situations when I may not have 100% ownership of goods that I sell to some else. For example, suppose that I have a pedigreed male dog that I have purchased the pet rights in from a breeder, while the breeder has retained the stud rights in the dog. (Yes, these transactions really happen. I've litigated them.) Under the first sentence of (1), I can sell the pet rights I have in the dog to you, but I can't sell the stud rights that I don't own to you because I don't own them. And, unless I am a pet store owner to whom the dog has been "entrusted" (and I'm not a pet shop owner), I probably can't destroy the stud rights through a sale of the dog to you when I am purporting to be selling you both the pet rights and the stud rights, even if you are a good faith purchaser for value, because I am not a merchant to whom the "entrusting" doctrine applies. So, if I sold the dog, the owner of the stud rights could still enforce those rights against the person to whom I sold the dog. Parts (2) and (3) deal with an exception to the general rule in the first sentence of (1) called "entrusting" which is quite similar to voidable title. Entrusting involves you leaving your goods with a merchant who is in the business of selling those kinds of goods. So, if I leave my nice clothes with a consignment shop or a pawn shop and the consignment shop or pawn shop sells my clothes to someone and give the buyer good title, and I can't undo that sale even if you didn't actually have my permission to sell the nice clothes that I had entrusted to the consignment store or pawn shop (e.g. perhaps they were only allowed to sell my wedding dress for a minimum price of $100, but instead sold it to someone for $30 which they didn't have permission to do, then the buyer of my wedding dress for $30 would still have good title to the wedding dress and the sale couldn't be undone). But, on the other hand, if I leave my nice clothes with an automobile parts shop or a grocery store or a stationary store, and they don't actually have my permission to sell the nice clothes that I left in their care, and then they sold my nice clothes to one of their customers, that sale made without my permission would be void and could be undone, even if their customer paid more than a nominal price for my nice clothes and had no knowledge that the merchant didn't have my permission to sell my nice clothes. This is because we don't believe that someone who buys, for example, my wedding dress from an automobile parts shop or grocery store or stationary store, can legitimately say that they really believed in good faith that the seller really had your permission to sell my wedding dress, because that is not an ordinary merchant-customer transaction for them.	Regular maintenance does not include repairs for being broken – I have a contract with a company that (for a monthly payment) provides regular maintenance on the furnace, which does not cover the situation where the motor wears out, or whatever. In the worst case scenario of an oil line breech, the tenant would not be liable for the tens of thousands of dollars of cleanup that would be required. Under Pennsylvania law, there is an implied warranty of habilitability, for example the landlord warrants that it doesn't rain inside the house, there is hot and cold running water, and so on. Safe heat is an example of something that is included in a place being habitable. This warranty is not waivable by lease provision (Fair v. Negley, 390 A.2d 240). However, the subjective recommendation of a repair guy has little legal cash value: what is needed is an arms-length evaluation of the safety and functionality of the system. If the recommendation is based on inefficient fuel use and long-term likelihood of eventual system failure, that is probably not sufficient to compel a repair. Excess CO on the other hand is a clear danger. The repairman should be able to at least explain the specifics of the improper setup and the consequences of doing nothing. Documentation of actions taken is a good idea.	You have two downvoted answers here. One of them is actually correct, one is nonsense. Question: Which one? Answer: Doesn't matter. If you provide this service without getting advice from a competent lawyer first, your risk is much too high. Making the wrong decision (either giving up on a good business idea without reason, or providing a banking service without license) will cost you much much more than paying a lawyer for advice.	Agreement You say: my landlord added a clause stating: "All moving must be done in rear of driveway or pay $250 (near basement door)" Was this addition made at the time you signed the lease or subsequently? This matters because the terms of a contract cannot be changed unilaterally, they must be agreed. If the change happened after the lease was signed then , unless you agreed to it, it has no effect whatsoever. Since that resolution is boring; I will assume that it was always there. Enforcability Is this actually enforceable, since I did park in a public space and not necessarily on his property? Yes, it is enforceable. People can agree in a contract to do (or not do) anything so long as that thing is not illegal - that is what a contract is; a legally enforceable agreement for two people to do certain things. You agreed "All moving must be done in rear of driveway ... (near basement door)" and you didn't do what you agreed to do. Therefore you broke a term of the contract. It doesn't matter that you don't know why he wanted you to do this or if it was reasonable or if it meant that you couldn't use your parent's truck - if these were issues for you they should have been raised before you agreed to do it. If the clause said "When moving out you will wear a blue double breasted suit with a yellow and purple bow tie" then that is what you must do. Consequences There are a number of options open to the wronged party when the other party breaches a term of a contract. The most relevant in these circumstances is to sue for damages. So how much are damages? Well, they are an amount to restore the wronged party to the position they would have been in if you hadn't broken the agreement. In situations where damages can be hard to calculate, contracts can make a provision for liquidated damages; a pre-agreed amount of what the damage will be: in this case "$250". However: In the United States, Section 2-718(1) of the Uniform Commercial Code provides that, in contracts for the sale of goods: Damages for breach by either party may be liquidated in the agreement but only at an amount which is reasonable in the light of the anticipated or actual harm caused by the breach, the difficulties of proof of loss, and the inconvenience or nonfeasibility of otherwise obtaining an adequate remedy. A term fixing unreasonably large liquidated damages is void as a penalty. This largely mirrors the common law rule, which applies to other types of contracts under the law of most US states. On the face of it, it would appear that $250 may be "unreasonably large" given the nature of the breach where it appears that the landlord has actually suffered no damage.	Your question isn't quite as simple as it sounds; some civil cases are tried before juries, and though a judge can give directions to a jury to give a particular verdict, they are not always required to obey; there are eighteenth-century English cases on the point that established that principle for most related jurisdictions. But your last sentence does have a simple answer: No. A judge usually takes an oath on assuming office, to administer the law without fear or favour. That means he will investigate the relevant law (with the assistance of the parties' lawyers), and enforce what it says. "This law would be unfair to the customer, so I will ignore it" would be just as bad as "The mechanic threatened to hit me with a wrench, so I find for him". Of course, most jurisdictions do have overriding principles of fairness; it may be that this contract term was not shown to the customer, so is not enforceable, or it may be that it is contrary to public policy to be uncertain what repairs will cost. But unless there is an explicit legal reason, the judge will have to find for the mechanic. It would be neither improper nor unusual for the judgment to include the sentence "This result is clearly unfair to the customer, and I urge the legislature to look at closing the loophole; nevertheless, the law is clear, and I find the customer must pay the increased price."	It is a principle of equity (of which damages are a part) that you are not entitled to be enriched. Let's say that the first collision did damage costing $500 to repair. If after the second collision the cost of the repair is now $700, the first driver is liable for $500 and the second for $200. That said, let your insurer sort it out - that's what you pay your premiums for.
Is or isn't it illegal to reveal a/the whistleblower's name? According to Politico: But [US Senator Rand] Paul told reporters Tuesday he is "more than willing to and probably will at some point" name the whistleblower. "There is no law preventing anybody from saying the name whether you're in the media or you're an elected official," he said. Sergio Gor, a spokesman for Paul, added, "The whistleblower statute protects the accuser from being fired but says nothing about skeptics revealing his name. There is absolutely no statute that prevents anyone, other than the inspector general from releasing the accuser’s name." "There is no law preventing anybody from saying the name whether you're in the media or you're an elected official," he said. So, it is this claim correct, basically, is the whistleblower protected from retribution, but there is no law prohibiting his identity being made public by anyone (except the IG apparently)?	There is actually more than one law covering whistleblowers, so the other answer is only partially correct. According to the NYT, the case in question here is also covered by the Inspector General Act of 1978 Do whistle-blowers have a right to remain anonymous? Only in a limited way. Another part of the Inspector General Act says that agency watchdogs “shall not, after receipt of a complaint or information from an employee, disclose the identity of the employee without the consent of the employee, unless the inspector general determines such disclosure is unavoidable.” In line with that law, the inspector general for the intelligence community, Michael Atkinson, did not include the whistle-blower’s name in his report to the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire. Mr. Maguire testified last week that he did not know the name of the person [...] But the legal prohibition on disclosing the official’s name applies only to Mr. Atkinson. It does not bar Mr. Trump and his allies from trying to identify him or disclosing his name if they figure it out. (It would be illegal under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act for any official to disclose his name if he is a covert agent, but no one has suggested that he is.) The same information can be found in an OIG FAQ Q: Will OIG reveal employee identities or the fact that they cooperated? A: OIG investigators will respect the confidentiality of Department employees as provided by law. Section 7 of the Inspector General Act states that “[t]he Inspector General shall not, after receipt of a complaint or information from an employee, disclose the identity of the employee without the consent of the employee, unless the Inspector General determines such disclosure is unavoidable during the course of the investigation.” During the course of some investigations, it may be unavoidable that the identities of individuals involved will become known. However, OIG strives to protect the confidentiality of Department employees who provide OIG with information. In addition, employees should be aware that reprisal against any employee for cooperating with OIG is forbidden by the Inspector General Act and DAO 207-10, Section 4. Further, OIG takes whistleblower protection very seriously and, along with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, investigates alleged reprisals against employees for making protected disclosures to OIG. So Paul's spokesperson seems to be correct.	That is private. Who you work for is not information that is disclosed publicly by any state actor in Germany, just like your taxes. In fact, that or who you are employed at is often regarded as personal and private information. Nigh impossible through agencies Public agencies like the Fiskus (tax), Agentur für Arbeit, and immigration are not allowed to give any information about a person to anyone but that person or another agency that has the right to that information. Yes, (generally speaking) the tax office may not even say that a person exists (or doesn't) and what their tax number is to anyone but the person in question.	So can Congress itself just declare someone guilty of insurrection and bar them from standing in elections, without that being considered a bill of attainder? No. Even if it isn't a bill of attainder, the Congress can't do that. Or do they have to delegate the finding of fact (in re insurrection) to another body, e.g. to the judiciary? The issue would be presented when someone ran for public office and their qualifications were challenged, and would be resolved by state and local election officials, subject to judicial review. If that was not done, Congress could nonetheless refuse to recognize a state certification of someone's election on these grounds.	If someone testifying before congress refuses to respond to appropriate questions (questions within the scope of the congressional inquiry), that person can be cited for contempt of Congress. One way to avoid this is if the witness can invoke the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. That says that a person may not be compelled to be a witness against himself (or herself) in a criminal case, and has been interpreted to mean that if testimony might in future be used against the witness in a criminal case, it cannot be required, even if the current occasion is not a criminal case. However, if a person has been granted immunity in a particular matter, no testimony can be used against the person in a criminal case on that matter, and so there is no Fifth Amendment privilege not to testify on that matter. This applies to testimony before a court as well as before Congress. The grant of immunity must be at least as comprehensive as the refusal to testify would have been, or the privilege remains. Therefore, if a person has been granted immunity on a subject, that person cannot refuse to testify before Congress by invoking the Fifth Amendment. If the person does refuse, s/he can be cited for contempt of Congress. However, the person can raise a claim that the inquiry was not a proper one, for example because the subject was not a proper one fo Congressional inquiry, or that the Committee was not properly authorized. If the court upholds such a claim, the person will not be convicted of contempt. Also, while Congress can issue a citation, the Justice Department is not required to prosecute the person, and may choose to let the issue drop. Or the court might not convict on some other ground. And of course Congress (or one house of it) has to vote to issue the citation, which it might decide not to do, for political reasons, or indeed for any reason at all. So a grant of immunity alone is not enough to say that testimony will be compelled, but it is a significant step towards such compulsion. Note that under Murphy v. Waterfront Comm'n, 378 U. S. 52 (1964), a state grant of immunity also bars Federal use of the compelled testimony or its fruits, and under Kastigar v. United States, 406 U.S. 441 (1972) a Federal grant of immunity bars state use of the compelled testimony or its fruits. See also This Justia essay on "the Power to Compel Testimony" which covers the whole subject with multiple case citations.	Confidential is simply a less "forceful" name than "privilege". If something is "confidential", this means that the recipient won't voluntarily blab it. This covers a multitude of sins. The rubric I was taught in law school is that even the front page headline of the New York Times if it relates to your case, it is confidential, because you don't want to tip off an adversary who may not have read that paper that day for some reason to the disadvantage of your client. If something is privileged, you can't be compelled to do so involuntarily. A "privilege" is a more "forceful" word. In practice, most stuff that you have a legitimate need to keep secret in the face of compulsory evidence gathering tools are privileged, and confidential matters not covered by a privilege are kept that way because it is best practice not to be source of an opponent's discovery of information and not because it can't be found any other way from something that someone has a legitimate reason to keep secret from someone in a lawsuit or criminal case (which is the main circumstance when privileges are invoked).	united-states In the United States, information released through the federal Freedom of Information (FoI) process, or any of the various state-level versions of FoI, is considered public information. The person who receives it may share it at will, or publish it. Indeed many such inquiries are made by news reporters who intend to publish the information, and many others are routinely posted to various web sites. I suspect that the law on this point in the UK is similar, but I have not checked it.	The question actually asked, "what legal theories would support or harm...", is somewhat unclear. But what the questioner seems to be asking is, basically, what would happen if you tried it? The answer, it seems to me, is pretty straightforward. In the hypothetical case, you have been publishing a notice for years, saying "I have not been served with a subpoena." You then get served with a subpoena that includes a gag order. The gag order, presumably, includes wording prohibiting you from revealing the existence of the subpoena. You then cease publication of the warrant canary. By doing so, you have revealed the existence of the subpoena, and you are in violation of the gag order. You will be subject to whatever penalties you would be subject to if you violated it in some other way; for example, by publishing a notice that said, "Hey! We got a subpoena! It's a secret!" The distinction between revealing the existence of the subpoena by action, rather than by inaction, is a false one. It's exactly the kind of cutesy legal formality that non-lawyers love to rely on, but real judges ignore. If you tell someone: "Hey, you know John Smith's three sons, Joe, Ted, and Bill? Joe and Ted are good people; they have never molested any children. As for Bill--well, I don't have anything to say about Bill." If Bill is not a child molester, you have defamed him, and you are not going to convince a judge otherwise. The EFF link you link to tries to claim it'll "work" because courts are reluctant to enforce speech. Even if that were true, that might mean your canary would be effective in the sense of giving the public notice of the subpoena. That doesn't mean you wouldn't be liable for giving the public notice. For example: I put up a billboard saying "Bill Smith is a pedophile." Even if the court can't force me to add the word "not", that doesn't mean the billboard isn't defamatory. Realistically, though, courts compel speech all the time. Court-ordered apologies, disclosures, and notices are not unusual. And if ever a court would be inclined to compel speech, it would be in a situation like this one, where a company intentionally set out to get around a gag order with this kind of convoluted sea-lawyering.	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.
What bar ethics restrictions are there on lawyers commenting on current legal cases? In the United States, what bar ethics restrictions are there on lawyers publicly commenting on ongoing legal cases in which they represent no parties? Since different state bars might have different rules, my question could be expanded to: In general, what are the restrictions? Which states have the most extreme restrictions, and how do they differ from the general restrictions? Which states have the most lax restrictions, and how do they differ from the general restrictions? EDIT: At what point does an uninvolved lawyer's public commentary on a case constitute a legal opinion which, according to ethics rules, requires due diligence to be done by the uninvolved lawyer? At what point does the due diligence needed become so great that it can only be done someone with access to non-public information, and thus the uninvolved lawyer is certainly violating ethic rules? [NOTE: This isn't my understanding of bar ethics rules, but that of someone I'm arguing with.]	As George White says, it's hard to prove a negative, but in this instance, there's quite a bit of evidence supporting you. First, the ABA has standards for legal commentators but they are very weak. They say pretty much what you would expect, and, they are non-binding: they explicitly say they "not intended" to provide grounds for "professional discipline." Second, there are articles by lawyers indicating there are no state bar standards. Taken together, the weak ABA standards and the articles should give you enough evidence to prove your case in the "court of buddy opinion." The ABA rules on legal commentators were issued in 2013 as part of a Fair Trial and Public Discourse Black Letter. The letter covered public comments on cases by lawyers involved in the case, lawyers not involved (ie, commentators) and judicial and judicial employees. According to the ABA, the standards are: intended to provide a guide to best practices for lawyers who provide public commentary or consult on criminal cases in which they are not personally involved; (Standard 8-1.1(a)(ii)) To explain what it meant by a "guide to best practices," the ABA included the following caveat about the applicability of the standards: While these Standards are intended to provide a basis for the formulation of internal guidelines within lawyers’ offices...they are not intended to serve as the basis in and of themselves for the imposition of professional discipline...(Standard 8-1.1(c)) In other words, the ABA's rules truly are just a guide to best practices. As for the guidance itself, it does not come close to requiring "due-diligence." A lawyer who is serving as a legal commentator should strive to ensure that the lawyer’s commentary enhances the public’s understanding of the criminal matter and of the criminal justice system generally, promotes respect for the judicial system, and does not materially prejudice the fair administration of justice, in the particular case or in general. To that end, a legal commentator should: (i) Have an understanding of the law and facts of the matter so as to be competent to serve as a commentator; (ii) Refrain from providing commentary designed to sensationalize a criminal matter; and... It may be that some states provide more stringent restrictions, but a quick search suggests they don't. Otherwise, there would not be a law review article arguing "The Legal Profession Must Broaden Ethical Standards for Legal Commentators," or an ABA Journal article (from this June) giving advice on becoming a legal commentator without mentioning state bar restrictions. I'm sure if you look, you can find more evidence.	england-and-wales No. This type of approach is a breach of the Solicitors Regulation Authority's (SRA) Code of Conduct for solicitors, Registered European Lawyers, and Registered Foreign Lawyers Paragraph 8.9 of the Code states that: You do not make unsolicited approaches to members of the public, with the exception of current or former clients, in order to advertise legal services provided by you, or your business or employer. This requirement is clarified by SRA Guidance that says: ...advertising to the public is permitted, subject to certain conditions... ... Specifically, you are allowed to advertise your services to the public so long as this is done in a non-intrusive and non-targeted way. This means, for example, that you may place an advert on the radio or TV, on billboards, in a local newspaper, online or on a social media platform. However, this advertising is limited... Paragraphs 8.9 and 7.1(c)1 of the Standards and Regulations prohibit unsolicited approaches to members of the public which, even if permitted by law, may feel unwelcome or intrusive. ... This means you cannot make direct or specifically targeted "approaches" to members of the public in person, by phone or via other means which target them individually. (My emphasis) This guidance goes on to give an example of prohibited advertising of the sort suggested by the OP: Firm A identifies from online media a list of people who have recently been involved in a major road traffic accident. The firm sends them a letter saying that it can help claim compensation. We [i.e. the SRA] would consider this a breach of our standards as it involves a targeted approach to specific members of the public which may feel intrusive to those who receive it due to the particular circumstances that they find themselves in. 1Paragraph 7.1 (c) of the Code of Conduct for Firms applies the same standard to firms.	There is nothing wrong with this requirement. The teacher or professor isn't requiring you to change your opinion. Instead, the requirement is simply to marshall evidence in favor of an opinion that you may not hold. Being able to do this is a valuable rhetorical skill (and a skill which lawyers must routinely employ). For example, in competitive debate, you often do not have the freedom to decide whether you will be arguing in favor or against a resolution, and may not even know which side you will be advancing until moments before the event starts. Freedom of conscience does not extend to freedom from understanding people who disagree with your deeply held belief. UPDATE: Requiring a whole classroom of students (possibly many classrooms of students) to advocate with multiple representatives for a bill does seem problematic, in terms of election laws and probably in terms of the legal requirements that apply to the university, and also possibly in terms of "forced speech", because in requiring the advocacy to be submitted to the official and take a particular position, goes beyond the "let's pretend" veneer that applies in most debate contexts.	The dichotomy between solicitors and barristers in the UK isn't one based on verbal definitions in the English language. In other words, the fact that barristers argue and solicitors don't isn't something that's inherent to the words, it's just how British law decided to divide it. Since those countries with solicitor generals don't have this dichotomy, they generally don't have anything actually called a barrister, and there's no reason why the solicitor general couldn't be called that, since solicitor doesn't require that he not argue in court.	It has been along-standing principle in the US that names of jurors are publicly known, although there can be exceptions (US v. Barnes, 604 F.2d 121 (1979) is the first case of a fully anonymous jury. Now, except in the 10th Circuit, they are allowed and not extremely rare (I don't know what the percentage is). So it would depend on whether the particular jury list is public. Apart from the situation where a juror is harassed by the press and gets a court order to restrain approaches by a specific member of the press, if you can contact them, you can ask them questions. There cannot be a blanket "do not contact a juror" law / order in the US, which would be contrary to the 1st Amendment.	This depends entirely on STATE law, and you need to list the state(s) you are interested in in the question. Thus, the usual legal statement "it depends." POLICE ARE NOT ATTORNEYS Don't accept legal advice from the police at face value. Police frequently don't actually know the minutiae of the law, and/or often misunderstand it. Their job is not to provide legal advice nor legal judgement, their job is to enforce the law based on certain priorities. Thus the area of enforcement is usually narrowed to specific categories so they can be experts in that area. (I.e vice cops, bunko squad, homicide division, etc.) But police are not lawyers, so don't expect them to understand the law. They did not attend 3 years of law school after attaining a college degree, which lawyers DO. Police get as little as 3 months training (in some states like Arkansas they can be put on duty without ANY training for up to a year (!) before attending the academy). THAT SAID, REGARDING CALL RECORDINGS: There are single and two party states. In single party states, any single person who is part of a call or communication can record it. In "two party" states, everyone that is part of the call must be informed. There are numerous exceptions and stipulations however. GREAT EXPECTATIONS First off, is there an "expectation of privacy." Again this varies by state and case law. Generally, if there is no expectation of privacy, then there is a clear exception to record. For instance, if you are in a busy restaurant, and people around you can hear or eavesdrop, you have no expectation of privacy. Courts have also ruled that if you are in the presence of a police officer performing official duties, there is also no expectation of privacy (not for either of you). IS IT LIVE OR IS IT MEMOREX Are you being recorded? If you are in a two/all party state, and you have an expectation of privacy (a phone call made in your home) then one of the following must occur: If the police are recording you without your knowledge, they must have a court order permitting them to do so as part of an investigation. Otherwise you must be notified with a statement at the beginning of the call that the call is being recorded. (Typically your option is to hang up or continue. Continuing the call implies your consent.) In some states the notification can be in the form of a "duck" or a beep every 15 seconds (time period varies, this is also different per state). OPINION NOT ADVICE BELOW I would think that being notified that a call is being recorded ends any expectation of privacy for any involved party. Assuming the state law and related case law supports recording when there is no expectation of privacy, this circumstance would seem to permit recording legally. Doubly so if your were talking to police in official capacity (did you notice a beep every xx seconds?) CAUTION: Because this varies so much by state, and because even the various Federal District Courts are not in unanimous agreement on the minutiae, there may be other factors to consider.	If a defendant has committed a crime, they would choose to self-represent to ensure that no one else would know about the circumstances of their crime. Although lawyers are ethically bound to not disclose information that would not be in the interest of their client, the decision to breach this duty would be up to the sole discretion of the individual in question. In cases where the exchanged information may used to provide evidence against the client, the lawyer is compelled to disclose the truth to the courts/law enforcement. This is deeply misguided. Criminal defense lawyers usually represent people who are guilty and there is no ethical problem with doing so, nor does this mean that the lawyer will disclose privileged information that is prejudicial to the defendant in the course of the representation. The notion that a lawyer would be compelled to testify against his client to the courts/law enforcement is simply not how the system works. It is true that a lawyer cannot ethically put you on the stand to offer testimony when the lawyer knows that your testimony to the court will be an outright flat lie, and that this lie is your strategy to prevail in your defense, but that is the sole meaningful limitation on what a lawyer can do for you. However, I can't think of a single instance, in which a desire to defend yourself at trial with a lie has caused someone to represent themselves. Usually, someone with that kind of motive will simply lie to their lawyer as well. It never makes sense to represent yourself if you are innocent and want to be acquitted of the charges against you. But, keep in mind that this is a small subset of all criminal defendants. Criminal defendants are overwhelmingly guilty of something. Usually, a criminal defense lawyer works to either exploit prosecution mistakes or lack of knowledge that prevent the prosecution from proving that guilt, or work to make sure that the defendant is not convicted of a more serious crime than the one committed, and/or work to see to it that their client does not receive an unnecessarily harsh sentence when alternatives are available. In real life, people represent usually themselves, either because they are denied access to counsel (which can be done in a criminal cases where the prosecutor waives the right to seek incarceration as a sentence), or because they are "crazy". Many people who represent themselves in a criminal cases do so because they want to proudly claim that they committed the crime as a means of obtaining of forum for public recognition of what they believe was righteous action even if this could lead to their death. Many terrorists, domestic and foreign, fall into this category. For example, the fellow committed a massacre at a Colorado abortion clinic tried to do this (if I recall correctly, he was later found incompetent to face a trial and has been committed to a mental institution until he becomes competent, if ever). Other people represent themselves out of a strongly felt guilt that they feel a moral duty to confess to, even if this means that they will face severe punishment for doing so. One subset of this group of people are people known as "death penalty volunteers" who try to get sentenced to death and try to waive all appeals and post-trial review. Sometimes they also plead guilty in the belief (often, but not always, inaccurate) that their swift guilty plea when they aren't actually guilty will protect someone else whom they know to be actually guilty. Other people represent themselves because they have deeply held, but paranoid and inaccurate views about the legal system such as members of the "Sovereign Citizens Movement" who think that if they say the "magic words" that they cannot be convicted and that lawyers are a part of a conspiracy designed to prevent them from doing so. Another situation that comes up is when an affluent person who is not entitled to a public defender as a result, chooses to represent themselves, usually with respect to a fairly minor charge like a traffic violation that carries a risk for a short term of incarceration, to save money. But, this is rarely a wise choice. But, unless you plan on pleading guilty or being found guilty at trial, self-representation does not make sense, and even if you plan on pleading guilty, a lawyer is usually worth it. For example, even if the direct consequence of a guilty plea is minor, the collateral consequences of that conviction (e.g. loss of eligibility to work in certain jobs and/or deportation and/or loss of a right to own a firearm) may be consequential and something that a non-lawyer would not realize was happening. Or, maybe you think you are guilty of crime X so there is no point in fighting the charges, but actually, the language of that statute has been defined in a manner that means you are really only guilty of less serious crime Y.	If the patent lawyer "hears about" such failed patents from clients, and then uses the client's work and modifies them into successful patent filings, that would seem to be a clear conflict of interest, just as a business lawyer cannot use info learned from a client to make his own business deals, unless the client grants an OK. But if the patent lawyer just hears through shoptalk, or through communication by, perhaps, patent examiners that the lawyer works with, I don't see any conflict of interest, although as the comment by Eugene Styer suggests, there is likely to be enough prior art to make the patent invalid.
In the US, can a manufacturer enforce how their products are used? Petzl (a company manufacturing outdoors equipment) has the following statement on their website: Self-belaying is prohibited! We cannot ignore the fact that some people use the GRIGRI as a self-belay device. Many internet sites give tips on modifying your device for this use. Above all, this technique increases the risks to the climber. Firstly, the climber does not hold the brake side of the rope. Additionally, in case of a fall ,the GRIGRI can be blocked against the rock, the positioning system (positioning strap), or other, thus negating its braking function. The climber could fall to the ground. Finally, remember that any product modification outside of Petzl facilities is formally prohibited (see Instructions for Use). Self-belaying with the GRIGRI is prohibited. Are these provisions actually enforceable, in accordance to US law? If it matters, Petzl products are sold in regular stores that don't require customers to sign an explicit waiver before making a purchase.	No It's your device, you can do what you like with it (subject to the law - you can't hit people with it. Unless they want to be hit: whatever turns you on, turns you on). However, if you do operate it outside their instructions then they would not be legally liable if it failed and injured you or someone else or set fire to the cat or whatever. The "prohibition" would limit their legal liability.	australia There are likely several offences under the Inclosed Lands Protection Act 1901. Under s4 it is unlawful to enter into inclosed lands (which includes all buildings) without the consent of the owner or controller. The balloon releasers did not have explicit permission and entering with the intent to disrupt means they cannot rely upon implied permission. s4B makes this an aggravated offence if the intention for entering is to disrupt any business or undertaking taking place on the inclosed lands. Because there were 3 or more people involved, the maximum penalty is 200 penalty units (currently $22,000) or 3 years. In addition, the occupiers could seek damages under the torts of trespass or nuisance.	It would seem that the law involved is probably Section 58-17-4096 of the South Carolina Code of Laws, Title 58. This is part of the General Railroad Law of SC (GRL), and apparently was last revised in 1996. Section 58-17-4096 reads, in full: (A) It is unlawful, without proper authority, for a person to trespass upon railroad tracks. (B) A person who violates this section is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, must be fined not more than two hundred dollars or imprisoned not more than thirty days. Note that the section does not specifically define "proper authority" nor "trespass" (nor do the definition sections at the start of the GRL), so those terms should have their ordinary meanings. It might be argued that the landowner has "proper authority". It is interstice to contrast this with the previous section, SC Code § 58-17-4095 (2012) which gives a rather detailed list of who is authorized to "park or operate a vehicle on a railroad right-of-way". Persons authorized are: an employee of the railroad ... in the performance of his duties [one who] has authority from the railroad [one who] is using a public or private roadway which crosses over the railroad ... [one who] is acting in an official capacity with the military, police force, a fire fighting organization, or some similar public authority ... which crosses over the railroad ... [one who] is an employee of a public utility or telecommunications carrier, or of the forestry industry ... The question asks: Can a law that effectively bars a property owner from access to their property be enforced or does the constitution protect the property owner’s rights and thus make them exempt from such a state law? There is no such absolute right of access by the owner specified in the US Federal Constitution. As the comments by Nate Eldredge suggest, the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment might be relevant, but that would have (or should have) been applied when the railroad lines were put in, and if proper compensation was paid at that tiem to the then landowner, future ownership would include the restrictions then imposed. Any easement should be recorded on the actual deed to the property, but a tract map would not normally show it. Moreover, it is possible that the railroad was put in before the fourteenth amendment made the takings clause applicable to the states, or before this incorporation was recognized in Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co. v. City of Chicago, 166 U.S. 226 (1897). Even so, an easement might have been obtained by private agreement between the railroad and the owner of the land at that time. In the "Interactive Constitution" article "The Fifth Amendment Takings Clause" by Richard A. Epstein and Eduardo M. Peñalver (both noted professors of law) it is said that: ... The Clause also applies, not only to the confiscation of all existing interests in any individual piece of property, but to the confiscation of certain lesser interests in property. Under Anglo-American law, these would include recognized interests like easements (such as rights of way), leases, mortgages, life estates, and remainders. ... ... Any time some private party could seek a court order stopping another private party from engaging in harmful activities, the government can impose the same limitations through fines and court orders without a duty to compensate. A law or regulation authorized by law may bar access by a landowner to a part of a property in proper cases. For example if the land is environmentally sensitive, or if there is a dangerous condition, such as old ordnance on a former proving ground or battlefield. Such a law would probably be a partial taking, and require appropriate compensation, depending on the exact circumstances The answer by Greendrake which says: the only theoretically possible case of trespassing here is that of trespass to chattels, but that is a tort, not a crime. There can be no charges, only claims. is incorrect because of Section 58-17-4096, which specifically makes such trespass a misdemeanor punishable by fine or imprisonment. However, in Faulkenberry v. Norfolk Southern(Opinion No. 25454, Opinion Filed April 29, 2002) the South Carolina Supreme Court found that a railroad claiming under an 1845 charter which authorized it to purchase land, and force such purchases, had acquired only an easement, not a title in fee simple. The opinion by Justice Waller refers to and quotes the SC 1845 Act No. 2953 which granted powers of acquisition to the railroad, and mentions other similar acts of the same era granting such powers to other railroads. The opinion also cites the SC 1868 Act No. 43, 7, which explicitly limits such railroad tenures. The Justice wrote: The circuit court, pursuant to numerous cases of this Court, held Railroad acquired only an easement to use the tracks, rather than a fee simple determinable, and that, in any event, Faulkenberry was entitled to an easement by necessity. ... In Ragsdale v. Southern Ry. Co., 60 S.C. 381, 38 S.E. 609 (1901), the Court construed a Charter to the Spartanburg and Union Railroad which had provisions identical to those of sections 9, 10 and 11 above. The Court noted that, under sections 9 and 10, the Legislature had specifically provided that land taken by and paid for by the railroad would vest in fee simple. However, the Court noted that no such words were used in section 11, which provided only that the company shall have "good right and title. . . so long as the same may be used only for the purpose of said road." The Ragsdale Court, after citing Justice Wardlaw's dissent in Lewis, concluded: [t]he legislature wisely made a distinction in the tenure by which the railroad company held the land when it was under one or the other of said sections. Having reached the conclusion that the rights of the parties are different under the foregoing sections, . . . [o]ur interpretation of the foregoing sections is that the railroad company acquired only a right of way over the land described in the complaint. ... We adhere to the wealth of authority in this state and hold the 1845 Charter created only an easement in Railroad, such that Faulkenberry is entitled to use the disputed crossing. We note, however, that although Faulkenberry may cross the railroad tracks, he may not do anything which would unreasonably interfere with Railroad's use of its easement. Marion County Lumber Co. v. Tilghman Lumber Co., 75 S.C. 220, 55 S.E. 337 (1906) (owner of the dominant estate cannot materially interfere with use and enjoyment of servient estate's easement; owners must be held during continuance of easement to have abandoned every use of the land except such as might be made consistent with the reasonable enjoyment of the easement). See also Brown v. Gaskins, 284 S.C. 30, 33, 324 S.E.2d 639, 640 (Ct.App.1984). ( A footnote to the opinion mentions that: The circuit court ruled that, in any event, Faulkenberry was entitled to an easement by necessity to cross the railroad tracks. In light of our holding, we need not address this alternate ruling. Note that in the Faulkenberry case there was apparently a road crossing the tracks, although not an authorized crossing. The doctrine of an easement by necessity might apply in the case described in the question. Detailed legal advice would be needed to determine this, and quite probably a court case.	Typically, these notices are required where the individual packaging lacks the statutory nutritional and warning labels. If this is the reason for the prohibition, selling them separately is a breach of public health law. It may also be a breach of contract with the vendor of the collective pack. Breaking them up and placing them in vending machines, even if those are not accessible to the public is probably unlawful.	In general property owners and employers can impose any rules on their property and employees (respectively) that are not prohibited by law. Granted, there are extensive statutes and regulations to protect "employee rights." I have not heard of protections that include "possession of prescribed medications," but that does not mean they don't exist in your jurisdiction. If you really want to know whether you have a legal right as an employee, and you can't find it in written law or regulation, you would have to consult regulators or employment law attorneys in your jurisdiction. (As a practical matter, of course, it might make sense to first find out whether one's employer wants to assert a policy infringing the right in question.)	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	The Law The relevant sections of the German Civil Code (BGB) for posession and protection of posession of movable things (not land) are (semi-official translation): Section 858 Unlawful interference with possession (1) A person who, against the will of the possessor, deprives the possessor of possession or interferes with the possessor’s possession acts, except where the deprivation or the interference is permitted by law, unlawfully (unlawful interference with possession). Section 859 Self-help by the possessor (1) The possessor may use force to defend himself against unlawful interference. (2) If a movable thing is taken away from the possessor by unlawful interference, the possessor may use force to remove it from the interferer who is caught in the act or pursued. The posessor (Besitzer) is the one who has the actual control of the thing (§ 854 I BGB), e.g. holds it in his/her hand. (There are also some more complex forms of posession, but they are not relevant here.) Ownership (Eigentum) is totally seperated of that. Often the owner posseses the thing, but also often the possessor is not the owner, but e.g. a tenant. If someone (e.g. a thief) takes away a thing from the posessor, the one acts in unlawful interference with possession (verbotene Eigenmacht, § 858 I BGB). While the thief tries to take the thing away, the posessor may use force to defend himself, § 859 I BGB. After the thief obtained actual control he/she is the new posessor. The old posessor ends to be the posessor. This only reflects on the factual situation, not on legitimacy. The old posessor now may use force to get the thing back from the new posessor (thief), if the thief is caught in the act or pursued, § 859 II BGB. It is controversial which time frame this implies. There is at least one judgement that accepts the discovery after 30 min. If the old posessor gets the (posession of the) thing back through force, he/she does not act in unlawful interference with possession, because it is explicitly allowed in § 859 II BGB. So the thief is not allowed to "steal back" although he/she was posessor (for a short time). If the old posessor acts too late, the new posessor has the full defense rights against force of the old posessor. The old posessor has to begin judical action. He/she has a right of restitution, § 861 BGB. Reasons One of the most important principles of (German) civil law is the Monopoly on violence of the state (Gewaltmonopol des Staates). Normaly only the state is allowed to use physical force (for the enforcement of the law). Only in special cases, e.g. a clear situation or the necessity of immediate action, the affected is allowed to use force for defense. In all other cases he/she has to go to court and in the end let the state use force for him/her. After a theft there are two people claiming to be the legitime posessor and one who has the thing. No one knows (without further investigation) who is right. So everything should stay as it is until a court decides. If a thief is caught in the act or pursued, the situation is much more clear. So the old posessor may use force and has not to wait for a court. If the thougth thief is the legitime posessor, this may be clarified by the courts afterwards. source: Hanns Prütting: Sachenrecht, 2017, § 13 Every German law student learns this in his second year. So there is plenty of teaching literature (and probably websites) on this topic.	germany Bob through his actions is harming Alice. Thus Eve may use the minimum necessary force to help Alice as Nothilfe, which is defined as using §32 StGB (Self protection/Notwehr) and §34 StGB (justifying state of emergency/Rechtfertigender Notstand). As a result, it is allowed to harm someone to the degree of self protection for the benefit of someone else that can't protect themselves - such as Alice. However, the amount of force allowed must be proportional to the harm done to Alice - so Eve may use the least needed amount of force to get Bob from stopping Eve from helping Alice. As an example, Eve might shove Bob out of the way, hit him, or use the threat of serious harm (which is usually illegal!) to deter Bob from getting in the way, but unless Alice is actually at risk of dying from Bob keeping her from applying pressure on a lacerated artery this very moment, she can't shoot at Bob - that would overstep the Notwehr, but might not be punished if the overstepping is for the right reasons defined in §33 StGB. Bob also is liable for not rendering aid, §323c StGB unterlassene Hilfeleistung/Behinderung von hilfeleistenden Personen (Failure to provide assistance/hindering persons providing assistance).
I was kicked out during the orientation I was offered a full time job that i did not take and i refused it and I requested for a part time. I called and i asked since the director didn’t reply to my email or message and i was told that the job still available and i can come for paperwork. I went for paper work and signed everything with county I-9 and have received my rights as part timer. However, I schedule my orientation with the county service and was supposed to start orienting today. I went to the orientation and met with the person who I’m supposed to meet so we go through the orientation. There was the director in the same room and after saying hi, i was asked to go with director to his office which i did. Then the director asked me why I rejected his offer for a full time job and I explained my personal opinions and he stood up and said “i think you should go.” He did not give me any reasons why i was rejected the part time. He took everything personally although i paid respects and still showed up and wanted to work for the county. My question is, what should i do? I was humiliated and wasted my time driving there twice which was 2 hours round trip. Should i file complaint to the county? Should i seek redemption through the court? I really feel very bad about this.	You can always complain to the county. It is not obvious from your description that you have a legal case. One reading of the circumstances is that you did not have a job offer, you went there on the assumption that you might get an official offer after being "oriented" and interviewed. The interview did not go well, so they did not give you the job. Time and travel expenses are often borne by the job candidate. The alternative interpretation is that you had an actual job offer, and you traveled to the site as part of your employment (involving some training). In that first session, things went bad, and you got fired. If that is the case, then (a) you would be owed wages for that day and (b) there is a slim chance that the firing was not legal (there could be restrictions on firing employees in government jobs, in whatever jurisdiction this is). Your attorney will guide you (after you giving a more detailed explanation of the circumstances) in understanding whether you were fired, or not hired.	At the federal level, employment discrimination as prohibited here is at its core a tort rather than a crime. Probably the most pertinent first part of the law is Subpart B, which encompasses procedures. The EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) may receive allegations of a violation, and there is a procedure for deciding on the merits of the case. After charges are filed, there is an investigation by the EEOC, which may include a public hearing. Based on the investigation, the commission may dismiss the charge (technical flaws in the complaint); they may issue a letter of determination to that effect if they find that there was no reasonable cause for the complaint. They can also encourage a negotiated settlement. In making this determination, the commission follows its own guidelines, as encoded in the regulations. So if the commission determines by its rules that there was a violation, the courts will generally defer to that finding unless the finding is contrary to what Congress said. If there is no dismissal or settlement, then they issue a determination that there is reasonable cause (§1601.21). Then there is a procedure to rectify unlawful practices, which includes the possibility of a conciliation agreement. Finally, starting at §1601.27, we get to the point that somebody might get their day in court. If the accused still refuses to relent on whatever point was at stake, the matter can go to trial: The Commission may bring a civil action against any respondent named in a charge not a government, governmental agency or political subdivision, after thirty (30) days from the date of the filing of a charge with the Commission unless a conciliation agreement acceptable to the Commission has been secured But also, the aggrieved can take the accused to court at any time. The allegation then must be proven by a preponderance of the evidence.	@Dale M is basically correct, but fudges a bit on the process. The court issuing the order would issue an order to show cause to a government official who is alleged by the person who sought the order to have violated the order after having received legal notice (i.e. service) of the order. If that individual fails to appear at the appointed time and place in the order to show cause, a warrant issues for that individual's arrest. If that individual does appear, the allegedly contemptuous individual is read their rights and a hearing date is set. At the hearing, if the person appears, the person seeking the contempt finding (or some other attorney appointed by the court) prosecutes the case and if the person is found in contempt, then contempt sanctions issue. If they do not appear, a warrant issues for their arrest and a hearing is held on the merits promptly following that arrest. An individual can also be ordered to show cause in an official capacity in which case the contempt sanctions would be imposed against the organization rather than the individual. Usually, in federal court, the U.S. Marshal's office has primary responsibility for arresting people on contempt warrants. The U.S. Marshal's office primarily reports to the judicial branch, although strictly speaking, it is part of the Justice Department, and ultimately reports to the Attorney-General. There are actually two kinds of contempt - remedial and punitive. Remedial contempt sanction can include indefinite incarceration or a fine (often a per day fine) until the violation of the order of the court ceases and is allowed only when it is possible to comply with the order going forward. Punitive contempt has a sanction comparable to a misdemeanor conviction and applies in cases where the goal is to punish someone for a past violation of a court order whether or not it is possible to comply going forward. (Both of these are examples of "indirect contempt", i.e. violations of court orders that take place outside the courtroom. A different summary process called "direct contempt" applies when someone misbehaves in the presence of the court - this is summary incarceration or fine without a trial on the spot for disrespecting the dignity of the court in the courtroom.) Established practice is to direct a contempt order at the lowest level official necessary to remedy the violation of the order. There are a few examples in living memory of cabinet members being held in contempt, however (e.g. the Secretary of Interior, with regard to Indian Trust fund litigation), and keep in mind that in the case of remedial contempt an official can purge the contempt and be released from any sanction by resigning from office, after which the official no longer has the ability to comply. I am not aware of any instance in which the President of the United States has personally been held in contempt of court, but I am also not aware of any authority that specifically prohibits a court from holding the President in contempt of court. While contempt is the only "hard" remedy for a violation of a court order, the bureaucratic structure of the federal government is also set up in a manner that once a court order definitively resolves a legal issue, the higher ups in a federal agency are supposed to take all reasonable actions to insure that their subordinates follow that order (and they are themselves subject to contempt sanctions if they fail to do so). And, keep in mind that most of the people in the chain of command are civil servants with legal protections from unlawful employment actions hired on a merit basis, not political appointees, and that lots of the people in the chain of command are also members of unions that provide individual employees with the ability to fight wrongful employment action from a superior for violating a court order. In particular, the top lawyers in the executive branch would in ordinary times direct government employees to follow a clear court order and to cease and desist from explicitly disobeying one. Among other things, the courts could probably deny lawyers who refused to do so the right to practice law in federal court. But, usually things never reach this point. Then again, we are living in interesting times. There are about 670 political appointee positions in the executive branch, many of which are currently vacant and less than a dozen of which would be relevant to any given dispute in any case. There are about a million, civilian, non-defense department, non-postal service employees in the United States government, of which perhaps 100,000 or so are in the Department of Homeland Security and fewer are in the CBP. As far as I know, the CBP political appointees from the Obama administration have resigned and a replacement has not been confirmed by the U.S. Senate yet (there has been a Department of Homeland Security appointee confirmed if I recall correctly), and there are only a few people in the agency that political appointees can hire without either receiving Senate confirmation or using the merit based hiring process for civil servants (which takes a while, especially given an executive order imposing a hiring freeze). So, realistically, we have a case where the acting head of the CBP is probably a GS-15 or Senior Executive Service grade civil servant, rather than a political appointee, at the moment, who was hired as a civil servant many years ago, who is doing his (or her) best to follow the less than clear guidance he is receiving from his superiors and government lawyers (perhaps errantly). There could also be remedies in the form of declaratory judgment. The Court could declare as a matter of law on a case by case basis that, for example, Fatima Jones is not deportable and is lawfully within the United States and is entitled to be released from custody. This specific finding as to an individual would be very hard for the administration to escape sanction for. And, the Court could also declare that the entire executive order, at least as applied, is invalid (e.g. for failure to comply with the administrative procedures act, or for failing to include an exception for contrary court orders) or is unconstitutional.	As soon as you start working in your second job, you will be violating your first contract. If you refuse to start working in your second job, you will be violating the second contract. You were very careless. Not much of a legal question, but the question is how to get out of the mess you created at the lowest possible cost. I would suggest that you go as soon as possible to the second company (the one with the part time contract), tell them that you are very sorry but you didn't read your first contract properly, and that you cannot start working for them. If you seem suitably sorry there's a chance that they will tear up your contract and send you home, with no more damage than a big red "DO NOT HIRE" in you records. If things don't go nicely (and you don't have any legal right to expect them to be nice about it), you go and get a lawyer.	there was absolutely nothing in the letter. You could hold it up to the sunlight and see that it was empty. There is no legal reason to do this. Somebody screwed up. Office workers are not infallible. It happens. I've seen government officials with no grudge against my client do it too now and then. Taken together with the spelling errors in your name it reflects general administrative incompetence and not some nefarious plot. The cautious thing to do would be to call them and tell them that you got a misaddressed letter with nothing inside it. A judge might frown at your conduct if you had some inkling they were trying to communicate with you and did nothing. Save the empty envelope to prove that they didn't send you a security deposit letter as they claimed if there is a dispute or litigation down the road.	The first question would be whether those papers are indeed "legit", and we don't do product reviews. Assuming the company didn't mess up and she was legally served, the next question would be whether she responded (in the legal sense) or not. If she failed to respond at all within 21 days (add 9 days if she is out of state), then your next step would be to file default divorce paperwork (presumably that's covered in the service you paid for). If she agreed to the divorce and the courts knows that, then you file some more paperwork and she doesn't have to show up to anything. If she disagreed, there will be an "answer" and possibly a counterpetition. There is an exchange of paperwork w.r.t. assets, a mandatory mediation stage, more paperwork, disclosures etc. and a pre-trial conference, followed by a trial. If you are at this stage, attendance is mandatory. As long as you have proof of service, nobody requested a postponement, and there is some evidence to support your claim, a default judgment can be issued. It's not clear what "divorce proceeding" you are referring to that involves her attendance. However, you can file divorce paperwork yourself or using an online service, and using an online service does not render the paperwork illegitimate. It's not guaranteed that the service did what would be necessary for you to get the outcome you desire, but that's beyond the scope of what we can tell you.	You are not obliged to say anything to a police officer during a traffic stop, in fact you are generally better off staying silent. This is your Fifth Amendment right to silence. The only exception to this is that the officer could ask for your name and you are obliged to give it under Arizona Laws 13-2412, but the answer to that is language-independent and is usually already answered with your driver's license in a traffic stop. If you did choose to communicate only in German, this may have the effect of frustrating the officer's investigation but if you only make truthful statements in German it is unlikely to be obstruction of their investigation. Arizona Laws 13-2409 is I believe the relevant section (emphasis mine): A person who knowingly attempts by means of bribery, misrepresentation, intimidation or force or threats of force to obstruct, delay or prevent the communication of information or testimony relating to a violation of any criminal statute to a peace officer, magistrate, prosecutor or grand jury or who knowingly injures another in his person or property on account of the giving by the latter or by any other person of any such information or testimony to a peace officer, magistrate, prosecutor or grand jury is guilty of a class 5 felony, except that it is a class 3 felony if the person commits the offense with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal street gang. In general, a law that required you to give answers to a police officer during an investigation in English if you understand English and have waived your right to silence would violate your First Amendment right to free speech (as it is in effect "forced speech"). However, you would need to be careful not to tell the police officer that you do not understand English if that is not true, as it could be misrepresentation. Police officer training likely includes instructions for detaining someone that cannot understand them and the police can detain you and wait for an interpreter to continue their investigation if they determine that is necessary. You may actually be shooting yourself in the foot by doing this, because the time it takes for them to get an interpreter likely extends the amount of time the detainment can last while remaining "reasonable," so you may be waiting by the side of the road longer than you would have if you had simply told the officer that you were invoking your right to silence and followed the officer's instructions without speaking. As an aside, as more people are educated on their rights via the Internet and understand why they should always invoke their right to silence when detained, police officers will get more used to people they pull over immediately and politely telling them that they are going to invoke their right to silence. I doubt most police officers will hold it against you as long as you are otherwise cooperative and don't yell at them or berate them.	Yes, this is legal, unless Richardson, TX has a specific local law making it illegal. In the US, discrimination is legal, unless it discriminates against one or more specific enumerated classes. Under federal law, and as far as I am aware, Texas law, students are NOT a protected class. As such discrimination against them is legal, unless Richardson, TX or its incorporating county have a specific law or regulation prohibiting it. Incidentally, age is generally not a protected class, and when it is a protected class, it is generally only illegal to discriminate against people above a specified age, not below. Note that discrimination happens all the time, over a variety of factors, that many people don't even consider discrimination. For example, many colleges and universities discriminate on the basis of GPAs for acceptance to various programs; this is legal. In the past, many colleges and universities discriminated against potential students on the basis of sex or race, which is now illegal.
You must pay more just because you can Suppose I win a civil lawsuit against two parties in California, one being wealthy and the other being poor (and unlikely to pay), but the poor party has clearly (according to the judge, any jury member, or any spectator) played the bigger "wrongful role". Also, suppose there was no monetary benefit to the wealthy party. (E.g., there was an accidental killing where the poor party was robbing someone with a pointed gun, and the wealthy party tripped into the scene, bumping the gun and causing it to fire - This example might be too extreme, so modify it with some one-time negligence on the part of the wealthy party if you must.) Can the judge force the wealthy party to pay more? Since I could have sued only the wealthy party in the first place, it seems the judge should also be able to use a person's wealth as basis for awarded damages, but this does not seem fair here. In general, how is the wealth of defendants used by judges to award damages? Is there any case where the judge is not supposed to consider the wealth of a defendant?	Joint and several v Proportionate liability Joint and several liability is the common law default for torts. Each tortfeasor is “jointly” (together) and “severally” (individually) liable for the total amount. Some jurisdictions have adopted statutes that use proportionate liability for some or all torts and/or elements of the damage. California has for non-economic damage (pain & suffering etc.) in 1431.2 but keeps joint and several liability for economic loss (e.g. property damage, medical costs etc.). Proportional liability does not apply when liability arises through law rather than through fault. So an employer is still fully liable for the torts of an employee etc.	Considering that the US legal system is more or less similar in practice to the English Courts, yes it is possible to plea bargian a deal. I'm linking to the wikipedia article on the matter with a specific link to the England and Wales for guidence. Normally, I'd explain, but I'm an American and the differences between Magistrate and Crown courts are big enough differences that I can't tell you what the differences in the case is. I should point out this is a legal area where America differences with much of the world. 90% of the United States criminal cases (and a good number of civil cases, which are settled privately before discovery phase) are plea bargained to lesser sentences. Additionally remorse has nothing to do with the plea bargain. You might only be sorry that you got caught breaking the law and can still plea. The lighter sentence is sort of a "thank you" for saving the state money in not having to build their case against you. It is also used to coerce cooperation with the police, as they may have the accused dead to rights and can prosecute him successfully, but he's a little fish who can give intel to a big fish (this usually comes with the caveat of it being a sworn statement, so they can still prosecute you for something if you're lying... OR that the deal holds on condition that everything is factually true. If evidence contradicts you, you're charged as if you never made a deal). It's also important to note that the police will not honor their deals made for your confession... but they will offer you deals (In the United States, police are allowed to lie to you and do it all the time). However, the prosecutor will honor their deals. Another thing to be aware of is that a prosecutor who offers a plea could be doing so because they have a weak case. If you are absolutely sure the prosecutor has the wrong guy, it may be to your benefit to go to trial and have them prove it. Innocent people do go to jail all the time because they think there is something worse on them than the plea deal and its hard to fight off as you cannot appeal a plea deal as easily as a court conviction. Finally, most jurisdictions allow the judge final say at sentencing, so if the prosecutor does honor the deal and advises the sentence, don't get upset if the judge is tougher and gives you a harsher sentence on the crime, or rejects your plea outright (expect him to scold the prosecutor for wasting his time with a horrible deal, too. Watch the Law and Order SVU episode Raw for a particularly wonderful instance of this rare event occurring). As a part of US federalism, the rules about this change from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, so make sure you understand this. Another thing to be aware of is that a prosecutor who offers a plea could be doing so because they have a weak case. If you are absolutely sure the prosecutor has the wrong guy, it may be to your benefit to go to trial and have them prove it. Innocent people do go to jail all the time because they think there is something worse on them than the plea deal and its hard to fight off as you cannot appeal a plea deal as easily as a court conviction. I would definitely do some leg work into the English Legal system's opinions on plea bargains. Just because they have it does not mean the state lawyers like employing it and many jurisdictions see it as full on corruption in other parts of the world, even the Common Law jurisdictions.	Judicial immunity means only that the judge can't be sued by the people negatively affected by his decisions, even if they were made corruptly. The idea is that if this were possible, then anyone who lost a case before the judge could sue him, perhaps falsely claiming that he was corrupt. Defending such suits would be a major nuisance and expense for the judge, and some fraction of such cases might be wrongly decided against him (courts do err sometimes). So, a party who said (or insinuated) to the judge that "you'd better decide my case in my favor or else I'll sue you" would have a credible threat, and the judge might be intimidated into giving in. This would certainly not be in the public interest, and so judicial immunity removes this possibility. It's a trade-off: the harm done by false accusations would outweigh the good done by legitimate lawsuits against truly corrupt judges, and you can't allow the latter without creating the possibility of the former. However, judges can still be held accountable for corruption - just not through the mechanism of lawsuits by the affected parties. This is addressed within the Dennis decision, in the paragraph right above the one you quoted: But judicial immunity was not designed to insulate the judiciary from all aspects of public accountability. Judges are immune from 1983 damages actions, but they are subject to criminal prosecutions as are other citizens. O'Shea v. Littleton, 414 U.S. 488, 503 (1974). So a corrupt judge can still be prosecuted by the state: removed from his job, fined, sent to prison, etc. But the decision to prosecute him would be made by a state prosecutor, who has no personal stake in matters before the court, rather than by a potentially disgruntled litigant.	Usually I would think one answer to a question is enough. But since your edits have transformed a reasonable procedural question into what appears to be a rant about unfairness of the sort which any bankruptcy court has heard hundreds of times before, I will give another piece of advice: Focus on one thing at a time. The judge at the hearing of the application will be deciding (if your question is accurate) the single point whether a house should be sold. The submission "There is an application to annul the bankruptcy to be heard on XXX; if it succeeds this application is a waste of money and if it fails there will still be time for this application before the time limit, so you should adjourn till YYY" is a reasonable one that he will take into account. Saying "The bankruptcy order should never have been made; it was a mistake by my accountants and HMRC, and a High Court Judge joined in the conspiracy" will get you precisely nowhere. Even if the judge believed you rather than the written evidence, it has no bearing on the point he is being asked to decide. More generally; besides casting your arguments into proper shape, there is another good reason to consult a professional, namely that he can tell you when to give up. The courts are bound by laws and regulations; however unfair you may think the result, at some point it is necessary to accept the reality rather than wasting time and money making points that the law cares nothing about. (And no, I see no point discussing this further in comments. This answer can be upvoted if you think it helpful or downvoted if you think it "not useful"; it isn't something to argue against.)	One reason is that in a German civil suit, the cost for lawyers and for the court (court isn't free) is set according to the value that the parties are arguing about, which would be the value that one party demands, minus the value that the other party is offering to pay. Then the cost is divided between winner and loser according to the percentage of the value the claimant was awarded. So if I ask for €1,000,000 and I am rewarded €10,000 then the cost is calculated based on my €1,000,000 claim, and since I was rewarded only 1% of the claim, I'll pay 99% of the cost. The defendant will pay my €10,000 and 1% of the cost, that is my lawyers, their lawyers, and the court. With these rules, asking for the sky and then not getting much is a very, very bad strategy. On the other hand, if a huge company sues me for €10,000 then they can't snow me under with an army of lawyers: The court will get only a small amount of money for the case, so at some rather early point the judge would tell the huge company: Stop right now; I'm not paid enough money to listen to your army of lawyers.	The notion of a peer for purposes of the jury is someone who "walks in the same shoes" as the defendant or litigants. A freeman was to be juried by other freemen, a Peer of the Realm by other (capital P) Peers, a landsman by other landholders, and a marine by other sailors. The ancient origins of a judgment by jury were rooted in removing allegations by the defendant, alleging unfairness of the process, since the defendant himself was a party to the selection of those who would weigh his actions before the law and mete out punishments, the defendant could have confidence that he wasn't being railroaded. In the USA, we've done away with the codified, defined social definitions such as peerage and royalty and owned/indentured vs. free...so we are all, as far as the law defines, equal peers.	It’s their job Or, at least, part of their job. For some, like state-employed medical examiners it’s an explicit part of their job description that they will give expert testimony when required. For others, it can be something they choose to do as part of their business, either as a side-gig to their “day job” (most experts). Or because their primary business is dispute resolution, this includes many professionals who become arbitrators or expert determiners and offer their services as expert witnesses. In both cases, it’s a job for which they get paid, and usually, paid handsomely. For example, all the engineering companies that I have been part of charge 3-4x their normal fee for legal work partly because it’s demanding work that distracts from their core business but mostly because of market economics - people will pay more for an expert witness than they will for a consulting engineer even when they’re the same person. It’s also difficult and nasty work - no one enjoys writing reports that they know are going to be attacked over every inconsistency. As for giving evidence and being cross-examined? Even at $500/h, you’re getting a bargain. Other people may be motivated by the noble ideal of a just cause. Me? Here’s my bank account, make sure the money’s there before I testify. So, how much were you offering?	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.
Can a man who owns a strip of land going through another's house extort the owner of the house with threat to build on the land? There was a recent article on cracked.com discussing an individual who accidentally purchased a tiny strip of land, worth approximately 50 dollars, thinking he was purchasing the house it ran through. There is a picture of the land in the article. The strip of land stretches from the front lawn, through the two combined garages of the dulpex, and back out of the back lawn. It's been suggested he could try to extort his money back by threatening to have the house on his land destroyed, or build eye sores on the land bad enough to encourage the owners of the duplex to buy our the land to get rid of the eye sore. Could a man legally demand money from the owners of the duplex in this, or some similar manner when the duplex does technically reside partially on his land?	Probably not It’s extremely likely that the adjoining properties have easements for support over the land which gives them the right to build on it. Even if they don’t, he can’t damage their property by removing the essential structures on his land. He could sue for trespass which his neighbors could easily settle by offering to compensate him for his loss - the $50 the land is worth.	Bob appears to have committed "attempted larceny" by extortion, contrary to § 155.05(2)(e)(v): (e) By extortion. 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: ... (v) Expose a secret or publicize an asserted fact, whether true or false, tending to subject some person to hatred, contempt or ridicule; See § 110.00: Attempt to commit a crime. A person is guilty of an attempt to commit a crime when, with intent to commit a crime, he engages in conduct which tends to effect the commission of such crime. And see § 110.10 which covers the "impossibility" that Bob actually had compromising images from Alice's non-existent webcam: Attempt to commit a crime; no defense. If the conduct in which a person engages otherwise constitutes an attempt to commit a crime pursuant to section 110.00, it is no defense to a prosecution for such attempt that the crime charged to have been attempted was, under the attendant circumstances, factually or legally impossible of commission, if such crime could have been committed had the attendant circumstances been as such person believed them to be. (NB Bob's sentence, if found guilty, would depend the value of his attempted extortion)	This is a good question, which I am going to answer from a practical perspective, rather than a theoretical one, which would probably justify a law review article (applications of the takings clause to criminal justice fact patterns is actually one of my pet areas of legal scholarship, but a lot of it calls for dramatic changes in established practice and precedents reached from other perspectives, making it impractical to pursue in real life). I recently had a case along these lines in my office where my client's property was seized as evidence in a criminal case against a third-party. The crime involved a gun shop where all of the guns that were in the possession of the shop owner for repairs at the time of the bust (i.e. as bailments), including ours worth several thousand dollars in addition to having some sentimental value, were seized as evidence of charges against a shop owner who was fencing stolen goods, making sales to felons off the books, falsifying excise tax returns, etc. He seemed legitimate and had been in business for many years in what was not a fly by night operation. He had all of the proper licenses. Who knew we were dealing with a crook? In that case, we intervened on behalf of our client in the primary case to seek the physical return of the property (basically a replevin claim), as have others affected by the bust. It took a few months and some legal fees, but we prevailed without too much effort, as have the other intervenors. Generally speaking, to make a 5th Amendment claim, you would have to show a total taking and move into some legal gray areas in this context, while it is usually hard for authorities to show a continuing need for possession of third-party property in the face of a demand for its return, especially when photography and other scientific tools can document the evidence in great detail these days. In that case, showing that our client's particular gun was not involved in any illegitimate transaction also simultaneously made it less important as evidence, although that would not necessarily be true in general in these kinds of situations. There is a pending case in Colorado posing similar issues, where a suburban police department essentially destroyed a guy's home in order to catch a felon with no relation to the homeowner whatsoever, who had fled into it and taken refuge there. But, that case, as far as I know, has not yet been resolved on the merits.	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.	What is the process for having the plea withdrawn? Is it even possible at this point? Maybe, but YOU are not going to be able to do this on a pro se basis. It is clear from the way you word the questions you are still extremely emotionally invested in the whole scenario and want to make sure you get your pound of flesh at every turn. That is not going to work in this case. The first thing you need to accept is that for the purposes of the plea withdrawl the judge does not care to hear about how the lawyer tricked you. If you go in on your own pleading that your lawyer did you dirty, the judge is just going to deny your request in the best case. You will need a lawyer to prepare and argue the motion to withdraw your plea. Get a good lawyer they are worth their costs. Focus on the main goal of resolving your issue of the Criminal Trespass. How the police treated you or your Tenant took advantage of you does not excuse criminal behavior. So if the plea does get withdrawn focus on winning the criminal case. After the criminal issues are resolved then you can deal with the other issues.	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).	a gutter cleaner drops a leaflet with phone number, and as my gutters needed to be cleaned I called him, we met and I gave him a deposit for the work in cash. The gutter cleaner put everything in writing at the back of the leaflet and signed it. In other words, you have a written contract which you fulfilled but the other party did not fulfill, so they now either owe you a service or your money back. This is a civil law matter which you can bring to a county court. You have a telephone number, so it should be possible to identify the other party. lure him into a trap. But then- how do I turn him into the police and keep everything legal? Was thinking of using pepper spray, but I live in Newcastle, and it's illegal to use it in the UK. Any ideas? This is a very bad idea! Apprehending suspects is the job of the police, not yours. Well, there is the concept of a citizen's arrest, but this is only an option in a very limited number of cases, specifically when you catch a criminal in the act and need to prevent the suspect from getting away before the police arrives. And even then you are on very shaky legal ground if the suspect claims you used more force than necessary or if the court doubts that a citizen's arrest was necessary in this particular case. And in this case a court probably won't believe that a citizen's arrest is justified, because the gutter cleaner probably didn't even commit a crime. They just violated a contract. That's a civil matter, not a criminal matter. It might be a criminal matter if they never intended to fulfill the contract (fraud), but you don't know that. If you use violence on a person just because they owe you money, you are very likely committing a crime yourself.	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.
Would Veronica Theriault Have Been Arrested in the US? There is a viral news story about an Australian woman named Veronica Hilda Theriault, who falsified her resume and used fake pictures and references to get a high-paying job. She was arrested and sentenced to a year in prison. While her actions are obviously distasteful (and certainly grounds for dismissal), would this be criminal in the US? It seems unusual to me that ordinary lying (not in court) would be treated as a criminal matter.	Potentially, yes - especially if its the government you lie to in your CV/resume or course of work. Wayne Simmons, a regular Fox News commentator who claimed to have worked for the Central Intelligence Agency for almost three decades, was arrested on Thursday for allegedly fabricating his agency experience. CNN Money reports that Simmons appeared in court on Thursday, where he faced charges of major fraud against the United States for falsely claiming to be a former “outside paramilitary special operations officer”—a padded resume that federal officials say he used to successfully gain government security clearances. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/10/wayne-simmons-cia-arrested-fox-news/ Simmons claimed to have been an "outside paramilitary special operations officer" for the CIA from 1973 to 2000. Not only did he use that claim to get guest appearances on Fox News, but the government claims he used it to gain security clearances and a defense contractor gig that included advising senior military personnel overseas. He's now being charged with wire fraud, major fraud against the United States, and making false statements to the government and could face 35 years in prison. https://blogs.findlaw.com/law_and_life/2015/10/can-you-get-arrested-for-lying-on-your-resume.html Making false or fraudulent statements also may be punishable by fine or imprisonment. https://www.usajobs.gov/Help/working-in-government/fair-and-transparent/signature-false-statements/	I can’t think of any laws against pretending to commit a crime, per se. For example, undercover police officers often pretend to buy or sell illicit goods, to see who will take them up on the offer. However, pretending to commit some crimes could be a crime. if you intentionally pretend to be violent or unstable, and this “puts another person in reasonable apprehension of imminent harmful or offensive contact,” that could be common assault.	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.	No If she has probable cause, yes. The question is whether "a reasonable amount of suspicion, supported by circumstances sufficiently strong to justify a prudent and cautious person's belief that certain facts [Bob is a thief] are probably true"? Its likely that the answer to this question is yes. None No Charlotte listens to Alice, Charlotte asks Bob questions which Bob may or may not answer. Charlotte can ask Bob to produce the receipt, Bob doesn't have to. Charlotte can ask to search Bob, Bob doesn't have to consent. If Bob tries to leave, if Charlotte has reasonable suspicion the Bob has committed a crime (which she could certainly justify) she may detain him temporarily without arrest. If Charlotte has probable cause to believe that Bob has committed a crime (which she could probably justify) then she can arrest him.	I think the officer is probably lying, not just mistaken, but they are not required to always be truthful. In addition to the law against possessing ID with intent to commit, or to aid or abet, any crime, it is also against the law to be knowingly in possession of a stolen credit card, or any other property. An example of a strict-liability possession crime, which the officer knows of, is that it is a crime to possess heroin, period. I am skeptical that the officer actually believes that there is a law making it a crime to be in possession of a credit card with permission, and suspect that he thinks it is stolen.	If the purported husband (PH) has not attempted to enter the UK under false pretenses, and has not submitted documents containing false statements to the UK government, it is hard to see how he might be charged with a crime by the UK in connection with the invalid marriage. But since the PH is now said to have submitted an application for entry clearance based on the bigamous marriage, a marriage that it appears that he knew or should have known was invalid, he has submitted an official document based on a false statement. That is presumably an offense under UK law, and may well affect the PH's future immigration treatment. If the deceived wife has not knowingly made false statements to the UK government, it is hard to see how she would be charged in the UK. She would be wise to promptly inform the UK government that the marriage was invalid, to withdraw any statements or applications based on its validity, and to take legal steps to correct the record so that the marriage does not show as valid. This might be by annulment or some other procedure, probably depending on the law in the Bahamas where the purported marriage took place. (Under chapter 125, section 21(b) a prior marriage is valid grounds for an annulment or decree of nullity.) She might also want to notify the US authorities. The purported husband might have been guilty of bigamy in the Bahamas, depending on just how their law is written. Whether the authorities there will seek to extradite and prosecute him one cannot say.	Cheating is not a legal concept, fraud is. Obtaining an essay written in India or by your mother is not fraud. Fraud comes in inducing the university to give you something of value (a passing grade, or perhaps admission) based on a material false statement ("I wrote this myself", or making false statements about your interest in tennis). A number of people were recently charged with various forms of fraud (mail fraud and honest services mail fraud) for similar actions (spelled out here). I do not know of any case where a student has been criminally prosecuted for turning in a purchased essay, but in principle it could happen.	The NYT article implies that she has used social media in the past to get her victims to believe her fake back story. She is being released from detention, and the restriction on her using social media is not tied to her expressing a particular viewpoint. Courts have repeatedly held that the Government can justify incidental limitations on First Amendment freedoms if it furthers an important or substantial governmental interest; if the governmental interest is unrelated to the suppression of free expression; and if the incidental restriction on alleged First Amendment freedoms is no greater than is essential to the furtherance of that interest ( U.S. v. O'Brien, 391 US 367 - Supreme Court 1968). One such compelling interest is the effective administration of criminal justice (U.S. v. Spilotro, 786 F. 2d 808 - Court of Appeals, 8th Circuit 1986). For instance, speech restrictions can be tied to the purpose of preventing a defendant from committing further crimes while released.
German "Quiet Hours" exceptions I haven't been to Germany but I've heard of the Quiet Hours law. It is required to keep noises at very low levels during "quiet hours" like at night, on Sundays and holidays. However, I'm pretty sure there are also typically noisy festivals and events in Germany. What if some typically noisy events fall on quiet hours? What are some exceptions for the Quiet Hours law?	The "Quiet Hours law" is part of environmental protection laws: it regulates noise immissions. In general, what is allowed differs quite a bit depending on zoning and day vs. night. E.g. in a purely industrial area outdoor noise immission may be up to 70 dB(A) any time of the day. Whereas in hospital or nursing home zones only 45 dB(A) during the day and 35 dB(A) during the night are allowed. It also depends on the type of noise source, e.g. construction noise has a longer night (20:00 - 7:00 compared to 22:00 - 6:00 for normal "commercial" noise sources) and some penalty for early/late day noise, commercial noise has a penalty* for early/late daytime and sundays; sports noise has day, night and quiet hours and they differ working days vs. sundays and holidays. There are no legal limits on noise emitted by children (incl. kindergarden, playgrounds), but neighborhood noise (party) does have restrictions, and machine-emitted noise has further restrictions. * penalties: some of these regulations use weighted sound pressure levels that upweight certain particularly disturbing characteristics of the noise (information content of noise, particular tones sticking out, impulse-type [sudden] noise, ...). Festivals and events are covered by the "recreational noise directive" (Freizeitlärmrichtlinie, state law) puts emphasis on communal planning as in don't put hospital and fair grounds or outdoor recreational swimming pool next to each other, keep some distance between the local skateboard ramp and residential housing. Also, the town market place (where fairs are held) would be an urban zone (or "core" zone) which has higher noise limits than a purely residential zone. Exceptions can be granted for rare (up to 18 days/year) events and festivals that are tightly bound to a particular location ("hohe Standortgebundenheit", e.g. Kieler Woche, Oktoberfest or the annual village fair, but also "moving" festivals like the Hessentag) or socially adequate and accepted. These exceptions can include moving the night hours up to 2 hours (usually only for Friday or Saturday evenings or evenings before public holidays). The higher the (expected) noise level and the more often, the more strictly the exception has to be evaluated. Also, not more than 2 weekends in a row are supposed to be subject to such rare events, and the neighboring residents have to be told (usually >= 2 weeks in advance). There are also technical measures such as focusing sound on the festival area and making sure loud speakers do not emit sound in other directions more than necessary. "sports grounds noise directive" (Sportanlagenlärmschutzverordnung) again, higher immission levels are allowed for rare events, rare being up to 18 days/year exceptions can be granted for sports events of major national or international importance, so when the soccer world cup came to Germany, residents had to put up with that. sometimes exceptions are granted by directive, e.g. public viewing during the 2018 soccer world cup Pubs are commercial businesses and subject to the TA Lärm, but sometimes somewhat less strict rules be used (e.g. see here for NRW). A pub thus cannot be in a purely residential zone: where you have a pub, you are at least in a general residential zone which has higher noise limits. Diskotheken (night clubs) are often in industrial zones. A private party is so-called neighborhood noise (Nachbarschaftslärm) and imission here is governed by state law, plus possibly communal bylaws and last but not least binding clauses in e.g. the rent contract. If there isn't any particular law (AFAIK, e.g. Hesse does not have a state law on this), there's the catch-all §117 OWiG on Inadmissable Noise: (1) Whoever, without a justified reason, or to an inadmissible extent, or to an extent avoidable under the circumstances, causes noise which is suitable to create considerable disturbance to the general public or to the neighbourhood, or to inflict harm upon the health of another, shall be deemed to have committed a regulatory offence. A common rule of thumb would be that between 22:00 - 6:00 and on Sundays or holidays you shouldn't do anything that can be heard outside your flat (Zimmerlautstärke). A typical practical approach is to tell your neighbours that you'll have a party and will they please excuse if there's some noise? Bonus points if you invite them. This doesn't change anything about legal noise levels, but it usually does the trick in terms of no neighbours complaining/not disturbing them. There are so-called silent holidays (again state law, e.g. NRW) with particularly heavy restrictions (no sports events, no markets/fairs/circus, no recreational events, ...)	This an instance of the general rule ignorantia legis neminem excusat: ignorance of the law is no excuse. If the municipal ordinances state that a particular place does not allow parking at certain times, then if you park there you have violated the law and will get ticketed. There is no requirement that there be signs prominently posted saying that you must obey the law in this particular location. A law might itself require there to be postings, for example speed limit law pertaining to school zones typically are stated in terms of "posted" boundaries. Assuming that the ordinance doesn't have such a "as posted" requirement, you have no legal leg to stand on, and the burden must be shifted to your political leg. If, for example, you were in Pennsylvania, 75 PaCSA 3353(d) permits local parking ordinances: The department on State-designated highways and local authorities on any highway within their boundaries may by erection of official traffic-control devices prohibit, limit or restrict stopping, standing or parking of vehicles on any highway where engineering and traffic studies indicate that stopping, standing or parking would constitute a safety hazard or where the stopping, standing or parking of vehicles would unduly interfere with the free movement of traffic. Signs are kinds of traffic control devices. Since PA does not statutorily prohibit overnight parking, any local restrictions on overnight parking would require signage. Thus restriction such as this one that "The following vehicles shall not be parked between 9:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. on the streets...", applying to commercial vehicles among others, would require a sign. That borough has an interesting ordinance stating that In the event of a conflict between the Codified Ordinances of the Borough of Lansdale and the provisions set forth in the Pennsylvania Motor Vehicle Code at 75 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 3351 through 3354, as amended from time to time, the provisions of the Codified Ordinances of the Borough of Lansdale shall control. Generally speaking, local ordinances are subordinate to state law, so this provision is legally questionable (although: the borough does not actually deny the signage requirement, so technically this is not a conflict, it is just ignoring state law – if there is no signage). The borough could of course argue that they were unaware of the state requirement to post no-parking signs, but ignorantia legis neminem excusat.	You don’t have to swear Witnesses are given the option to swear (technically take an oath) or to affirm, which has no religious connotations. You also don’t actually swear on a Bible if you do swear. For example california. The US is a very religious state france is a secular state - it prohibits religious clothing (hijabs, crucifixes etc.) in schools. The united-kingdom (specifically England) has an official state religion (Anglican) but religion is far less prevalent in politics or society than it is in the US. For example, outside of a place of worship, who your mother is sleeping with is a far more acceptable topic of conversation than what her religious beliefs are. Which is not to say it actually is an acceptable topic of conversation, just that it’s more acceptable than religion. australia elected its first openly atheist Prime Minister in 1983. The US was not founded on the idea that there shouldn’t be established religion, just that there shouldn’t be a state religion - that is, a church backed by the power of the government. Many of the early settlers were fleeing religious prosecution from state religions. Nevertheless, it was never the intention to exclude religion from politics. Indeed, religion in the US influences politics to a much greater degree than it does in most European or Anglophone countries.	also, what is "cannot be punished on account thereof because they lacked criminal responsibility due to the intoxication or if this cannot be ruled out"? I can not understand This means that if a person, while drunk, does soemthign that would otherwise be a crime, but the person cannot be charged because s/he was too drunk to know that s/he was committing a crime, such a person can insted be charged with having become intoxicated, and given up to the same punishment that would have been given for conviction for doign the unlawful act. For example, if a person damaged property while under the influence of alcohol (drunk), it might be impossible under German law to prosecute for the crime of intentionally damaging property, because one could not prove that the person knew what s/he was doing, and knew that it was criminal. In such a case the person could be charged with having intentionally or carelessly become drunk, but the penalty can't be more than the penalty for having damaged property would have been, nor can it be more than five years. As a practical matter, I think it very unlikely that the police would seek to impose a fine if they didn't issue any ticket or other paperwork at the scene, nor mention any such intention. However, they might be legally able to do so.	If you sleep on the streets, you are considered a "SDF" (Sans Domicile Fixe), a tramp. Legality depends on where you sleep, and in which city. It's not illegal to be a SDF (under some conditions), but until the early 1990s it was illegal to be a beggar (mendiant/mendicité -- this reference, Mendicité, is about begging) For instance, sleeping in a car can be legal, except if you are located in a prohibited place where you could have a fine. Some cities have voted anti-SDF acts. See for instance (in French): Dormir dans sa voiture, est-ce légal? and Les précédents dispositifs anti-SDF qui ont fait polémique en France SDF in law acts: PERSONNE SANS DOMICILE FIXE (SDF)	That sounds a lot like the German Antragsdelikt (literally "crime by request"). That is a crime (defined in the criminal code), that can only be prosecuted if the victim requests it. Antragsdelikt mostly applies to less serious crimes, such as slander or petty theft, while "serious" crimes, such as robbery or assault must always be prosecuted (Offizialdelikt). Also, there are many minor crimes (relatives Antragsdelikt) which are usually only prosecuted by request, but where the prosecution can also decide to press charges if it is in the "public interest" (usually because the act is deemed a serious infraction). Similar concepts exist in Austria and Switzerland.	Can he name a particalur one, like Linkin Park? Or that would be considered non-allowed type of advertising? Generally speaking, that does not constitute unlawful advertising. Public figures are allowed to broadcast their preferences on issues that are more sensitive than topics of music. There might be few, rare exceptions where something like this would be outlawed, but most likely that has to do with a regime's censorship of specific bands or music styles rather than with a general prohibition.	A school district has been sued for something like that. In Church of God, Etc. v. Amarillo Indep. Sch., 511 F. Supp. 613, plaintiffs successfully sued the school district "to enjoin the enforcement of the Amarillo School District's absence policy which limits the number of excused absences for religious holidays to two days each school year", where "A fundamental tenet of the Church of God is that members must abstain from secular activity on seven annual holy days". The school district imposed an absence polity where "School work missed may be made up whether an absence is excused or unexcused", and "Excused absences shall be granted to students for a maximum of 2 days for religious holidays in each school year". The court concluded that "This policy poses an unquestionable burden on the Plaintiffs' religious belief", and "This burden is not ameliorated by the make-up work provision. The provision does not require a teacher to evaluate the work made up. It in fact directs the teacher to enter a zero for that work". In this case "Summary judgment is granted and judgment rendered enjoining the enforcement of the Amarillo Independent School District's excused absence policy insofar as it limits the number of excused absences for religious holidays". This is not a matter of religious discrimination, this is a First Amendment issue. The policy is in violation of the Free Exercise clause. Eliminating spring break per se is not a problem: doing so and providing no excused absences is the problem. In the above case, there was clear a religious principle of the church to the effect that one must be off the clock on the holiday. As far as I know, there is no requirement to abstain from work or school on Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday or Good Friday. Nevertheless, in recognition of New Jersey state law which allows any student to take off a religious holiday – including Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, and dozens more – the Board of Education has prepared a list of such holidays, which includes Wiccan, Hindu, Baha'i, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Church of Scientology (and so on) religious holidays.
What happens to loans issued by a startup if the startup fails? I live in the U.S. Suppose that I invest $50,000 in a startup company, signing "typical" paperwork for a 55% stake. The founder then uses the money to issue a $20,000 loan at a minimal interest rate (say 1.6%) to one of his employees. Subsequently, the startup goes bankrupt with the full amount of the loan outstanding. Do I have rights to the loan as an asset of the company? More broadly, do I have any recourse or legal options for pursuing the loaned amount? (We can assume that the recipient of the loan is solvent.) Does the answer change if the lendee is not an employee of the startup? Similarly, does the answer depend on the numbers above, or on the state in which the investor and company reside?	Do I have rights to the loan as an asset of the company? You, no. It’s an asset of the company and,as such, will be liquidated by the liquidator for the benefit of the creditors of the company. Only if all creditors are paid in full will a dividend by paid to shareholders- this virtually never happens. The loan contract is still valid and the borrower will have to repay as agreed. If the contract has a repay on demand clause the liquidator will probably trigger it. If it doesn’t, they will sell it for what they can get - depending on the risk profile this could be from 50-85% of face value.	Basically, "in the course of your employment" means "while you are working, or should be working, for the employer". If you're not using company resources or time to create or acquire the works in question, and the works are unrelated to company business, they're quite unlikely to become the company's property. (Particularly since the company almost certainly doesn't have an interest in controlling the distribution of your vacation photos.) When you let your personal side projects and the company's stuff get intertwined, that's where the troubles begin. Works made on company time, or using company resources, or to do company-related things, may be claimed by the company, and this agreement basically says you'll cede ownership of the works to them, patents and all, for whatever amount of money they decide it's worth paying you.	No The contract is created at the moment that an offer was accepted. In normal circumstances: You accepted an offer that they made to the general public by sending a purchase order for specific items at specific prices, or They accepted your offer by communicating their acceptance to you (being advised that the goods have been dispatched counts). However, in this circumstance, the company has been explicit that the contract is only created when either: You checkout and pay, or They “supply an invoice to you.” It appears that neither event happened so there is no contract. Their specific terms have overridden the common law rules on offer and acceptance (as they are allowed to do) and the offer has not been accepted until you receive their invoice. Specifically, it cannot be accepted by performance (dispatching the goods) and the requirement for the invoice to be supplied overrides the postal rule. Note that, in this case, you got lucky. 99 times out of 100 there would have been a valid contract and you would have breached it. In future, cancel orders specifically, don’t make assumptions.	It sounds like you may be conflating ownership and control. It's very common for an affiliate to have a contract with the parent company. These terms can be very detailed - it may give the parent company the right to sell the affiliates widgets, but not sprockets (as those are sold by another parent company). As such, you can't really measure "control" as a simple percentage. So, when the parent is selling widgets, it can reasonably claim control over its affiliate. The buyer does not need to know the exact terms governing the relation between parent and affiliate.	I've been wondering if it is possible to hire / create a company with someone who would open a restaurant in my place and manage it according to my guidelines. Yes, of course. You can do it just like you described: Create a company, hire employees, (let them) open the restaurant. You, as the owner of the company, could set up whatever guidelines you have in mind, and your employees would be bound by them (limited only by general laws, such as on health and safety). Some caveats, however: You will need money to set this up - for buying / renting space for the restaurant, for paying your employees, obtaining supplies, initial marketing etc. It may take a while until the restaurant earns money (if ever), and you'll need money in the mean time. Someone will need to manage, that is make decisions. You can do that yourself, but then you will work for the restaurant (which you write you do not want to do). Or you can hire someone to do it for you, but that will cost more (in salary), plus you will have to find someone you can trust. That's a tradeoff for you to make. I guess it'd be like an intellectual property. That depends, but usually there will be little in terms of intellectual property. If you have a unique idea for the restaurant, you could patent it, but there are many restrictions on what you can protect, and ways around it, plus this also costs money (a lot if you need a lawyer's advice). Apart from that, you can register a trademark for the restaurant, but that only protects the name / logo, not any ideas. Finally, some of your ideas might be considered trade secrets, but again the protection is limited. In general, there is no blanket "idea protection". If you have a good idea for a restaurant, in most cases other restaurants will be able to copy them, possibly with slight changes - take that into account.	The statute provides that "No lease or other rental agreement shall impose any interest or penalty for failure to pay rent until thirty days after such rent shall have been due." Mass. Gen. Law ch. 186 § 15B(1)(a)(iii). It would seem that if the rent is fully paid before the thirty days are up, there is no longer a "failure to pay rent" and so no late fee to be paid. I have searched and have found no caselaw providing a different interpretation of the issue, but I am not a lawyer and this, of course, is not legal advice.	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".	It depends to a large degree on local employment laws. Depending on how the counteroffer was worded, it might have constituted anything from a binding legal contract for employment for some reasonable minimum term, or a totally non-binding suggestion that was worth less than the air breathed while pronouncing it. Some things to consider would include: What are local employment laws like? Do they require that termination be for cause? If so, what are causes for termination? Does termination require any kind of remediation beforehand? Note that in an at-will, right-to-work state in the US, odds are that the employee can be fired for any time and for any reason, supposing the employer hasn't accidentally entered into a contract by extending the counteroffer. What did the counteroffer say? Did it stipulate that the offer was not for a definite term and that the company reserved the right to terminate the employee for any reason, or no reason at all? Odds are any sufficiently serious business in an at- will, right-to-work state would use standard legal language in any offer or counteroffer to ensure that they are on the right side of this, so odds are the counteroffer was accepted with no obligations at all on the company. Does the termination affect eligibility for unemployment benefits? I would say most likely not, as the termination would probably be recorded as being for no reason legally speaking (if they admitted to terminating the employee for seeking other employment, interested government officials could take a dim view of the company's actions). You'd probably have at least some unemployment compensation coming your way. Some professional - not legal - advice. Never accept a counteroffer. Only get another offer in the first place if you are committed to leaving your current employer no matter what. If your company really insists, you should insist on a minimum definite term of employment written into a legal contract which is signed by an executive and notarized. No company will agree to this (unless the term is shorter than you'd want as a full-time W-2 anyway) but if they do, hey, you have some security (if the company agrees to this, have your own lawyer - whom you pay with your own money - review the document). Even then, I would be very, very careful about staying at a company after getting a counteroffer. Don't do it. Ever. Never accept a counteroffer. One comment asks why I recommend never accepting a counteroffer. There are at least two reasons: The reason you are looking for a new job should be that there is something about your current job that isn't completely satisfactory and that you haven't been able to fix. Either you have grown out of the position, don't like the work, feel you're underpaid, don't get along with somebody, etc. If you were unable or unwilling to fix any of these issues without having another job on the table, having another job on the table shouldn't be what makes you willing and able to fix them. Why work somewhere that you'd constantly need to go job hunting to address workplace issues? Unless the company makes firm agreements about how long they're going to keep you around, you have no guarantee that they'll keep you. Presumably, you didn't have one before, and you don't have one at the new job, but the fact that you are currently employed might support the assumption that your employment would be continued at your current employer and the offer might support the assumption the new employer plans to employ you indefinitely. When you put in your notice, it makes the company more aware of the fact that you could leave at any time; while a perfectly rational actor would realize that this doesn't change the situation at all, companies are run by people and people often act irrationally. Perhaps your manager is vindictive, perhaps your manager is scared that you will still leave after accepting the counteroffer. Maybe your manager knows there are layoffs coming but needs you for the busy season. Hiring replacements can be time-consuming and expensive - and employees who are getting offers of employment elsewhere and putting in notice might be seen as risks. I'm not saying that accepting a counteroffer has always turned out badly. Falling coconuts kill 150 people every year. Still, I am not going to add a coconut rider to my insurance policy and I am not going to accept a counteroffer.
What duties do U.S. organizations have to monitor foreign affiliates for practices that are illegal in the U.S.? There is a U.S. based corporation with foreign subsidiaries/affiliates in "third world" countries. Let's say that some of these foreign organizations are engaging "locally" in practices that are illegal in the U.S., such as violating (U.S.) child labor laws, or bribing officials and thereby violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. To what extent is the U.S. corporation responsible for monitoring its subsidiaries or suppliers for such illegal activities. Suppose a "whistle-blower" contacts the U.S. corporation with credible evidence of such activities. What duty (if any) does the U.S. corporation have to 1) follow up on the whistle blower charges and 2) to apply sanctions to or suspend relations with the foreign subsidiary or supplier? And are "subsidiary" and "supplier" two separate cases?	Subsidiary and supplier are separate cases. For a controlled subsidiary: full duties, full responsibility, you could (and someone has) fill a textbook with the ins and outs but this is the answer. For a supplier: it is under the law much more complicated, but if a client of mine came to me with this question my answer would be pretty much the same: if the evidence is truly credible you should cut ties and then conduct an FCPA review to determine whether there is any obligation to disclose.	You are mostly mistaken. Prior to the enactment of the STOCK Act in 2012 (as amended in 2013), insider trading by members of Congress based upon information obtained in their official duties was legal. This is no longer the case, but there is no private cause of action to enforce the STOCK Act. Instead, the principal means by which violations are enforced is via a federal criminal prosecution which is something that the Justice Department is very reluctant to direct at a member of Congress. There are at least two barriers to such prosecutions, in addition to the political issues involved with having an agency prosecute members of the body that funds it and regulates it: To bring a case here, however, federal authorities must overcome two obstacles: the Speech and Debate Clause, and proving “materiality” in novel circumstances. Indeed, the announcement that the authorities have closed their investigations into three senators may show these obstacles already have proven too steep. As a result, it is hard to bring federal criminal cases against members of Congress (or their aides) to enforce the STOCK Act, so it is much more toothless than it seems on the surface. The further fact that a security is structured as an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF), however, is not itself necessarily all that much of a barrier to insider trading criminal liability for members of Congress, beyond the barriers already noted. This is because many ETFs are focused on something less than the total securities market. If a member of Congress, for example, has inside information on something that will impact the entire manufacturing industry, that member of Congress can engaged in insider trading in an ETF pertinent to that industry. Similarly, if a member of Congress gains advanced insight about an imminent war in Latin America, the member of Congress could engage in insider trading in connection with a Latin American securities ETF. There is no requirement that insider trading be restricted to, or focused upon, a single issuer of securities (i.e. it does not have to be limited to stocks or bonds in a single corporation).	In general the act must be a crime in both countries for an extradition to proceed, but the extradition treaty between countries A and B likely has more specific provisions as well. C's involvement is generally limited to consular assistance, but there have been instances where countries have offered to incarcerate their citizens for convictions in other countries. The country of citizenship certainly does not have priority to extradite or try its citizens, and it is unlikely that the country seeking to prosecute would have much interest in another country taking over the case.	From point 4: transferring all rights and obligations of Company A to Company B Among those rights and obligations are the rights and obligations arising from Company A's agreement with Employee. Employee is therefore still subject to the agreement, which is enforceable by Company B. If the agreement is carefully drafted, it will make explicit mention of Company A's "successors in interest" or some similar phrase or phrases. Even if there is no mention, the rights and obligations associated with this agreement will transfer (perhaps unless the agreement explicitly provides that they will not, but, let's be realistic, of course it does not so provide).	This will ultimately depend on the specific laws, but the scope of EU laws like Directive 2006/114/EC is generally restricted to the EU Single Market. Thus, we would have to consider whether the advertisement in question is directed at that market. In your scenario, you have two US-based companies that engage in comparative advertising via an US-based platform. But where these companies are headquartered is not directly relevant, as non-EU companies can participate in the EU Single Market as well. Instead, EU rules are applicable if either: the comparative advertising occurred in the context of the activities of an EU establishment such as an EU-based subsidiary; or the advertising was directed to a country in the EU Single Market, for example by fulfilling the criteria listed in the Pammer and Alpenhof cases. For example, lets assume that the companies do not have a direct EU presence, but that they offer goods or services to consumers in the EU and the comparative advertisement was in German and mentioned prices in Euros. If so, there would be a good argument that EU rules apply and that the comparative advertising was potentially illegal. But as another example, lets consider two restaurants/diners in Memphis, Tennessee, US, that made unfair comparative advertisements which were distributed via YouTube. It is possible to view the advertisement from the EU. But is there any reason for this ad to be illegal in the EU? No. This ad falls out of scope of EU law as the ad is not directed towards the EU Single Market, and it is unlikely to mislead consumers in the sense of fair competition laws as there won't be any potential customers for the Memphis restaurant in the EU. National laws could take a more narrow approach though. Does YouTube have any responsibility here? No, fair competition laws generally only address the competitors, not the platforms through which advertisements are distributed (e.g. newspapers or social media platforms). Online platforms with user-generated consent benefit from safe-harbor laws. However, there are some legal theories such as the German Störerhaftung under which it might be possible to hold an otherwise-privileged service provider responsible for acts committed by an unknown third party. Note that while comparative marketing is quite regulated in the EU and thus rare, it is not actually illegal when done fairly. For example in Germany, § 6 UWG defines criteria to determine whether comparative advertising is unfair.	The FTC has myriad regulations (depending on site/content/ etc.) that must be complied with - this is especially true if children will be interacting with others. Ideally, you should have the assistance of an intellectual property attorney or a regulatory specialist if this is something you expect to be wide reaching and/or geared toward children. All of that being said, the following link offers much information regarding compliance with COPPA for small entities. If you plan on doing the compliance work yourself, there is also a liaison, or virtual "help desk" run by the FTC. Depending on what you're doing and your ability to interpret complex regulatory frameworks, you could accomplish this yourself. I'd recommend that you start here, where you'll find links to other regulations that may be applicable and easily found, and then decide if you need a specialist based on the breadth of your work product and what you find that may apply. Or, at a minimum, you may be able to narrow the scope of your question after reviewing this help section, if you find you need help analyzing a certain section. https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/complying-coppa-frequently-asked-questions Good luck!	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).	Yes. A company from one member state may do business in any E.U. state so long as it complies with local law in the course of doing so. For example, a Dutch company doing business in Germany must still pay German taxes and comply with German labor laws for its German employees. But, it doesn't have to form a German subsidiary to do business in Germany.
Is due process a civil right or liberty? Civil liberties are rights afforded to people that the government cannot impose upon. Civil rights govern government processes in an attempt to make them fair. Is due process a civil right or liberty?	Your distinction between civil rights and civil liberties does not enjoy support from the legal perspective. Typically, the law addresses rights, and "liberty" is invoked only in rhetorical flourishes (at least in the US legal context). "Right" is about the relationship between a person and actions. Liberty may be a consequence of certain rights. Government protection of rights typically takes the form of forbidding the government to do certain things (things that interfere with a person's right to do certain things). The right to due process protects your right to live your life free from government interference, except when certain conditions are present (as stated in a law). Due Process (as a procedural requirement on government action) is neither a right nor a liberty, it is a restriction addressed to government power. Its purpose is to protect the rights of individuals.	1. Are this and similar ordinances constitutionally valid? Yes. Some future court might decide the law is invalid at some future time. But that possibility is hypothetical and speculative. Therefore, as of now, the law is valid unless and until it is challenged and overturned. 2. What defenses could a government make if challenged? It depends on what grounds the law is challenged. Your question about possible defenses is highly dependent on the nature of any challenge — which you have not specified in your question. The U.S. Constitution, for example, prohibits laws respecting a number of things such as freedom of the press, speech, religion, peaceful assembly, bearing arms, etc. to list just a few of the most notable ones. But your question does not assert the law in question violates any specific or particular prohibition against it. Although the question mentions "restricting free movement as well as targeting only a specific demographic," it does not specify any part of any constitution that prohibits these things. Therefore, your question is unclear as to what might present a constitutional problem for the law. It is also unclear which constitution you think might contain prohibitive language. Is it a federal constitutional issue that concerns you? Or is it a state constitutional matter? In either case, which issue specifically concerns you? Your question needs to address these specifics in order to analyze it and respond in a meaningful way. Look at it like this... just as it is impossible to prove a negative, so is it impossible for anyone to conclude with absolute certainty that any law is not unconstitutional because no one can predict with certainty every possible future challenge a law might face. There are just too many possibilities to (pre-emptively) exhaust them all with certainty. Also, no one can predict with certainty how any future court might rule on the future challenges (which themselves are unpredictable as previously argued). Therefore, one can only say I think the law is unconstitutional and here are my reasons. Then others can analyze the law and the reasons; then offer an opinion. Further, based on precedent, would they likely be successful? See above answer to question numbered 2. Laws aren't required to be "justified" by the constitution. Constitutional justification for a law is a meaningless phrase. There is no requirement for a law to be "justified" by any constitution other than that the legislature is empowered by the constitution to make laws. That's all the justification any law needs. Beyond that, however, no law can violate the constitution as determined by a Supreme Court (or the last court to rule) if challenged.	Yes. Operating under those assumptions, this would be a First Amendment violation under controlling law in D.C. The starting point is Sherrill v. Knight, 569 F.2d 124 (D.C. Cir. 1977), which held that "denial of a pass potentially infringes upon first amendment guarantees." In that case, the Nixon White House refused to issue a press pass to a reporter for a liberal magazine, but refused to explain why beyond citing "reasons of security." The D.C. Circuit said that if the White House intended to open itself to the press, it needed to do so in ways that did not offend the First Amendment. White House press facilities having been made publicly available as a source of information for newsmen, the protection afforded newsgathering under the first amendment guarantee of freedom of the press requires that this access not be denied arbitrarily or for less than compelling reasons. Not only newsmen and the publications for which they write, but also the public at large have an interest protected by the first amendment in assuring that restrictions on newsgathering be no more arduous than necessary, and that individual newsmen not be arbitrarily excluded from sources of information. Given these important first amendment rights implicated by refusal to grant White House press passes to bona fide Washington journalists, such refusal must be based on a compelling governmental interest. Clearly, protection of the President is a compelling, “even an overwhelming,” interest... However, this standard for denial of a press pass has never been formally articulated or published. Merely informing individual rejected applicants that rejection was for “reasons of security” does not inform the public or other potential applicants of the basis for exclusion of journalists from White House press facilities. Moreover, we think that the phrase “reasons of security” is unnecessarily vague and subject to ambiguous interpretation. Therefore, we are of the opinion that appellants must publish or otherwise make publicly known the actual standard employed in determining whether an otherwise eligible journalist will obtain a White House press pass. Sherrill v. Knight, 569 F.2d 124, 129–30 (D.C. Cir. 1977). In a nutshell, Sherrill is saying that when the government is granting press credentials to some and denying them to others, First Amendment principles require it to meet basic due-process requirements of notice and an opportunity to be heard. Therefore, those denied with an explanation for the denial and an opportunity to contest that denial. In this case, it's not clear whether the White House has provided Acosta with a hearing and notice at all, which would itself be a violation if that situation continues for too long. But even if it does, the White House could not use the procedure to punish Acosta for exercising the First Amendment principles that the procedure is designed to protect. If the opposite were true, i.e., Acosta "laid hands" on the intern, I'd guess that that would be enough to revoke his credentials, assuming the White House went through the appropriate procedure. Sherrill explicitly recognizes protecting the President and his family as a valid basis for denying access, and I assume the courts would extend that protection to White House staff, especially if the White House were to argue that an assault on staff suggests that the person can't be trusted around the president himself.	This is known as the rule of lenity. A common formulation of the rule of lenity is as follows: If a federal criminal statute is grievously ambiguous, then the statute should be interpreted in the criminal defendant's favor. Importantly, the rule of lenity does not apply when a law merely contains some ambiguity or is difficult to decipher. As this Court has often said, the rule of lenity applies only when “ ‘after seizing everything from which aid can be derived,’ ” the statute is still grievously ambiguous. The rule “comes into operation at the end of the process of construing what Congress has expressed, not at the beginning as an overriding consideration of being lenient to wrongdoers.” Kavanaugh J., concurring, in Wooden v. United States, 595 U.S. ___ (2022), citing Ocasio v. United States, 578 U.S. 282, 295, n. 8 (2016), internal citations removed.	Foreign citizens are just as entitled to Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure as American citizens are. The case you cited was, in fact, a South Korean citizen who successfully had evidence suppressed from an unjustified border search.	No. While the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment doesn’t apply to the federal government, the Supreme Court has read the same requirements into the 5th Amendment. This is generally considered to have started with Bolling v. Sharpe 347 U.S. 497 (1954) (in this case, "the Court began in earnest to fold an "equal protection" guarantee into the concept of "due process."” United States v. Madero, No. 20-303, at *9 (Apr. 21, 2022)), and as Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 92 (1976) put it, Equal protection analysis in the Fifth Amendment area is the same as that under the Fourteenth Amendment.	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.	There is a police power exception to the 5th and 14th Amendment rights to not taking property without due process of law and just compensation. In a similar case arising in Greenwood Village, Colorado, an innocent homeowner was denied any relief at trial in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, or on appeal to the 10th Circuit, after his house was trashed by SWAT teams trying to catch a guy accused of mere theft and fleeing police officers. (The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case sometime after the linked article was written.) But, there does appear to be a circuit split on the issue. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in a case appealed from a U.S. District Court decision in Texas reached a contrary conclusion in a case between Vicki Baker and the City of McKinney, Texas decided earlier this month in March of 2023 in which it affirmed a U.S. District Court ruling in favor of the homewoner. The fact that there is now a circuit split on the issue increases the likelihood that the U.S. Supreme Court would consider a Petition for Certiorari from the 5th Circuit decision in the Texas case, although it is far from a sure thing as only about 1% of Petitions for Certiorari presented to the U.S. Supreme Court (about 80 out of 7,000 to 8,000 per year) are granted. The key issue distinguishing these two rulings is the question of whether the police power exception to the eminent domain obligation of a government applies to cases in which the person whose property is taken is innocent of any wrongdoing and any legally relevant connection to a wrongdoer. Both circuits would agree that a government does not have eminent domain liability under the constitution if, for example, the property destroyed belongs to someone who committed a crime and has their house destroyed in the process of trying to arrest the criminal. Also, neither of the decisions disputes that police may, under the police power exception, destroy property in connection with efforts to apprehend a criminal or to prevent a crime, without seeking court approval in the usual situation where there are exigent circumstances that can't wait for the slow process of conducting a court hearing on the question. The question, instead, is whether an innocent property owner has a right to bring an "inverse condemnation" lawsuit to remedy the damage that the innocent property owner has experienced.
How to protect assets from being passed to a beneficiary in a will when they are likely to die soon also I'm going through the process of creating a simple (my first) last will and testament. I'm young with modest assets. I'm married with no children and live in the United States. I'd like to have something in place to make things as seamless as possible in the case of my death. My spouse will be my first beneficiary, but I will also have other family as secondary beneficiaries in the case my spouse and I die at the same time. While creating the will, I was considering the following scenario: my spouse and I are in an accident together. I die immediately, yet they live for some longer period of time (days/months). They eventually die as well. I think the question boils down to: at what point does my will go into effect and pass my assets to them? Does it have to do with their condition (conscious/unconscious, mentally competent/incompetent)? Does this change based on who is the executor of the will? It would seem a bit contrary to my wishes if I were to pass, my assets pass to my spouse, and then shortly to their second beneficiaries instead of mine, especially if it was always unlikely they'd recover. How do wills typically handle this edge case?	Wills typically handle this by specifying a survivorship period. Such a clause may say, in effect, "I leave all my assets to my spouse, provided they survive me by at least 30 days, and otherwise to beneficiaries X,Y,Z." That way, if your spouse dies shortly after you, your assets go to X,Y,Z, rather than going to your spouse and then to their beneficiaries. Another issue this avoids: suppose you are in an accident together, and by the time rescuers arrive, you are both dead. Without a survivorship period requirement, courts might have to try to determine whether one of you survived a few seconds longer than the other, in order to decide whose beneficiaries get the assets. That could be difficult and error-prone, not to mention gruesome and upsetting to loved ones. But with such a requirement, it's not necessary. The linked article notes that in many jurisdictions, if you don't specify a survivorship period, there may be a statutory period that applies automatically.	What would be an appropriate legal classification? A trust. How could this entity be structured so it could manage multiple estates? As a trust. Could this entity choose to keep, say, 30% for internal use e.g. resuscitation research? If that’s what it says in the trust deed, yes. How could this entity be made "recession-bulletproof," such that it could survive collapse of civilization? It can’t. Could it be given autonomy under the direction of a single person, or even sovereignty along the lines of a Mars colony? A trust is managed by its trustee(s) for the benefit of the beneficiaries. A trustee can be an individual or a corporation and there can be one or more of them. It couldn’t be given sovereignty - only nation states are sovereign. Could it be immune from legal jeopardy if it chose to accept clients who volunteer to be frozen before they die? No. What might happen to the estates if the economy is radically altered, e.g. a scarcity-free system where money is obsolete? Beats me - you’re the science fiction writer, you make it up.	Whether or not the estate has an obligation to pay the mortgage is really dependent on the terms of the estate plan and the solvency of the estate. The fact that someone is on the deed to a property (whether a deed of gift or a transfer on death instrument) that automatically passes upon death of the original owner to a relative has little or nothing, really, to do with the estate plan. While it may have been part of the person's ultimate plan for the disposal of their assets in life and at death, that is different than being part of the actual estate plan, which deals with the disposition of assets upon death, setting out the wishes of the deceased as it pertains to all property. There are lots of people who end up in this position, even though the original person on the deed did not intend to purchase or leave the other any property. It happens a lot when say a child does not have adequate credit to secure a mortgage to buy a home, but has the money to pay a mortgage. So, in that scenario usually a parent or grandparent will put the mortgage in their name (the other will live there and pay the mortgage) and then in the event the "helper" dies, they have it pass to the other at death, either thru a "TOD" or a "joint tenancy", so that in the event they die intestate, or if the will is challenged, there will be no question who owns the house...the equity in it, anyway. It (the instrument) is its own separate entity, not subject to the will except to the extent the deceased makes it subject (I'm getting to that part). Like a life insurance policy, that pays on death but is not subject to any terms of the will, it can stand alone since deed is its own instrument, separate from any wills or trusts. Under federal law, the mortgage must be allowed to remain in effect without changes when it passes from one person to another because of a death. This negates any due-on-sale clause in the mortgage. Who pays for the remainder of what is owed, however, generally depends on the deceased's will. The will might stipulate, for example, that the heir receive the home, free and clear, with the estate to pay all monies due. In this case, the executor will either use liquid assets, or sell other non-liquid assets in the estate to pay off the mortgage. Other times, it will say that the heir get the equity, plus X amount of dollars, which the heir can put toward the home's mortgage or not. If the will is silent on the issue, it is the responsibility of the heir/person to whom the property transfers (they needn't even be an heir) to pay the mortgage upon its normal term due, or sell the property to satisfy the debt. In the event the property is worth less than the remaining mortgage, the bank will usually take the house in "deed in lieu of foreclosure" rather than seek overage from the estate.	The personal representative is empowered by law (esp. §3311) to undertake actions on behalf of the deceased, and enjoys certain legal immunities against personal liability for their actions. The personal representative can do things that a random person off the street can't do. Until you are appointed by the Register of Wills as personal representative, you aren't a personal representative. There are provisions for limited disposition of the estate without letters of testamentary such as paying employees of the deceased, paying the funeral home, but not in general any "non-emergency" distribution / disposal. Even with appointment as PR, one has a fiduciary obligation to equitably distribute the estate. That means that the PR has to respect the interests of both of the heirs. If the PR decides that some object is trash and throws it out, they could be liable to an heir who has an interest in the object. Of course, the heir with that interest may have to take the PR to court, so normally people just talk this out. As an intermediate step, an heir's attorney can write a letter to the PR advising them of the legal ramifications of breaching their fiduciary duty.	The requirements for a valid will vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In most U.S. states there is a two part test. One part is determined based upon the face of the document, the other is based upon extrinsic evidence. Formal Requirements To be formally valid without a hearing unless an interested party requests one in most U.S. states on its face (i.e. to be a "self-proving will") a will must: Be in writing. Be signed by the person making the will who is at least eighteen years of age. Be signed by at least two witnesses who do not have conflicts of interest, who are attesting that the person making the will was competent and that they saw him or her sign it. The signatures of the witnesses must be notarized. If their statements are not notarized, usually at least one witness must testify in a hearing or with a later affidavit. The language of the will must indicate an intent to make a binding disposition of property in the estate of the person making it when they die, and other rights related to their estate and their death. Various exceptions to these requirements exist in most state (e.g. a "holographic will" is valid if it is in writing, indicates the necessary intent, is signed, and has its material provision substantially in the hand writing of the person writing it). Some states allow oral wills called "nuncupative wills" in very specific circumstances usually limited to soldiers or sailors in circumstances of actual battle or imminent mayhem likely to result in death, with the proper witnesses. A will is like a dollar bill, a copy is not as good as the original document. If the original document cannot be found it is presumed that the will was revoked by physical destruction of the will, in the absence of evidence to the contrary submitted at a hearing to a judge. Extrinsic Requirements Any interested party can contest a will that appears valid on its face under the standards describe above on several grounds. Two of these relate to the condition of the person signing the will at the time it was signed. The notarized witness statements create a presumption that these two conditions were met. But, that presumption can be overcome with other evidence from witnesses and/or documents or other kinds of evidence. These conditions are: The document was procured from the person making it with duress or undue influence, even if the person making it did have "testamentary capacity." The person making it lacked testamentary capacity which is also a two part test. The first part is that the person making it knows who their family and the "natural objects of their bounty are", knows in general terms what they own, and knows what a will is intended to do and is capable of understanding the general outlines of what it does. This basically rules out people with severe dementia. The second part is that if the person is not suffering from dementia but is suffering from hallucinations, that the hallucinations have not influenced the nature of the provisions contained in the will. In practice, "undue influence" is the predominant ground for contesting wills that are formally valid on their face because testamentary capacity is a very low standard. A will can also be contested on the grounds involving extrinsic evidence that: A later validly executed document revoked the will, or The document is a forgery. If any of the issues related to extrinsic evidence are disputed, both the party contesting the will, and the party defending it, has a right to have that issue resolved in a jury trial, although often the right to a jury trial in a case like this is waived by the parties. This is determined by making a reasonable inquiry before submitting the will and examining the physical document and the place where it was when it was discovered, closely. The inquiry should be very searching if the terms of the will are surprising, and can be fairly lax if the terms of the will are what was widely expected. There is generally a notice given to all interested parties when a will is submitted to a court with probate jurisdiction to be given effect that contains a deadline to raise a contest along these lines. A will that is not submitted to a court with probate jurisdiction usually has no force or effect until that happen in most U.S. jurisdictions. Public Policy Even if the will is valid in general, some terms of the will may be invalid as a matter of public policy, or modified by statue, in certain circumstances. These exceptions can usually be determined on the face of the document or with minimal additional information (although "your mileage may vary" and cases where, for example, the cause of death or date of death is uncertain can be difficult). For example, the following limitations are common: A term in a will conditioning a gift at death on marrying or not marrying a particular person is void in most, if not all, U.S. states. Under certain circumstances a will is required to leave certain minimum amounts to a surviving spouse and/or minor dependent children. If a will appears to omit a child of the person making it by accident, it is modified in particular ways mandated by statute. Will provisions making gifts at death or giving responsibilities to someone who murdered the person who wrote the will are void. Some states invalidate provisions in favor of an ex-spouse upon divorce, unless a post-divorce document reaffirms those inheritances. Certain kinds of words are given defined statutory meanings unless the express language of a will says otherwise, such as "by representation", or "if he survives me", that are not necessarily intuitive or in line with every day use of language. It is usually necessary to review the probate court and case law in the state where the decedent was domiciled at death to determine if these limitations apply, ideally with a probate or estate administration lawyer.	Short Answer Usually, a divorce decree doesn't leave former spouses as co-owners of the former marital residence, but sometimes this happens anyway. To oversimplify, if the divorce decree leaves a couple a co-owners, either of them can usually force the sale of the property and a division of the proceeds left after paying off the mortgage, in a special kind of lawsuit called a partition action. The rights of mortgage lenders and lienholders against both former spouses cannot be changed without paying off the loan in most cases. If a spouse who lives there isn't able to pay off the old loan and refinance it in their name alone, this usually means that the house will be sold to a third party with the net proceeds of the sale split. The net proceeds from the sale of the house are divided in proportion to their ownership interests in the co-owned property that can sometimes be tricky to calculate. Often the ability of either party to force a sale of the house in a partition action leads the parties to reach a settlement in the shadow of the possible outcome. Long Answer Caveats This answer sets forth the general rules that apply the vast majority of the time. There are some rare and obscure exceptions to these rules that can apply buried in dark corners of Texas law, and this answer doesn't not comprehensively ferret out every single such exception to the general rules. This answer also doesn't discuss ways in which outcomes that shouldn't be allowed by these rules can be made possible by one party or another's procedural mistakes in the court system, which is fact specific and can arise in certain situations. What Is A Divorce Decree? The only way a divorce case can end is for the divorce to be called off (either by mutual agreement or because one or both of the divorcing spouses die before the case is over), or for a divorce decree to be entered by the court, ending the marriage and establishing the rights of the parties after the divorce with respect to each other and their property. A divorce decree can be entered either by mutual agreement of the spouses in a divorce case, but if they can't agree, the judge in the divorce case will impose a divorce decree dividing property and handling other issues in the divorce as the divorce judge sees fit consistent with Texas law. Either way, it isn't official until it is signed by the judge. Sometimes a divorce decree will be very short, but will incorporate by reference one or more other documents like a mutually agreed separation agreement, or a parenting plan, or a schedule of who gets what property in the divorce. The Role of A Divorce Decree Almost anything can be done by mutual agreement (although all decisions related to children must be approved by the judge with a finding that the agreement is in the best interests of the children). A judge has far more limitations on what the judge can do in a divorce decree to establish the post-divorce property rights of the ex-spouses, but the judge still has great discretion in how the judge may make those decisions. Usually, the ownership of a house is handled in a way that leaves only one spouse owning the house in connection with a divorce proceeding. For example, ex-husband may be ordered to transfer the house to ex-wife, and ex-wife may be ordered to transfer her pension to ex-husband in exchange, if that is what the divorce decree says. One of the grounds for appealing a judge's divorce decree decision to a higher court is that the judge didn't adequately separate the spouses financially. But that doesn't mean that a divorce decree can never leave ex-spouses as co-owners of property. Once the divorce case is over, if nothing in the divorce decree separates ownership of the house, then the ex-husband and ex-wife have the same rights with respect to each other that a house co-owned by two people who were never married would have (unless the divorce decree states otherwise). Some divorce decrees, however, prohibit the sale or transfer of the house without the mutual consent of the former husband and former wife (for former husband and former husband, or former wife and former wife, in a same sex marriage), either indefinitely, or for some time period defined in the divorce decree. In rare cases, the divorcing spouses could agree to do something that leaves neither of them owning their house, like agreeing to sell it, or agreeing to give it to charity, or putting it in the trust for their children. The Rights Of Unmarried Co-Owners Of Property When A Divorce Decree Doesn't Provide Otherwise A lawsuit to terminate co-ownership of real estate without the consent of all of the owners of the real estate is called a partition action. In the case of a house that cannot feasibly be divided in kind the way that, for example, farmland could be, what a partition action does is force the house to be sold, with the proceeds divided. Conceivably, one spouse or the other could be both one of the two sellers, and one of the buyers at the partition sale if the spouse that is both selling and buying is the highest bidder in a sale that is open to the general public. In this case, the partition sale is functionally equivalent to cashing out the equity of a spouse who is not the highest bidder at a partition sale. Frequently, given the inevitability of an ultimate partition sale in these cases, the parties will instead reach a mutual agreement to either have one party cash out the other for an agreed valuation of the house and allocation of the equity in the house. Alternatively, another common form of settlement is that the co-owners will agree to sell the house for an agreed price to a third-party and then to divide the net proceeds either according to a pre-agreed formula or in litigation over net proceeds from the agreed sale held in a court controlled bank pending a judicial determination of each spouse's share of the proceeds. Partition actions aren't the most expensive kind of court case, but usually, at least one of the parties needs to have a lawyer for it to go smoothly and the legal fees aren't usually negligible either. Critically, the fact that "mom pays mortgage and lives in the house" doesn't matter much in a partition action after the divorce is over. Paying the mortgage and living in the house are frequently considered to cancel out, rather than changing the share of the equity to which each former spouse is entitled. An ex-wife cannot just get an ex-husband off of the title without being the highest bidder at a partition sale. If ex-husband is the highest bidder, he will stay on the title and she will be off the title and will have to move out or pay him rent. If the third-party is the highest bidden, she will have to move out or pay rent to the third-party, and neither of them will be on the title anymore. The Rights Of Mortgage And Lien Creditors The fact that both ex-spouses are responsible to the mortgage company (and any lienholders who have rights identical to mortgage companies for the purposes of this question) if they were both on the mortgage before the divorce can't be changed without the mortgage lenders consent (which is almost never given), unless the mortgage is paid off in full and (if necessary) refinanced. If there is a partition sale, the mortgage debt must be paid off before either spouse gets any of the proceeds from the partition sale. The Impact of Community Property Laws In Texas One complicating factor in this analysis is that Texas is a community property state. So, to determine what share of the equity in a house belongs to each spouse (if any) you have to apply community property rules that are deceptively simply, but are quite complicated to apply in practice. The general rule of community property in Texas is that property acquired before the marriage or by gift or inheritance by a single spouse, or allocated to a spouse in divorce decree, is separate property. All other property of the couple of community property. Any property for which separate property status can't be proven, or for which there is too much co-mingling of community and separate property, is community property. A spouse is entitled to 100% of the that spouse's separate property, and in addition, to 50% of the community property of the couple, upon divorce. Also, at death, a decedent can't leave the surviving spouse's separate property to someone else, can't leave the 50% of the property that is community property immediately prior to death, that is owned by the surviving spouse, to anyone other than the surviving spouse, without the surviving spouse's consent. Ideally, the divorce decree will spell out what percentage of each piece of land or other property that is owned by each former spouse once they are divorced. But, sometimes a divorce decree entered by mutual agreement, or by a judge, is sloppy and doesn't make that point clear. If the divorce decree doesn't clarify what percentage of the property is owed by each ex-spouse, this has to be cleared up later when the house is sold in a partition action, if there is no mutual agreement to the contrary. A valid pre-nuptial agreement, or a valid post-nuptial agreement, however, can modify the community property rules of Texas that would otherwise apply. The application of community property rules is also particularly complicated in cases where the couple spends part of their marriage in Texas, and part of their marriage either in a state that is not a community property state or that has very different community property laws on some key issues. The Impact Of Post-Divorce Economic Activity Related To The House Also, the amounts spent by the co-owners of the house after the divorce, and the question of whether one of the co-owner has been excluded from the co-owned house by the other, could change the share of each co-owner in the equity in the house after the divorce. The exact rules for how these adjustments are made are complicated, and are often subject to a judge's discretionary decision about this issue should be resolved in a partition action. Footnote Re Gender All of the rules discussed above, even if I haven't worded my explanations that way, are gender neutral. The rules are the same for ex-husbands as they are for ex-wives (and vice versa) in opposite sex marriages, for ex-husbands in same sex marriages, and for ex-wives in same sex marriages.	In most places I imagine the issue would go before a probate judge who would attempt to determine the validity of each presented will, and if both were valid, then they would attempt to reconcile the disparities to the best of their ability. Broadly speaking, the process would look like this (I'm using UK law as an example): You die An individual is chosen to handle your affairs (executor or administrator [or possibly both depending on jurisdiction]) They choose a will to go off of (these steps could be reversed if the wills named different administrators, in which case each administrator would file for the grant of representation and consequently involve the probate judge earlier) Someone challenges and suggests using the other will (probably because they feel they're not getting what's theirs) A probate judge is involved The probate judge decides Appeals would be made to Court of Appeals and then to the Supreme Court That being said, every jurisdiction is different, and this is more of a template answer for English common law (and derivative courts), than an attempt to describe in detail any specific jurisdiction's procedures.	It doesn't work, just like transferring the copyright to a young person to make it last longer doesn't work. In places where the length of copyright depends on the death of someone, it always depends on the death of the author. You can transfer copyright, but you can't change who is the author. If I write a book, and some copyright law says the copyright ends 70 years after the death of the author, then it ends 70 years after my death. It doesn't matter who owns the copyright. PS. That dead person has heirs. If there are no relatives alive, then the government of their country will inherit everything (in most countries, there might be exceptions). Your plan fails for that reason as well. PS. See "Just a guy's" answer for another, completely different, reason why this scheme doesn't work.
How to prevent assets in a will from being passed to a person suffering from incurable dementia? Triggered by this question, a similar one. How can I write a will such that if a beneficiary is suffering from senile dementia at the time I die, they are passed elsewhere? The situation may well arise if I have previously succumbed likewise, and so cannot revise my will. My siblings are of a similar age, and share my genetic inheritance. I would want the money to go to their children, if they are beyond considering for themselves whether to enter into a deed to reassign their inheritance at the time of my death. Is there any reason it can't be handled in the same way as survivorship? Specify a condition which, if satisfied, means that the beneficiary is to be treated as if they had pre-deceased me.	Conditions stated in a will should be objectively verifiable, to avoid later ligation of the "yes he is / no he isn't" type. In this case, it would appear that your concern is over the beneficiary not actually being competent to take care of themselves. The courts often have to make that judgment, when a party seeks conservatorship over an adult. So it seems that the situation you are addressing can be summarized by saying "has not been found legally incompetent". You should discuss with your attorney what the exact wording ought to be, and also whether that describes your actual intents. For example, the description of disqualification probably should not include execution of a temporary power of attorney for a specific purpose, nor would it include a DNR order. Hiring an attorney who knows the terminology would steer clear of vague or mistaken terms.	What does this paragraph mean? Line by line. I give my Residuary Estate This is a gift, effective when the person writing the Will dies, of everything that is left over after all debts and taxes are paid and after any other gifts already in the Will (e.g. leaving a car or a house or a Monet to someone in particular) have been given. to the said [Full Name] absolutely I'm going give [Full Name] a name so that it is easier to follow this explanation. [Full Name]'s name for purposes of this answer is "Luna". This says to give all that stuff to Luna when the person who wrote the Will dies, if Luna is still alive for whatever the required amount of time is after the person who wrote the Will dies. The required survival time period is either in the boilerplate provisions of the Will, or in the relevant statute if the Will is silent on the question. The Will says "absolutely" because historically, someone who received gifts of property in deed or wills in England only got to keep it for their lifetime, unless it clearly specified otherwise, after which someone else would get it. But in this case, if Luna survives this long, Luna gets all of this stuff with no strings attached. and if [Name] shall fail to obtain a vested interest leaving issue who survive me then such issue shall take by substitution If Luna dies before the person who wrote the Will does, or doesn't stay alive for the required number of days afterwards, then Luna isn't entitled to this stuff. Luna's descendants get it instead (i.e. Luna's descendants "take by substitution" what Luna would have gotten if Luna had lived, instead of Luna's probate estate getting the stuff). and if there shall be more than one of such issue they shall take in equal shares per stirpes but so that no issue shall take whose parent is alive and so capable of taking. If Luna predeceases and has exactly one living descendant who is alive when the person who wrote the Will dies, and that living descendant lives the required number of days after the person who wrote the Will dies, then the sole living descendant of Luna gets all of the stuff that is left over when the person who wrote the Will dies. If Luna has more than one living descendant, the stuff that is left over when the person who wrote the Will dies, then Luna's descendants gets broken up the way described below, which is called per stirpes: Create one share for each child of Luna who is alive and survives Luna by the required amount of time. If Luna has only one living child, that child gets everything even if Luna's child has children of their own. Create one share for each child of Luna who didn't live for long enough after the person who wrote the Will's death, if the predeceased child has descendants who are alive and remain alive after the person who wrote the Will dies by the required amount of time. This share is then broken up into one sub-share for each child of the predeceased child who is alive when the person who wrote the Will dies and is still alive after the person who wrote the Will dies by the required amount of time, and one sub-share for each predeceased child of the predeceased child who has living descendants who remain alive for the requisite number of days. Continue this process until 100% of the the residuary estate has been assigned to someone and give them their share of it once the estate is settled. If someone lives past the minimum number of days to outlive the person who wrote the Will, and then dies, that person's share goes that person's probate estate. For visual learners, a per stirpes distributions of assets looks like this: A per stirpes distribution to descendants is the plain vanilla ordinary way to giving stuff to the descendants of a dead person when you don't know in advance who will outlive you. What if Luna predeceases with no living descendants? Usually, this paragraph of a Will will be followed by another paragraph called the "ultimate contingent beneficiary" which says who gets the stuff that's left over in the residuary estate if Luna predeceases the person who wrote the Will and has no living descendants. Often, the ultimate contingent beneficiary will be one or more distant relatives, a list of friends, or a charity. If there is no ultimately contingent beneficiary in the Will, but Luna and all of Luna's descendants predecease the person who wrote the Will, then it goes to the next of kin (a.k.a. "heirs at law") of the person who wrote the Will, if there are any relatives of the person who wrote the Will who are close enough to qualify to inherit under English inheritances law. If there is no one closely enough related to the person who wrote the Will to qualify under English inheritance law, then the stuff "escheats" (i.e. is inherited by default) by the King (or Queen) of England, as the case may be. There are some circumstances when the Will can be ignored. Everything above explains what this language in the Will means. This isn't always what happens, however. There are several exceptions to the general rule that property goes to the people that the Will says it goes to. I won't list them all here, but it is important when a Will is being written to understand that this is the case. For example, if the person who wrote the Will leaves nothing in the Will to their spouse of thirty years as of the death of the person who wrote the Will, who has no assets of their own, then the Court will partially ignore what the Will says and give some of the residuary estate to the surviving spouse. Also, the Will only controls assets that are in the "probate estate". Some assets pass at death in what are called "non-probate transfers" that are not controlled by what the Will says. And, finally, of course, if the Will was written when the person signing the Will was of unsound mind, the Will can be invalidated in a "Will contest" in the appropriate court if the person contesting the Will's validity can prove that the person signing it was of unsound mind at the time. This is mediocre legal writing This paragraph gets the job done, but it is not very well written by modern legal Will drafting standards. It is adequate and probably meets the standard of care for a lawyer who hasn't committed malpractice. Lawyers in England have been writing paragraphs like this one for three or four hundred years. But it is not "best practices" legal writing in a Will. Good modern legal drafting for a Will would be much easier for a non-lawyer to understand, in addition to being clear and unambiguous.	If this is Florida, then a will has to be written. If there is no written will, the estate falls under the law of intestate succession, part 1. Per § 732.502, every will must be in writing, signed, and witnessed (therefore a voice mail is not a will). If there are any relatives, they may be entitled to a share; otherwise, the estate goes to the state, where it is sold and the funds go into the state school fund (§732.107).	Question 1. In the trust that goes solely to my brother, in the event either my mother or father are dead, how is that asset split up? Can a trust dictate how an asset if split up if I am not on the trust. This is governed by the terms of the trust. The trust can say whatever the people who wrote it wanted. Question 2. How is the debt handled? The asset still has debt on it, who is responsible for the debt? I am thinking the answer to this question depends on the answer the Question 1. The trust owns the property subject to the mortgage. The people who originally signed the mortgage (presumably both of your parents) are also personally liable to pay the mortgage in the event that the debt is not fully satisfied in a foreclosure sale, or in the event that the mortgage creditor prefers to sue the mortgage debtors individually in the event of a default. After the death of the mortgage debtors, the mortgage company can file claims in their probate estates for repayment of the mortgage related debt if it does so in a timely fashion, although it would be more common to simply foreclose on the real property and obtain repayment of the debt that way. The death of the mortgage debtors is almost always an event of default under a mortgage, so if both mortgage debtors die, the mortgage creditor can usually force the trust to repay the debt, either by selling the house or by refinancing it. Question 3. They currently live in New York state, I found an article that New York state for nursing home care at more that 12k per year. If they were to move to a cheaper state like Alabama what are the laws or rules, ie. how long they have lived there, assets. This question verges on incoherent. But I think I understand what you are trying to ask. In every U.S. state, the joint federal-state program known at the federal level as Medicaid, although it has different names at the state level (California, for example, calls it "Medi-Cal"), will pay for nursing home care at approved nursing home facilities if the applicants meet state eligibility requirements. This generally involves an income test, an asset test, and a determination that the applicants have not made disqualifying gifts to trusts or to third-parties within the past five years. The income test is based upon state median or average income and is usually lower in a state like Alabama that has a lower median state income, than it is in New York, that has a higher median state income. For retirees, the main kinds of income considered are defined benefit pension plans payments, annuity payments, and investment income. The exact details of the asset test vary somewhat from state to state. Generally speaking, New York State is among the most strict in this regard. The basic outlines of the disqualification for gifts made within five years to others including trusts before applying for nursing home care are similar in broad outline, but the consequences for violating the rules are a function of the average cost of nursing home care in a state, which varies considerably. Generally, a gift of a fixed dollar amount gives rise to more months of disqualification of Medicaid in a state where the costs of nursing home care is low than it does where the costs of nursing home care are high, because the amount of the gift made in the past five years is divided by the average cost of nursing home care at the time the application is made, to determine the number of months that the applicants are disqualified from Medicaid. More generally, setting up trusts intended to qualify you for Medicaid is a highly technical matter with severe consequences if it is done incorrectly, and I would hope that your parents did so while conferring with a competent elder law lawyer. If they did it themselves, there is a high chance that this will have very severe negative consequences.	Let's say the trustee runs into a situation where the beneficiary demands some action, and the trustee thinks this action is a really, really bad idea. Then the trustee can either say "no". Or the trustee can say "yes" and be liable (so if the action is a really bad idea then the trustee won't do this). The trustee can NOT say "yes if you sign this paper that I'm not liable for the result of this action", because the job of the trustee is to protect the beneficiary and he wouldn't be doing that.	Choice of Law The place where you get married is irrelevant to the question of whether or not you need a pre-nuptial agreement. What matters is where you intend to live once you get married. A pre-nuptial agreement exists to change the default rules of law upon death and divorce. These rules differ from state to state, so the default rules you might modify depend upon where you intend to live after you get married, and so does the extent to which you need to modify those rules. Generally, a divorce will be governed by the law of the place where the couple resides when the divorce is commenced, and generally inheritance is governed by the laws of the place where the decedent (i.e. the dead person) was domiciled (which means something close to, but not the same as where the decedent resided) at death. Why Get A Pre-Nuptial Agreement? If you and your bride are happy with the default rules of law regarding divorce and inheritance in the place that you intend to live, there is no need for a pre-nuptial agreement. If the two of you are not content with the default rules of law regarding divorce and inheritance in the place that you intend to live, then a pre-nuptial agreement can change some, but not all, of those rules. Generally, a pre-nuptial agreement can change rules regarding property division, alimony and attorneys' fees, but not matters related to children or related to the grounds upon which you can get divorced or related to whether fault can be considered in a property division or alimony determination. What the pre-nuptial agreement would say would depend upon your objectives for entering into it. To answer your question it is necessary to know "what harm are you afraid of that a pre-nuptial agreement could prevent?" This has more to do with your expectations and values than it does with the law. Some reasons that people enter into pre-nuptial agreements include: preventing a spouse from inheriting or receiving in a divorce wealth that you inherited or might inherit in the future, because the donors might decide not to leave you inheritances otherwise; preserving wealth acquired by the spouse's respectively during life for one's adult children in a late in life marriage (e.g. during retirement) that is unlikely to produce more children. The Formalities Any pre-nuptial agreement should be drafted with both spouses represented by lawyers, and any competent lawyer should know the details of executing the document that are necessary to make it valid. If the agreement is drafted in English, which would make sense if she was moving to the U.S. to join you, she would need to have an interpreter in addition to a lawyer to help her evaluate and negotiate it, unless she was already fully fluent in English enough to understand advanced legal concepts (which would be very uncommon unless, for example, she went to school for many years in the U.S.). Immigration Considerations In the immigration process, U.S. immigration officials are skeptical that international marriages are legitimate and have the power to determine that an international marriage was a sham. One factor among many that immigration officials use to determine that a marriage was a sham entered into for immigration purposes is the existence of a pre-nuptial agreement that favors the citizen spouse. The more strongly the agreement favors the citizen spouse relative to the default rules of law, the more likely it is that immigration officials will determine that the marriage is a sham. It is not necessarily a factor that will cause the marriage to be found to be a sham, in and of itself, but it is an important factor that would be considered. If you enter into a pre-nuptial agreement, you are making it harder for your bride to become a U.S. citizen, and the more it favors you, the harder it will be for her to become a U.S. citizen.	That really sucks. I've had similar experiences when handling the probate proceedings of lawyers who were not good about returning original wills to clients. I am providing an answer under general principles without researching Oregon specific accounting, record retention and probate laws, to at least give you a start although I recognize that a better answer would research these questions. The accounts/clients from her business were sold to another woman. Is it legal for us to transfer everything to her possession? Probably yes. There should be a government agency in Oregon that regulates accountants that has rules regarding that question. The linked rule seems to govern this situation. It says in Rule 801-030-0015(d) that: (d) Custody and disposition of working papers. (A) A licensee may not sell, transfer or bequeath working papers described in this rule to anyone other than one or more surviving partners or stockholders, or new partners or stockholders of the licensee, or any combined or merged organization or successor in interest to the licensee, without the prior written consent of the client or the client’s personal representative or assignee. (B) A licensee is not prohibited from making a temporary transfer of working papers or other material necessary to the conduct of peer reviews or for the disclosure of information as provided by section (1)(b) of this rule. (C) A licensee shall implement reasonable procedures for the safe custody of working papers and shall retain working papers for a period sufficient to meet the needs of the licensee’s practice and to satisfy applicable professional standards and pertinent legal requirements for record retention. (D) A licensee shall retain working papers during the pendency of any Board investigation, disciplinary action, or other legal action involving the licensee. Licensees shall not dispose of such working papers until notified in writing by the Board of the closure of the investigation or until final disposition of the legal action or proceeding if no Board investigation is pending. So, a transfer to a successor firm appears to be permitted. What if she refuses to take the documents? Her probate estate could retain them and stay open, they could be returned to clients, or there could be a rule established by the Oregon body that regulates accountants that authorizes a central depository of such records. In Colorado, for example, in the case of law practices with no successors, original wills and estate planning documents can be deposited in the records of the court with probate jurisdiction that has jurisdiction over the territory where the decedent's practice was located. But, I could not locate any provision of this kind in Oregon law. Is it legal for us to destroy/shred/etc. the documents? In many cases, yes. Some states, by statute or regulation, and others by custom, allow business records to be destroyed as a matter of course, normally one year after the longest statute of limitations that could apply to a dispute where the records would be relevant (often seven years since the longest normally applicable tax statute of limitations is six years). Destroying tax returns is usually not a big concern because a transcript of the old tax returns can be ordered from the tax collection agency where they were filed. But, business records related to purchases of property and capital improvements and depreciation, and related to divorces, can be relevant for decades after they were created, so the more honorable course of action would be to make at least a cursory effort (such as a postcard sent to a last known address of each client with a deadline for requesting a return of their file) to return the files of clients that include original business records as opposed to mere copies of tax returns. Oregon has a seven year retention rule for most purposes pursuant to Rule 801-030-0015(e) which is linked above: (e) Retention of attest and audit working papers. (A) Licensees must maintain, for a period of at least seven years, the working papers for any attest or compilation services performed by the licensee together with any other supporting information, in sufficient detail to support the conclusions reached in such services. (B) The seven-year retention period described in paragraph (A) of this subsection is extended if a longer period is required for purposes of a Board investigation as provided in paragraph (d)(D) of this rule and OAR 801-010-0115(3). The referenced rule in that rule states: (3) Requirements upon resignation. Upon resignation, a former licensee is required to: (a) Surrender the CPA certificate or PA license to the Board; (b) Take all reasonable steps to avoid foreseeable harm to any client, including but not limited to providing written notice of resignation under this section to all clients and inform all clients of where client records and work papers will be stored and of the clients’ right to secure copies of all such records and work papers at no cost to the client; (c) Maintain client records for a period of at least six years, or return such records to the client; and (d) Continue to comply with the requirements of OAR Chapter 801 Division 030 pertaining to confidential information and client records. (e) For the purpose of subsection (b) above and unless otherwise required by the Board, a resigning licensee of a registered firm is required to give written notice to only those firm clients for which the resigning licensee was the sole or primary CPA on an engagement, an engagement leader, or the client relationship manager. In practice, the consequences of destroying a record that shouldn't have been destroyed are likely to be minimal, because any recovery would be limited to the assets of the estate and there is a time limit for making claims against estates which is quite strict, and your grandma has no license to revoke. But, again, the honorable thing to do in order to honor her legacy and do right by her former clients would be to either transfer the records to a successor firm or to attempt to return them, as she would be required to do if she had surrendered a license during life.	I'm not a lawyer or a medical professional, but on Wikipedia's page about DNR, we see the following quote: In the United States the documentation is especially complicated in that each state accepts different forms, and advance directives and living wills are not accepted by EMS as legally valid forms. If a patient has a living will that states the patient wishes to be DNR but does not have an appropriately filled out state sponsored form that is co-signed by a physician, EMS will attempt resuscitation. Based on this, I would hazard the guess that you can't treat anything other than those forms as legally binding, as they even ignore a living will without that state's form.
What can I do if the tenant has vacated the apartment but didn't pay last month bill for electricity? I have an apartment which I gave to 3 students on rent. This month they vacated the apartment without paying the last month electricity bill. I have no written agreement but did police verification. So, what can I do now? Can I lodge a fraud complaint against them?	You will need to sue them for the money. You may decide that the cost and stress of doing so is not worth it, and just write off the cost. In future you should require a deposit (if you don't already), and not return it until you have checked that the final utility bills have been paid. (I am assuming there was no deposit, or that you have returned it already; if not, you can pay the electricity company out of that deposit.)	The Protection from Eviction Act 1977 defines an excluded tenancy as, amongst other things, a tenancy that is granted for other than money or money's worth ((7)(a)). This means that someone who shares accommodation with the landlord does not have the protection from eviction that an ordinary tenant would have, as per Part 5. You should seek advice from a legal professional before taking action to evict, however, there is nothing in the Protection from Eviction Act that protects an excluded tenancy. It would probably still be advised that you give reasonable notice.	england-and-wales The household that doesn't pay its water bill cannot by law be cut off or restricted from the water supply. However, there have been reports that some companies have disconnected households anyway, claiming the premises were not occupied. In some circumstances the gas or electricity supplier may disconnect the domestic consumer that is not paying its bills. However, "Suppliers must take all reasonable steps to avoid disconnecting an energy supply for debt. It should always be a last resort and avoided wherever possible" (Ofgem, the regulator). The question asks for "possible" repercussions, not probable or usual. So here are some "possible" repercussions. The utility company may pursue the debt; first by mail, then via a debt collection agency and may ultimately seek court orders to resolve the matter one way or another. Generally, utility companies and the regulator Ofgem don't want things to get to court and will try to agree a repayment plan with the debtor and/or (in the case of electricity or gas) offer to install a prepayment meter. There are payment support options for households in financial difficulties but the question seems to be about outright refusals to pay. All creditors pursuing a debt are expected to follow the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims. This should be followed before a court order for a County Court Judgment for the debt can be made. Failure to follow the protocol does not invalidate the debt but can affect the court's decision. If the creditor wins a county court judgment (CCJ) against the debtor, the debtor will be obliged to pay the debt at a rate the court decides is appropriate. A CCJ is recorded on the Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines. The Register is checked by companies to determine the credit-worthiness of applicants for credit cards, loans, mortgages, some bank accounts and rental agreements. If the debtor pays the full amount within one month of the CCJ, the record can be removed from the Register. If the debtor pays later, they can get the record marked as 'satisfied' - it will stay on the register for six years but searchers will see that the debtor paid the debt. If the debtor sticks to the payment plan the record can reflect this. Otherwise the record of the debt remains on the Register for six years. If the debtor still refuses to pay, the debtor may expect visits from bailiffs who will ask for payment and, failing that, the bailiffs might try to remove property to sell at auction to raise money to cover the debt and the bailiffs' costs. The creditor may seek an order for an attachment of earnings or an attachment of benefits / benefit deductions. In this case, the employer or benefits agency is ordered to divert money from the wages or benefits to the court that made the order, and the court sends the money to the creditor - the debtor doesn't receive that money. (The benefits attachment is likely more appropriate for non-payment of council tax.) The creditor may seek a third-party debt order, which orders the debtor's bank to freeze money in the debtor's account to the amount of the debt. The creditor may seek a charging order, which secures the debt against the debtor's property (e.g. their home if they own it). This can be followed up with an order for sale, which obliges the debtor to sell that property and the debt will be paid from the proceeds. The creditor could seek a court order that allows them to change the utility meter on the property to a prepayment meter. In this case the debtor has not been disconnected as such but they must pay (or get help to pay) in advance for their electricity or gas consumption. As noted earlier, the last resort is disconnection of the gas or electricity supply. In terms of criminal law, I don't know if any such debtors have been charged with illegal abstraction of electricity or gas but those seem like "possible" charges.	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.	You can't give your landlord a "notice to quit" A "notice to quit" is something a landlord gives to the tenant under s8 or s21. Assuming you want to end the tenancy, you would give them whatever notice is required in accordance with the lease. Why the paranoia? Ending a residential tenancy is routine and would not normally land you anywhere near a court. You give your notice, pay your rent, move out and get your deposit back. Is there something going on that you're not telling us? If so, ask about that thing in a different question. The video would be fine as evidence However, it would only be used if there was a dispute over the service of the notice. While this can happen, its pretty rare and your precautions seem ... elaborate. Your landlord's name and address (and yours) will be a public record forever Courts are public, the names and addresses of the parties are a matter of public record (unless you are children, or sex offenders, or have some other reason the court accepts as to why this shouldn't happen). These records are kept indefinitely.	Assuming you have an assured shorthold tenancy, it's not the landlord himself that can evict you. The process is that he serves you notice, and if you don't move by the time the notice period ends, then he has to go to court in order to obtain a court order to end the tenancy. The landlord must demonstrate to the court that he has properly served notice to the tenant. This is a bit of a grey area, but this article suggests that, to avoid ambiguity, the landlord should either use recorded delivery (which would provide proof as to whether or not the tenant received it), or deliver it by hand with an independent witness present. In the case of a section 21 "no fault" eviction, the only defence a tenant has is that the correct procedure has not been followed. So it is in the landlord's interest to ensure that notice has been received beyond any doubt.	What the landlord is doing is forcing you to abide by the terms of your lease agreement. You most likely agreed to a 1 year lease on a signed document, which means you're pretty much screwed because if he wanted to, he could force you to fulfill the lease and pay him anyway. However, his remarks about when you can notify to terminate are wrong. See end of answer. About Terminating Your Lease Early However, there are a few loopholes you can exploit. The easiest one is to get him to increase your rent. Ask about it, tell him that you're considering staying but tell him you want to know if he's going to increase the rent by much. If he declares that he is going to increase the rent, perfect. Get him to send it to you in writing (which he is legally required to do). Just in case though, have him on speaker phone and record every conversation you have from now on without telling him. This is legal (see this answer) and is a powerful form of evidence, so exploit the hell out of it. If you can get him to tell you that he's going to increase your rent, then you can legally submit a notice to terminate tenancy on the grounds that you do not wish to pay the increase. In this case, the amount of notice that you have to give is capped to the day that the rent increase is to take place. If you try this, do everything you can to get it in writing. Don't feel proud of snaring him and immediately announce that you're leaving because of this as soon as he says it on the phone, because you're screwing yourself out of going through the proper channels to make sure you not only win, but you've made your case air tight. Also, feel free to let you landlord know that he owes you money. Landlords in Ontario have to repay you a capped interest rate on your last months' deposit every 12 months. This rate is decided annually and for 2015 is capped at 1.6%. If your landlord wants to be anal about the rules and stick the letter of the law to you, do it back. Becoming a pain your landlords ass is a great way to get them to either become more flexible, or make a mistake that will give you an out. Notice that if he does increase the rent, he can demand that you increase your last months deposit and force you to pay it. You could "accidently" make him aware of this right in a conversation where you are concerned about a rent increase immediately after letting him know that he owes you money for the interest. "I'm concerned about the rent increase because I have to increase my deposit by law too." This way, he'll hopefully have the thought "I can avoid having to give him any money by increasing his rent by the same interest rate, so he'll owe me what I owe him, therefore I owe nothing. I'm so smart!" Then he cheerfully gives you a notice to increase rent, at which time you invoke your right to terminate tenancy on short notice due to an increase in rent. Your Landlord Is Wrong All that aside, your landlord committed an illegal act when they refused your notice to terminate, because he's denying you your rights under the RTA. From the Residential Tenancies Act: A tenant may terminate a tenancy at the end of a period of the tenancy or at the end of the term of a tenancy for a fixed term by giving notice of termination to the landlord in accordance with section 44. 2006, c. 17, s. 47 The details adjust a little bit depending on your circumstances, but the conditions in section 44 are basically to ensure the following: You are giving 60 days notice. You are not giving 60 days notice where the termination date you provide is less than the previously agreed term, except in special cases like the one I mention about increased rent. There is nothing in section 44 that can be confused to mean that you must wait until you have passed the end of your term before you can decide to leave. I suspect your landlord is deliberately interpreting the use of wording like "may terminate at the end of" to imply you have to wait to give your notice. A notice of termination is not a termination. It is a notice that in the future, you are going to terminate. Let's remove the confusion by replacing the word "terminate" with "vacating the premises and not paying another cent". That should remove any ambiguity that could be abused. So frankly you can simply go straight to the board, file the appropriate form with them and just pack up and leave when you've reached the date specified in the notice to terminate. Your final month is covered by your deposit. File the form immediately, let them know about the conversation you had with your landlord, then go to your bank and cancel the cheques you've already written (except for your deposit cheque) and simply ignore the landlord, carrying on with your moving plans. You should ask the Board if this illegal act has any ramifications. Perhaps because he has done this, this gives you an immediate out or something else. Call the Board and tell them what happened and ask them. They have an obligation to inform you correctly. Sources: Landlord Tenant Board of Ontario FAQ Final Note The Board is there to serve you, free of charge. They have a duty, as it is their explicit directive, to assist you in all matters regarding being a tenant. Phone them, talk to them at length, demand assistance. They are to inform you of your rights and guide you on the appropriate action, forms and procedure to assist you in resolving any issues you have. Note that I wrote the whole bit about getting out of your lease early legally before I refreshed my memory on the fact that you can/should give your 60 days notice before the end of your lease period. That makes the case much simpler as a I note in my answer. I left the information I already wrote however because it could be applicable or at least be of some help to others. Also note that if you're saying that the landlord came to get more cheques on the basis of his lie that he used to refuse your attempt to legally leave, then you'll need to cancel those cheques. That costs money. That alone is enough of a case to take him before the Tribunal and force him to repay the cost of those cancelled cheques. You may even successfully claim further damages or the Tribunal may voluntarily award you money for the actions your landlord is deliberately taking to deprive you of your rights. Talk to the Board.	The difference is that the person was originally invited to live there, so they do have a claim of residency. A tenant recently allowed someone to move into his apartment as his caregiver. This is the problem here, the person was invited to live in there in exchange for a service. This person now has a legal right to occupy the property and the eviction process must be followed. If the person broke into the house and occupied a room, that is trespassing since there was no original legal right to occupy the property. The trespasser cannot claim any legal right to the property and therefore is trespassing. Can it really be so that he is legally bound to allow these strangers to share his apartment with him because of a technicality that classifies them as "squatters"? Unfortunately yes. This should be a lesson to the tenant that they need to properly run background checks and have solid contracts with live-in caregivers/roommates. Unfortunately this is not only inconvenient, but will probably be an expensive lesson as well.
Legality of Cyber Attack on illegal foreign website I live in a country where website that provides pornography, illegal drugs, prostitution, illegal gambling, etc are forbidden (in Indonesia). But foreign websites (ex. from western countries) on those service are just insisting to provide access to my country despite the govt in my country already tries to block it all. Is it legal to attack those websites by our personal cyber force in order to shut them down? it will help the govt and useful for training	It is probably illegal under Indonesian law for you to launch a cyber-attack on a website that you believe violates Indonesian law, just as it is illegal for you to shoot a person for fraud. The Indonesian government reserves the right to judge guilt or innocence, and to mete out punishment, within Indonesia. It is definitely illegal under US law, also UK law and so on, to launch a cyber-attack on a website for some reason, so you can be prosecuted under the laws of that nation. You should then be concerned with the Law on Extradition (1979), noting that there might be a treaty but also Indonesian law allows extradition on the basis of the interest of Indonesia (as judged by government officials). Indonesian nationals do not enjoy immunity from extradition (as is the case in some countries). There is no extradition treaty between Indonesia and the US; there was one between the UK and Indonesia but I cannot determine whether it is still in force.	Does this mean all countries law applies to it? Basically yes. If the videos are in english and are about science in general does this mean if some country some day bans ( imprisonment ) science videos or use of a specific colour in videos can they extraterritorialy enforce this imprisonment if they are in some other country like USA or India? With respect to criminal cases, only if it can arrest that person or convince another country to arrest and extradite that person. Generally speaking, countries will only extradite someone if it is a serious offense under the domestic laws of the country of arrest as well as the country requesting that the person be handed over, and also only if the crime occurred in or was targeted at the requesting country. Sometimes the arrest is not legal in the place where it is made. For example, in this case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court (the quote is from the official syllabus to the case): Respondent, a citizen and resident of Mexico, was forcibly kidnapped from his home and flown by private plane to Texas, where he was arrested for his participation in the kidnapping and murder of a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent and the agent's pilot. After concluding that DEA agents were responsible for the abduction, the District Court dismissed the indictment on the ground that it violated the Extradition Treaty between the United States and Mexico (Extradition Treaty or Treaty), and ordered respondent's repatriation. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Based on one of its prior decisions, the court found that, since the United States had authorized the abduction and since the Mexican government had protested the Treaty violation, jurisdiction was improper. Held: The fact of respondent's forcible abduction does not prohibit his trial in a United States court for violations of this country's criminal laws. U.S. v. Alvarez-Machain, 504 U.S. 655 (1992). I mean can a country just bring to jail any youtuber outside its borders ( using its national language as the language of the video ) who uploads content of international appeal because of some law? If the country can manage to arrest the person, yes. There are high profile cases from Saudi Arabia where that has happened. See, e.g., here and here (a blogger and his sister arrested in Saudi Arabia, while his wife and children flee to Canada), here (journalists for Lebanese periodical arrested in Saudi Arabia in relation to years old publications) here (more journalists arrested in Saudi Arabia), here ("A male Saudi Arabian teenager has been arrested in Riyadh over a series of online videos of conversations between him and a female Californian streaming-video star that went viral."), here (Yemeni blogger), and here (Washington Post journalist tortured and killed in Saudi Arabian embassy in Turkey at the direction of a senior member of the Saudi Arabian royal family). Also can a country just hold liable for youtube's data privacy practices a youtuber outside its borders and enforce the judgement if the practices of both youtuber and their chanell and youtube is legal in their home country? A country can hold anyone liable for anything its domestic laws allow it to hold someone liable for, and can enforce that judgment against any assets it can exert power over. Some countries with similar legal systems recognize each other's court judgments widely. Countries with very different legal systems often don't recognize each other's judgements. For example, most European countries do not recognize U.S. money judgment for torts (i.e. civil wrongs such as personal injury awards). Similarly, the U.S. does not recognize most foreign defamation judgments, and does not recognize most judgments of Saudi Arabian courts. One last thing is wether inclusion of ads make a difference? Usually not. But it can matter for purposes of assertions of lawsuit liability over someone outside the jurisdiction seeking to impose liability for something that harmed someone in their country. If conduct amounts to "doing business" in the country seeking to impose liability or amounts to a "purposeful availment" of the laws of the country seeking to impose liability in some why, an imposition of extraterritorial liability is more likely, and that tends to happen more in cases where there are ads that are commercial targeting the people of the country where the courts seek to impose liability.	It comes down to intent ... and possibly responses to illegal activity. Localbitcoins intention is to facilitate trade in bitcoins - in itself a legal undertaking. Cryptocurrancy transactions can be used for illegal purposes but it is not the sites intention to enable that. Amazon.com intention is to facilitate trade in books - in itself a legal undertaking. Some books contain material that is prohibited under some countries laws but it is not the sites intention to enable trade in illegal books. Ebay.com intention is to facilitate trade in "stuff" - some "stuff" is illegal but it is not the sites intention to enable trade in illegal stuff. Silk Road intention was to facilitate trade in illegal goods and services - therefore they are accessories to the crimes committed.	Publishing government records is pretty classic First Amendment-protected activity. Keeping in mind that one can find a lawyer to sue for anything, I think that person would likely be operating well within the law. One thing in particular that I'd recommend staying aware of is how one might attempt to monetize this endeavor. There have been a lot of sites publishing arrest records, court records, and mugshots, and then charging people to have them removed to keep them from popping up in a Google search for those people's names. That is -- rightly -- regarded as sketchy behavior; while several states have passed laws prohibiting that business model, I don't believe any such law exists in Washington State at this point.	There is nothing illegal about the child asking for nude images, but, depending on jurisdiction and circumstances, there is quite likely to be a serious legal problem with the adult providing such nudes. The exact laws that might be violated would depend a lot on the jurisdiction. The detailed facts would also be significant. But such a situation is fraught with danger, for the adult. Even if there is no ill-intent, such actions could easily be misinterpreted, and might be technically unlawful regardless of intent. Of course, not all nudes are obscene, or even "inappropriate for children". Which are so classified depends on the laws of the particular jurisdiction.	Is blocking certain people while allowing everybody else to view some content discrimination Yes. and violate anti-discrimination laws Probably not, at least in the US. There is no federal law prohibiting "discrimination" in general. There are specific laws regarding discrimination against certain groups in certain contexts. They would probably not apply to an individual determining who is allowed to view their social media posts. That said, there are some specific contexts where this might be illegal. They would generally involve non-personal use of the account. The courts recently ruled that Donald Trump may not block people on his Twitter account, because he's using it in an official presidential capacity rather than just his individual capacity. Also, racial discrimination in housing is illegal, so if you're selling your house and you block all black people from viewing your house photos, that would probably be illegal as well. Also is not being able to consume information available on a public platform a violation against right to freedom. I'm not sure what you think a "right to freedom" would entail. But I don't think you have the right to demand that a person allow you to access their social media accounts.	You've identified exactly the right question: whether the person's subjective expectation of privacy, when viewed objectively, is the "justifiable under the circumstances". (Smith v. Maryland) The Supreme Court hasn't addressed how this test applies to ISPs and website requests. However, this question has been addressed by several circuit courts of appeal. I'll build a list of example cases. Many find that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in this information, but there are some cases that go the other way, and there is some nuance regarding exactly what information is being given away. US v. Beckett (11th Cir. 2010): the information consisted of the identifying information transmitted during internet usage and phone calls that is necessary for the ISPs and phone companies to perform their services. It is unreasonable for Beckett to have been unaware that such information was being transmitted to the ISPs and phone companies and so he “assumed the risk that the company would reveal to police the [information].” United States v. Forrester, 512 F.3d 500, 510 (9th Cir. 2007): Analogously, e-mail and Internet users have no expectation of privacy in the to/from addresses of their messages or the IP addresses of the websites they visit because they should know that this information is provided to and used by Internet service providers for the specific purpose of directing the routing of information. Like telephone numbers, which provide instructions to the "switching equipment that processed those numbers," e-mail to/from addresses and IP addresses are not merely passively conveyed through third party equipment, but rather are voluntarily turned over in order to direct the third party's servers. Regarding your secondary question about a "secret machine" that the government develops to get access to contents of an envelope without opening it, that is very similar to the situation in Kyllo v US 533 U.S. 27 (2001) (internal quotations removed): [...] obtaining by sense-enhancing technology any information regarding the home's interior that could not otherwise have been obtained without physical intrusion into a constitutionally protected area constitutes a search-at least where (as here) the technology in question is not in general public use. [...] Reversing that approach would leave the homeowner at the mercy of advancing technology-including imaging technology that could discern all human activity in the home.	In my opinion, you are totally free to publish the information. There are two areas of law that can be cosidered - private and public law. In the private law area, you can be liable for revealing trade secrets, but only if you agreed to keep them by a contract. Trade secrets do not exist by themselves (there are minor exceptions, eg. in competition law, but those do not concern us), they must be protected by contracts. Another private limitations, like libel laws, won't apply here. This is not uncommon, but not in cars - you can find clauses like these in software license agreements. Then there is the public area. Is there any regulation, any policy of the state, that prevents you from publishing it? I am not aware you whole legal code of your state, but I doubt there is. It would be a harsh limitation of freedom of speech. Even if the modification could lead to illegal effect (like, modifying toy weapon to kill by rising its power...) it would be only illegal under very rare circumstances. To conclude it - freedom of speech can be limited only if there is sufficient public interest to do so, and I don't see any.
Mootness as a strategy to maintain unconstitutional regulations In the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) arguments for New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York almost all time seemed to be devoted to the question of mootness. This case is a challenge to New York City's previous regulations preventing people with premise-licenses for guns from traveling outside the city with their guns. The primary challenge was centered on the ability of gun owners to take their guns to second homes or shooting ranges outside the city. In a five-year process, the City of New York continued to defend the law and won at the appellate court level. The plaintiffs appealed to SCOTUS and were granted certiorari. Once SCOTUS granted certiorari, New York City and the State of New York worked together to eliminate the regulations and placed some new regulations at the state level as well as creating state-level preemption of local regulations. The City of New York argued that with the elimination of the regulations, the case was moot and any challenge of the new regulations was a new conflict that would need to work its way through the courts. Plaintiffs argue that the case is not moot and SCOTUS should rule on the merits of the case, including declaring the previous regulations unconstitutional. Defendants argue that the case is moot and there is no need to rule on the merits. My understanding is that if SCOTUS declares the conflict to be moot then it will remand the case to the lower courts to reverse or vacate the judgments. An argument can be made that the State of New York and New York City would not have changed their regulations had SCOTUS refused to review the case. Following that logic, New York City got an extra five years of a seemingly unconstitutional regulation (in the transcript counsel for NYC agreed that some of the reasons for their regulation were not sound). If SCOTUS grants NYC's requests in their argument then this case goes away and a new case has to be started regarding the new regulations. Though the precedent of this particular case may go away, the legal standard established by the second circuit seems to be freely available to any new cases. If SCOTUS ruled the regulations unconstitutional then they would also be setting a new legal standard upon which such regulations would be weighed. What is to prevent municipalities from implementing mootness as a strategy to maintain unconstitutional regulatory structures? EDIT to address comments and a vote to close Gun-related cases, whether second amendment or commerce-clause related, have generated significant circuit splits. Significantly, the Supreme Court has not taken cases designed to end the splits. The second circuit has been seen as friendly to gun-control efforts. That court upheld a ban on large capacity magazines and semiautomatic assasult weapons; a case that SCOTUS declined to review. Additionally, the second circuit also upheld New York's concealed carry law's "proper cause" requirement which SCOTUS declined to review despite a circuit split. It had been 10 years since SCOTUS had agreed to review a second-amendment related case. Because New York is in the second circuit, and the second circuit has been friendly to gun control efforts in past rulings and SCOTUS has not taken a second amendment related case even when circuits have split, it's not completely unreasonable to assume that New York felt confident in it ability to retain their unique regulation. Since the Heller ruling, there has been a strategy by governing bodies to avoid SCOTUS review of second-amendment related cases. For this particular law, there's significant mention of New York City's efforts to avoid SCOTUS review in this case: New York Times: "Fearing Supreme Court Loss, New York Tries to Make Gun Case Vanish" Washington Post: "New York eased gun law hopeful Supreme Court would drop Second Amendment Case..." Slate: "The Supreme Court's Second Amendment Revolution May Have to Wait" And, finally, NYC Rules proposal to amend the Premise Handgun License Rules specifically mentions SCOTUS' acceptance of this particular case in their desire to change the rules. It's not unreasonable to argue that governing bodies located within gun-control-friendly circuits have counted on positive outcomes at the circuit level and lack of review by SCOTUS and governing bodies within circuits that are not gun-control-friendly have withheld appeals to SCOTUS to avoid having laws struck down in a way that would have a nationwide impact. I did not want this to be about gun control, but, perhaps, this is unique to gun control jurisprudence. I'm truly curious about an overall legal strategy of using the judicial system and mootness to implement regulations in a way so as to avoid SCOTUS review as long as possible by using a strategy as follows: 1) Implement regulation in a circuit friendly to the governing body's position so as to avoid preliminary injunctions 2) Allow the regulation to remain through whatever level of appeal remains friendly 3) Once accepted for review by a potentially unfriendly appeals court, rescind the regulation and look for a declaration of mootness 4) Implement a similar enough regulation to satisfy the governing body but different enough to cause a "new conflict" to exist and start again at step 2 Until the circuit splits are resolved by SCOTUS then it is likely that more cases such as this will arise. The question remains: Other than SCOTUS settling the issue, what prevents governing bodies from using mootness as a strategy to maintain unconstitutional regulations?	I guess the meat of your question is: If a city enacts an unconstitutional ordinance, can it evade judicial review by repealing the ordinance and arguing for mootness once the judicial proceeding reaches to a point of potential disadvantage, and reenacting the same or a very similar ordinance once the judicial proceeding is dismissed? I don't know where the bright line is (maybe SCOTUS hasn't drawn a clear line yet), but at least there has been a case in which the SCOTUS rejected the mootness argument by a city that repealed the ordinance at issue during appeal: City of Mesquite v. Aladdin's Castle, Inc., 455 U.S. 283 (1982). Two parts of the city's ordinance were at issue: (1) the language of "connections with criminal elements" and (2) "the age restriction." On appeal, the Fifth Circuit declared (1) unconstitutional but upheld (2). The city then repealed (1) and, on appeal to the SCOTUS, argued that the issue of (1) was moot. The mootness argument was rejected. The rejection argument was very short as presented in section I of the majority opinion: It is well settled that a defendant's voluntary cessation of a challenged practice does not deprive a federal court of its power to determine the legality of the practice. Such abandonment is an important factor bearing on the question whether a court should exercise its power to enjoin the defendant from renewing the practice, but that is a matter relating to the exercise, rather than the existence, of judicial power. [Footnote 10] In this case, the city's repeal of the objectionable language would not preclude it from reenacting precisely the same provision if the District Court's judgment were vacated. [Footnote 11] The city followed that course with respect to the age restriction, which was first reduced for Aladdin from 17 to 7 and then, in obvious response to the state court's judgment, the exemption was eliminated. There is no certainty that a similar course would not be pursued if its most recent amendment were effective to defeat federal jurisdiction. We therefore must confront the merits of the vagueness holding. Footnote 11 might be a critical fact in rejecting the mootness argument: Indeed, the city has announced just such an intention. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 18-20. Therefore, I think, if a city repeatedly employs your proposed strategy, the SCOTUS is unlikely to declare the case moot. EDIT: As pointed out by "Just a guy", the mootness part of City of Mesquite is about voluntary cessation, which is a kind of strategy concomitant with mootness arguments. Voluntary cessation does not moot the case unless "subsequent events made it absolutely clear that the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably be expected to recur." United States v. Phosphate Export Assn., 393 U.S. 199 (1968). But the point of this answer is not on voluntary cessation in general. It is in the context of intervening legislation. A voluntary intervening legislation is usually sufficient to moot a case (e.g., Massachusetts v. Oakes, 491 U.S. 576 (1989)), but it was not so in City of Mesquite -- that's why it is different from most similar voluntary cessation cases, and resembles more closely to the NYC gun control case. Perhaps because it is a city (and was thus less burdened to reenact the same or a similar ordinance than a state legislature), perhaps because it had declared its intention to reenact, perhaps both. None of these might be controlling precedents. But, City of Mesquite and the state legislature cases like Oakes (because the NY state legislature also acted), are probably at least close ones in the jurisprudence of the SCOTUS at this point of time.	Whether or not a war between political entities can result from some action is completely political and strategic, and not legal. The specific incident is probably legal, given US and international law regarding military action. Unless the order was self-evidently unlawful there is no possibility of arrest and prosecution under US law, however there might be a framework for legal action by Iran, if e.g. a drone operator were to fall into Iranian hands. The specifics of the order are not generally known, though we know that DoD states that this was due to a presidential order. This article discusses targeted killing from a legal perspective. In the context of war, killing is legal though not entirely unregulated. There was a failed attempt to sue the US in the case Al-Aulaqi v. Panetta, which involved a targeted killing of a US citizen involved in planning terrorist attacks, a suit which was dismissed. One problem is that the suit "failed to state a 4th Amendment claim", and also failed to state a 5th Amendment due process claim since Al–Aulaqi's deaths was unanticipated. The court notes that a Bivens claim allows damage action against a federal officer for violation of clearly-established constitutional rights. However, No case has discussed precisely whether a plaintiff can proceed on a Bivens action that claims deprivation of life without due process based on the overseas killing by United States officials of a U.S. citizen deemed to be an active enemy. In the discussion, the question arises whether special circumstances counsel hesitation (Doe v. Rumsfeld and citations therein), which the Doe court notes would "require a court to delve into the military's policies", and they will not do that lightly. All of this is about US citizens. Soleimani was not a US citizen.	Why do you want to know? I think that the reason this question seems so obscure is because it does not involve sufficient context and specificity. It can't be answered until one knows the reason that it matters to know if a rule is new or not. In a particular context, these questions usually have obvious and clear answers. The murkiness arises only when one tries to overgeneralize. The life of law is not reason, it is experience. In general, it is almost never fruitful to try to apply legal principles of any kind to their logical conclusion without grounding that logic in fact specific and context specific precedents and applications. That approach to legal reasoning is a classic rookie mistake that gets a lot of young associate attorneys doing legal research into trouble by overstating the confidence that they should have in their conclusions when there is no case right on point addressing a situation. For example, if a federal government agency publishes something in the federal register that does not exactly restate an existing regulation, then it is a rule change, in the narrow sense that is changes an existing published narrowly defined Code of Federal Regulations rule. The process by which one does so derives from the Administrative Procedures Act and other authorizing legislation passed by Congress and also custom and case law interpreting these, so it isn't self-referential. A completely different context in which the question of whether there is a "new rule" of law is when a court according to the principles of stare decisis makes a ruling interpreting the constitution in a manner different from or expanding upon previously rulings interpreting the constitution in a similar circumstance. In this context, this matters because a "new rule" of constitutional law is generally given only prospective effect, while an interpretation of an existing rule of law that merely expands upon existing precedents in a foreseeable way has retroactive effect. In this situation, as in any case in which one tries to determine the best definition to apply under the law, the best approach is to look for a definition that produces just results given the consequences of a particular definition v. another particular definition. In that context, the determination of whether a rule is a "new rule" should depend upon foreseeability and the amount of reliance that people put on the old rule as opposed to the new rule being in force. There is no good reason to have transsubstantive legal meta-rules that apply to both of these situations. The former mechanistic rule makes sense in its context and makes the status quo clear and the events that constitute a change in the rule clear, while the latter consequence oriented definition makes sense in the completely different context where it is used. Surely, there are other contexts in which the question of what constitutes a "new rule" could have different consequences still. For example, to determine what constitutes a new v. old rule of U.S. Senate procedure, or to determine which statute is newer or older for purposes of determining which statute of two that conflict should be given effect when there was a cosmetic recodification of the section numbers of one of the titles but not the other without changing the substantive meaning of the recodified statute. The determination should generally be made on a case by case basis as there is no important purpose served by having a uniform metarule to answer these questions. If you are getting paradoxes trying to apply your legal theory, you are probably doing it wrong. For what it is worth, I have a dim opinion of Hart as someone who uses lots of words to say nothing of consequence or use, and I am not familiar with Biagoli or Suber. In general, legal theorists are not terribly influential in how the law is applied and interpreted in practice, although, of course, there are always exceptions.	Other Authorities You are missing at least several important sources of authority, which include: (1) The United States Constitution; (2) the set of regulations issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and codified in the Code of Federal Regulations at Title 37, Chapter I; (3) applicable international treaties; (4) case law with the most important being the U.S. Supreme Court, followed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, followed by U.S. District Court cases on point; and (5) case law from the administrative bodies of the PTO. All of the above and the sources you mention are "primary sources". These are interpreted collectively in "Treatises" on patent law which are often cited on issues where primary authority is either too thin, or so numerous that it is not easily summarized merely by resort to primary authority. A number of them are listed here. Chisum on Patents is the leading treatise in the field and should usually be your first destination. It will mention most of the relevant primary source authority in the subject area you are researching. Priority of Authorities The CFR is superior to the MPEP but inferior to Title 35. Treaties are co-equal with Title 35 with conflicts resolved by the date of enactment. Case law of the U.S. Supreme Court trumps everything (even, in practice, the language of the United States Constitution). Case law from the U.S. Court of Appeals from the Federal Circuit trumps everything except the U.S. Supreme Court. Given the very long string of recent reversals of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit by the U.S. Supreme Court (almost one or two a year for the last decade or so), however, every Federal Circuit case should be analyzed to determine if it has been implicitly overturned or limited by the applicable U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence. The United States Constitution trumps everything except U.S. Supreme Court cases and cases from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (these cases impliedly provide definitive interpretations of the United States Constitution). Case law from a U.S. District Court is not binding on anyone but the parties to the case, but is highly persuasive and in practice is about on a par with the MPEP, but subordinate to the CFR and administrative case law of PTO bodies. One complicated aspect of case law is that it is only binding when it resolves a question of law necessary to resolve to decide the case before it. Sometimes opinions go off on tangents which discuss other questions of law not before the court and that is called "dicta" which is persuasive on that point of law, but not binding and not as authoritative. It is not always obvious what constitutes the binding portion of a court decision and what constitutes dicta. Another complexity in case law involves concurring or dissenting opinions in cases. Dissenting opinions, obviously, are not binding on anyone but sometimes clarify the scope of the majority opinion. If there is a plurality opinion and a concurring opinion in a case, they have equal weight and neither opinion's rule is definitive except to the extent that they agree. Generally speaking a majority opinion will be binding relative to a concurring opinion in the same case, but that status isn't really definitive and a concurring opinion should be considered even when it accompanies a majority opinion even though the concurring opinion shouldn't be considered binding in that situation. Of course, all case law (and for that matter all other authority) can be made obsolete by subsequent amendments to Title 35 or by the adoption of new treaties. A treatise isn't binding on anyone, but a well reasoned passage from a leading treatise like Chisum will, in practice, be given weight a little below a U.S. Court for the Federal Circuit case, but often greater than any lesser source of authority on a topic. A well reasoned passage in a lesser treatise is typically given a weight comparable to a U.S. District Court case that is on point. Loose Ends One of the important sources for prior art is the compendium of all patents ever issued by the United States (the vast majority of which have expired and entered the public domain). You can get them all for a very reasonable cost in electronic form. The compendium of patents which have not expired is obviously relevant when attempting to determine if a potential patent or technique or process of a client infringes on any existing patent. There are also some patent issues (e.g. jurisdiction and venue in patent disputes) which depend upon other Titles of the United States Code and have the same priority as Title 35 of the United States Code. There are circumstances in which the procedural rules of various courts which issue relevant case law are relevant. Each type of court has its own rules of procedure, and each particular court has its own local rules. (This is not hypothetical, I've had a case involving patent law in which three-quarters of the motion practice in the heavily litigated case depended upon the local rules of practice in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.) Precedents of U.S. Bankruptcy Courts, and precedents from U.S. Court of Appeal for Circuits other than the Federal Circuit, are sometimes relevant as well (e.g. interpreting procedural court rules, rules of evidence, or very general principles of law that aren't restricted to patent law such as the ex post facto clause of the U.S. Constitution). But, for the most part, patent case law arises in U.S. District Courts, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the U.S. Supreme Court and the administrative tribunals of the PTO. Issues related to the relationship between an attorney and a client in patent law cases (e.g. attorney malpractice law in patent cases) is a question of state law rather than federal law.	It's happened before in real life. Here is a 1994 article describing an Illinois criminal trial where defense counsel pulled the old switcheroo and sat a different person with him at the defense table instead of the defendant. The defendant, instead, sat somewhere else in the courtroom. After a witness misidentified the perp as the person at the defense table (not the defendant), the judge directed a not-guilty verdict to settle the case but sanctioned the defense attorney instead. The appellate and state supreme courts upheld the sanction (by a one-vote margin in both cases) but dissenting opinions noted counsel and defendant technically broke no rules. From the article: The dissent said Mr. Sotomayor's intent was only to show the unreliability of the prosecution's witness. Moreover, seating a client at counsel's table is customary but not required. Nor is a lawyer obliged [...] to help a witness make an identification. Also, here is a similar but not duplicate question.	Volokh commented on this. There is no 2nd Amendment issue, nor does federal law. It may be illegal in some states, depending on whether age is included in public accommodation anti-discrimination laws. For instance, Conn. Gen. Stat. §§46a-64 says (a) It shall be a discriminatory practice in violation of this section: (1) To deny any person within the jurisdiction of this state full and equal accommodations in any place of public accommodation, resort or amusement because of race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, gender identity or expression, marital status, age, lawful source of income, intellectual disability, mental disability or physical disability, including, but not limited to, blindness or deafness of the applicant, subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law and applicable alike to all persons; §46a-63 defines "public accommodation" (1) “Place of public accommodation, resort or amusement” means any establishment which caters or offers its services or facilities or goods to the general public, including, but not limited to, any commercial property or building lot, on which it is intended that a commercial building will be constructed or offered for sale or rent Public accomodation laws are how states deal with discrimination in sales, such as selling wedding cakes Illinois 775 ILCS 5/1-103 likewise prohibits age discrimination in public accomodations, but defines "age" as "the chronological age of a person who is at least 40 years old". Connecticut used to define "age" as "any age between forty and sixty-five, inclusive", but that clause was deleted. Lousiana also prohibits age discrimination (La. Rev. Stat. §51:2247). Their statement about age likewise limits anti-discrimination protection to "individuals who are at least forty years of age". Maryland in MD State Govt Code § 20-304 also bans age discrimination, and does not redefine "age" or limit the scope of those ages that are protected. So while it is generally legal to refuse to sell goods to the young (and sometimes mandatory, e.g. alcohol, firearms, tobacco), there are a few states where such a policy would violate state anti-discrimination laws. There can also be city laws (Seattle has very broad anti-discrimination laws), but they exclude age from the Public Accommodation subset of discrimination.	The question didn't mention marital status, but since states formally recognize that relationship it's helpful to start there. tl;dr: The Supreme Court decided state laws that required a woman to notify her spouse were unconstitutional. Thus it's unlikely there'd be grounds for suit. Background The central mechanism of Roe v. Wade (U.S. 1973) was a balancing act between what it decided was a 14th amendment right to privacy and the state's interest in both the health of the woman and the potentiality of life. Because Roe explicitly recognized a state interest, Pennsylvania passed a statute in 1982 that required informed consent and a 24-hour waiting period. It also mandated parental consent for minors (with some exceptions) and spousal notification. This reached the Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood of SE Penn. v. Casey (U.S. 1992). There, the court upheld most of the Pennsylvania law (reinforcing its statement in Roe that a state does have an interest) but struck down the spousal notification portion. To do that, it determined the appropriate test was whether a state was placing an undue burden---a significant obstacle---in the path of a woman seeking an abortion prior to fetal viability. It reasoned that: state regulation impacts a female's liberty more than male's during pregnancy (by way of biology) if a man and woman disagree, only one can prevail not all women are equally impacted by a notification mandate (for reasons of domestic violence, etc.) Combining this with the notion that women do not lose any constitutionally protected liberty upon marriage, it decided spousal notification would be a significant obstacle and thus an undue burden. In other words, unmarried women don't have spouses to notify, so placing a notification requirement on married women creates an additional burden that the court found undue. To get back to the question, the father certainly has a right to file a suit against the female (...and it happens from time to time). However, it likely wouldn't go far. Since unmarried women were the baseline in Casey, it's unlikely there'd be grounds for either married or unmarried fathers to sue their female partners. This comes up frequently under the moniker of "Father's Rights," which has gained less traction in the U.S. than in other countries. That said, Wisconsin recently introduced a bill that would allow fathers to proceed against abortion providers.	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!
Could evidence obtained through time travel be admitted under the Fourth Amendment? This is of course a wild hypothetical question and there is probably no good answer. Suppose a police force obtained a time machine and wanted to use this to obtain evidence to investigate crimes and convict criminals. Would they be able to use this evidence in court? I am thinking about a few ways the time-travelers might obtain potentially tainted evidence: The officers have obtained a search warrant to search a certain place, perhaps a suspected hideout that a suspect may have used in the course of planning or committing the crime. Currently, there is nothing incriminating in the hideout, but the officers use their time machine to go back to a time, before the warrant was issued, and find incriminating evidence. Would this evidence be admissible? Similarly, could time-traveling officers follow a suspect with no probable cause obtained before the crime if they know from the future that this is a person of interest? Would anything stop these officers from traveling back in time, watching the crime as it happens, and using either their eyewitness testimony or a videotape as evidence? I'm assuming for now that they're not messing with the past by trying to interfere to stop the crime. Thank you for entertaining this silly question.	In part, we don't know because there are currently no rules that address certain outcomes, so it will depend on who is on the Supreme Court when the issue is raised. A warrantless search will not be legal beyond current doctrines regarding crime in progress and imminent danger, even if it involves time travel. So you will need a warrant, and you will need probable cause to get it. Currently, if you break into a person's house to discover that there is a body there, you can't get a warrant to legitimize that illegal search. Adding time travel does not change anything. In situation 1, I assume they have probable cause and a warrant but the evidence was destroyed by the time of the search at time T+n. As long as prior time T is still after the crime, a warrant to search at time T would not be a problem. In scenario 2, there is nothing preventing them from stopping the crime or arresting the perpetrators in the act. However, if they travel back in time and break in to a suspect's house in order to witness the crime, that is an illegal search. You could likewise arrest a person before he escapes to the phantom zone, if you have probable cause that he had committed a crime – by the time of the arrest. Forward time travel poses a more serious challenge, as articulated in Minority Report. It would, or should, be very difficult to issue an arrest warrant at time T based on knowledge of a crime committed at T+n. Because of the arrest, the crime was not committed and there was no probable cause, so there should have been no warrant (oh no, paradox).	Your main misunderstanding is that opposing counsel cannot testify. He can ask a question, such as "Did you say ...?", which provides Einstein an opportunity to answer in a way that maintains the credibility of his testimony, but consel cannot just enter his own testimony into the record. In addition, counsel on "his side" has the opportunity to pose appropriate clarifying questions, e.g. could ask "Did you repudiate that idea 88 years ago?", though there is a problem that the attorney may not have the technical expertise to recognize the subject-matter question that they should ask. Expert testimony does not attempt to determine the state of scholarship in an area, it attempts to resolve a specific factual matter. The two are not the same thing. Einstein would not testify as to what his general and special theories of relativity say, except in a bizarre universe where some person is accused of the crime of denying the theory of relativity. Instead, he might be testifying for the defense, where the defendant is accused of an act that (it turns out) is physically impossible in light of the theory of relativity. If Einstein had been in the habit of posing random mutually-contradictory conjectures on a weekly basis, opposing counsel's question could be relevant to establishing that the witness's testimony is not reliable. Theoretically, counsel could "hint" that the witness is scientifically flighty, so Einstein would have to have a credible explanation for changing his position. It is easy to demonstrate that scientists in general do change their positions as knowledge expands, so Einstein's burden would not be very substantial.	Police can lie However, in the United States they have to read you your Miranda warning (most other democratic countries have similar warnings): You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in court. You have the right to talk to a lawyer for advice before we ask you any questions. You have the right to have a lawyer with you during questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish. If you decide to answer questions now without a lawyer present, you have the right to stop answering at any time. They have told you everything they are required to tell you - effectively “we are not on your side.” After that, they can lie their asses off. Of course, they wouldn’t ask you for a DNA sample - they’d ask you if you’d like a glass of water. Then they’ll take the DNA from that.	You'd have to specify the cases you want. All court transcripts are a matter of public record, though a copy may cost you a fee from the court clerk's office to recieve. It should be pointed out that not all cases got to an evidentiary stage to actually evaluate on the record any evidence. A vast majority were decided on pre-evidentiary rules such as standing or laches (timeliness) and not all cases that were able induced evidence debunked the evidence. Any appellent case would also not induce evidence as all appeals cases are strictly matter of law rather than matter of fact (evidence), so those cases would be asking a higher court to double check non-evidentiary decisions. The fact that the party that brought the suit does not have standing to bring the suit OR that the party that brought the suit brought it too late for the courts to proceed on the matter does not debunk evidence that the fraud happened in the eyes of the law... it simply means the questions of fact were never addressed at all	The Likely Ruling Assuming points 1 and 2 in the question, all the evidence from the trunk would be inadmissible, and if there really is no other evidence against Bob, then Bob would go free. This is highly improbable; the prosecution would find some grounds to dispute the unlawful nature of stop and search, even if ones the court would not accept. A better version might be "The judge rules that the stop and search were unlawful, and is upheld by the appellate court". That is more realistic and has the same result. Inevitable Discovery The only grounds I can see for any other result is "inevitable discovery". If other police were, say, already staking out Bob's house with a warrant to search the car, and Bob was on the way to that house at the time of the stop, then the prosecution could argue that they would inevitably have conducted a legal search of Bob's car and found the same evidence. The conditions for invoking this doctrine rarely occur, but it is possible. After the Trial There is no way that Cal's body can be Bob's property, so it would be released to Cal's next of kin or legal executor. Unless Bob was Cal's next of kin, it is hard to see any way that the body would be handed over to Bob. Cal's clothes are almost surely part of Cal's estate, although it is in theory possible that they are Bob's property. No claim of ownership can be used against Bob in a later trial, because any later trial would be barred by double jeopardy. In any case, while evidence from the trunk would all be inadmissible in a trial of Bob, it might be admissible in a possible later trial of Joe, Bob's alleged accomplice. Therefore the police might well retain all the items (except the body) as possible future evidence. Terminology This is actually about the exclusionary rule itself, not about the "fruit of the poison tree" doctrine. What is the difference? If an unlawful search finds evidence, that evidence is inadmissible under the exclusionary rule. If an unlawful search merely finds a lead, evidence later found via the lead is considered as "fruit of the poisoned tree" and is therefore inadmissible. For example, if the murder weapon is found in Bob's car after an unlawful search, the exclusionary rule applies. But if a note saying "stuf at 1234 Elm" is found during the unlawful search, and the police visit 1234 Elm Street, and find the murder weapon there, that is "fruit of the poisoned tree". Why does it matter? Because if the police find a different lead to 1234 Elm, so that the investigation or search at that address is not based solely on the results of the unlawful search, then the evidence found at 1234 Elm may be admissible, while corroboration will not save the evidence actually found by the unlawful search. It is a subtle but sometimes important distinction.	The 4th Amendment exclusionary rule applies automatically in cases where law enforcement obtains evidence illegally (subject to exceptions not applicable here). In its 1920 decision in Burdeau vs. McDowell, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the 4th amendment is not applicable to searches by private parties, even when such searches are clearly illegal. This rule doesn't apply, however, if the private citizens was acting as an agent of the government. A more recent case reaffirming and clarifying Burdeau is United States v. Jacobsen 466 U.S. 109 (1984) in which a private courier finds drugs in a package and shows it to police who test the contents (the search was upheld as valid). If the defendant makes that argument, the defendant seeking to exclude the evidence bears the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the private citizen acted as an agent of the government. U.S. v. Feffer, 831 F.2d 734 (7th Cir. 1987). Another case discussed here notes that: As it relates to computer files, states still differ on how broad the application of the Private Search Doctrine runs, but all seem to agree that if a document or photo has been opened by a private party, an officer can review that file or photo without a warrant. In People v. Wilson, 56 Cal. App. 5th 128 (2020), police opened 4 images they received from NCMEC (the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) who received the images in a CyberTip from Google. Neither NCMEC nor Google had opened these images in this case, but all 4 images had been reviewed by Google in the past and identified previously as child porn by their matching hash values. So here, the officer’s actions—consisting of opening the electronic files submitted to it by NCMEC and viewing the four images attached to Google’s Cybertip—did not exactly replicate Google’s private actions. The Wilson court set out to determine the degree to which the officer’s additional invasion of Wilson’s privacy exceeded the scope of Google’s private search (the search of his emails against known hash values). Before the officer even received Wilson’s photographs, Google had already reviewed identical images in the past; scanned all of Wilson’s electronic communications to search for content with matching hash values; flagged four of Wilson’s images as matching images Google had previously observed; classified the matching images as depictions of prepubescent minors engaged in sexual acts; forwarded all four images to NCMEC as part of a Cybertip report; and terminated Wilson’s account. The Jacobsen case above explained that, “[t]he Fourth Amendment is implicated only if the authorities use information with respect to which the expectation of privacy has not already been frustrated.” Id. at 117. Because Google’s actions already frustrated any expectation of privacy Wilson possessed in the four photographs at issue, no privacy interest remained in the four images, so no expectation of privacy was violated. Wilson at 219. Because the assigned hash values, or “digital fingerprints,” are representative of the contents depicted in the photographs themselves, the government gained no new material information by viewing the images. The agent merely confirmed Google’s report that Wilson uploaded content constituting apparent child pornography. Id. at 220. When someone who is not law enforcement obtains evidence illegally, the court sometimes engages in a non-constitutional discretionary balancing test to determine if the evidence is admissible. Sometimes it comes in, sometimes it doesn't. I'll find a case setting forth the exact test if I have time. The fact that evidence is "irrefutable" (not that there is any such thing) and widely publicly known is absolutely irrelevant. The fact that a juror knows it would be grounds for excusing the juror for cause and for moving the venue of the trial where they can find enough jurors who aren't familiar with the evidence if they can't manage it in the usual venue.	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.	We don't have a lot of details, but if you're in the United States, the answer is probably yes. There are rarely any meaningful rules of evidence in student misconduct cases, so pretty much anything can come in. There may be some small difference in the answer depending n whether you're dealing with a public university or private, but in either case, I can't think of any reason why they would not be able to introduce the evidence if they had it. If there's a question about its authenticity, I imagine that would just be up to the misconduct board to decide. If Person X says "Person Y sent this to me," and Person X seems credible, that's probably going to be enough.
Life in prison is already long enough, why add 30 years? Saw the original sentence for Adnan Syed and I couldn't understand why it's life AND 30 years. What does that mean?	Syed was convicted of two crimes: first-degree murder and kidnapping. In many American court systems, including civilian criminal courts in the state of Maryland, convicts receive a sentence for each offense. They don't get one overall sentence to address all their crimes. Sentencing guidelines may make sentence calculation work by computing one sentence for all the offenses, but the sentence is actually imposed by specifying a certain sentence for each offense and setting them to run concurrently or consecutively to match the guidelines sentence. The judge gave Syed life on the murder charge, but he also needed a sentence for kidnapping. The judge picked the maximum of 30 years. Thus, life plus 30. The sentences can run either concurrently or consecutively; if one sentence is life, that isn't necessarily an important issue, but it could potentially have parole implications.	It is constitutional to imprison a person for committing a crime, though I suspect that a life sentence for brawling would be held to be cruel and unusual punishment. It's rather hard to tell what punishments will be held to be cruel and unusual, but 2.5 years for involuntary manslaughter is not unusual. The crime of involuntary manslaughter in Massachusetts does not require any physical aiding. It is unlawful killing unintentionally caused by wanton and reckless conduct... Wanton and reckless conduct is intentional conduct that created a high degree of likelihood that substantial harm will result to another person.... It is conduct involving a grave risk of harm to another that a person undertakes with indifference to or disregard of the consequences of such conduct Whether conduct is wanton and reckless depends either on what the defendant knew or how a reasonable person would have acted knowing what the defendant knew The First Amendment does not give one carte blanche to say anything you want. There are a number of crimes and torts which involve saying something: threatening and extortion, bribing, fraud, incitement to riot, disturbing the peace, defamation, perjury and lying to a government official, and so on.	I don't think that's an accurate interpretation of the statement. The key difference between the two scenarios is the defendant's legal assessment of who owns the necklace. In the first he thinks he is the owner and can claim mistake of law; in the second, he he thinks someone else is the owner, so he cannot. To say he believes "the law allows for someone to do whatever they want with lost property even if they know who the rightful owner is" is very different from saying he thinks he's the owner. He doesn't think he's the legal owner, he just thinks he has legal rights that include some rights associated with ownership. So if the defendant's statement had actually been, "I thought I was the owner," that would have been a successful defense when the crime requires depriving the owner of the property. The defense was actually, "I thought I was allowed to deprive the owner of the property," which is an admission of guilt when the crime requires depriving the owner of the property. There are a couple questions here: a. A different crime that did not require intent -- or even required a different kind of intent -- could still lead to a conviction. A legislature is free to define larceny differently, so it could say that anyone who recklessly or negligently deprives another of property is guilty. Or it could say that your state of mind doesn't matter and that depriving another of property is larceny regardless of intent. b. In most cases, the mistake of law defense requires that the defendant honestly believe in the mistake; unlike mistake of fact, it does not require that his belief also be reasonable. Either way, the question of reasonableness would probably be a question for a jury, so a judge wouldn't be able to reject it (except in a bench trial). c. Mistake of law is a potential defense to any crime that requires an intent to do something that requires an assessment of what the law is. So if it's illegal to intentionally have sex with a woman who is not your wife, and you mistakenly believed you were in a legal marriage, sex with your non-wife would not be a crime. It has potentially very broad implications, but keep in mind that in many cases, the mistake a defendant would have to claim would be pretty far out there. If it were illegal to intentionally let anyone under 21 years old into your bar, I guess you could argue that you only let a 20-year-old in because you thought the law started calculating at conception, but I doubt you'll convince a jury. Mistake of law defenses still pop up pretty regularly. Here's one just yesterday from the Tenth Circuit. And this one is a Kansas case where a conviction for carrying a weapon while a felon was overturned because the court wouldn't allow a mistake-of-law defense. The Kansas case, though, uses the more modern definition of mistake of law, which also includes reasonable reliance on official statements from the government. In that case, the felon's parole officer had told him that it was OK to carry a pocketknife, but in reality, the law titled "Criminal possession of a firearm by a convicted felon" prohibited carrying knives, as well.	In the first case, under US law, you are not considered guilty in most cases where you are forced to commit a crime under duress (gun to your head would certainly qualify). Murder is a rare exception to this rule, and the patron can be tried for the murder of the prostitute. Given the nature of Doe, who uses situations of duress to force a no win scenario for his victims, a good defense would likely work to get Jury Nullification of this crime, given the circumstance. The likely defense would be to validate that the man would not ordinarily kill a prostitute and thus only under a situation such as the one presented would he. It is still a crime, but the jury could choose not to convict, but it's a gamble as the law of crime of duress is likely to come up in the course of the trial. Situation 2 is a little more grim, as in this case, Doe has already surrendered and is custody and admits to a crime that is personal to the detective. I haven't seen the movie, so I can't suggest if there was an appropriate time for Mills to be pulled from the case prior to this revelation, but if such an opportunity happened, he should have. Since Doe is not threatening Mills at the point of time and he had already carried out his crime and been captured, Mills is an officer of the law who is killing someone in his custody. This is a crime and should be prosecuted. The circumstances might serve as mitigating factors and the jury may nullify, but these are circumstances that are less likely than the above case. Mills is also the lead detective in this case (?), and thus should know how Doe functions and what he is trying to get done. In the role of prosecutor, I personally would not push the crime against the patron as the likely jury would be too sympathetic to the defense. I would prosecute Mills as his responsibilities as a law enforcer and his training would have made him well aware that what he did was a crime.	Typically in extraditions, the treaties will only allow for extraditions if both nations have a similar crime and similar punishment for that crime. In this case, there maybe some pause for Australia to grant an extradition as Australia no longer has the death penalty for any crime, so it could be that while the new crime the defendant is being sought for is Escape from Incarceration related (that's a yes in both countries), technically the punishment for an escaped Death Row Inmate is the Death Penalty. Australia can't extradite for any crime where death penalty is on the line, but the requesting nation can say they will give a more lighter sentance that is more compliant with the requested nation's own laws. However, since it is Death for another crime that Austrilia never had jurisdiction over, it complicates matters. There is precidence for procedural reasons for refusing to extradite. For example, while the U.S. and Italy have an extradition treaty and both view murder in the same light, the U.S. refused the extradition of a citizen who was wanted for a murder in Italy that she was previously aquitted of, but new evidnce was uncovered. Because it is illegal for the state to try a person twice for the same crime in the U.S., the U.S. declined the extradition treaty. Some additional notes, extradited persons can only be tried for crimes that they were extradited for, so there is an argument that Australia would refuse unless Indonesia promises to commute the Drug Trafficking sentence to Life Imprisonment	canada Or would I still be charged with his murder since it’s a different criminal instance? Yes, this is the correct intuition. Different instance/wrong; different basis for the charge; not precluded by double-jeopardy. In Canada, the term of art is autrefois convict. Section 609 of the Criminal Code lays out the standard for what it means for the count to be the same: the matter on which the accused was given in charge on the former trial is the same in whole or in part as that on which it is proposed to give him in charge The later charge for murdering Bob would be a wholly different circumstance or "wrong" or "delict" than the first conviction was based on. The later charge would not be precluded.	would this be illegal in the U.S.A.? This would almost certainly fail under the US Constitutions 8th Amendment as being a "cruel and unusual punishment": Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted While the inmate has been sentenced to execution, they are still afforded a lot of protection and are entitled to a stay of execution at any point (which is why there is typically an open telephone line to the state governor etc right up to the point at which the execution starts). Being deliberately put in harms way to catch a killer just because they have been sentenced to execution would be both a cruel and an unusual punishment.	Up to 12 months in jail. Just by coincidence, only this week some guy who was given a jail sentence of several years for manslaughter, then jumped bail and left the country, and was extradited back to the UK, was given six months jail for jumping bail. The punishment is for jumping bail, which is an offence independent of whether the original charges are true or false. So the cases are somehow comparable, except Assange jumped bail for seven years, which would be worse, and Assange didn't leave the country but entered a foreign embassy, which I have no idea how that compares to leaving the country.
Does usage of a title/salutation like doctor/professor have legal ramifications? As I identify as a male adult, my understanding is that I should select "Mr." when asked for my title when filling out forms. I noticed a feature in my online bank portal which allowed me to change the title pre-pended to my name in communications. Changing this to Doctor (for which I am not recognised) worked instantly. Could asking to be referred to as Doctor or Professor when you do not hold either rank, illegal in any way? This is without any intent to claim one has studied in either field, simply asking that a company refers to them by that title.	australia It's dishonest. Dishonesty is not, in general, illegal. Dishonesty is illegal when it is used to obtain someone else's property or financial advantage through fraud. It's also illegal if it's part of a statement made when applying for an authorisation or benefit. It's potentially misleading. Misleading people is not, in general, illegal. Misleading is illegal when it takes place in trade or commerce. It gives you a title you don't hold. Claiming a title you don't hold is not, in general, illegal Claiming a title you don't hold is illegal if it is a protected title under Australian law. For example, there are protected titles under the National Health Practionioners Registration Scheme: "medical practitioner" is a protected title; "doctor" isn't. Further, holding yourself out to be able to practice in certain professions when you are not (e.g. law, engineering in some states etc.) is illegal. Context matters Putting on a white gown, wearing a stethoscope and calling yourself "doctor" when attending a fancy dress party is not illegal. Doing it to angle for a free upgrade on your airline ticket is.	The legal system advances practitioners on a number of criteria, not all of which relate to their legal education. It's essentially the same for all professions - your schooling/education may or may not determine your success in the field. Also relevant would be the social circles you navigate, your achievements post-education, and so on.	Am I correct in arguing that the LHD never really had implied consent to begin with? In other words, does the failure to honour the express refusal inform us about the legitimacy of prior claims of implied consent? No. They had implied consent and had not intent at the outset to dishonor it. They have violated the patient's privacy right when consent was expressly withdrawn, and they discovered that they cannot easily comply and therefore did not comply. The fact that they have made it expensive for themselves to comply with their legal obligations going forward does not imply that they lacked implied consent at the outset, so they should have no liability for the time period from when the training materials started to be used until the time when implied consent ended. They are only responsible going forward for their failure to honor the patient's wishes. It is not at all exceptional for a legal obligation to turn out to be more difficult to comply with when it arises than was anticipated when the systems that make the legal obligation difficult to comply with were implemented. Health care companies aren't expected to be prophets who can foresee the complex confluence of factors that has painted them in a corner, particularly when a situation has never come up before the current one. It is likely that no one person was ever even simultaneously aware of all the facts necessary to know that this could happen. Someone in the IT department will often not be intimately familiar with what is going on in the training part of the operation and what the privacy rules that apply are and even if someone was, that someone may have been in no position to do anything about it at the time. Health care providers aren't supposed to be evaluated with 20-20 hindsight. Given that they almost surely did not and could not easily have known that they had made a future express withdrawal of consent very difficult to effectuate, scienter can't be attributed to it. And, honestly, they are in more than enough trouble simply trying to deal with the problem post-express withdrawal of consent when they did start to violate privacy laws.	The CC-ND license seems to be what you are looking for. However, Sec. 2(a) has two conditions, one allowing copying and distribution of the unmodified original (as stated in A), but also allows the user to modify but not distribute a modified version of the work (they may "produce and reproduce, but not Share, Adapted Material"). This would mean that a reader could rewrite your paper, as long as they keep it to themselves. If this bothers you, I think you could not rely on a standard named license, instead you'd have to provide your own – such as CC-ND 4.0 without clause (2)(a)(B). Rewriting a legal document is a risky proposition, even for a legal professional, because you have to carefully think through all of the implications of any new punctuation, adjectives, and deletions. If you contemplate deleting clause (2)(a)(B), you should come up with a line of reasoning that compels you do delete it in order to accomplish your goal, and check that the deletion doesn't thwart that goal. That is why people pay money to lawyers (and also why you need to make your goal clear to that lawyer, lest the agreement be inconsistent with your goal).	Some jurisdictions do that. Others don't (see, for example, the Dutch national identity card). My New York driver's license is in all caps, and I rather suspect that it's a holdover from the days in which licenses were processed using a computer system that had only upper-case characters. But that's just a guess. The real answer is that the premise of the question is incorrect.	If you say something twice, eventually they’ll be in conflict Law codes are vast. They deal with many things and sometimes, as here, they deal with the same thing twice. If they duplicated themselves, rather than cross-referencing, every time the law was changed, every single instance would have to be tracked down and changed. Admittedly, that is not as big a problem with digital codes (but still not infallible and definitely time-consuming) but when these would have to be found by hand, it was damn near impossible. Written this way, change it once and it’s changed everywhere. My first boss taught me that. The fired was engineering rather than law but the principle is the same.	If a contract sometimes uses the wrong name, is it still valid? Yes. It is valid as long as the contract as a whole permits identifying the parties (unequivocally) and ascertaining their role with respect to the contract. Using "Contractor" and "Consultant" interchangeably despite only the former being explicitly defined seems a bit sloppy, but it does not by itself alter or invalidate the meaning of the contract. The excerpt you reproduce is self-explanatory. Its first sentence identifies the parties, and there are only two. Thus, there is no reasonable way to dispute that the second sentence means "Contractor shall indemnify Company", since a clause of the sort "he will indemnify himself" makes no sense. Moreover, the legal definitions of Indemnitor and Indemnitee (Black's Law Dictionary) clearly make reference to "the person" (who protects or is protected, accordingly) and "the other" (that is, not to self).	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”?
Is an illegal abortion a Malum in Se offense or a Malum Prohibitum offense? Anglo-American Common Law generally divides criminal offenses into two categories. Malum in Se offenses are inherently wrong. This includes traditional offenses such as Murder, Robbery, and Assault. Some sources define the concept as encompassing acts that would be wrong even if there was no specific law against it. Malum Prohibitum offenses, on the other hand, are not inherently wicked acts - they are just against the law for whatever reason (often public order, safety, or health). Common examples of such offenses are DUI, carrying a concealed firearm without a permit, evading an immigration checkpoint, and possessing a controlled substance. Wikipedia cites: Criminal offenses can be broken down into two general categories malum in se and malum prohibitum. The distinction between malum in se and malum prohibitum offenses is best characterized as follows: a malum in se offense is "naturally evil as adjudged by the sense of a civilized community," whereas a malum prohibitum offense is wrong only because a statute makes it so. State v. Horton, 139 N.C. 588, 51 S.E. 945, 946 (1905). Also see Book 4, Chapter 1 of Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, in which he states (my emphasis) AS to the power of human punifhment, or the right of the temporal legiflator to inflict difcretionary penalties for crimes and mifdemefnors. It is clear, that the right of punifhing crimes agianft the law of nature, as murder and the like, is in a ftate of mere nature vefted in every individual. For it muft be vefted in fomebody ; otherwife the laws of nature would be vain and fruitlefs, if none were empowered to put them in execution : and if that power is vefted in any one, it muft alfo be vefted in all mankind ; fince all are by nature equal. Whereof the firft murderer Cain was fo fenfible, that we find him expreffing his apprehenfions, that whoever fhould find him would flay him. In a ftate of fociety this right is transferred from individuals to the fovereign power ; whereby men are prevented from being judges in their own caufes, which is one of the evils that civil government was intended to remedy. Whatever power therefore individuals had of punifhing offences aginft the law of nature, that is now vefted in the magiftrate alone ; who bears the fword of juftice by the confent of the whole community. And to this precedent natural power of individuals muft be referred that right, which fome have argued to belong to every ftate, (though, in fact, never exercifed by any) of punifhing not only their own fubjects, but alfo foreign embaffadors, even with death itfelf ; in cafe they have offended, not indeed againft the municipal laws of the country, but againft the divine laws of nature, and become liable thereby to forfeit their lives for their guilt. AS to offences merely againft the laws of fociety, which are only mala prohibita, and not mala in fe ; the temporal magiftrate is alfo empowered to infict coercive penalties for fuch tranfgreffions : and this by the confent of individuals ; who, in forming focieties, did either tacitly or expreffly inveft the fovereign power with a right making laws, and of enforcing obedience to them when made, by exercifing, upon their nonobfervance, feverities adequate to the evil. The lawfulnefs therefore of punifhing fuch criminals is founded upon this principle, that the law by which they fuffer was by their own confent ; it is part to the original contract into which they entered, when firft they engaged in fociety ; it was calculated for, and has long contributed to. their own fecurtiy. Is obtaining an abortion contrary to local law a malum in se or a malum prohibitum offense? I can think of arguments in favor of either: Illegal abortions are Malum In Se Abortion is often considered by opponents as a form of Murder, which is a traditional malum in se offense. Arguments against abortion are often couched in moralistic terms, rather than arguments based on public good. That is, activists typically claim that banning abortion is a moral or religious duty rather than claiming that banning it would improve people's health, build the economy, reduce pollution, or make elections fairer for minority candidates. Illegal abortions are Malum Prohibitum Laws on when, if, and how an abortion may be lawfully performed vary significantly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. A law based on a timeless moral "truth" would be expected to be harmonious nearly everywhere. Restated, is Abortion inherently a Malum in Se act, with statutes in various places changing the rule to allow it in certain scenarios, or is abortion inherently permitted according to the Common Law view of morality, with modern anti-abortion laws being strictly statutory in nature? As Nate Eldredge mentioned, I am aware that some people may approach this from the perspective of their own religious or moral views. What I'm interested in is whether this has been analyzed from a purely legal perspective or whether a court has ruled on it.	This distinction was once important in English law, and other common-law systems derived from it, because common-law courts felt free to punish a Malum in Se even when there was no relevant statute, while a Malum Prohibitum would be punished only if it violated a specific statute. But today in the US, and to a large degree in the UK and other common-law countries, nearly all law has a statutory basis (although subject to interpretation by courts). Thus the distinction between Malum in Se and Malum Prohibitum no longer makes a significant difference, and is pretty much purely academic, except in a historical context.	In the United States, each state is free to define their own version of what is rape and what is sexual assault. Many States view rape and sexual assault to be of "equal severity", but they are punishable under different laws. For example, Kentucky defines rape as any non-consensual intercourse and includes anal sex and object penetration in the definition of intercourse. Alaska does not define rape in its criminal code but all forms of unwanted sexual penetration (by object or other) under sexual assault charges. New York defines rape as sexual intercourse without consent and all other unwanted contact under sexual assault. Source: takepart.com As you can see, the definition of rape and sexual assault is either combined or broken out into separate laws. In most States though, the punishment for either rape or sexual assault is considered the "same severity". Under Federal crimes, rape is not defined but is grouped under 18 US Code 2241-2248. Punishment for these crimes range from a fine through life imprisonment. So for the United States, your (1) and (2) either may be classified as "rape" or "sexual assault" but the severity of the offense and the punishment is usually equal under the eyes of the law. Taking New York for example... Sec. 130.00 defines terms Sec. 130.50 Criminal Sexual Act in the First Degree Sec. 130.52 Forcible Touching Sec. 130.35 Rape 130.50 (Criminal Sexual Act, which (1) and (2) fall under) is a Class B Felony, so is 130.35 (Rape). They all fall under Sec 70.80 for sentencing, which says that a Class B Felony must be a term between 5 and not exceeding 25 years. You can look up the laws in other States, but many follow the same pattern, either they lump sexual assault and rape under the same law, or they break them apart into distinct "rape" and "sexual assault", but use the same sentencing guidelines.	usukaustralia Yes, this can be charged as a type of negligent homicide, involuntary manslaughter. The degree of culpability might be greater than negligence, since the initial act was a premeditated crime. There is no intent to kill The act is criminal and malicious The consequences are reasonably foreseeable The offense would be a type of constructive manslaughter, where a crime not intended to kill or cause bodily harm results in death. In the UK this is also known as an unlawful act manslaughter. The perpetrator of a premeditated crime is held responsible not only for the intended consequences, but also for foreseeable incidental ones, albeit at a reduced degree of culpability. This doctrine is established in both civil and common law, and will apply in broadly similar ways, with different local names, usually variations on unintended homicide, in most civil law jurisdictions as well. us Medical or fire-fighting equipment being among the stolen items is, in many jurisdictions, by itself sufficient to raise the charge to grand theft, which is a felony in common law. If Bob actually specializes in this, and a death did occur, the prosecution might charge them with second-degree felony murder, if applicable in their state. That rule is generally applied when the base offense presents danger to human life, but there have been cases that stretch it. Burglary is sufficient to apply this rule. Such a charge is less certain to stand up in court and is usually traded down in a plea bargain.	Is there something in the language of the act that makes sexual harassment a civil rather than a criminal offence? Yes. Laws that create criminal offenses have to have language to the effect of "violation of this law is punishable by up to X years of imprisonment or a fine of up to $Y", or "violation of this law is a Class Z felony." Sometimes it is not entirely clear if violation of a law can form a basis of a private civil lawsuit, or if it can only be enforced by government officials, from the language of the statute alone. When it is unclear the courts have to resolve that ambiguity. In rare instances, it may be clear that some parts of a statute have criminal penalties, but due to unclear wording and punctuation in the statute, it is hard to tell precisely which parts of the statute these criminal penalties apply to, and in those cases, courts also have to resolve that ambiguity. There is also some conduct that it is constitutional to punish with a civil penalty, but not as a crime that can result in incarceration. For example, it is unconstitutional in most states to incarcerate someone for failing to pay a debt, but there can be a civil penalty for failing to pay a debt. Courts decide if these constitutional limitations are violated. Similarly, while Congress can enact both crimes and civil penalties, there are some governmental bodies, like school districts or water boards, that have the power to enact certain civil penalties, but do not have the authority to create new crimes. Was that up to the lawmakers to decide, or is that just something that evolved out of the ways the courts and prosecutors responded to sexual harassment claims? And who decides such things in general? Generally, this is decided by lawmakers. Obviously, however, anyone can lobby legislators to take one position or another. Also, the fact that something has a civil penalty does not necessarily mean that prosecutors aren't the people who enforce the law. Sometimes violations of the law prosecuted by prosecutors have civil rather than criminal penalties. For example, many tax law violations are prosecuted by government lawyers with civil penalties, but only a small minority of tax law violations are prosecuted criminally. Further, it isn't uncommon for a type of offense, like securities fraud, to have both civil penalties and criminal charges available as remedies that can be enforced by prosecutors. And, when that happens, prosecutors get to decide which tool to use. For example, even if exactly the same conduct could be prosecuted with either a civil penalty or a criminal charge, prosecutors might prefer a civil penalty because the burden of proof is much lower, the 5th Amendment protection against self-incrimination does not apply (you can refuse to testify but that fact can be used against you in a civil penalty case), and a defendant in a civil penalty case doesn't have a right to a lawyer at government expense. Also, enforcing a civil penalty generates net revenue for the government most of the time, while criminal punishments normally cost the government more money to carry out than any revenue the government may receive from the person found guilty for fines and court costs. On the other hand, trying to enforce a significant enough civil penalty to discourage misconduct against someone who has no money or property may be a futile effort, while criminal sanctions could discourage misconduct from other similarly situated people in the future.	In Texas, sex offenses are defined in Texas Penal Code § 21.01, et seq., and rape and kindred offenses are defined as sexual assault § 22.011 and aggravated sexual assault § 22.021. None of those laws prohibit the conduct described (assuming adults who are not in a teacher-student relationship with full mental capacity), nor do they prohibit the video as long as there is no intent or threat to disclose it. Of course, not recognizing that it is the same person both times in an in person meeting when they have sex is highly implausible.	This answer assumes Europe as jurisdiction, not the United States. This will vary wildly across jurisdictions, but given that this question is unanswered for two weeks now, I will provide an answer for Europe, specifically the Czech Republic. It will be somewhat different in other states. First, the list of criminal offenses a corporation can commit is specified in the law. It is exactly that, a list. Of the 300 crimes an individual can commit here, about 100 of them can also be done by a corporation. It is hard to discover why these hundred crimes were chosen specifically. Logic used to make this list eludes me. For example, a corporation can commit Rape, but not Murder. It can commit a Terrorist attack but not Terror. It can commit Threatening a public official but not Oppression. I looked through the explanatory notes for the law and I discoved the reason: Strictly only those crimes were created for corporations that were required by higher european law, which only moves the question higher up. I did not look up what the European Parliament had to say about this. There is one crime that was added specifically, later on, to the list, and that is Usury. In principle, all crimes committed by an individual can be done by a corporation, because a crime is considered to be committed by a corporation if the action is done by an employee in the name of the corporation.	Illegal activity is activity that contravenes the law. Criminal activity is illegal activity that is also a crime. What constitutes a crime is usually detailed in a criminal code in each jurisdiction but can derive from common law crimes like murder, arson, rape etc. A crime is an offense against society and is generally prosecuted by the state. For example (may vary by jurisdiction): Breaking a contract - illegal Stopping in a No Stopping zone - illegal Negligently polluting the environment - illegal Breaking someone's arm - crime Deliberately ramming someone with your car - crime Recklessly polluting the environment - crime	Why would he not have been charged with "housebreaking"? In england-and-wales neither "house breaking" nor "breaking and entering" are legal terms: the offence is called burglary contrary to s.9 of the Theft Act 1968 which in 1983 was: (1) A person is guilty of burglary if— (a) he enters any building or part of a building as a trespasser and with intent to commit any such offence as is mentioned in subsection (2) below; or (b) having entered any building or part of a building as a trespasser he steals or attempts to steal anything in the building or that part of it or inflicts or attempts to inflict on any person therein any grievous bodily harm. (2) The offences referred to in subsection (1)(a) above are offences of stealing anything in the building or part of a building in question, of inflicting on any person therein any grievous bodily harm or raping any woman therein, and of doing unlawful damage to the building or anything therein. There is no difference between nightime and daytime entry, and there is no requirement for a forced entry. All that's needed is to go in without permission intending or attempting to do one of the relevant offences. I can only surmise that the reason(s) theft, rather than burglary, was charged was a (pre CPS) prosecutorial decision based on the admissible evidence, Fagan's mental state and what was in the public interest because the quoted text seems to meet the criteria for burglary. (ETA subject to the actual circumstances surrounding the alleged theft of the wine, which are not clear from the quoted text.)
What is the extent of the prohibition for non-US citizens to teach in US public schools? I see mentioned in a Bloomberg Law piece that in Ambach v. Norwick, 441 U.S. 68 (1979) Upholding a statute barring aliens from teaching in public schools, the [Supreme] Court reasoned that the "distinction between citizens and aliens, though ordinarily irrelevant to private activity, is fundamental to the definition and [288] government of a State. . . . It is because of this special significance of citizenship that governmental entities, when exercising the functions of government, have wider latitude in limiting the participation [**6] of noncitizens." Ambach, 441 U.S. at 75 (emphasis added). So while constitutional, what is the extent of this prohibition? I think a good number of academics in higher US education are (at least initially) non-US-citizens. And even in lower-level US public schools there seem to be a number of foreigners. More than 3,000 teachers given visas The U.S. State Department says 3,252 foreign teachers were given exchange visas in 2018. The countries sending the most teachers were the Philippines, Spain, Jamaica, China and France.	The law upheld by the decision is a New York law, and thus only applies in the state of New York. Its current text reads in relevant part: No person shall be employed or authorized to teach in the public schools of the state who is... Not a citizen. The provisions of this subdivision shall not apply, however, to an alien teacher now or hereafter employed, provided such teacher shall make due application to become a citizen and thereafter within the time prescribed by law shall become a citizen. The provisions of this subdivision shall not apply, after July first, nineteen hundred sixty-seven, to an alien teacher employed pursuant to regulations adopted by the commissioner of education permitting such employment. The citizenship requirements of this subdivision shall not apply to an alien teacher now or hereafter employed whose immigration status is that of a lawful permanent resident of the United States and who would otherwise be eligible to serve as a teacher, or to apply for or receive permanent certification as a teacher, but for the foregoing requirements of this subdivision. The last sentence of that will no longer be effective starting Nov 30 2022. So, this law only says they are prohibited in New York public schools. And even then, they are allowed if they are applying to be a citizen, if they are hired pursuant to regulations adopted by the commissioner of education, or (until 2022) if they are a lawful permanent resident of the US. Other states may have other laws, of course.	I suspect that US voting records would fall under Article 2(2)(a): Article 2 Material Scope ... 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; I doubt it would be possible to argue successfully that a foreign election is anything other than "an activity which falls outside the scope of Union law." Even the territorial scope could be questioned. This is set forth in the next article, on "territorial scope," the second item of which says: This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data of data subjects who are in the Union by a controller or processor not established in the Union, where the processing activities are related to: (a) the offering of goods or services, irrespective of whether a payment of the data subject is required, to such data subjects in the Union; or (b) the monitoring of their behaviour as far as their behaviour takes place within the Union. It is probably arguable whether processing absentee ballots from EU residents constitutes "offering services to data subjects in the Union," but in this case it's likely to be more difficult to resolve that question than to determine whether the activity falls outside the scope of Union law.	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.	To pick up on your comment 'Does this mean if I wish to build a chair for personal use, then since trade of chairs exists between states, Congress has the authority to outlaw possession or manufacturing of chairs?': Yes. For example, the US Congress can legislate to prohibit a farmer from growing wheat for use on his own farm, on the basis that there is interstate trade in wheat and therefore the Commerce Clause permits Congress to regulate the growing of wheat: Wickard v Filburn (1942) 317 US 111. If you grow marijuana, or build a chair, or whatever, you conceivably affect the number of marijuanas, chairs, etc that are traded between states. Therefore you affect interstate commerce. Therefore the US Congress can regulate you. The fact that your marijuana or your chair or your what is trivial in the scheme of the national economy is irrelevant if the aggregation of all regulated marijuana, chairs or wheat is significant: 317 US 111, 127-128. If the law didn't prohibit possession of marijuana absolutely but instead prohibited, say, the carrying of marijuana in schools, then the US Congress might have trouble relying on the Commerce Clause: see United States v Lopez (1995) 514 US 549 and replace 'marijuana' with 'handguns' (OK the marijuana/handgun analogy is bad but hopefully this illustrates that there are at least some limits on Congress' power -- it's not just 'any physical object that relates whatsoever to interstate trade therefore unfettered federal legislative power').	If the Attorney General has officially determined that you renounced US citizenship for the purpose of avoiding taxation, you have a lifetime ban under INA 212(a)(10)(E), and there is no immigrant waiver for this ban. See 9 FAM 302.12-6. I am not sure if the Attorney General has ever made such a determination about anyone. Otherwise, I don't see anything that would prevent you from immigrating to the US like any other foreigner.	You've asked a two part question. [Is this a violation of] the international policy that a country should never refuse entry to verified citizens of their own? In considering that question, the US example may be illuminative. The US requires US citizens to have a "passport book" when flying into the US, even though the US issues "passport cards" that serve as proof of nationality. If you can get to the border and prove your US nationality (by passport card or otherwise), they'll let you in, but airlines won't board you unless you have a passport book. If you don't have a passport book, you're supposed to get to the nearest consulate and apply for a passport before flying to the US. But note that the US obligation to admit its own citizens is principally a feature of US law. CBP does not waive 8 USC 1185 because of some international body; there is no body that enforces international "policies" of this nature. Rather, they do so because they know that the federal courts would require them to admit US citizens based on the right of free movement implicit in US law. If someone were unable to get into their country of citizenship and unable to gain legal residence elsewhere then unless they could remain on the run for the rest of their life they would eventually end up as the subject of negotiation between whatever country is trying to deport them and their country of citizenship. In other words, in the worst case, such people become a bilateral diplomatic matter between two countries. Therefore, any challenge to the restriction would have to go through the Italian or EU legal system. Is this a violation of the EU freedom of movement directive, whereby a verified EU/EFTA national cannot normally be refused entry to any EU/EFTA state? It certainly seems to be, but without a decision from an EU court, we can't be certain. From Article 5 of the freedom of movement directive (2004/38/EC): Article 5 Right of entry 1. Without prejudice to the provisions on travel documents applicable to national border controls, Member States shall grant Union citizens leave to enter their territory with a valid identity card or passport and shall grant family members who are not nationals of a Member State leave to enter their territory with a valid passport. No entry visa or equivalent formality may be imposed on Union citizens. This doesn't say anything about allowing EU citizens to board aircraft from non-EU destinations without their EU passports. So if Italy makes a rule that EU citizens need a passport to board a flight to Italy from outside the EU and Schengen area, that doesn't seem to violate Article 5 except by implication. It would be for a court to decide whether that implication is in fact present. Because Article 5 doesn't say anything about where the passenger has flown from, we can also consider the case of a dual citizen of an EU member state and a "third country," who might fly to Italy using the third-country passport, and then present a national ID card at the immigration counter. If such a traveler were denied entry, that would appear to violate Article 5. If that traveler's other nationality were one that required a visa in the non-EU passport, the traveler might have a stronger case that Italy's rule infringes on the right of free movement. EU or EFTA citizens could also challenge the restriction more generally as an infringement on the right of free movement that is established in the Treaty on European Union (TEU), even if the directive itself does not prohibit the restriction. For example, one might argue that free movement is restricted because there are countries to which EU citizens can travel with only an ID card, but from which they cannot return to Italy with only that card. In addition, non-Italian EU or EFTA citizens could challenge the more restrictive regime applied to them on the argument that it violates the principle of non-discrimination articulated in Article 9 of the TEU: Article 9 In all its activities, the Union shall observe the principle of the equality of its citizens, who shall receive equal attention from its institutions, bodies, offices and agencies.... Furthermore, non-Italians residing in Italy could challenge the more restrictive regime on the basis of Article 24 of the directive: Article 24 Equal treatment 1. Subject to such specific provisions as are expressly provided for in the Treaty and secondary law, all Union citizens residing on the basis of this Directive in the territory of the host Member State shall enjoy equal treatment with the nationals of that Member State within the scope of the Treaty. The benefit of this right shall be extended to family members who are not nationals of a Member State and who have the right of residence or permanent residence.	Even though student status is not on the list of protected classes, this still might be discrimination. By proxy. Status as student can be a proxy for age, race, and/or color. Maybe even religion if there is a religious school nearby! In fairness to the store manager, when a pack of ten kids comes rolling in on the way home from school things can get pretty hectic. Rather than try to kick out the problem kids many managers will attempt to avoid the problem in the first place. Also, a sign like this might help the manager be less discriminatory. For example, let's say he lets all kids in and only kicks out the ones who are causing problems. If those problem kids are all in one protected class and it's different from the kids who don't get kicked out, the manager looks like he's discriminating based on that protected class. Discrimination by proxy can be hard to prove and I am not sure of the burden of proof in Canada. I have read that "Canadian experience" is used as a proxy in employment discrimination and has been getting some attention lately. That might be a good issue to keep an eye on as it may define proxy discrimination jurisprudence.	The main question is whether the US has jurisdiction outside the US, which means either "in another country" or "in no country" (viz. the high seas or outer space). It has generally been felt (legally) that the US has no jurisdiction over foreign countries, see especially Banana v. Fruit, 213 U.S. 347 "the general rule is that the character of an act as lawful or unlawful must be determined wholly by the law of the country where it is done". This is known as the "presumption against extraterritoriality": it is a presumption, not a rigid absolute rule. However, there are exceptions. The Alien Tort Statute (one of the first laws of the US) says "The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States". An application of that law is Filártiga v. Peña-Irala, where defendant tortured and murdered plaintiff's daughter, all parties being in Paraguay at the time: the court held that the US did have jurisdiction, under the ATS. Nevertheless, in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692 which involves an extraterritorial kidnapping, SCOTUS seems to have said that this law is primarily about granting jurisdiction, and not about creating new torts, and they indicate that the wrongful acts within the scope of the ATS are, specifically, "offenses against ambassadors, violation of safe conducts, and piracy" (at any rate, it's clear that damage arising from pollution would not be within the class of bad acts referred to by ATS). Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. reaffirms the limit on what torts can be pursued under ATS. In this case, the issue is whether RDP might be corporately liable for acts that could be illegal under US law, and the court says "[w]hen a statute gives no clear indication of an extraterritorial application, it has none" (citing Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd.). Accordingly, Taylor Jr. was held liable for his role in torture in Liberia, since the Torture Victim Protection Act does specifically allow for actions against individuals acting in their official capacity, outside the US, for torture and extrajudicial killing. "Sanctions against" is kind of open-ended. The US government can (under some circumstances) prevent US persons from doing things with respect to some other country, such as the restrictions against doing business with or visiting Cuba, Albania, North Korea etc. as have existed withing the past quarter century. Were I interested in sending money to a person in Iran vs. a person in Canada, I would have more problems in the former case owing to "sanctions". I think we can safely conclude that the US cannot (in terms of US law) declare that "whatever acts of a foreign entity overseas offend the federal government shall be litigated as though the acts were committed within the proper jurisdiction of the US" (or, more simply, "the proper jurisdiction of the US government is the universe"). Congress has not yet passed such a law about extraterritorial pollution, so until it does, it cannot sanction overseas polluters. When/if it does, it presumably can, though enforcement is another (political) matter.
What would go into proving you are an employee and not a contractor? To my understanding, in Canada, an employee is given more protection and entitlements under the law, than a contractor. What would go into proving one is an employee and not a contractor? Would this be akin to "suing the employer in court"? Which court or tribunal would it be brought to? Does it not make a difference if a person is a contractor or employee until a dispute arises and it becomes unclear which laws (e.g. labour laws) apply?	Raise the question with your employer If you believe that you are an employee and not a contractor then there is presumably something you want from your employer. This may be additional wages and entitlements that you would have or will become entitled to for past or future work respectively. Or you may have been injured and want workers' compensation. Or terminated and you want redundancy pay. Whatever it is, work it out and raise the issue with your employer. You might want to consult an accountant or union to help you. They may acknowledge that you were incorrectly classified and give you what you want. Winner, winner, chicken dinner! Or they may dispute it. If so, you need to follow the dispute resolution processes at your workplace. These typically involve informal discussions, escalating to mediation and then to a workplace tribunal run by the government. You will almost certainly want to consult a lawyer or union to help you - given that you don't know where to start the learning curve is likely to be too steep. In virtually every jurisdiction if people are employees at law they can't choose not to be. in british-columbia the relevant law appears to be the Employment Standards Act although it's not unheard of in edge cases for a person to be an employee under one law (e.g. workers' compensation) and a contractor under another (e.g. income tax). From the linked site: The overriding question is “whose business is it?” Is the person who is doing the work doing it as a person in business for themselves? If you are working "for" your own business you are probably a contractor. If you are working "for" your employer's business you are probably an employee. For example, if you are an accountant with several dozen clients, maintain your own business premises and charge for your advice based on the amount quoted rather than by the hour, you're a contractor. If instead, you have 2 clients, work from their premises at set hours and get paid by the day or week, you're an employee with 2 jobs. In edge cases these are not cut and dried - Google are Uber driver's employees. In Australia: no. In California: yes. In the UK: yes.	As a adult of sound mind, you are responsible for your actions. Background checks for job applications are common place to determine suitability. The employers have the right (and responsibility) to choose what is in their best interest. If through your previous and present actions, they come to the conclusion that you will become a liability to their interests, they will determine that you are not suitable for the position. Not being suitable for a position is not a discrimination, but a determination of fact. Rights and responsibilities go hand in hand. The same is true for the employers. They too have the obligation to act in their own that of their other employees that of their clients interests. In cases where a judge comes to a conclusion that the rights of others are being impeaded, they will most likely decide for that party. It is unlikely that a judge will assume that an individual is the center of the universe and that everyone else must revolve around that individual.	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 are probably an employee Answer these questions: Can you say “no” when the University offers you work? Or vice-versa, can they say “no” when you want to work? Can you subcontract the work? That is, can you hire someone to do what the University hired you to do? Do you control how and when you work? For example, when you break University rules are you subject to University discipline or is this treated as a breach of contract? Do you provide your own tools and equipment? Can you make a profit or loss (if you get paid by the hour the answer is “no”)? Do you take out your own public liability and/or professional indemnity insurance? If the answers to most of these questions are “no”, you’re an employee.	A variety of Canadian national laws have established general restrictions that impart largely universal rights upon all "employees", as well as certain duties upon all "employers" with regard to the definition of who qualifies as an employee and who must be paid. Despite the national framework, the provincial standards construed through case law are largely controlling. Employees in Canada are protected by the employment standards set forth by each province, which then will typically be given precedence over in the national rubric unless the latter gives greater rights to workers. These provincial laws apply to all “employees” and “employers” within the province unless a clearly defined exemption or restriction in the national framework applies, or unless there is not a provincial framework in place. The provincial, versus the national legislation, makes it necessary to determine whether he or she fits into the definition of an “employee” under either of these legal structures; chances are, if a person is working in any way they are employees who need to be paid. While the extended definitions vary, a person is an employee in all provinces if they generally appear to be an employee ( they perform the type of work a person would typically be paid for, they are controlled to some extent by the employer, etc.) As defined through these statutes and stare decisis, individuals who fit these definititoins and tests are employees, and hence, are entitled to receive wages. This is almost always true regardless of any signed contracts or verbal agreements suggesting otherwise - agreements of this type are largely unenforceable except in the rarest of circumstances. Thus, unlike the U.S. where an intern can form a contract with the consideration being the value of the educative environs, in Canada, not so. Hence, whether the intern is willing to not be paid, or has signed an agreement acknowledging that he or she would not be paid, if they decide to sue for wages (or even if the employer is audited without the employees input), the existence of a written waiver of pay is not determinative of employers' liability. Much like the FSLA, these national and provincial employment laws were adopted with the goal of preventing the exploitation and abuse of workers who are in a vulnerable position relative to their employers. The Supreme Court of Canada has held that provincial employment laws should be construed and interpreted in a broad and generous manner because they provide minimum benefits and standards to protect workers as a general class. However, this framework can also backfire and put young Canadian professionals at a disadvantage in this growing global economy. In some circumstances - especially in competitive professional employment markets where experience is an intangibly invaluable asset - and their neighbors to the south (the U.S.) have the benefit of entering into these relationships. In professions such as law, medicine, business, and many others, internships are an invaluable tool and a stepping stone to permanent lucrative employment, that these "protections" may serve to deprive parties the benefit of. It is nearly always illegal in Canada to allow an individual to work in an internship or volunteer like capacity if they do so unpaid, even in ways that would traditionally be exempt from the FSLA (Fair Labor Standards Act) in the United States. Despite their nearness geographically to the U.S., there are a number of statutory and common laws that differ considerably between the two sovereign nations. Canadian courts and provincial authorities apply both the provincial and national employment standards and provisions. Together and/or independent of each other, these laws act in such a way that the test for who qualifies as an employee will inevitably end up encompassing nearly everyone working unpaid, except student interns working few hours. If an intern is not specifically exempted, they are entitled to and must be paid at least the National minimum wage (if the provincial wage is higher, it is the applicable minimum). Interns who do the same work of "employees" or who are subject to any amount of substantial control and direction by their employers, must be paid according to the test that various cases of the Canadian Supreme Court has engrained into Canadian common law. Even in situation where a would-be intern enters into an contractual agreement that he or she will not be paid does not mean that the employer is complying with their provincial employment standards. Any such clause in an oral or written contract is null and void if it contravenes the respective laws, The following link will bring you to a professional publication that examines the history and reasoning for these divergent provincial statutes, as well as the few existing exceptions, citing the most important relevant cases that have determined these issues nationally: http://www.gowlings.com/KnowledgeCentre/article.asp?pubID=3190	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.	Based on the contract language quoted in the question, and the facts stated there, it would seem that the employee owns the copyright on the software. It would seem that the software was not created "during the course of employment." However, when the employee offers it to the employer free of charge, the employer may well want to own the copyright and any other related IP. The employer might want the employee to sign an agreement transferring the copyright. Or the employer might simply treat the software as belonging to the employer. Asserting and enforcing the copyright against the employer might be difficult. Insisting on even a token payment would help establish thst the copyright belongs to the employee, or gettign the employer to sign an acknowledgement of the ewmployee's copyright would have a similar, bnt even stronger effect.	It is mandatory for the employer to provide sufficient restrooms (“cabinets d'aisance”), as per article R4228-10. Other provisions regulate evacuation, ventilation, heating, disabled access, etc. There is no provision regarding when employees are permitted to use the restrooms. There can't be a single rule that works for every profession: some jobs don't let you leave your post whenever you like (e.g. machine operator, driver, guard, teacher, etc.). The most common dispute regarding restroom use is whether employees should be paid during that time. Some employers want to count restroom use as unpaid pause time. Strictly speaking, that's legal: an employee who is in a restroom is not at the employer's disposal, therefore this doesn't count as work time. However enforcing this is often logistically difficult and wildly unpopular, so in practice it's only done in places where employees must clock out to reach a restroom. I could only find one case with actual jurisprudence. In 1995, an industrial butchering company (Bigard) decided to limit restroom breaks to three fixed times a day. This was, as you might expect, unpopular; the employees went on strike, and eventually the labor court struck down this measure. That's a precedent, but it doesn't seem to have made its way to the appellate court. Your case is also slightly different in that the restrooms would only be inaccessible for an hour, which is shorter than in the Bigard case. So legally speaking, it isn't clear who will win. You'll have a better chance of success by banking on the unpopularity of the measure. Talk with your colleagues and your representatives and shop stewards. Point out that employees who are trying to hold it in are unlikely to be at the top of their productivity.
Can a public school host a female non-binary and transgender event and exclude all males? I was wondering if a school can host a female non-binary and transgender field trip or event and not include males. This is a public high school in California.	This page sums up the state of federal law regarding sex segregation and schools. There are various "separate but equal" provisions under the law, for example Boys State or Girls State are not outlawed, there is no requirement for co-ed PE class. But as far as I can see, a school field trip to hear the Petaluma Symphony Orchestra could not be limited to only females (or only males). It's not clear what you mean by "host", or whether the event is educational (the law doesn't say that everything a school does has to be sex-neutral, it prohibits "discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance").	Currently there is nowhere in the USA where polygamy is legal. So regardless of their sexual or gender expression or orientation, being married to MORE THAN ONE person at the same time is illegal. If, however, it turned out that someone had more than one spouse at their death, I'm sure that property distribution would be a matter for the probate court to sort out. As far as legally-married "trans spouses", for lack of a better term, I don't see why that would that impact inheritance in any way?	Under U.S. federal law, and under the few state laws of which I am aware, it is not unlawful to expand a pool of applicants based on a protected class such as race, age, sex, etc., but it is unlawful to select an applicant for employment based on a protected class. An advertisement could lawfully encourage applications by persons having certain protected attributes (e.g., born and raised in South America; Native American; Veteran; transgender) in order to diversify the workforce, but it could not lawfully suggest that hiring preference would be given to applicants with those protected attributes. That's a fine line, and it's easy for an employer to cross it, either willfully or inadvertantly. It's best--from both a practical and a legal perspective--to determine the hiring criteria and process before seeking applicants; and to separate that screening process from the advertising process. The advertising process could, for example, target underrepresented groups as long as it did not preclude other persons/groups from learning about or applying for the opportunities.	This is known as the "ministerial exception". Because the Free Exercise and Estalishment clauses of the First Amendment prohibit the government from interfering with religion, the government cannot override a doctrine that contradicts the teachings of a religion (so women and gays cannot sue the Catholic church for not being hirable as priests). In Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC, an individual taught classes and led prayer at a religous school, but was fired ultimately due to a disability (narcolepsy). The Lutheran church does not have any known doctrine condemning narcolepsy: but it was unanimously ruled that "the Establishment Clause prevents the Government from appointing ministers, and the Free Exercise Clause prevents it from interfering with the freedom of religious groups to select their own". Thus the church was legally permitted to fire the individual due to her disability.	Yes, it's legal. It would be lawful discrimination on objectively and reasonably justified grounds Here's why: On the face of it, this is a case of direct discrimination contrary to Section 13 of the Equality Act 2010: (1) A person (A) discriminates against another (B) if, because of a protected characteristic, A treats B less favourably than A treats or would treat others. however, the company may argue that they are taking positive action in line with Section 158 of the Act (emphasis mine): (1) This section applies if a person (P) reasonably thinks that— (a) persons who share a protected characteristic suffer a disadvantage connected to the characteristic, (b) persons who share a protected characteristic have needs that are different from the needs of persons who do not share it, or (c) participation in an activity by persons who share a protected characteristic is disproportionately low. (2) This Act does not prohibit P from taking any action which is a proportionate means of achieving the aim of— (a) enabling or encouraging persons who share the protected characteristic to overcome or minimise that disadvantage, (b) meeting those needs, or (c) enabling or encouraging persons who share the protected characteristic to participate in that activity. It is likely that they will be able to justify direct discrimination on the grounds of positive action. The Government's Explanatory Notes on the section express the intent of the legislation as such (emphasis mine): This clause provides that the Bill does not prohibit the use of positive action measures to alleviate disadvantage experienced by people who share a protected characteristic, reduce their under-representation in relation to particular activities, and meet their particular needs. It will, for example, allow measures to be targeted to particular groups, including training to enable them to gain employment, or health services to address their needs. Any such measures must be a proportionate way of achieving the relevant aim. A clear example is provided: Having identified that its white male pupils are underperforming at maths, a school could run supplementary maths classes exclusively for them. Furthermore, there is case law to establish that such positive action is entirely lawful: R (Adath Yisroel Burial Society and another) v Inner North London Senior Coroner [2018] EWHC 969 (Admin) (emphasis mine): Before leaving this topic we would stress that section 158 does not concern what is sometimes called “positive discrimination”; it is more limited and concerns only what the legislation calls “positive action”. In general “positive discrimination” is unlawful under the Equality Act. Therefore, as a matter of domestic law, prioritisation of some deaths for religious reasons would not be unlawful; to the contrary, it would be consistent with section 158. That position is mirrored in Convention jurisprudence. The point can be well illustrated by the decision in Jakóbski v Poland (2012) 55 EHRR 8. In that case the applicant was serving a prison sentence in Poland. He adhered strictly to the Mahayana Buddhist dietary rules and requested a vegetarian diet for that reason. This was not provided for him. The prison authorities stated that they were not obliged to prepare special meals for prisoners on the basis of religious belief as a matter of Polish law and that to do so would put excessive strain on them. The application before the court succeeded under Article 9. For that reason the Court did not consider it necessary to address separately the right to equal treatment in the enjoyment of Convention rights in Article 14 (to which we return below). However, in our view, the case of Jakóbski is a good illustration of the principle of equality at work in cases of this kind. What on its face looks like a general policy which applies to everyone equally may in fact have an unequal impact on a minority. In other words, to treat everyone in the same way is not necessarily to treat them equally. Uniformity is not the same thing as equality. While this judgement concerns itself with positive action on religious grounds, it has broad application to positive action on grounds of sex too, and would be consistent with Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights—namely that if the discrimination can be objectively and reasonably justified, it is lawful.	The answer is a clear maybe. The school has a set of rules and by not attending you have broken those rules. The rules may (probably do) allow for consideration of extenuating circumstances but, in general, it doesn't have to. There is probably an appeals process, you need to investigate this. That said, if there are no provisions for extenuating circumstances and/or no appeals process then this may make the contract "unconscionable"; in many jurisdictions this makes the contract void. That doesn't mean you get the marks; it means you get your money back. The circumstances of your court appearance matter: the school may grant special consideration if you are called as a juror or witness; they might not if you are a defendant. Ultimately you had a choice, to follow the rules of the court or the school; there are consequences either way.	Clause (c) says that while schools cannot generally restrict otherwise legal expressions by students, a school run by a religious organization can restrict such speech in terms of its tenets. It then becomes a matter of fact to be proven in court that the church has a particular tenet. So if you are asking whether it is correct that the religion exception is narrowly limited to contradictions of the religion's tenets, that is correct.	Maybe s158 of the Equality Act 2010 allows proportionate action to redress disadvantage, different needs or disproportionately low participation by people with a protected characteristic. For example, woman make up 16.5% of the UK’s engineers. Given they make up more than 50% of the population one could reasonably come to the conclusion that this is disproportionately low. If this was an engineering scholarship, this would fall within the exemption. In contrast, woman are 52% of UK lawyers - not a disproportionate number for either gender and not engaging the exemption. However, female judges are only 39%, arguably disproportionate, so if the course is a post-graduate one preparing people to enter the judiciary, that’s probably ok. Women are 75.5% of teachers, so a scholarship for male students in that profession is ok too.
Can police receive prison time for misconduct? Suppose that someone is a victim of police misconduct and the officer who was on duty at the time is eventually found guilty of police misconduct. Usually the victim walks out with award money (lawsuit or from suing an officer). Let's say the crime the officer committed was a felony or the victim isn't satisfied with the amount of money offered to them. Can they request that the alleged officer receive a (hefty) prison sentence rather than being awarded money of some kind? (Referring to U.S.)	There is no crime of "police misconduct" in the US, but murder or theft are certainly crimes which would qualify as "police misconduct". To take a real case, an officer in Georgia was convicted of aggravated assault, violating oath of office, and making a false statement (not murder, though he did kill the victim). In principle, he would also be liable in a lawsuit by the victim's family. However, these would be separate legal processes, the criminal prosecution being conducted by and at the discretion of the government prosecutor, and the monetary lawsuit being conducted by and at the discretion of the victim's family (on behalf of the victim). It is possible that an officer will be convicted yet not found civilly liable, or vice versa; or both, or neither. The victim (or family) doesn't necessarily have any connection to the criminal case, although they typically can testify during the sentencing phase. In some jurisdictions (e.g. California), the victim has a right to testify at a sentencing hearing. The result of a lawsuit can never be imprisonment – that has to come from criminal prosecution, and criminal prosecution does not result in a monetary reward to the victim (any criminal fine goes to the government).	More generally, but subject to the specifics of state law, a person may be required to assist a police officer. For instance in Alabama A person commits the crime of refusing to aid a peace officer if, upon command by a peace officer identified to him as such, he fails or refuses to aid such peace officer in: (1) Effecting or securing a lawful arrest; or (2) Preventing the commission by another person of any offense. In Washington, the obligations is much narrower: A person is guilty of refusing to summon aid for a peace officer if, upon request by a person he or she knows to be a peace officer, he or she unreasonably refuses or fails to summon aid for such peace officer. Washington seems to be in the minority, compared to Alabama.	A punishment is basically a harm to someone's person, liberty, dignity, or property imposed primarily for the purpose of harming someone, rather than to accomplish some non-punitive end such as apprehending a suspected criminal, securing compliance with a court order, exchanging truthful facts, or compensating someone for harm legally attributable to the person upon whom the act is imposed. If a police officer shoots and kills a person while they are in the process of committing a crime, that is not a punishment, because the officer is not trying to punish someone for committing the crime, but to prevent the crime from continuing and/or to apprehend the suspect. If the use of force is justified by a law authorizing it under the circumstances, then it is legal and there are no civil or criminal consequences. If the use of force is not justified by a law authorizing it under the circumstances it might be a crime, it might be a "tort" (i.e. a civil wrong for which you can sue someone, especially if it arises at common law), or it might be a civil rights violation. Law enforcement officers generally have broad absolute immunity from common law tort liability incurred the course of their duties in carrying out their jobs, and have "qualified immunity" from liability for civil rights violations which limits their liability to cases of intentional violations of clearly established constitutional rights. In a case arising from an excessive use of force against someone who is not in custody, generally speaking, the constitutional right violated is the 4th Amendment right to be free of unreasonable seizures and to be free from seizures that that are not supported by probable cause. Generally speaking, the law does not recognize an excessive use of force in connection with the criminal justice system as a "taking" for which there is a right to both due process and fair market value compensation (to somewhat oversimplify). Generally speaking, an 8th Amendment analysis involving the use of force (as opposed to taking of money or property in the criminal justice system which are subject to the excessive fines clause of the Bill of Rights), begins, and the 4th Amendment seizure analysis ends, when someone is in custody. A police officer who arrests someone and then beats them up or rapes them and then releases them, might be entering into 8th Amendment, rather than 4th Amendment territory, although the dividing lines are not always clear.	The General Rule In practice, the only time when self-defense against a police officer is legal is when you do not know and have no reasonable way that you could have known that the person attacking you is a police officer. (And arguably, a police officer acting in an official capacity in furtherance of his or her duties, rather than in a personal capacity as an individual.) For example, if the police do a no knock raid in the dark of night, and don't announce themselves, and you shoot police officers reasonably believing them to be home invasion burglars, you would not have criminal or civil liability for doing so. A similar valid self-defense claim might arise when someone has an objectively reasonable reason to think that someone claiming to be a police officer is really just a criminal impersonating a police officer, even if that belief is, in fact, mistaken. In almost all other circumstances, you need to submit to the officers, and you are pretty much required by law to bear the risk that excessive force by the officer will harm you. If you don't, you will probably be guilty of the crime of resisting arrest and will not be entitled to a self-defense defense. The fact that you are not actually guilty of a crime is irrelevant. This is often the case and police officers are not omniscient. If the officer lacked probable cause for an arrest (which there is often no way that the person being arrested or attacked can know at the time), the remedy is a civil rights suit after the fact, not self-defense. In theory, there might be other isolated circumstances where self-defense against a police officer is legal, but they involve fact patterns so quirky that they would almost never happen in real life, or would almost never be possible to prove in a manner that the courts would believe. Officer Liability For Harming Someone Legitimately Acting In Self Defense Whether the officers had civil liability to you if you were harmed by the officers while exercising your right to self-defense would depend upon their state of mind, even if you were rightfully using self-defense. For example, a U.S. Supreme Court case decided in January of 2017 (White v. Pauly) involved this fact pattern. In White v. Pauly an officer arrived late on the scene and had no reason to believe that the officers who arrived there before him and were being shot at by citizens in a house that they were approaching, lacked probable cause, or had not announced themselves. The court held that as a result, he had no civil liability to a citizen he shot, even if the person who the late arriving officer shot while that citizen was shooting back at the police officers on the scene was actually engaging in good faith self-defense. The citizen's self-defense in the case had a valid defense to criminal or civil liability for firing on the officers, because the citizen shooting back didn't actually know that the people approaching his house were police officers. But, because the late arriving officer reasonably believed under the circumstances that the citizen had no right to engage in self-defense, because he thought that the early arriving officers had probable cause and had announced themselves, the late arriving officer had no civil liability to the citizens he shot.	They are not given independence from statute. This clause just says that conviction is not the end goal of the prosecutor. If in light of the evidence, the prosecutor comes to believe a person is not guilty, they are not to proceed with the prosecution. They must not hide exculpatory or mitigating evidence in order to get a conviction.	Anyone found not guilty may apply to the judge to have his legal costs paid out of central funds; this is not automatic, but is usual if the court agrees that the charges should not have been brought. The amount payable is set out by regulations depending on where the case was heard; since October 2012 it has been set at legal aid rates, which are unlikely to cover a full defence team. Somebody who did not have a lawyer can charge for the time he himself spent on the case, but this is assessed at a standard rate similar to minimum wage, even if he happens to be an expensive lawyer. No compensation is payable for health or other problems incident on a criminal case; it is considered a part of the rule of law that charges will be brought against defendants, and that some of them will be found not guilty. It may, of course, be possible to sue the complainant for defamation or even to bring an action for malicious prosecution; a lawyer would have to advise on this, but the mere fact of acquittal is certainly not enough to found an action.	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.	There is no recourse The Pardon results in the pardoned person having no liability for the act, no matter if it was a crime or not, and no matter whether the pardon pre-dates a prosecution. There is no legal or political way to appeal a pardon. There isn't even a way to take back a pardon! As a result, the prosecutor or the next governor can do nothing.
What happens if a story is not copy righted If a person makes a story up and doesn't copyright it can anyone copy it and then copyright it themselves?	Copyright exists the instant the “story” is placed in “tangible” form Tangible form means written on paper or on a computer or recorded etc. In some jurisdictions, tangible form isn’t needed and a spoken piece has copyright protection even if it’s never recorded. It’s been that way virtually worldwide for at least 30 years since the US adopted that method in 1978.	If it was illegal to make the entire copy, it is illegal to copy half the file. See also, e.g., Basic Books v. Kinko's Graphics Corp., 758 F. Supp. 1522 (S.D.N.Y. 1991) In response to the question of whether moving it to someone else's servers makes a difference: it is the act of copying, not the possession of the copy, that is the violation of copyright law. As for the copy a service assists someone to make, contributory liability would be the issue. You don't need to be the person making the copies to be contributing to the infringement--material contribution to the copying process and knowledge of infringement run a serious risk of creating contributory liability. If seriously considering such a service as a business model someone would need to consult a copyright expert with technical knowledge or pay counsel with technical knowledge for a good bit of time to do some research. There are major civil and criminal consequences if the industry or the government decides to go after a service doing this, so legal expenses would be a significant and important cost of doing business that would significantly increase barriers to entry. In addition, the service would likely be in violation of its agreement with storage vendors, who would want to minimize their legal exposure and might well discontinue the service when they learned what it was doing.	You cannot create derivative works without permission of the copyright holder (even if you create it and keep it to yourself). Further, you cannot distribute derivative works without permission of the copyright holder. That's a general principle that always applies. Since there is a license, you need to read that license carefully and determine under which conditions you have permission to create derivative works, and to distribute them. Your book would be considered a derivative work. In some situations, like commenting on a work, parody and some others, you would have a defense if you are quoting tiny parts of the work. But generally, if you find it unfair that your 200 page needs to be licensed because you used two pages from an open source source, you either do without those two pages, or you find the author and ask for permission under a different license. Note that facts are not copyrightable. So if the wikipedia page contains facts and isn't just made up, you can read it ten times, memorise all the facts, and maybe tell the facts to someone who you pay to write a similar article.	I don't see how. Remember that a license is a contract where the author gives permission to copy (modify, redistribute, remix, etc) a copyrighted work, provided that the licensee fulfills the stated conditions. If the license is not in effect, then we revert to the default situation under copyright law, which is that the potential licensee has no rights to copy the work. (Not counting particular instances of copying which are permitted under fair use and similar exceptions - I presume that's not what you have in mind, or the whole question is moot.) In this case, the conditions include that the licensee must credit the author under their chosen pseudonym. The licensee can't get out of that obligation simply because they find it distasteful or objectionable for whatever reason. If they don't want to do it, then they should not accept the license in the first place, and so refrain from copying the work. (Of course, if the author is offering the CC license in hopes of encouraging reuse of the work, then this may not be a desirable outcome for the author, so they might want to think twice about their choice of pseudonym.) Even if the author's pseudonym were something that would actually be illegal to quote (say, because it is obscene), I don't think it lets the licensee off the hook. A contract with illegal terms is void, so legally it is as if there is no license at all, and we revert to the default in which there is no right to copy. A question was raised in comments about the word "reasonable". I don't know of case law where this has been tested, so I can only speculate: The context suggests that "reasonable" is intended to refer to the means of attribution (for instance, where the attribution should appear in a piece of source code or documentation), not to the pseudonym. There's a legal principle that the specific governs over the general, and the requirement to credit the author by a particular pseudonym is clearly more specific than the general requirement of "reasonableness". It seems clear that the author, who is the one offering these terms, didn't intend for the general term "reasonable" to render meaningless their request for the use of a specific pseudonym; if they had, why would they have bothered to put it in? On the flip side, there's the principle of contra proferentem, that ambiguities in a contract should be resolved in the favor of the party that didn't draft it - here, the licensee. But it's hard to argue that this is really ambiguous; it seems quite clear what the author wants. Of course, the author can circumvent the whole issue, if they're worried, by licensing the work instead under a modified version of the CC license in which the word "reasonable" is removed. After all, there is nothing particular magical about CC's language: the contract is whatever the author and the licensee agree to, and they're just using the pre-written CC license as a convenience to streamline their negotiations.	This is known as "film novelization"(For example, the novelizations of the Star Wars movies are film novelizations, created under license), and is copyright infringement unless made under a license from the copyright holder. Specifically, you would be making a derivative work of the original, by changing the medium. One of the rights provided by copyright is the right to control the transference from one medium into another. This, in my (non-lawyer) opinion, is unlikely to be found as fair use. There are four test factors for determining fair use(source), decided on a case by case basis: Transformative Character of the Derivative Work: Unlikely to be found in your favor, as nothing is transformed ("I don't change anything, the name are the same, everything is the same, it's just a conversion to textual form"). Nature of the Original Work: A narrative entertainment film, thus unlikely to be found in your favor. Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Taken: You've taken all of it; not in your favor. Effect on the Potential Market: You are essentially providing a free version of what copyright holders can often charge for; negative effect on their potential market. Not in your favor.	In the US, copyright is granted automatically when content is created, so party A owns the copyright to the work. Party B has filed a fraudulent copyright registration, attempting to claim ownership of a work they did not create and do not own. This does not give them ownership rights to the work. Party A may need to go to court to prove their ownership of the work and have the copyright office issue a cancellation of copyright registration, since party B should not be the registered copyright holder of the work. In theory, one cannot register a copyright they do not own in the first place, and B's fraudulent registration does not somehow grant them legal rights to the original work. Of course, this will be a matter for the courts to decide.	It would be terribly risky for you to simply link another company's terms of service. What if they take their server down? What if they change their terms? You would not even know when exactly the changes were made. Copying their terms means you might run into copyright issues on the text. Either pay a lawyer to write your ToS for you, or see if you can find something in the public domain.	It is not possible to say that this is generally fair use, although sometimes it would be. A copy for personal use is still a copyright right violation on its face, and fair use does not categorically exclude non-commercial or personal use of copyrighted works. It is a highly fact specific inquiry. The likelihood of anyone discovering that you have done so and deciding to sue over it is slight, but that doesn't mean that there isn't potential copyright infringement liability. Compare this to speeding. People do it all the time, and even driving one mile per hour above the speed limit is still a traffic violation. But it is rare for less serious violations to be ticketed.
Missed flight, can we take the airline to court to claim money to rebook remaining flights? A couple of weeks ago me and my partner went on holiday. We had booked with Thai Airways and had a multi-part ticket. London -> Bangkok, Bangkok -> Tokyo, Osaka -> London (via Bangkok) On the day of the Bangkok to Tokyo flight (Nov 17th), I had food poisoning, we got to the airport, but I was constantly throwing up and severely dehydrated, so we saw the airport doctor, they ruled me not fit to fly and sent me to the hospital in an ambulance, my partner stayed with me the entire time. Whilst at the airport doctor's, one of the nurses took our flight information and went up to inform Thai that we wouldn't be able to make the trip (this was about 4 hrs before the flight was due), unfortunately there wasn't anybody manning the check-in desk so they weren't able to notify them, however they said they would return later to let them know. I sent an e-mail to Thai the following morning (Nov 18th) when I was no longer incapacitated checking whether the remaining flights were still valid. The morning after that (Nov 19th), I received a call from Thai at 9am at the hospital saying that unless we rebooked our tickets (with a new Bangkok to Tokyo flight) at a cost of £1000 each (the original ticket cost us ~£740 each) by 11am, all our remaining flights would be cancelled. We believe the airport doctor notified Thai (in Thai's T&C it states if they are informed prior to the flight they won't cancel the remaining flights), though we don't have any physical evidence. We could have booked a flight to Tokyo by ourselves for aprox £300 each on the day. Would there be any room for us to take Thai Airways to court to reclaim the £2000 we had to pay?	No You missed the flight. Thai is not responsible for your acts and omissions. As for the check in desk, they are often unmanned, however, Thai have an email address and a telephone number that is manned 24/7. I am surprised that you couldn’t find any Thai airlines staff in all of Bangkok airport given that it is their home base. This is precisely what travel insurance is for. Assuming that the fee was correctly charged under the contract terms in the relevant circumstances you have no right to have it waived. Thai might waive it gratuitously if you ask but they don’t have to.	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.	Normally the statute of limitations is five or six years (I think it's different between Scotland and the rest of the UK). The reason for the limitation is that if your employer asks for money back, you obviously should be able to defend yourself, for example by proving that you never received that money. After five or six years it is assumed that you wouldn't be able to provide any such evidence, so nobody can ask for the money back anymore. That's not specific to overpaid wages but quite general. In addition there is the question whether the pilots should have known they were overpaid. For example, I'm quite happy with my salary, but if it was less, I would look for and find a different job that pays better. If the company claimed in five years time that I had been overpaid all the time, then I would say that if they had given me the "correct" lower payment, I would have found a better job elsewhere, so asking me to repay the money seems quite unfair. (Why do you need to defend yourself? Maybe your salary was £3,000 per month. Someone in the right position records that they are paying you £4,000 but puts £3,000 into your account and £1,000 into their own. Then that person has an accident and their replacement finds that you were overpaid according to their records.)	UK seat belt law is here. What you were doing is illegal and carries a fine of £500. As to your specific questions: How illegal is this? It is not a criminal offence in any way. What is the possibility of me getting caught? If a police officer notices you will almost certainly be booked. What is the possibility of being noticed? Depends where you are. If I'm caught what fines and / or penalties can I expect? £500 What's the absolute worst that could happen as a consequence of my actions? You could crash and your passengers could die, you would then go to jail for dangerous driving occasioning death. Having 2 people in a seat belt is extremely hazardous - it would be far safer (but still illegal) to have one person in the seat belt and the other one unrestrained. Could it be possible for me to get away with a warning? No Could I get my licence revoked? (:/) Seat belts offences do not carry a points penalty so, of itself, it would not lead to loss of your licence.	No Let's consider a similar scenario. If you made a beverage which poisoned a number of people, would you be absolved of liability because you gave it away for free? Of course not. As there is no contract between you, they would have to bring an action against you in the tort of negligence or negligent misstatement OR under consumer protection law. To succeed at tort they would need to prove that you owed them a duty of care; from Donoghue v Stevenson "You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonable foresee would be likely to injure ... persons who are so closely and directly affected by my act that I ought reasonably have them in contemplation ...". Most cases will founder on your inability to foresee the use to which your software may be put. Consumer law is jurisdiction specific but they generally contain warranties that what you provide (gratis or otherwise) is fit for purpose, merchantable and that you do not make false and misleading statements. There is a chance that a case brought under this sort of law could succeed as you have not limited the purpose, specifically declared that it is not of merchantable quality and have (presumable) said what it does so that, if it doesn't do what you said, you have been misleading and deceptive.	Yes, the correct forum is the Local Court in the relevant state (in some states these are called Magistrate's Courts). The amount is too large ($10,000) to qualify as a small claim . If you want to do it yourself the court websites are very informative and in NSW, at least, the process can be initiated online including your paying for the Sheriff to serve the summons (they will not find the person, you have to give them an address). After being served they have 28 days to file a defence or you can get a default judgement and begin recovery. If they do file a defence then things will get more expensive. Of course, you may want to hire a local lawyer.	If you innocently took the oven glove by mistake there is no possibility of criminal consequences. Now that you know it is not yours, you must return it as soon as possible. You may be liable for the losses caused by taking the glove, and that could extend as far as some fraction of the cost of a replacement glove if they have already replaced it. You cannot (legally) hold his glove hostage for the return of your desk. Deciding which glove is which is tricky. Given the cost of new oven gloves, I would go round with both and ask him which is his. Even if he takes the nicer one which isn't his, you are only down a few dollars. The messy hall should be a separate question (and risks being closed as asking for specific legal advice - I think you need your own paid-for lawyer for that).	It appears you would need to contact the Calgary courts directly to discover more about the case(s) as any case files will likely be held with them. It's possible that the case was dropped, or that they were found "not guilty" which would explain the lack of further news on them. I searched the Canadian Legal Information Institute's website for you but wasn't able to find any criminal cases involving them — only some civil cases around bankruptcy and creditor claims.
Court referring to resources barely available to the general public As a pro se litigant I have come across a judge referring in their minutes to a resource which is barely available to the general public. It is a loose leaf written by lawyers for lawyers on peculiarities of civil procedure which is constantly updated. The cheapest option to get access to it is to pay $2k yearly subscription to the publisher. This price itself is not even publicly available. The publisher's website states "POA" (price on application), and I had to submit two POA requests plus a support request to finally get the offer. I also tried public libraries. Some have that resource but outdated, and they no longer subscribe to it. It is understandable that: Pro se litigation is not very common; and Lawyers are all subscribed to those kind of resources. Still, representing yourself in court is a right, as is the right of natural justice. Does this not mean that there should be a right of access to whatever resources the judicial decisions that affect you refer to? Or would that $2k subscription fall into the category of litigation costs that I would be able to claim if I win? Alternatively, could I perhaps seek that, instead of referring to a high-paywall resource, the judge refers to whatever underlying cases/laws the referenced provision is based on? Answers for any English-centric jurisdiction are welcome, though specifically interested in New Zealand.	It is not the court's function to educate you in the law and civil procedure. If you don't know then the onus is on you to learn at whatever cost that comes at in time and money. You have a right to justice - you don't have a right to zero cost justice. Just like having a right to bear arms doesn't entitle you to a free gun.	I'm not going to comment on the specifics of this law; rather, I think this question shows a misconception of the way the legal system works in general. Here's the question: do you actually have "legally privileged" material on your phone? If not, what's keeping you from claiming that is that it's not true, and lying to a police officer is a bad idea. And just putting a letter from your lawyer on the phone doesn't mean you've established a legal privilege--attorney-client privilege is not a magic spell, it's a reasonable system of protection that only covers certain communications. The bottom line is: the statute in general, and that clause in particular, were included in the law to protect real, important, and substantial legal right. The courts interpret the law in light of that purpose. If the police officer finds a solution that protects your rights while still carrying out the purpose of the statute, the court will be unlikely to fault him or her. In this case, if you tell the officer that there is a letter from your attorney in a particular folder, the obvious solution is for the officer not to open that folder. Problem solved. In practice, in the United States at least, these cases are dealt with routinely; computers are seized, and attorneys and judges work together to ensure that privilege is protected while still allowing reasonable access to seized materials. I would imagine the same is true in the U.K. The bottom line is: the law is not a game, and technical "gotchas" are rarely effective. Common law systems allow judges enough leeway to avoid this sort of pointless technicality.	Generally, a managing member of an LLC cannot speak for the LLC in court. The LLC needs to hire a licensed lawyer to do that. The general rule is that entities may not represent themselves "pro se" through non-lawyer officers and must have a licensed attorney represent them in any court matter (in practice, a court will usually allow an officer or manager to write a letter to the court asking for a brief extension of time to a deadline to obtain a proper lawyer, even though that is logically inconsistent). If an entity does not hire a lawyer, a default judgment will enter against it. In other words, a CEO or manager or managing member of a company isn't allowed to speak for it in court. This rule is almost universal in the world of legal systems descended from English common law, although sometimes there are narrow statutory exceptions. The manager of an LLC is a person to whom legal process may be directed to begin a lawsuit, but that isn't the same as representing the LLC in court. Wyoming does have an exception to the general rule for small claims court cases at Wyoming Statutes § 1-21-202(b), which states: Notwithstanding the provisions of Chapter 5 of Title 33 of the Wyoming Statutes, in small claims court, the state, governmental entities, natural persons, corporations, partnerships, associations or other organizations may litigate actions on behalf of themselves in person or through authorized employees, with or without an attorney, provided that if an attorney appears, the opposing party is entitled to a continuance for the purpose of obtaining an attorney of its own. Keep in mind, however, that small claims court only governs claims of $6,000 or less, and only in cases where the Plaintiff has elected to file a suit using small claims court procedures. I note that this question is tagged "small claims court" but it isn't clear from the circumstances set forth in the question whether this is merely a claim for a small amount of money or is truly a claim that was filed using the special small claims court procedures in which an attorney is not required. Wyoming Statutes § 33-5-101 et seq. is the law regulating attorneys which prohibits the unauthorized practice of law that is the basis for the general rule at Wyoming Statutes § 33-5-117 which states: It shall be unlawful, and punishable as contempt of court, for any person not a member of the Wyoming state bar to hold himself out or advertise by whatsoever means as an attorney or counselor-at-law. This statute isn't perfectly clear on its face, but is understood to codify the universal common law rule so it isn't ambiguous in any way.	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."	That is a bit of queer provision. I'm not going to answer your first question because I think that it is a gray area with no definitive answer. In answer to your second question, my strong suspicion is that it is drafted in the shadow of a particular state consumer protection act. An arbitration clause is allowed to change your procedural rights, but cannot change substantive rights that cannot be waived by a pre-dispute contractual agreement. If it does that, it is void and you can go to court instead of an arbitration forum. Many consumer protection laws provide that a prevailing party is entitled to minimum statutory damages in lieu of actual damages if they are smaller, in addition to your reasonable attorneys' fees and litigation costs if you prevail. This is done to make it economically viable for private citizens to sue over violations of the consumer protection law that would otherwise involve actual damages too small to be worth suing over, without having to bring a class action. If the relevant consumer protection law has a minimum $5,000 statutory damages amount for some claims covered by the clause, this clause would prevent it from being invalidated, while allowing the merchant to still have access to the consumer unfriendly arbitration forum in which class action lawsuits are probably also barred while class action lawsuits would not be in court. For a big merchant, it is far better to have to pay $5,000 and attorneys' fees to the handful of people who bring arbitrations and win them, than to lose a single class action lawsuit for millions of dollars.	This is very, very weird. I've never heard of a case like this one. Is there some context that could explain why anyone would refile a divorce someplace new twelve years after getting divorced the first time around? The logical thing to do if Canadian civil procedure is at all analogous to U.S. civil procedure on this point, would be to have a Canadian lawyer file a motion in the Canadian divorce case to set aside the judgment on the extraordinary grounds that you were not married any longer at the time that the 2015 divorce was filed, seeking to set aside the 2015 case ruling. In most U.S. jurisdictions with civil procedural rules modeled on the federal rules of civil procedure (California's are not), this would be a motion under Rule of Civil Procedure 60, but obviously, the Canadian rule numbering would probably be different. Alternatively, if the home is in California, you could bring an action for declaratory judgment declaring that the Canadian judgment is invalid because it was brought in a divorce action between people who were already divorced and probably also lacked jurisdiction over you and the property. I'm not sure what you mean by CPL in this context. Normally, in a real estate context, a CPL would mean a "closing protection letter", but in the context you are using it, it sounds like you are referring to something akin to a lis pendens or a lien. Perhaps you mean a "certificate of pending litigation" which is another name of a lis pendens in at least some Canadian jurisdictions (but is terminology rarely used in the U.S.). This sounds like slander of title, or "abuse of process" or the filing of what is known as a spurious lien, any of which are actionable, but without knowing what a CPL actually is, it is hard to know.	united-states You may be confusing the right to an attorney if you cannot afford one that is applicable only in CRIMINAL cases, not civil cases like you are discussing. You may be able to get an attorney to take your case on a contingency basis but there are two things to keep in mind: The attorney has to have some expectation that the case is winnable. The amount to be recovered must be worth the risk of taking on this case. In other words, for the attorney it's more of a business question that a legal one. Many attorneys will give you a free 30 minute, more or less, consultation. Perhaps you might give that a try.	Here is a substantial collection of interpretive canons; this article discusses rules vs. canons. This article discusses contract interpretation from both the perspectives of drafting and litigating. These are all from the perspective of common law systems. This article (in English) and this chapter (English, paywall) reminds us that French contract law is different, to which I would add this which focuses on the French subjective theory of contracts – starkly distinct from the common law theory. This page (en français) will probably be of most interest to you. The 2016 modification to the civil code added art. 1190 (and other articles) which says Dans le doute, le contrat de gré à gré s'interprète contre le créancier et en faveur du débiteur, et le contrat d'adhésion contre celui qui l'a proposé which is contra proferentem. The Latin name is not officially assigned to this law, and being a new addition to French law, it's too early to tell if it will be so named in French legal practice.
Why is it common for settlment agreements to be confidential? I've noticed a lot of settlement agreements have confidentiality clauses, stating that the terms and facts of the settlement agreement can't be disclosed. Why would someone want to do this? It seems overall unfair in the sense that if someone else is in a similar situation why shouldn't they seek a similar outcome? From what I've seen this is more common in the US than other places. Here's an example I found from docracy.com https://www.docracy.com/4488/settlement-agreement	You reach a settlement instead of a judge deciding a court case if both sides agree that a settlement is better for them than paying court costs, lawyers cost, the risk of losing, having embarrassing details published, distraction for a business, waste of time, and the stress of a court case. If the plaintiff wants to be able to publish details of the case, there is a lot less reason for the defendant to enter a settlement agreement. You complain that third parties miss out on possible information. That’s exactly why it isn’t there, because the defendant doesn’t want it to be there. The defendant might offer “I’ll give you $ 1,000 if you agree not to say a word about the case.” If the plaintiff says “I want $ 1,000 and tell the world about what happened”, then the defendant will likely say “take our offer, or take us to court and our lawyers will do their best so you get nothing”. The defendant will just not offer the kind of settlement you are looking for. And the plaintiff will do what is best for them, not what is best for anyone else. You have to remember that a settlement cannot be forced upon both sides, it must be something that both sides agree on. It's easiest to agree if you give the other side what they want if it doesn't cost you much, and then get things that you value more in return. As a plaintiff, not telling the world about the case is something that costs me nothing, but may have high value for the defendent. On the other hand, I value cash from the defendent a lot, while the defendent may be rich and can easily afford it. Because both sides have to agree, the terms are likely to incorporate something that both sides want.	Yes. This is legal. The only possible liability for a truthful and accurate disclosure of fact is a defamation action (in the absence of a privacy clause in the contract) and this is truthful so it would not violate anyone's legal rights. Credit reporting agencies routinely collect such information and court actions to collect unpaid debts are also a matter of public record. Credit reporting agencies in this business also have some additional obligations (such as the obligation to remove an entry after a period of time and an obligation to present rebuttal statements from the person affected). But, you should understand that merely publicly sharing truthful information about a factual matter is not really what a "blacklist" means. Normally, a blacklist includes an implied understanding that certain actions will be taken as a result of placement on the list rather than merely sharing information for what it is worth. An example of a law prohibiting a true blacklist from Colorado is the following: § 8-2-110. Unlawful to publish blacklist No corporation, company, or individual shall blacklist, or publish, or cause to be blacklisted or published any employee, mechanic, or laborer discharged by such corporation, company, or individual, with the intent and for the purpose of preventing such employee, mechanic, or laborer from engaging in or securing similar or other employment from any other corporation, company, or individual. Incidentally, I'm not convinced that the statute would be constitutional if enforced under modern First Amendment jurisprudence, although one U.S. District court case from 1971 did uphold its validity in the face of a somewhat different kind of challenge. Resident Participation, Inc. v. Love, 322 F. Supp. 1100 (D. Colo. 1971).	Fun one! First on the question of whether it matters if the agreement is written, I don't imagine it would make a difference in most of the US. We only require written contracts for agreements that meet certain requirements, those include contracts over a certain dollar amount, contracts involving the sale of land and contracts that cannot be completed within the year. Depending on the facts of your hypo, the writing requirement may be in play, but either way, it doesn't really make the situation more or less interesting; it's not a unique issue to this sort of contract. Second, the baseline assumption is that people can form legally binding contracts. The question is, whether something forbids the sort of contract you have in mind. I can think of a few things: It would be reasonably challenging to define what conduct is forbidden by the agreement. But that is merely a challenge not a road block. You could easily come up with a laundry list of forbidden acts to accomplish your result. Two people cannot contract to force the behavior of a third person, barring special circumstance. But again this isn't important since it's just a matter of drafting. In other words the contract probably would not say Juliet cannot go to the movies with Romeo, rather it would say Romeo cannot go the movies with Juliet. Even drafted in the less ideal way, he operative concept is whether the father could enforce a breach. So, the contract COULD be worded to say "If Juliet attends a movie while Romeo is present, Romeo must pay the father $xx dollars." Most importantly a party cannot form a contract that violates public policy. This is sometimes referred to "legality of objects", as in the object/goal of the contract must be legal. Contracts for prostitution, or the sale of a child (i.e. certain adoption contracts), or illegal products, would likely trip over this category. Here however, I can't readily think of a public policy basis to challenge the contract. Surely (some) states have stated a public policy favoring marriage, but it would likely be a challenge to contend the contract to not date (or not marry) was void because of such a policy. I can't think of any reason that the father couldn't enforce this sort of agreement. Finally, even if the contract was not enforceable, it's highly likely that Romeo could not simply take the money and breach. There are basis to demand return of the money even if no enforceable agreement exists. I am not your lawyer. Seek counsel from a lawyer in your area before taking any action. This answer is provided without research and for purely academic reasons. I have no special knowledge of this area of law.	There may be jurisdictional differences, but this link gives a thorough summary based on US interpretations. In short, privacy is an expectation based on common law while confidentiality is an ethical duty - usually (but not exclusively) part of a professional interaction. For correspondence where the sender wishes to show that they are aware of their ethical responsibility and that they also recognise that the addressee would have an expectation of privacy, both are often written.	In general, the express terms of the lease signed supersede all prior negotiations of the parties, except to the extent that the particular language in question in the lease is ambiguous. This is called the parol evidence rule (which is the law in all U.S. jurisdictions although it has been expressly rejected in Israel). The parol evidence rule expressly makes a written agreement supersede a verbal agreement, rather than making them equally valid. Also, even if both agreements had been written, generally speaking, the last and final version of the agreement will supersede earlier versions of the agreement. The best defense would be along the lines of fraud-in-factum or fraudulent inducement, i.e. that this term was slipped into the final draft in a manner expressly intended to mislead the signing party about what was being signed. I've won one case where this happened (where there was extensive email correspondence between business lawyers regarding the changes that would be made in each draft and there the version signed did not correspond to the last version signed electronically in a very long document on paper and there were other indicia of fraud), but by far the more common outcome is to bind the party signing the document (especially in a commercial context) and to consider failing to carefully read all terms of the final draft to be negligent on the part of the party signing the contract. Arguably, there might also be a malpractice claim against the lawyer for the tenant for missing this change in a material term before the contract was signed.	Attorneys are universally required to tell the truth at all times and generally, they do. They are not allowed to lie on behalf of their clients or themselves. This doesn't mean that someone else's attorney necessarily has your best interests at heart. And, attorneys can, for example, fail to mention options that exist, but might not be the best for the attorney's client. Also, if an attorney's client lies to him or her about the facts, the attorney could conceivably say something inaccurate while believing it to be true. In the kind of meeting you are describing, however, most likely, the attorneys are simply going to explain your parents' estate plan, over which you have no control or say in any case, and there is no reason for suspicion or paranoia.	The other answers don't quite spell it out, so I will. There is no law in the UK requiring landlords or their agents to show a property to all parties interested - refusal to show a property may however in some cases fall under discrimination laws, so that might be something you can pursue if you feel the refusal is due to your gender, race or sexual orientation. While they may have to justify their data collection under the GDPR, that is entirely separate to their refusal to show the property to you.	Let's say the trustee runs into a situation where the beneficiary demands some action, and the trustee thinks this action is a really, really bad idea. Then the trustee can either say "no". Or the trustee can say "yes" and be liable (so if the action is a really bad idea then the trustee won't do this). The trustee can NOT say "yes if you sign this paper that I'm not liable for the result of this action", because the job of the trustee is to protect the beneficiary and he wouldn't be doing that.
Altering an employment contract prior to signing So in this SE question the op has had verbal agreement of renumeration during the interview, however the offer letter and contract, state that pay info will be provided after starting with the company. Now this makes the company sound either sloppy, or suspect AF. But let's put to the side for now. Would it be: 1. Legal 2. A good or bad idea to Make an amendment to the contract? Something like, add a clause with something like: "Annual salary will be $<Amount verbally discussed>, and going foward, can be adjusted by mutual agreement"	Can you amend a contract? Yes. Depending on the complexity of the contract and the part(s) you wish you change/add/delete/correct, you may wish to amend a contract or rewrite a new contract. Should you choose to amend, you have options. Before Signed: The easiest way to amend a contract that has been printed and is awaiting signature is to pencil in a change and have both parties to it initial the written-in change. This occurs all the time and can be for substantive items or to correct typographical errors. That said, technically, this is not an "amendment" to the contract. As noted in a comment on your question, to unilaterally alter the document and send it back for approval would amount to a rejection of the an offer and a counter-offer. After Signed: This solution applies mostly to contracts between private parties, but not necessarily only to them. In business contracts, the terms will often contain the method by which the contract may be amended. An example that appears often is a requirement to make amendments signed and in writing. Lists of best practices on various websites include typing the amendment out on a separate document, labeling it distinctly as an amendment to the existing contract, indicate that the change contained in the new document is the only change being made to the original contract, and, of course, both parties must sign and date the amendment. Would it be a good idea or a bad idea to make an amendment to the contract? Unclear; possibly. Whether it's the contract in the question you linked to or any other contract, the answer to this question will be specific to the factual issues related to the contract and the change being contemplated and the answer may not be the same for both parties. So, there really isn't a general answer to this question.	Unless your lease clearly denies the possibility of prorating, the emails are binding (and yes, emails count as in writing). The landlord ought to honor the conditions outlined in the emails, and it is not your fault that the manager was ignorant about his or her employer's/landlord's policies at the time the manager computed the prorated amount. Additionally, if the lease only speaks in terms of 20-day notice, then it implies that prorating may apply. It is possible that the lease contains language in the sense of when the notice becomes "effective". If so, that would require a more detailed review of the language therein, since even in that scenario you might prevail on the basis of the doctrine of contra proferentem. Here the difficult part seems to be that you are not in the US. Because the amount at issue is not high enough, the grievance/complaint would have to be filed in Small Claims court. And, as far as I know, the parties cannot be represented by a lawyer in Small Claims court. You might have to file your grievance once you are back in the US.	I assume that you arranged a contract with some company which paid the contractor the full amount, and not you have to pay that company. If you stop paying the finance company, they will initiate legal proceedings against you to make good on your obligation, and that won't affect what the contractor does. It might not hurt you to write a formal letter (no phone calls) to the contractor stating that you require them to complete the job by some date certain, and hope that you won't have to take the matter to court. If you decide to write the letter yourself, you want to avoid saying anything that could be held against your interest, for example "I don't care how crappy a job you do, I just want this job done!": you need to be sure that what you say in a letter does not put you at a legal disadvantage. The best way to guarantee that is to hire an attorney to write the letter. If you want your money back (plus interest), you will almost certainly need to hire an attorney to write the letter. It is possible that there is an arbitration clause in your contract, requiring you to settle disputes with the firm Dewey, Cheatham & Howe. In that case, your attorney might not be able to do much for you. There cannot be a clause in a contract that penalizes you simply for hiring an attorney.	One of the principles of contract law is that the offer and acceptance are evaluated based on the objectively ascertainable intentions as judged by a reasonable person. On the facts that you have provided - even if your friend claims that they filled it out wrong, there is no reason for someone to objectively think so, particularly given the fact that they went to the trouble of writing the information in. However, this will depend on what kind of legally binding document this is. If it is, in fact, a contract, then the employer must accept it before it becomes legally binding, and they must actually communicate this acceptance to your friend (the offeror). If this is a policy document, then it is only legally binding if another contract has said that it is legally binding - generally, (smart) employers will include a clause in their employment contract stating that you are to adhere to policies but that those policies do not form part of the contract. If that is the case, then your friend is legally bound by the terms of the policy and will breach their employment contract if they do not adhere to this policy. This is unlikely to be an issue of contract law in and of itself - your friend cannot unilaterally bind their employer to terms as he sees fit. More information - including the nature of the document and other agreements that were made - would be required to provide more useful information (and that's what you would give to a lawyer).	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.	Generally a signature is binding even if you have not read the document you have signed; as far as the law is concerned you should have and it's too bad for you if you didn't. Of course, this presumes the contract is otherwise valid. In the circumstances you describe you should ask to see the document before signing. If that is not possible, then instead of signing you should write "I do not agree" instead and take the printed statement - only 1 in 100 people will actually check that you did sign. If you have signed and do not wish to be bound, you should contact the company immediately in writing and say that and that they can collect whatever goods they have supplied.	The Company is performing wage theft I have never heard of a wage method that pays a salary according to hours but doens't pay for hours over 40. Monthly Salary, by definition, is paid regardless of hours. Your contract doesn't give hours, it just gives a monthly total. That's a contract, and you should be paid according to the contract. In terms of fairness, it certainly isn't right to dock pay for weeks you worked less than 40 but not give you credit for weeks you wored more than 40. Now, it's not clear if you moved to direct employment for the second month. If you did, the first month would be a contract violation, and the second would be a violation of wage & labor law. A company can't pay you salary as an exempt (exempt from hourly wage laws, like management) employee and also dock you pay according to hours worked. So what can you do? If you are still a contractor and actually want the job, not much more than arguing with payroll. Since you (why?) decided to be a contractor instead of a direct hire, you have exactly zero protections to getting let go. If you are a direct employee, you have protections from bringing action about being paid fairly, though your long-term prospects there would be problematic if you have to take the company to task using the government. Any HR rep should know all of the above. But never just go to HR without talking to your manager first. Remember that HR works for management, and working against your manager is generally a bad career move.	They can ask, but there is nothing in law - that I can find - which obligates an answer. (There may be some exceptions that require a previous employer to provide a reference which might include this detail, but that does not appear relevant here.) As an aside, there is an ongoing #EndSalaryHistory campaign by the Fawcett Society which is focused on equal pay and sexual equality in the workplace, and they are calling on employers to: stop asking salary history questions...
Would it be illegal to sell a drone defense system to a nation under an arms embargo? Will it be illegal to sell anti-drone systems to any nation like Gaza? Because it's not a weapon system, it's more like a defensive technology. Would it still violate an arms embargo?	In the US, it is illegal to sell screwdrivers to Gaza without a license, see 31 CFR 595.409. There are numerous rules pertaining to the Palestinian Authority staring here. Dept. of State has a partial list of countries and their associated restrictions, if you want "like Gaza", and note that they warn you that this is not a complete list. If you are specifically interested in weapons-related restrictions, the US Munitions List is here. There is no generic "anti-drone" system, so you would have to look at the specifics of a system to see if it is on the restricted list, or not.	Is it legal in the UK to 3D print a firearm design if it is made impossible to fire? Maybe, maybe not If the result is merely a toy, trinket etc then there is no offence per se. However it will be unlawful if it meets the definition at s.57 of the Firearms Act 1968 of a firearm, or used as an "imitation firearm" to commit any number of offences in the Act: (1) "firearm” means- (a) a lethal barrelled weapon ... (c) a relevant component part in relation to a lethal barrelled weapon ... 3(1B) In subsection (1)(a), “lethal barrelled weapon” means a barrelled weapon of any description from which a shot, bullet or other missile, with kinetic energy of more than one joule at the muzzle of the weapon, can be discharged. (4)(b)...“imitation firearm” means any thing which has the appearance of being a firearm ... whether or not it is capable of discharging any shot, bullet or other missile	There may be a purpose to have laws which are impossible to follow. (I'm neither a lawyer nor a politician, following points are what I like to call qualified hearsay - they come from qualified people I know personally but were given as a remark or during a chat over a cup of coffee and therefore are not easily substantiable with rigorous sources. You can treat them as a hypothetical ideas for your thought experiments.) Everybody is implicitly guilty Confident citizens and transparent law is the worst enemy of totalitarian regime. You learn to live with ingrained feeling that there surely is something you are guilty of. Merely being addressed by police makes you nervous and malleable; should you stand up against oppression, it is easy for the state apparat to detain or convict you of one or more default offenses. A good example would be the law present in many, if not all, socialist bloc countries saying that knowing of a comrade having commited an offense or merely planing to and not reporting it to authorities is an offense in itself. Whether you did or did not know would be determined by the authorities. Make your laws very strict with a hope thay they will be followed at least to a degree Not laws in themselves, but standards (technical norms) regarding nuclear power stations in the former Soviet Union were strict to the point where they were technically impossible to follow given the state of the art. For example the standards for manufacture of high pressure pipes would state very low level of material impurities that when the actual manufactured material contained twice the level of impurities the pipe will still be very safe to operate. In a centrally planned economy with ever more ambitious production projections and declared zero need for contingency this was one of several ways how to create a bit of a wiggle room. (Source: I once worked for a nuclear power research institute supporting Soviet technology and was told this by an expert on stainless steel.) So there you have a bit of an illustration what may happen if a law is intentionally impossible to follow. Since you labelled your question 'United States', I believe the follow-up question is why would anyone want to propose such a law.	The relevant regulations in 49 CFR 1540 refer to weapons, not firearms, and unless you are specifically permitted, you cannot carry a weapon in your carry-on luggage. The interpretation of "weapon" is given here, which says Weapons are objects that may be used to attack another. TSA considers an item to be a weapon under 49 CFR 1540.111 if it is created for use as a weapon or is so similar to an item created as a weapon that it appears to be, or is easily used as, a weapon. Weapons include firearms, as well as realistic replicas of firearms that may reasonably be thought to be actual weapons. Such realistic replicas are prohibited because their similarity in appearance to real weapons may allow them to be used to intimidate passengers and flight crew. The screener has the discretion to determine when a replica is so realistic that it should be prohibited. Other toy weapons will be allowed in the sterile areas and cabin. Partial weapons and parts of weapons also are prohibited because they may be carried separately by collaborators for assembly subsequent to entry or boarding. In addition, partial weapons may appear to be operative and could be used to intimidate passengers and flight crew.	This would not be terribly unusual and would probably be enforceable. An NDA's restrictions would almost always survive the term of the agreement and keeping what you promised not to disclose secret forever would be a pretty common default. If you inherit nuclear missile designs in an old trunk from your grandfather from when he worked for a defense contractor, you can't give them to a terrorist group either. There is not "standard" NDA, but there are provisions which are more common to include in some form and those that are less common. If it was breached, there would be a statute of limitations running from the discovery of the breach to file suit, however. Also, damages would be minimal if the confidential information became outdated, for example, because the business in question ceased to exist a couple of decades ago, and no one would spend the money to enforce it.	Legally there is no problem. What you say is protected speech under the 1st Amendment as long as it is either true or a matter of opinion. However Ron Beyer's comment is a good one; while legal this sounds very inadvisable. You would be far better off hiring a lawyer. The Mr Dicks of this world make money from the widespread fear of legal action. He will probably fold as soon as he sees a letter from a lawyer threatening a lawsuit. Until then stalling doesn't cost him anything so he will carry on doing it. BTW, don't delay. I don't know about the US, but over here in the UK there are a number of ways that people like Mr Dick can make it hard to collect. Don't give him time to play shell games with his assets.	The United Nations Security Council made Resolution 2216 on 14 April 2015, and reaffirmed the key provisions recently in Resolution 2675 of 15 February 2023 (see the reference in paragraph 1). Resolution 2216, in paragraphs 14-17, imposes an arms embargo for Yemen. In particular, it calls on all Member States to "take the necessary measures to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer" of armaments, and to inspect Yemen-bound cargo for the same, "in accordance with ... the law of the sea" and other relevant law. The UK and USA are both Member States of the UN, so they are specifically empowered to implement the embargo. The reason the Security Council can do this is because the UN Charter says that it can. "Interruption of economic relations" and "blockade" are among the possibilities explicitly mentioned (Articles 42 and 43), but this is well within the scope of the Security Council's power. By saying that interdiction should be in accordance with the law of the sea, the UNSC is bringing in well-established rules about the conduct of maritime operations, jurisdiction in the high seas and elsewhere, compensation for wrongful interdiction, use of force, and so on. In other words, they are not trying to override the standard rules. This is not the first embargo in history and there is no need to outline everything in the resolution text.	united-states In the US it is not unlawful to produce and display a video arguing for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, whether the intent is to support that invasion or to document the claims of those who do support it, and argue that they are invalid. Such a video would be protected by copyright, and copying it and redistributing it with subtitles might well be an infringement of that copyright, if done without permission. On the other hand, doing so with the intent of educating others about Russian claims might constitute fair use. If so, it would not be copyright infringement under US law. Aside from the copyright issue (which would be up to the copyright holder to take action on) US law does not really care what the motivation for posting such a sub-titled video might be. Whether or not it is "beneficial for the whole human civilization" is not relevant to US law. It is protected by the First Amendment against government suppression. That would not affect YouTube, as a private actor,, determining not to host it on their site.
Is a local regulation preventing the operation of a UAV legal? My local government bans drones from flying in any of the parks or open spaces (mountains). The wording they have on their website is: "You may not launch, land or otherwise operate any unmanned motorized vehicle from or on any City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks land." I've previously read posts by ~lawyers saying that a local government cannot override the FAA—cannot prohibit flying a drone in the air over a local park—but that the local government is allowed to prohibit what's on their soil (hence the "launching" and "landing" wording). My question: Is it legal for a local government to prohibit controlling a drone while standing in the park? "Sure, you can carry a drone controller in your backpack, and you can work the sticks with the power off if you want, but you cannot let it connect to and wirelessly control an aircraft. Also, no skipping on your left foot, unless you're wearing sandals." Can they legally prohibit me from taking off outside the airspace (no), flying the drone into the park (no) then walking into the park while controlling it? I'm assuming that the answer is "Yes, they can tell you what to do if you want to be on 'their' lands" but I'm looking for any legal precedent or recent cases related to this.	Yes. As long as a local or state ordinance is not in conflict with any section of federal statutes or federal authority as ordained my the US Constitution and current legal precedent in accordance with it, nor is unconstitutional, there is no reason a town cannot pass laws preventing this.	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.	A follow-up story appears on the local ABC television station, indicating that the security guard pleaded no contest to simple assault. The fact that the security guard was convicted of a misdemeanor does not necessarily indicate that the deputy was allowed to have the gun in the IRS office, only that the security guard's response to the situation was not acceptable. I am not able to locate any firearm policy for the Lucas County, Ohio' sheriff's office. Many US law enforcement agencies have a policy that their officers carry their firearms essentially at all times, so that they can respond to unexpected incidents even when they are off duty. At the same time, owners of private property ordinarily can admit people, or not, for any reason at all. Unless the officer has an official reason for entering a property when the owner doesn't want the officer there, the officer isn't allowed to enter. It appears that in this case the officer had no official law-enforcement reason to enter. But this case doesn't involve private property, it involves federal property. A digest from the FBI states "Federal laws or regulations are not superseded by LEOSA. Qualified officers may not carry concealed weapons onto aircraft under the act. They also cannot carry firearms into federal buildings or onto federal property."	I can't see any law that would make this illegal. If you don't like it, you can either pay the upgrade, or not fly Ryanair.	Whether it is legal to sleep in office space is generally determined under local zoning ordinances and wouldn't be uniform across an entire state. This said, the vast majority of localities would prohibit doing so under the relevant building and zoning ordinances of the municipality, or in unincorporated areas, the relevant building and zoning ordinances of the county. Typically, the penalty for doing so in violation of a local ordinance would be similar to the penalty for violating a minor to mid-grade misdemeanor, and each day you violate the ordinance would be a separate offense. Typically, the question under a local ordinance would be how the office space is being used. If the office space is being used for residential purposes, the building owner and/or tenant under a lease would be violating the ordinance. But, an isolated instance of falling asleep at your desk during the work day would not normally be considered to be a residential use of the property. If someone routinely spends the night at the office, not doing work, and has clothing and bedding and toiletries there, especially if the person doing so has no other residence, this would normally be treated as a residential use of the office building. This said, local code enforcement officials have great discretion to enforce such ordinances strictly, or to ignore arguable violations of them. A private citizen (perhaps a neighbor, for example) has no authority to compel the local government in question to enforce its ordinances as strictly as the law would permit.	The government is allowed to spend public money on private enterprise. For example, the Small Business Administration gives grants to qualified businesses. Stadium subsidies have been a feature of government operations for decades, running in the billions of dollars. Here is a list of various larger businesses that received government bailouts. There is a procedure for approving such expenditures, such as the legislature of a state or city council. The mayor cannot usually unilaterally declare that the city will spend money on such a project, unless the city council has created a discretionary fund for the mayor, to support projects that the mayor deems will "benefit the city". Unless there is some flagrantly illegal about the funding, there is probably no legal means to challenge the decision in court, it is a purely political matter. In rare circumstances (like this) a law can be passed that limits making stadium construction a taxpayer duty.	All of these are state laws, so answers will vary. NC defines illegal operation of a mobile handset as use to: (§ 20-137.4A) (1) Manually enter multiple letters or text in the device as a means of communicating with another person; or (2) Read any electronic mail or text message transmitted to the device or stored within the device, provided that this prohibition shall not apply to any name or number stored in the device nor to any caller identification information. So using a voice assistant in NC would not be manually entering text and therefore not criminal. The part of the law applying to motor carriers explicitly exempts voice commands and "hands-free" devices.	States can, and some states do, have "mini-Sherman" anti-trust laws of their own. Whether a city could have such a law would depend on whether the state had delegated that power to cities. I haven't heard of a city that has such a law, but I haven't really looked. Or if a state has a "mini-Sherman" law, a city could perhaps bring action under such a law, depending on its exact terms. Or a city could impose a licensing scheme on a specific industry that also prevented a monopoly, similar to the requirements that many cities and towns place on taxicabs, or on bars. Both of those typically limit the number of units that a single entity may own. So perhaps it could be done for parking.
How Can NASA Images/Videos Not Be Copyrighted? NASA content - images, audio, video, and computer files used in the rendition of 3-dimensional models, such as texture maps and polygon data in any format - generally are not copyrighted. https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/guidelines/index.html Aren't works automatically protected by copyright upon creation?	There is a special exception in 17 USC 105: Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise. In the definitions, A “work of the United States Government” is a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties.	Yes, assuming the material was given the standard license. You would be creating a derivative work, and only the copyright owner has the right to authorize creation of a derivative work. See the copyright FAQ for general information. The owner can file a DMCA takedown notice with YouTube and they will by policy notify you of the infringement claim and unless you file a counter-notice (you legally couldn't given the facts you're asserting), they will take it down. The owner can also sue you.	No, it means you can't copy it. By default, the copyright to a work is owned by its creator, and nobody else is allowed to copy it, or create derived works, without their permission. That permission can be granted by a license. "License unknown" doesn't really tell us anything, but it certainly isn't clearly granting you permission. So you don't have permission to copy, and thus you cannot. You would have to seek permission from the copyright holder. See also If no licence is distributed with an application/source code, what license applies by default if any? (Some jurisdictions do allow for "fair use" exceptions, which allow you to copy a work without permission. You haven't said what jurisdiction you are in.)	Exactly the same way it works over all other content There are no special classes of copyright, there’s just copyright. What a user of a service may do with copyright materials will be spelled out in the licence. If there is no licence, then they are left with fair use/fair dealing.	If the photos are exact or "slavish" reproductions of flat (2D) art, then under Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp., 36 F. Supp. 2d 191 (S.D.N.Y. 1999) the photos are not original, and have no copyrights of their own. If the art was not under copyright (for example published before 1924) then neither are the photos. If the art is still under copyright, the photos are "copies" and the permission of the copyright holder (of the original art) is required unless they fall under the fair use exception, which photos taken for and used in classroom instruction, and for no other purpose, might well fall under. However, if the photos are so taken that angle, lighting, filters, and other aspects under the control of the photographer make a difference to the photo, then they will generally constitute new works, and if the art is under copyright protection, will be derivative works of the originals, and both the copyright holder on the original art, and the photographer will hold rights. One rule of thumb is if the photo shows the frame of the painting, it probably has original elements of lighting and viewing angle. The more the photo approximates a scan of a flat work of art, the less original it is. Photos of sculpture, architecture, and other non-flat (3D) art works (and objects) inherently involve artistic decisions about viewing angle, lighting, etc, and will pretty much automatically be original enough for copyright protection. If the original art is out of copyright but the photo is an original work the photographer will hold rights, but no one else will (unless the photographer sells or transfers the rights). In that case it does not make much sense to call the photos "derivative works" as that term is intended to indicate that the works are subject to another's copyright, which these are not, because there is no copyright on the original. Or one could call them derivatives of a public domain work -- the effect is the same. Under the case of Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991), a work must have a certian minimum degree of originality to be protected by copyright under US law. Both Bridgeman and Feist are US cases, but many other countries have followed their logic and apply similar rules to copyright issues. It is not uncommon for those who have taken photos of art to assert copyright protection which a court would not uphold, but this will not be judged unless someone copies these photos, and the photographer (or someone claiming through the photographer) sues, and then defense challenges the validity of the asserted copyright. The statements in the text quoted by the OP may be based (in part) on such untested assertions of copyright.	It is illegal to make copies of copyrighted materials without license. In the case of software, obviously it will be illegal to make copies by copying and installing the software without a license, but we are not talking about that. If I have a legitimate license of say Photoshop, and I start the application, parts or all of the code will be loaded into the RAM of my computer, which is a copy. According to copyright law, it is legal for me to make that copy. You are allowed to copy legitimately owned software into RAM to execute it. If your copy of Photoshop is illegal, and you start the application, the copy that is made into RAM is again copyright infringement. Having read the software license for the software that you get when you buy a Mac, it seems that if you steal my computer and just start the operating system, you are committing copyright infringement, and it seems that if you buy such a stolen computer and just start the operating system, you are committing copyright infringement as well, because the license that I received when I purchased the computer covers anyone using it with my permission, and covers anyone who legally buys the computer from me, but doesn't cover a thief. Now does this affect the work that you did? No, you have the full copyright on your work. Copyright law doesn't require that your tools are all used legitimately.	At least in the United States (and I'm pretty sure this is true around the world), facts and information cannot be copyrighted. Just because a work is copyrighted, doesn't mean every part of that work is copyrighted, and factual information conveyed by the work is a part which is not subject to copyright. Copyright on a collection of facts is limited to the selection and arrangement of those facts, and only if that selection and arrangement has some bare minimum amount of originality. See Feist v. Rural, 499 U.S. 340. In this case, it looks at first glance like the person who made that site made their own selection of which materials and which sources would be included; the one place where they really seem to have copied their selection is from glass catalogs with datasheets from specific manufacturers, who would have a hard time arguing that "everything we manufacture in this widely-recognized class of substances" is an original selection. What the author of the website has done is relinquish his rights in his selection and arrangement of the data. In some places, there are other rights besides copyright that do apply to databases; for instance, the EU recognizes database rights to protect significant investment in compiling a database of stuff. But the US does not have that concept. For citing stuff, that's not really a legal question, and has more to do with academic standards. Ask your adviser or teacher if you have one.	The NFL cannot use copyright as a basis for preventing independently made recordings, "descriptions or accounts", but can prevent usage of their own such items. The case National Basketball Association v. Motorola [wiki, full text] contains a concise summary of the law on this issue: [29] [...] The House Report also makes clear that it is the broadcast, not the underlying game, that is the subject of copyright protection. In explaining how game broadcasts meet the Act's requirement that the subject matter be an "original work[] of authorship," 17 U.S.C. § 102(a), the House Report stated: [30] When a football game is being covered by four television cameras, with a director guiding the activities of the four cameramen and choosing which of their electronic images are sent out to the public and in what order, there is little doubt that what the cameramen and the director are doing constitutes "authorship."
How to dissuade certain organizations using my open source code? I want to prevent military, policing, and surveillance companies from using my open source code in their projects, through a custom permissive license. Of course, I can't tell the military itself what it can and cannot do. So I think terms such as "this may NOT be used for military or surveillance applications" are pretty pointless. Would I be better protected with a statement like "This code may be used for all projects, private and commercial, except when used for ______ purpose, in which case a one-time fee of 5,000,000 USD will be immediately due."? My theory is that it outlines a path for such organizations to still use it, even if that path is so expensive no rational organization would take it, and acts as a good damages baseline should I ever have to take any such an organization to court. edit: I'm not interested in money and would actually like to avoid mentioning it at all, I'm just trying to lay out the correct legalese to prevent such entities from using my work. If it's enough to define said entities and say "May NOT use this" I'm happy with that.	You cannot do this through any established public license that I know of, but you could write your own. The model would be any educational use or non-commercial use license, such as CC NC licenses. The main challenge is defining the excluded classes of usage. That is why you should engage an attorney to draft this for you. I don't think there is any point in adding a $5M penalty clause. You offer a separate paid license for individuals who do not want to comply with the particular terms of your license, and set the fee to whatever you want. Saying that you're gonna fine violators is a bad idea because penalty clauses are illegal. Instead, the standard approach is a liquidated damages clause, where you state what a reasonable estimate of your damages would be. In the case of software that is available for purchase, illegal copying of the software obviously results at least in the cost of the software qua lost revenue as damages. Plus shipping and handling.	The GPL does not forbid you from charging money for software, nor does it require you to provide source code to the general public. What the GPL requires is that your software be free software, with "free" used in the sense of "free speech" rather than the sense of "free beer." According to the Free Software Foundation (authors of the GPL), the right of users to sell software is a requirement for it to be free software. If you receive a GPL license for software, you can give it to whoever you want provided you also ensure that person can get the source code. You don't need to make the source code available to the public, only to the people you actually distribute the binaries to. The GPL is structured along the lines of "if you distribute the software to someone, you must give them these rights;" it is not structured along the lines of "you must distribute the software." Of course, if users have the right to distribute copies for free, it's hard in practice to charge money (all it takes is one user distributing copies). But that doesn't mean you can't try. Some companies make substantial money selling free software through various models (e.g. Red Hat, which charges money for support). Others might bank on the fact that plenty of people are willing to pay to get it from the official site, and aren't interested in finding a free copy somewhere. It doesn't matter; as long as they license the software to you under the GPL and give purchasers access to the source code on the same terms, they're in the clear (if you want to redistribute binaries, it's your job to redistribute the source code as well).	If you are subcontracted, then some other company is going to use the code that you wrote, and since you were not paid for it, you are the copyright holder. A letter to that company's legal department might work wonders.	The software being free and open source has no impact on whether it infringes any patents or violates any copyrights. Copyrights attach to fixed representations of creative work in a tangible medium (e.g., the actual code and graphical elements of the software in question). As long as you aren't copying the copyrighted work of someone else, you should be in the clear. So, if you write your own code from scratch, or rely on code that you're allowed to use (e.g., "free" software with a permissive license that allows it to be used freely), you should be fine. On the other hand, if you copy a chunk of code that you aren't allowed to use, and then change the variable names so that it's superficially different, you're likely violating someone's copyright. Patents are a much more difficult question. To determine whether you would infringe any patents, you would have to read the independent claims of every patent that might be related. If you perform all the steps of any one of those claims, then you are infringing that claim (and therefore, the patent in which it is found). Unfortunately, this is much easier said than done. First, it may be difficult to search for all the potentially relevant patents, and once you've found them, there may be far too many to read. Second, claims are written in a type of language that is specific to patents, and someone without experience in patent law may not understand them correctly. Finally, the terms in the claims may not take on their plain English meaning, but rather may have been defined by the language in the rest of that patent, so it's possible that you might incorrectly think you were in the clear based on a misunderstanding arising from that. All that said, it may be best to go ahead with implementing an idea and then waiting to see what happens. Chances are that the implementation will arguably infringe some patent in some way, no matter what's done. But chances are also high that there will never be any worrisome enforcement action taken against it by a patent owner, simply due to the difficulty and expense associated with enforcing patent rights.	There is no general prohibition against taking down material, even non-infringing material, which is posted by some person, but there is a risk to the service provider. Abstracting away from the specifics of github, a Provider has some agreement with the User whereby User rightfully makes Stuff available on Provider's site. Arbitrarily removing Stuff (in violation of the usage agreement) may cause damage to User, who may sue Provider, and Provider will avoid that if possible. DMCA protects Provider from copyright infringement suits by Victim, providing the proper DMCA procedure is followed, and it allows Provider to remove Stuff without fear of getting sued by User (17 USC 512(g)). This protection is not available if the takedown notice is not proper. (As a case in point, the entire series of Harry Potter books is still out there freely on the internet, because only the rights holder can demand a takedown, and the rights holder seems to not be concerned).	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.	The first thing that people need to do is to quit over thinking it. That being said, I'm going to see if I can tackle your problems one by one, before summarizing and providing my own opinion: Many users don't care if their code is copied. I'm like that. I left a couple comments on Shog9's post that read this: Good point: Licensing does not prevent careless or malicious use. I'm surprised about how many people are thinking that this license will let them steal their code, because it's already happening right now. I don't want to sound pessimistic, but when thousands of people break a license/law/contract, it's a bit of a lost cause. You're not significantly damaged in a direct way, so honestly, let it go. All I want is to make sure that no one can come up to me if something of mine screwed something on there side. Aside from that, I don't care about people who don't attribute me: chances are, they have no moral sanity, and I will appreciate the people who do, and help me out. As it is, I'm 16, I share what I know with a good heart, and in a well-spirited manner, and at the end of the day, knowing that I was able to help someone out makes my day. I don't mind if my code is copied. I know that people will copy my code whether I like it or not, but I also know that there will be people in the world who will say "thanks", and will try to attribute me where possible. I feel good about that. That being said, I don't care. But the person who uses my code does. The license that affects all Stack Exchange posts are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license, or CC BY-SA. Code contributions don't fit well with this. This excellent post on Open Source explains why it's discouraged for code. What these people want is a code-friendly license, so that they can stay in the clear when it comes to copyright issues. The next thing they want, is for someone to come after them over some licensing issue. You may think that people are good, but you never know the world around you. They can be evil. For other users, they don't mind their code being copied to another post, as long as there is a link to the post and a mention of the original author. Most people post with good intention. There's not that much of an issue from a legal perspective either: The license allows people to copy and paste into answers of their own, and since the license remains the same, there's no issue to get into. The license allows it, and contributors kind of have to acknowledge it. I don't think anyone cares what happens to code that is less than 3-4 lines at least. I can probably agree. Such code probably wouldn't be eligible for copyright anyway, since it's so trivial. Many jurisdictions have a "Threshold of Originality," which means that simple things can't be under copyright. Stack Exchange does not probably want people to own the code they submit. For example, Stack Exchange has (and probably wishes to retain) the right to keep even deleted posts in the visibility of the high rep users (even if the author is against it). Wait what? You may be right that it is in Stack Exchange's interest to host content. After all, they get hits, which helps them as a business. It is illegal for companies to host illegal content. If somebody sees objectionable, copyrighted content hosted on Stack Exchange that they would like removed, then they need to file a DMCA Takedown Request. This is also why moderators, like myself, cannot process legal requests. The reason why Stack Exchange doesn't act themselves, even if they see something that is copyrighted and objectionable, is because it's a form of liability. When YouTube began removing copyrighted content themselves, they received a wave of lawsuits (If you remove some, you need to remove all. Why didn't you remove mine? being the argument). The plaintiff's won those, and when YouTube did nothing, they weren't liable at all. If a user wants to have their content taken down, it's tricky. You need to look at the Terms of Service for Stack Exchange: (quoting Section 3) You agree that all Subscriber Content that You contribute to the Network is perpetually and irrevocably licensed to Stack Exchange When Stack Exchanges gets your content, you grant them an irrevocable license to your contribution. This is pretty standard across a lot of sites: it's just a way to secure data and stay in the clear of licensing issues. At the same time, it doesn't seem fair for SE to acquire complete ownership of the content. The user must still have the final say, if the content is to be used for purposes not already agreed upon in the licence. They don't. What users have done is that they have provided a license of their content to Stack Exchange. This is done, again, through their Terms of Service: You grant Stack Exchange the perpetual and irrevocable right and license to use, copy, cache, publish, display, distribute, modify, create derivative works and store such Subscriber Content and to allow others to do so in any medium now known or hereinafter developed (“Content License”) in order to provide the Services, even if such Subscriber Content has been contributed and subsequently removed by You. The user grants a license to their content to Stack Exchange, but they do not assign or relinquish copyright. The code still belongs to them. It's important not to conflate the user contribution policy, with copyright assignment. You are still free to add an additional license to your content (known as dual or multi-licensing), and have a copy for your own use. Stack Exchange will always host a copy licensed under the CC BY-SA license. Stack Exchange can expect a high level of decorum and respect for laws from its users. At the same time, it cannot expect redundant attributions anywhere and everywhere, because one of its main aims is to not waste the users' time. Not only Stack Exchange expects it, but many copyright laws in various jurisdictions require it too. There's a concept known in many jurisdictions known as moral rights. These are rights that are irrevocable, whether you like it or not. Generally, these include attributions, disclaimer of liability, and other rights as well. Even if your work is in the public domain, you still retain these moral rights. If memory serves me right, the right to be attributed is revokable under United States copyright law. Therefore, attribution becomes more a courtesy, when the right is revoked. Licenses such as CC BY, and CC BY-SA still require attribution as a part of their licensing terms. What defines attribution is generally up to the person who uses the content. If memory serves right again, one can not demand how to attribute. There should be a clear-cut way to determine what is code and what isn't. The code formatting indicators on SE may not be adequate because some users simply use backticks, or 4-space indented text for other not-so-codey text. Personally, I feel like making the entirety of a post under both the Creative Commons license and whatever proposed code license they use is the best option, and allow people to use moral judgement to determine the most appropriate license. The concern comes about people who lack such judgment. I bet these same people don't follow the existing license anyway - and are a lost cause. We made it through! There will always be debate on the license of choice. Some people want the GPL, a license that's apparently closer to the status quo of Creative Commons license (I disagree that it's a good match), while other's want permissive licenses, such as the MIT or the Apache licenses. I'd prefer the permissive type, since it allows use in closed-source applications, and grant more rights (i.e. less restrictions) to the people that use them. I'm not going to right much because my hands are tired, but I'm sure if you've got more questions about the open source licenses themselves, you can probably ask on Open Source Stack Exchange.	Impressum Requirement Wow, based on your citations, you've done a lot of research on this topic. I'm just going to add one more reference, which is from the same site as your first German citation and has incredibly detailed and judicially referenced information on almost everything related to the Impressum. All my non-GitHub links are to sections of that page. Based on your research, I'm going to take it for granted that you understand that according to the Telemediengesetz (TMG), an Impressum is required on a web page if it is "business-like" (geschäftsmäßig), or if it helps, I prefer to word it as "potentially commercial." I would have to argue that open source projects have to be seen as inherently "business-like" for the purposes of the TMG for two reasons: Some other legal person may have similar software as part of their business and might have the need to serve legal notifications to the owner of a GitHub project (TMG § 8 gives competitors the right to sue). Think potential copyright violations here. It is possible to build a more traditional commercial business around open source, for example what Canonical is doing around Ubuntu. Additionally, the common legal advice is to even include an Impressum on a personal blog, though I'm not aware of any court case having occurred at that level yet. In my opinion, a GitHub account can be seen as more "business-like" than a personal blog, and would follow that advice out of caution. I'll note that the XING situation you bring up is complicated. It centers over whether the content of XING pages is "business-like" according to the TMG. It may well turn out that some pages will need an Impressum and others won't. As for placing it in the project's readme.md, that might work but I have two concerns: The courts have essentially stated that the text of the link must imply that the required information under TMG § 5 is located there. For example, the words Impressum and Kontakt work, but the word Information does not. To me, "readme" is not sufficient, but this concern might be negated by the fact GitHub by default renders the readme.md directly on the project home page. While it has been ruled that the Impressum does not necessarily have to be directly on the home page (for GitHub, that would be the company's/users profile page), it must still be readily available in an intuitive location. I don't know if putting it in a project page satisfies the legal requirement. If it was sufficient, it's also likely that each project would have to have an Impressum so that it can't be missed. Examples The dominant pattern that I could find1 on GitHub is an off-site link to the Impressum contained in the profile page's byline right underneath the title. Examples: https://github.com/sedadigital, https://github.com/comsysto, https://github.com/znes, https://github.com/eSagu, https://github.com/TIBHannover. I'm almost certain this meets or exceeds the legal requirements. Example screenshot: Additionally, I found a few that had a repository specifically for an Impressum. Example: https://github.com/johsteffens. Since these repositories were clearly visible on the user's main page (either because there weren't enough repositories to make them span multiple pages, or because it was specifically pinned to the main page), I would argue these also meet the legal requirement for being readily available. While I didn't find any examples of it, another possibility would be to combine the above two approaches, having a link in the byline that links to an Impressum repository or some other page within GitHub. This would be useful if you didn't otherwise have an Impressum hosted elsewhere. There were also scattered examples of people placing an Impressum on a project wiki page or on an impressum.md file at the top level. However, none of the users I looked at were consistent in doing this across all their projects. Also as previously mentioned, it's questionable whether not having it on the main user profile page meets the legal requirement. The Wiki page in particular I don't think meets the requirement that it can easily be found. Found using the following Google search: site:github.com impressum -impressum.php -impressum.html -impressum.jsp -impressum-manager -github.io -issue. Exclusions meant to filter out a lot of false positives, mostly projects for websites that had their Impressum in code format meant for deploy and not for display on GitHub itself.
Simpler way to handle living trust/will for property than transferring into a Trust I just completed the Nolo Quicken Willmaker. It prints the following notification/warning: You're done making your trust document. Congratulations! Your living trust is not yet effective, however. To make your living trust effective, you MUST transfer ownership of the property you listed so that it is legally held in your trust. Until you do this, your trust document has no effect on your property. Transfer the property as soon as possible after you print and sign your trust document. Learn more about Transferring Property Into Your Trust on Nolo.com. I really do not want to transfer ownership of the properties into a Trust. That is a major major paperwork headache for the properties. There must be a simpler way that allows me to retain ownership of the property while making official the intentions that the Living Trust contains. What are my options here?	Titled property, like real estate, is not owned by a trust until title is transferred to the trust. The trust is, in a legal sense, a separate entity from you. Yes, it takes paperwork to effect that transfer, but that's the only way to get the benefits of having the property "in the trust." Wills, however, do not require a transfer. You can put your intentions in a will and the executor of that will is obligated to handle the property in accordance with the will.	You are entitled to at least see, and probably get a copy of, any document you sign. If you insist, they will have to show you or give you a copy. It may well be that they are supposed to give you a copy even if you do not ask. But if you are going to insist, allow a bit of extra time at such appointments. If they describe the document, even in rather general terms, your signature is probably binding, unless they have significantly misrepresented the document. If they tell you it is consent to be treated and it is actually an agreement to purchase a timeshare, that would be fraud and the document would not be valid, but that would be very unlikely. There might be some provision that you do not like, but such agreements are usually fairly standard, and also usually not very negotiable if you want service at that office. Still, it is better practice to at least look over and get a copy of any document you agree to.	Transfer of title must eventually occur, otherwise the property was never willed to another because the willing of the property is perpetually incomplete. One can place conditions on the transfer of title, but those conditions cannot last forever. They can last quite long, but there is a rule against perpetuities, especially created due to clauses constraining the transfer of of title in wills. This rule applies to a person who is transferring title, with a conditional clause that bars the full use of the property. If such a clause is limited, then it does not exist in perpetuity. The rule specifically addressed the will's call to reassign title if the transfer's clauses were violated. The maximum limitation historically was the lifetime of some person alive when the will was executed, plus 21 years, to permit an unborn grandchild to inherit. The reason this rule came about was due to the will of Henry Frederick Howard, the Earl of Arundel and Surrey. It effectively left the dead Earl managing his estates after his death, shifting properties that were bequeathed, based on the possibility of a "more suitable" heir being born after the Earl's death. This will eventually created the most complicated bit of common law that exists to date. In my totally amatuer attempt to summarize it; it is a combination of at least two ideas: a "dead hand" (deceased person) cannot guide the activities of the living forever transfer of property (title) must eventually be fully transferred Exceptions to the rule exist for conditional transfer of title back to the person who originally owned the property, but these exceptions cannot apply when the transfer is to a third party. This clause in Evan's will, "If the state violates this clause, the property is to return to the heirs of the estate of Evan Carroll." would only be enforceable for a limited amount of time. First, the Estate of a dead Evan Carroll is not a lasting entity, eventually his estate would be closed. Finally, the transfer to the "heirs" of Evan Carroll would be a transfer to a third party, subject to the rule. Some states interpret their protections against the rule in different ways; but, nearly all states that have revoked the rule have done so by making a new rule (often with easier to manage time limits). A handful claim to have revoked the rule; but, they use other legal approaches to prevent this problem from occurring. Texas has extended the rule to 300 years while New South Wales, puts the limit at 80 years. Texas's extension seemed to be primarily to permit trust funds to operate legally long after the person establishing it had died. Consider what happens if such a rule doesn't exist. The title of the property could never be fully transferred, because the clause could never be proven to not have been violated. This would dramatically devalue the property, and clog the courts with suits claiming property held by one family for 100 years isn't theirs because of some evidence just uncovered about what happened 60 years ago. It also would massively complicate the selling of the property, because a clean title could never be proven. Note that this rule would have no bearing on a covenants not tied to the property's transfer of title. This rule even made it into a recent Disney case, which is explained far better than I can by the Legal Eagle, Devin James Stone	What happens when a person dies intestate is that the court appoints someone to be the executor. That person is supposed to settle the decedent's debts, and divide the remainder equally among the siblings. It is virtually guaranteed that the mortgage-holder will get their share – you can't just sell a house with a mortgage and run. In the meantime, the estate has to keep paying the mortgage and property taxes. The executor has wide latitude to dispose of the estate, and clearing out personal possessions is a necessary part of liquidating the estate. Those possessions being part of the estate, they "count", therefore that mink coat worth $10,000 can't just be "taken" by the executor in order to tidy things up. But that broken weed-eater worth $1 can just be thrown away and not stored for some months, waiting for the final reckoning. The executor is entitled to compensation for his work and reimbursement for his expenses, so nickle and diming the small possessions is probably economically counterproductive. The executor has the legal power to determine how the legally required distribution is carried out, that is, the law doesn't require a majority vote of the heirs in order to dispose of each and every item of property. If there is an actual legal dispute, if you believe that the executor is improperly carrying out the job, you can hire a lawyer to have him removed, or otherwise put pressure on him to get a change in how things are. This will probably cost you more than you might get from the estate. It is possible that the real estate market will not support the current sale price and therefore a lower asking price is necessary (i.e. the executor needs a reality check). A combination real estate agent + lawyer could help you figure out what to do with the house to make it sell.	You inspected the property online and based on that inspection you signed the lease. You have a legally binding contract. Now, it is not at all like the pictures How? I mean, are these pictures of a different house? If that is so then your contract is void for fraud. However, if the pictures are of the actual house and you just imagined from them that the house would be other than it is then tough luck for you. the stairwell in the house is a huge safety hazard for children OK. Does it comply with relevant building codes? If not then the landlord needs to bring it up to standard: you cannot walk away from the contract. Is it in need of repair? If so, the landlord needs to repair it: you cannot walk away from the contract. If it is compliant and in good repair and you think it is a hazard notwithstanding then you need to manage that hazard: this is not the landlords problem. I refused to move into the house That's fine: so long as you keep paying the rent there is no obligation on you to move in. If you stop paying the rent then it would appear that you have repudiated the contract and the landlord can sue you for damages - probably the costs of finding a new tenant and the rent up until that tenant takes over.	It would be more common to leave a separate direction regarding the disposition of your body in a document other than your will, entrusted with your next of kin. This is because a dead person's body is usually disposed of in less than a week following death, but a determination that a will is valid and effective often has a minimum five day waiting period from death and can take months. Often, this direction regarding your own remains would not be phased in terms of a sale or gift. Instead, it would usually be a "direction" about their disposition. Someone else's remains would be property governed by a will. But, we don't normally think of body parts of a recently deceased person as becoming property, rather than a person, until they are processed in a way that makes them not a biohazard. This would not be the case, obviously, immediately upon your death when the direction regarding your remains is intended to take effect. Also, while selling already processed bones can be permissible, selling organs for transplantation is generally not permissible, although there can be reimbursement for any medical costs or similar out of pocket expenses incurred in connection with that process, again reflecting the distinction between an unprocessed dead body which is often not considered property, and a processed dead body part which often is considered property.	This will depend on the exact wording of the will. If the will is well-drawn, it will provide alternative recipients in case the primary recipient of a bequest dies before the testator (will-maker) does. But as a general rule, if A makes a will leaving particular property to B, but B dies before A does, that bequest is void. If the will specifies an alternate recipient, the property goes to the alternate. If not, or if all specified alternates die before the testator does, the property becomes part of the residual estate of the testator. (The residual estate is that part which is not subject to a specific bequest.) The testator can specify a line of descent for a bequest: "I leave my house to Joan and her heirs". In that case, if Joan died before the testator, the house would go to whatever person or persons inherit from Joan. This was once a somewhat common form of bequest, but now is much less common. A will normally includes language leaving the residual estate to some person (or several people) or some entity (it can be an organization, such as a church or a charity). This is often done with language such as "I leave all the rest of my estate to ..." OR "Everything not include above i leave to..." or "I give all the remainder and residue of my estate to...". The executor does not choose, but rather follows the directions of the will on who gets the residue of the estate. I am not sure what happens if the will does not name a residuary legatee, or if the person so named dies before the testator. That will depend on the specific law of the jurisdiction. In the US, this means state law, and will vary from state to state. The comment by Dale M says that assets not provided for in the will are inherited as if the person was intestate, that is, as if the person had no valid will. The law in each jurisdiction specifies exactly what rules are followed in the case of intestacy. In general this is that property goes first to the teatator's spouse and children, but if there are no living spouse and children, to more distant relatives. Eventually, if no relatives close enough can be found, property escheats, that is, goes to the government. The exact rule varies by jurisdiction -- in the US by state.	12 USC Ch 38A regards single family mortgage foreclosures and 12 USC Ch 38 regards multifamily mortgage foreclosures, however both law applies to mortgages held by or guaranteed by the federal government; nothing in those laws establishes an exception to the right to foreclose in case of kidnapping or some other special circumstances. There has to be written notice of the judicial proceeding, but it is not required that the owner be physically handed and made aware of that notice. Outside of those cases involving the federal government as the foreclosing party, the details are determined by state law. In Washington, there might be a non-judicial foreclosure under RCW 61.24.031, where you get a Notice of Default. The requirement is that you send the borrower a letter giving the relevant information ("YOU MUST RESPOND..."). You must exercise "due diligence" in providing notice, which is defined in subsection (5), which includes (and is not limited to) sending both first-class and either registered or certified mail, return receipt requested, a letter to the address in the beneficiary's records for sending account statements to the borrower and to the address of the property encumbered by the deed of trust You also have to call 3 times, then another certified letter receipt: there is, again, no condition that says "if you can't find the person, you cannot foreclose". One part of the process is that the borrower can apply for mediation under the Foreclosure Fairness Act, guidelines here. However, this would require that someone be able to act on the borrower's behalf, which may not be the case.
Does the data protection european regulation (GDPR) apply to processing information obtained from business cards and conversations? I work at a SME. When we meet someone (either a potential customer or a potential partner) at an exhibition, meeting, conference, etc., we usually save that person's contact information and topic of interest, so that we can contact them later and maybe send them targeted marketing emails. This information is usually provided orally or through business cards that we share. We know that, as an SME, we don’t need to keep records of our processing activities because it's not our main activity and it's not a particularly threat to the individual rights and freedom (so we believe). Do we need to do something in particular to comply with GDPR, such as letting people know that we will keep their contact info for certain purposes?	The material scope of the GDPR (Article 2) is limited to the processing of personal data (including mere storage) by automated means or as part of a filing system. The question of whether your activity falls within this scope hinges on what you actually do with the data once you take possession of it. You have mentioned saving the contact information of people you have met at conferences, which could refer to simply retaining it for later use, or to the technological process of storing data in a computer. The former, if not done in any structured way (a filing system) would not fall within the scope of the GDPR. The latter, even if poorly executed, such as a photo stored on a business smartphone or a text document thrown onto your workstation's desktop, would always fall within scope as computerised data is processed "by automated means". When the contact information you receive identifies a specific person, as distinct from just a corporate switchboard number and company name for example, it is personal data. When you get that personal data from the person it identifies (data subject), and you're otherwise in scope, Article 13 is invoked, requiring you to provide a list of information, "at the time when personal data are obtained", unless "the data subject already has the information." This is known as the right to be informed. The requirements differ when personal data are not obtained directly from the data subject. I would argue it is unreasonable to be expected to provide the information to the data subject over a cup of coffee or in a quick business card exchange, but if you start entering it into a spreadsheet or your CRM, you need to provide the required information, which may be as simple as a follow-up email thanking them for their time and letting them know you'll keep their contact details on file, along with a link to your organisation's privacy policy, assuming it covers this use, or if not, a specific privacy notice. You will of course be required to comply with other requirements such as the principles of data minimisation and identify a lawful basis, maintain adequate security by implementing technical and organisational measures, hold contracts with any third parties who process personal data on your behalf, and have a process for upholding data subject rights and responding to requests to exercise them - among others - but you should already be doing that for your other processing activities unless exempt. Additional information Edits have been made as clarifications and questions were forthcoming. Email marketing You need to consider the applicable country's implementation of Directive 2002/58/EC as amended ("ePrivacy Directive"). For example, in the UK you could send such messages without consent to contacts at incorporated companies or public sector bodies, but would have required consent for sole traders, private individuals, or partners in an unincorporated partnership. In Ireland, you have an exemption to consent for existing customers who were offered the opportunity to opt out when their email address was collected, but must use the email address for marketing within 12 months. Each EU country will have a different implementation of the Directive. In the Netherlands, Article 17 of the Telecommunications Act implements Directive 2003/58/EC and thus provisions for direct marketing by email. Processing by automated means Processing by automated means refers to processing of personal data in electronic, rather than manual form. All electronic processing is within the material scope of the GDPR, while only manual processing that forms or is intended to form part of a filing system is. Recital 15: The protection of natural persons should apply to the processing of personal data by automated means, as well as to manual processing, if the personal data are contained or are intended to be contained in a filing system. Art. 4(2): ‘processing’ means any operation or set of operations which is performed on personal data or on sets of personal data, whether or not by automated means ICO guidance What is personal data?: The GDPR covers the processing of personal data in two ways: personal data processed wholly or partly by automated means (that is, information in electronic form); and personal data processed in a non-automated manner which forms part of, or is intended to form part of, a ‘filing system’ (that is, manual information in a filing system).	Whether or not you are protected by GDPR depends on the location of both yourself and the party processing your data. Citizenship and residence statuses are completely irrelevant (Recital 14(1)): The protection afforded by this Regulation should apply to natural persons, whatever their nationality or place of residence If the party processing your data is established in the EU, then you are protected no matter who you are or where you are (Art. 3(1)): This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data in the context of the activities of an establishment of a controller or a processor in the Union, regardless of whether the processing takes place in the Union or not. If the party processing your data is not established in the EU, then you are only protected if you are in the EU (Art. 3(2)): This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data of data subjects who are in the Union by a controller or processor not established in the Union	Yes, it triggers the GDPR obligations Considerations: Can you surely identify those residing in Europe? In that case you should ask them to sign up again and confirm the consent. A lot of mailing lists are doing just that. Did they previously give consent and you can document it? If so, then you can argue that you have the required consent. Do you have business in Europe? If not then I don't think they would bother to go after you. You could just walk away from the fine. What other personal informastion are you storing? If you know who reside in Europe then you already have more info than just the email. The email address itself wouldn't be much of a documentation issue, SAR or Portability task.	IANAL. (1) GDPR is certainly relevant. (2) This is certainly "personal data" under the definition in GDPR article 4. (3) Maintaining this data is probably lawful under article 6 sections 1(a) (consent) - provided that the Terms and Conditions of the site make clear that the user by signing up is consenting to this information being held (3) There is certainly an obligation under article 14 to disclose that the information exists, and to say how it used. (4) Article 15 says that data subjects are entitled to see the information and know what recipients or categories of recipient have access to the information (I don't know whether it's enough to just say "moderators", or whether the moderators need to be identified). (5) I can't see any reasons why the obligations under articles 16, 17, and 18 regarding rectification, erasure, and restriction of processing aren't relevant. This is exactly the kind of situation that GDPR is designed to address. If you're restricting the service available to particular users based on a record of their behaviour or on judgements made by moderators, then they absolutely have a right to know, and a right of redress.	The GDPR allows the right to access to be limited if this access would “adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others” (Art 15(4) GDPR). However, access to the recording would not give you more information than you've already received during the phone call, so this exemption is quite unlikely to apply in any case. UK data protection law also has a large list of additional exceptions, as summarized here by ICO guidance. These exemptions also cover some aspects of trade secrets, and even mention insurance examples. However, not such exemption is likely to apply in your case: the recording would not give you more information than you already have. If the data controller is concerned about some parts of the conversation, they should provide a redacted copy and explain why the redactions were performed. They should not reject the request outright. If the data controller wants to reject the request entirely, they must do so within the time frame for the DSAR (one month), must explain their reasons, and must inform you that you're allowed to lodge a complaint with your supervisory authority or to sue them. However, ICO guidance is flexible on how detailed the reason for refusal can be: Where an exemption applies, the reasons you give to an individual for not complying with a request may depend upon the particular case. For example, if telling an individual that you have applied a particular exemption would prejudice the purpose of that exemption, your response may be more general. However, where possible, you should be transparent about your reasons for withholding information. Here, I don't see any reason why full transparency would be a problem, so I would expect that the data controller can point to a specific exemption in UK data protection law. If you are unsatisfied with the data controller's response, please consider lodging a complaint with the supervisory authority. In the UK, this is the ICO. On the ICO complaints page, you can fill out the online form about “your personal information concerns”.	Generating a list of all possible numbers doesn't sound like it would constitute personal data any more than listing all dates for the last hundred years as a "possible date of birth" would. However, the moment anyone linked even one of the numbers with any other personal data - for example a name - they would be bound by GDPR and would need to show a Lawful Basis for processing the data. [If you linked your own name you could presumably argue Consent, but anyone else's would need to have an associated Lawful Basis.]	Businesses do hold customers' email addresses. These are routinely stored and communicated between the businesses' internal IT systems. There is nothing illegal about this. The only difference that internal email communication makes to the above is that not just machines but employees see the customers' email addresses. So, essentially the question is: is it legal for a business to show its customers' email addresses to its employees? As per Australian Privacy Principles, personal information needs to be kept secure. Businesses therefore have duty to do their best not to leak customers' personal information (which includes email addresses). Limiting the circle of people who see personal information only to those who need to see it is essential to perform this duty. So, essentially, the answer depends on whether all those people CC'ed actually needed to see the email addresses for business purposes. If, for example, one of those people was your office cleaner, then you have done bad job in performing your duty to secure personal information. Should that cleaner leak the email addresses outside the business, you will be held liable.	Under GDPR article 6 paragraph 1 item (c) one lawful basis for processing personal information (PI) is: processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the controller is subject; The obligation to attribute a reused work under a CC license is such an obligation. Moreover, the licensor has the option under any CC license to specify a pseudonym for attribution of that work, or to waive attribution totally. Not doing that while releasing content under a CC license that requires attribution could reasonably be considered consent to publish that name along with each re-released copy of the work, so there are at least two lawful bases for processing that name and making it public. In some jurisdictions the license has the status of a contract, which imposes an obligation to attribute the author properly under GDPR Article 6 paragraph 3, as described in more detail in the answer by amon. Also, usernames are PI if and only if it is reasonably possible to associate them with a specific natural person. If a person chose a user name for a single site, not used for any other, and did not post any info that allows the person's identity to be determined, it is not PI. Often, of course, the person can be determined.
In the UK, who owns the intellectual property of a thesis? Assume the following problem: A person decides to create software for his thesis. His application turns out to be very profitable. If he continues creating it, will the University own the intellectual property over the thesis or the application itself? Will the revenue go to the university instead? Is there any way the two parties can come up with a contract or agreement? If the person leaves university and doesn't finish his thesis and instead releases his application, will there be any repercussions?	The Person and the University do need to come to an agreement. Universities usually have clear guidelines and arrangements for intellectual property, eg. In line with UK legislation, the University owns all intellectual property or other materials developed by its employees, unless explicitly stated otherwise. Students are not employees of the University and therefore legally own any intellectual property arising from their research as long as all of the creative intellectual input has been that of the student. When a researcher is both a student and an employee ownership of intellectual property will normally be determined by whether the intellectual property was created during the researcher’s duties as a member of staff or a student. University of Leicester (my summary) What should I do if I think I do have an idea or invention worth protecting? Have a look at the Research Strategy and Innovation Office website about where to start: University of Glasgow	No, it means you can't copy it. By default, the copyright to a work is owned by its creator, and nobody else is allowed to copy it, or create derived works, without their permission. That permission can be granted by a license. "License unknown" doesn't really tell us anything, but it certainly isn't clearly granting you permission. So you don't have permission to copy, and thus you cannot. You would have to seek permission from the copyright holder. See also If no licence is distributed with an application/source code, what license applies by default if any? (Some jurisdictions do allow for "fair use" exceptions, which allow you to copy a work without permission. You haven't said what jurisdiction you are in.)	Hypothetically speaking, if a program doesn't come with a EULA, does that mean someone in possession of it (who isn't the owner) would be breaking the law if they used it? If the copy on the stick was lawfully made with permission of the copyright holder, then you can lawfully use the software. Someone who lawfully comes into possession of a lawfully made copy of the software (that was not a backup) has the right to use that software in the ordinary way. For example if someone found a USB stick lying on the ground and it had software on it but no EULA, could they use the software? Maybe, but it would be hard for them to know whether they could or not. It might be a backup. It might be an unlawful copy. There was a case where a person found a CD in the trash that was clearly an original. The package had a shrink wrap agreement, but he found the CD without the package. The court held that he had every right to use the software on the CD (since it was a lawfully-made copy and not a backup) and was not bound by the EULA (since he hadn't opened the package). But he was very fortunate in being able to demonstrate these facts.	http://www.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/dk/dk091en.pdf is the Copyright Law in English for Denmark. You should probably try to find a Danish version to ensure the translation is accurate. Chapter 2 lists the exemptions from the general rule that you need the copyright owner's permission to use their IP. Unfortunately, the usage you have made does not meet the requirements for private use (s12): digital copies may only be shared among the members of one household, placing them on the web extends beyond your household. It may meet the requirements of educational use (s13) providing that your school has met the requirements for Extended Collective Use (s50). For photographs, this seems unlikely, such arrangements are usually limited to songs and television works. Under Chapter 6b, you are permitted to use "orphaned works", however, this requires that you have made a diligent search for the owners and have been unable to either identify or locate them. Copyright violation is subject to both penal sanctions (fines and in egregious violations imprisonment) (s76) and damages (s83). TL;DR Yes, you could be sued. Yes, the copyright holder would probably be successful. No, it is extremely unlikely they would bother.	Under United States law, copyright is normally held by the creator of a work. There is one major exception to this rule: the "work for hire." If something is considered a "work for hire" under the copyright statutes, the copyright is held by the employer. Whether something qualifies as a work for hire is a complex analysis: here is a Copyright Office circular covering some of the basics. To be clear, I'm not giving an opinion (and I don't have enough information to give an opinion) on whether any specific works you or your fiance may create or commission qualify as "works for hire." It's a narrower test than you probably think it is. If the work is not a work for hire, the copyright holder owns the copyright, and anyone else can use it only with a license from the copyright holder. A license can be implied by the parties' behavior and communications--but it shouldn't be. If you're in a situation where you need to know, for example: That you are allowed to use the artwork forever, and the artist can't ask you to stop later; That you are allowed to change the artwork if you need to, even a simple change like cropping or adding a filter or text; or That, if your product is successful, the artist won't be able to sell another license to someone else to compete with you; then you need a written contract spelling out who owns the copyright and what the rights of the other party are. A lawyer can draw up a simple, re-usable form contract for you cheaply that will prevent the problems you're worried about. Remember: even if this is a work-for-hire situation, if you need to prove that down the road, it may require a trial, or at least preliminary motion practice, to do so. That's a lot more expensive than getting your ducks in a row now will be. tl;dr: Get a lawyer. If you're in a major city, there may be a local arts law organization that will provide you with free help for a simple job like this one. (Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts operate in several East Coast cities, and I know many top commercial lawyers who do pro bono for them).	Copyright in the US is usually a civil matter. Meaning that the copyright owner can sue (typically for money damages or injunctive relief) an infringer. The criminal laws that we have are aimed at the reproducer and/or distributor. In other words, chances are that you won't get in any criminal trouble for accessing academic articles of dubious origin. But never say never. RIP Aaron Schwartz.	How do you know if the copyright claimant or owner of them material you are using is allowing their content on Youtube? You don't. ... does fair use automatically cover you for anything related to this? No Is it illegal to share the music experience of a legally purchased MP3 ... or to provide services that play songs ... but are not hosted by your website (in which case you just act as a pointer to other sites which are participating in illegal activities)? Yes What rights/privileges can cover you if you wish to participate in this? None I've heard (rumours probably with no legal standing), that as long as you are not monetizing their material, you will not have any legal action taken against you. You probably won't have action taken against you. That said, you probably won't get busted for smoking weed in your basement. Lack of enforcement makes it no less illegal. What copyright means Copyright is a legal right created by the law of a country that grants the creator of an original work exclusive rights to its use and distribution, usually for a limited time. The exclusive rights are not absolute; they are limited by limitations and exceptions to copyright law, including fair use. The copyright holder decides how, when and by whom their work can be used and copied. At some point this right expires and the work passes into the public domain. It is not trivial to determine what works are public domain and what are not as it depends on the copyright law in the country they were created in at the time of creation and how that law has changed subsequently. In most of the world, the default length of copyright is currently the life of the author plus either 50 or 70 years. Many jurisdictions also grant workers for hire moral copyright in their creative work even when the proprietorial copyright vests with their employer. Copyright comes into existence automatically; it doesn't need to be registered or denoted in any way. For example, I have copyright in this answer and you have copyright in your question. A few countries (the USA among them) have a copyright register but that only limits the remedies an unregistered copyright holder has; failing to register does not negate copyright. Further, a single work can have multiple copyright holders: a music video for example has (barring contractual arrangements): the composer(s) holds copyright in the music the lyricist(s) holds copyright in the lyrics the performer(s) hold copyright in the music performance the actor(s) (if any) holds copyright in the acting the producer(s)/director(s) holds copyright in the finished product. In practice, most of these people have contracts which give their copyright to someone else. Almost certainly, every MP3 of every song is covered by copyright; that is, someone, somewhere owns the copyright; that is at least one someone. How can you tell who that is? Often, in the absence of a claim of copyright, you can't. Obviously, if it is a song published by a record label than its pretty obvious that they hold copyright on it and you don't need to worry about the deals they have with the artist/composer etc. Remember, copyright violations are a civil matter; the state does not get involved. It is up to each individual copyright holder to take whatever action they wish under the law to protect their rights.	It is conceivable that A's employer would claim that the intellectual property was actually created by A in the course of their employment rather than B. That would be a question of fact for the lawsuit to determine. Realistically, assuming A and B both testify that B created the intellectual property with no input from A and A's employer had only the IP address as evidence, it is pretty unlikely that the fact finder would find that A created the intellectual property. A's employer would almost certainly need to provide some additional evidence that would show that the balance of probabilities favored the employer's position (i.e. A works at FedEx writing software for package logistics, B is a 12 year old kid with no formal computer science training, and the intellectual property in question involves the implementation of sophisticated graph traversal algorithms that would be common in package logistics applications).

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