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[ { "answer_id": 5308, "body": "<pre><code>&gt; What does that last sentence mean?\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>It means that federal law does not provide premium pay on Sundays and Holidays the way MA does.</p>\n\n<pre><code>&gt; Should I be getting paid more than I am?\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>No. Check out <a href=\"https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXXI/Chapter151/Section1a\" rel=\"noreferrer\">G.L. c. 151, § 1A</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>the hours so worked on Sunday or certain holidays shall be excluded\n from the calculation of overtime pay</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In other words, take your eight hours on Sunday and subtract that from the total hours for the week. That number minus 40 is how many OT hours you get.</p>\n\n<p>This calculation is called crediting - basically the employer credits your time-and-a-half Sunday work against your total hours for the week. Crediting is allowed and it is why you do not get the Sunday pay on top of your overtime.</p>\n\n<p>If you want to get in the weeds take a look at <a href=\"http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ma-supreme-judicial-court/1229802.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Swift v Autozone</a> where the MA Supreme Court describes why crediting is allowed.</p>\n\n<p>Also see <a href=\"https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/29/207\" rel=\"noreferrer\">29 U.S.C. 207(h)(2)</a> which tells us that extra compensation is creditable..</p>\n", "score": 8 } ]

[ "united-states", "employment", "massachusetts" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5295, "body": "<p><a href=\"http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title52-section30121&amp;num=0&amp;edition=prelim\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Title 52, section 30121 of the US Code</a> is the section regulating election spending by foreign nationals. Specifically, it forbids both making and accepting said contributions, as well as banning independent expenditures:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>(a) Prohibition</p>\n<p>It shall be unlawful for-</p>\n<p>(1) a foreign national, directly or indirectly, to make-<br />\n(A) a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State, or local election;<br />\n(B) a contribution or donation to a committee of a political party; or<br />\n(C) an expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement for an electioneering communication (within the meaning of section 30104(f)(3) of this title); or</p>\n<p>(2) a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation described in subparagraph (A) or (B) of paragraph (1) from a foreign national.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>(1) would get you. (2) would get Trump. Extradition may be difficult, but you have committed a US crime if Trump takes that contribution, and if you do turn up in the US then the US might prosecute you for it (they almost certainly won't, but they could).</p>\n", "score": 6 } ]

[ "united-states" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5278, "body": "<p>I am not a lawyer and I have never been to the UK so you'd be a fool to rely on my advice.</p>\n\n<p>You should be able to state that you took an exam, were asked such and such questions, and provided such and such answers. You should be able to also say which ones were marked right and which were marked wrong. I'm aware that \"fair use\" doesn't exist as such in the UK, but I believe there's a similar concept there that should cover this reasonable situation.</p>\n\n<p>Now it's entirely possible that a condition of attending the University was agreeing not to do what you're proposing. If that's the case and the agreement is legally valid, then you might be in breach of the agreement and the University could have remedies under the agreement and/or the law. For instance, your University might have an academic honesty policy that prevents you from doing this and there may be penalties for violating it, likely up to and including expulsion. I somewhat doubt that they'd try to come after you for more than that but I'd read the policies.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "united-kingdom", "internet" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5265, "body": "<p><a href=\"http://www.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/dk/dk091en.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/dk/dk091en.pdf</a> is the Copyright Law in English for Denmark. You should probably try to find a Danish version to ensure the translation is accurate.</p>\n\n<p>Chapter 2 lists the exemptions from the general rule that you need the copyright owner's permission to use their IP.</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>It <em>may</em> 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.</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>Copyright violation is subject to both penal sanctions (fines and in egregious violations imprisonment) (s76) and damages (s83).</p>\n\n<p><strong>TL;DR</strong></p>\n\n<p>Yes, you could be sued. Yes, the copyright holder would probably be successful. No, it is extremely unlikely they would bother.</p>\n", "score": 3 }, { "answer_id": 5282, "body": "<p>It depends rather on the nature of your school project. If your project is a \"critical presentation\" then section 23 (1) of the <a href=\"http://www.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/dk/dk091en.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">law</a> comes into play:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Works of art and works of a descriptive nature, cf. section 1(2), which have been made public may be used in critical or scientific presentations in connection with the text in accordance with proper usage and to the extent required for the purpose. Reproduction is not allowed for commercial purposes.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>So, if your project is, for example, a critical analysis of something that the photographs illustrate, then you can use the pictures.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "copyright", "european-union", "education" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5279, "body": "<p>You should do one of two things. Either (1) fire your lawyer and obtain competent counsel, or (2) demand that he pay for the \"second opinion\" (in actuality, co-counsel or a consultant) if he is unfit to offer a proper opinion on the case. I am unfamiliar with the bar rules in Canada, however I am willing to bet they require one be competent to the prosecute the case they take. In the U.S. in all jurisdictions, the bar rules demand that an attorney not take a case unless he is competent to prosecute it. If he is not, he has a duty to either decline the case, or to find competent assistance to bring the case to closure. Unless your lawyer told you at the outset that he can only represent your defense and not your counterclaim, then he needs to be able to advise you about both issues. You should not be responsible for obtaining a second opinion. Most lawyers would not want their client seeking a second opinion as it reflects poorly on their ability competently practice. The fact that this guy has the gall to ask you to get one is unacceptable.</p>\n\n<p>As an example: I recently had a case that was within my practice area. During discovery I realized there was a substantial ERISA issue. This is a very specialized area of law that I am not very adept at dealing with as it is a complex regulatory scheme I don't deal with regularly. So...once I spotted this, I contacted an colleague who specializes in ERISA, who told me what I needed to argue, and gave me a primer on the area of ERISA law that I needed to be adept at. If I didn't have a friend who worked in this area, I would've had to get a co-counsel (at my own expense) by either splitting my fee, or by hiring him as a consultant but being personally responsible for the cost. If I didn't think that would be cost effective (i.e., the value of the case was not big enough to justify me hiring a consultant) then I would've had to tell the client that an issue arose that I was not competent to deal with and that he needed someone who specialized in that area (the problem is that people who do ERISA law aren't litigators traditionally) and had the ability to litigate. Or, give him the opportunity to say, \"No, I want you to be trial counsel and we will hire him as the ERISA guy.\" In that case, the client would be responsible for the cost of the second attorney (otherwise I would just withdraw), but I couldn't demand this. What your lawyer is doing is trying to get you to ensure he does't get it wrong, and that is not OK.</p>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "settlement" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5274, "body": "<p>If you are employed at an office in Massachusetts, you are covered by Massachusetts labor law. When an Ohio company wants to operate in Massachusetts, it cannot just come in and unilaterally decide to use the labor law of another state.</p>\n", "score": 8 }, { "answer_id": 5273, "body": "<p>Choice of law is a complicated question that requires a lawyer for the specific situation. The starting point is the state where you file the case. That state will have choice of law rules that may or may not apply the substantive law of its own state.</p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "united-states", "jurisdiction", "labor-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5249, "body": "<p>Logos and (trademarked) names are under the trademark law. </p>\n\n<p>First of all it may not be misconstrued that the club(s) endorses the betting site (unless they actually do but that should have some contract backing that up). Some clubs may not be content that their logo is used in an add for gambling. </p>\n\n<p>On the betting page itself or in a list with matches to bet on. Then it would be <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use\" rel=\"nofollow\">nominative use</a>. As it would be used as a way to identify the trademarked club rather than an endorsement of that club.</p>\n\n<p>Safest way to go about it is to approach each club (or an organization that is allowed to sub-license these rights) and acquire a license to use the trademark for this purpose.</p>\n", "score": 0 }, { "answer_id": 5256, "body": "<p>It largely depends on the jurisdiction and the way in which the logos are used. A trademark refers to a product. If X uses Y's trademark logo in such a manner that it does not imply X is selling Y's product or Y is endorsing X's product, that would be a factor for non-infringement.</p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "trademark" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5210, "body": "<p>Interestingly enough, this <em>has</em> been planned - but not completed.</p>\n\n<p><strong>South Korea: Robot Ethics Charter</strong></p>\n\n<p>In 2007, South Korea worked towards establishing the <a href=\"http://www.roboethics.org/icra2007/contributions/slides/Shim_icra%2007_ppt.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">Robot Ethics Charter</a>, a guide for manufacturers a designers of robots. South Korea is a strong robotics and electronics manufacturer, and wants to <a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6425927.stm\" rel=\"nofollow\">expand robotics to help the economy</a>.</p>\n\n<p>There were several news articles in 2007 about work on the Charter, but I have yet to find anything else significant about it. Further reading indicates that the plan most likely fell through.</p>\n", "score": 7 } ]

[ "international", "software", "common-law", "civil-legal-system" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5243, "body": "<p>Researching this interesting subject, I found <a href=\"http://studentlife.tamu.edu/sls.mip\" rel=\"nofollow\">this website</a> that states:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>A charge of Minor in Possession (M.I.P.) means that the defendant, being a person under the age of 21 years, has been issued a citation by a police officer or Texas Alcohol Beverage Control Officer <strong>for being illegally in possession, ownership, or control of an alcoholic beverage</strong>. The principal element of this crime, which must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, is possession, ownership, or control of an alcoholic beverage.</p>\n \n <p>Minors are at risk of an M.I.P. citation at a party, nightclub, or while riding in a vehicle when alcohol is present. <strong>A minor can be in the proximity of alcohol which belongs to another person, but cannot touch, hold, transport, attempt to purchase, consume, or have any contact with alcohol</strong>.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>You also have to be careful about <strong>constructive possession</strong> that can be interpreted as </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <ul>\n <li>a minor sits at a table with several people who are drinking from a pitcher of beer with cups scattered about;</li>\n <li>a minor gathers empty beer cans and cups to discard as trash;</li>\n <li>a minor holds a friend’s beer as the friend puts on their jacket; or</li>\n <li>a minor uses a beer can as a spittoon for tobacco juice.</li>\n </ul>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Since you live with them, you are liable if you participate in the parties containing alcoholic beverages.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>2.Would I be held responsible for alcohol found in a common area?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>As the law states, you must be in possession, ownership or in control. It is unlikely, but possible for you to be charged with the ownership if you are alone and there are beverages around, leaving room for interpretation that you own the beverages. But as stated, proof beyond reasonable doubt is a burden for the State. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>3.Is there anything I can do in this situation to protect myself from charges should my roommates get in trouble?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Keeping your hands off any beverages would be a good start. Although I doubt that there would be fingerprint scanning on such a small matter, it's better be safe and have it as leverage.</p>\n\n<p>Another helpful point would be to have a trustful friend that could vouch/testify for the veracity of your testimony in not being a person that drinks any alcoholic beverages.</p>\n\n<p>Last, but not least, during a criminal investigation, the police will always attempt to get to the truth of the facts, which is the truth that can be proved. I would interpret it as being a good choice to not <strong>obstruct the justice</strong> and tell anything you know about who bought, who were drinking who organized, etc. Somehow, I think that being innocent, cooperative and not having alcohol in your hands would be safe to get any charges dropped.</p>\n\n<p><em>It is important to note that I'm not a lawyer and that's just my opinion about the theorization of the facts.</em></p>\n\n<p>On a side note, there is also exception to the rules and one that may be important is the one that you request medical assistance for somebody.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Emergency medical assistance</p>\n \n <p>A minor can avoid liability for violating the possession and consumption laws if the minor requested emergency medical assistance for someone with a possible alcohol overdose. To qualify for this protection, the minor must have:</p>\n \n <ul>\n <li>been the first person to make the call for help</li>\n <li>remained on the scene until medical help arrived, and</li>\n <li>cooperated with medical and law enforcement personnel. (Texas Stat. and Code Ann. Sections 106.05(d) &amp;106.04(e).)</li>\n </ul>\n</blockquote>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "united-states", "criminal-law", "texas" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5219, "body": "<p>It seems that this conduct is a breach of <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel\" rel=\"nofollow\">estoppel</a>. Basically, you are not permitted to cause people expense by engaging in conduct from which they can reasonably believe that you will pursue a given course of action when you do not intend to do so. In this case, the appellant caused the respondent to believe that he would pursue a case against them when he wasn't going to do so.</p>\n\n<p>I have not read the entire judgement but it is clear that this is only one part of the unreasonable conduct; on its own it is difficult to see how this could support the costs order. I mean, if the appellant <em>had</em> indicated that he <em>may</em> withdraw due to health reasons a prudent respondent would still have needed to prepare a defence against the contingency that he didn't.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "united-kingdom", "employment", "case-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1117, "body": "<p>The statute in question is section <a href=\"http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=veh&amp;group=26001-27000&amp;file=26700-26712\">26708 (13)(B)</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>A vehicle equipped with a video event recorder shall have a\n notice posted in a visible location which states that a passenger's\n conversation may be recorded.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>It doesn't require it be visible to <em>all</em> passengers and doesn't make any provision for visually impaired passengers.</p>\n\n<p>I am not licenced to practice in California but know of no cases clarifying how \"visible\" the notice needs to be. I wouldn't suggest trying to hide the notice, though.</p>\n", "score": 5 } ]

[ "california", "driving" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5224, "body": "<p><a href=\"http://www.azleg.state.az.us/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/ars/28/01591.htm&amp;Title=28&amp;DocType=ARS\" rel=\"nofollow\">Arizona Revised Statute 28-1591</a> has a specific exemption for service of a parking or standing violation:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>B. This article does not require that either the initial notification or a subsequent summons and complaint for a parking or standing violation be issued or served as required by this article.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This section carves out an exemption for parking infractions in that they don't need to be personally served.</p>\n\n<p>If there is no response to the complaint left on the car, the statute further states:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>If it is necessary to issue a summons and complaint because there is not a satisfactory response to the initial notice of a parking or standing violation, the summons and complaint may be sent by regular mail to the address provided to the department by the individual made responsible for the alleged violation by the applicable statute or ordinance. Service of the summons and complaint is complete on mailing.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>When service is complete the court of jurisdiction has personal jurisdiction over the defendant and can enter a default judgment.</p>\n\n<p>You are correct in the rest of your statement regarding moving violations reported by camera systems - the violator must be personally served. If personal service is not achieved then the complaint is dismissed with no record.</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://krazlaw.com/2011/03/personal-jurisdiction-in-photo-radar-cases/\" rel=\"nofollow\">This article has a good explanation</a> of the process for service for moving violations. The article references precedence established in <a href=\"http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/00/68.asp\" rel=\"nofollow\">Tonner v. Paradise Valley Magistrate's Court</a>.</p>\n\n<p>Arizona requires personal service in order to create personal jurisdiction for the court. Alternatively, the defendant can waive the personal service.</p>\n\n<p>In Arizona, if one takes an action recorded on a traffic camera that causes a complaint to be issued that person will receive in the mail a form that is a waiver of service. Signing such a form and returning it tells the court that you waive personal service.</p>\n\n<p>Refusal to sign and return the form does not remove the requirement the state has of personal service. If the state wishes to pursue the case they will need to provide personal service. If the state does successfully conclude personal service then the defendant will be liable for the initial fine as well as the cost of service.</p>\n\n<p>From the article and the case:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Without completed service, the court does not obtain jurisdiction. “The incomplete service left the trial court without jurisdiction, i.e., without authority to enter the judgment.” Id., Supplemental Opinion, 187 Ariz. 487, 488, 930 P.2d 1001, 1002.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Ignoring a personally served citation, i.e., a ticket, allows the court to enter a default judgement. In the case of a citation that was not personally served and where personal service was not waived means the court never had jurisdiction in order to render a default judgment.</p>\n\n<p>There is a time limit within which personal service must be completed for a complaint. I've found sources that claim both 120 days and 180 days from when the court was made aware of the complaint. Some sources also claim that the court must be notified and processes started within 10 days of the date of the infraction. If service is not completed within that time frame then the complaint is dropped and no record is retained.</p>\n\n<p>So, yes, parking tickets do not have to be personally served according to statute and, yes, a person in Arizona has to be personally served with a moving violation citation. Failure to achieve proper service results in dismissal of the complaint.</p>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "united-states", "traffic", "arizona" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5231, "body": "<p>You may be interested in a recent New York Times article, <a href=\"http://nyti.ms/1VZdxqX\">\"The Lonely Death of George Bell\"</a>, which described in detail the case of a man who was found dead in his apartment (of natural causes). It took a long time for him to be positively identified, and no near relatives could be located.</p>\n\n<p>Affairs were handled by a city official called a \"public administrator\". Bell's valuable possessions were sold at public auction and the funds added to his estate. Items of no significant value were discarded (a junk removal business was hired to clean out his apartment; a few items were kept by the workers). They did eventually find his will, and at least some of his heirs, so his estate went to them.</p>\n\n<p>The public administrator had Bell cremated by a local crematorium, with the ashes stored permanently in their columbarium. The cost was paid out of Bell's estate. If he hadn't had any assets, or hadn't been positively identified, the article mentions that he would have been buried in a \"potter's field\" at the city's expense.</p>\n", "score": 6 } ]

[ "estate-planning", "probate" ]

[ { "answer_id": 3967, "body": "<blockquote>\n<p>Suppose a police officer has probable cause to arrest me, based on evidence in plain sight. He wants to initiate a search pursuant to arrest.</p>\n<p>Before the officer can detain me, I put the (alleged) evidence in a place where it is accessible, but if accessed incorrectly the evidence is permanently destroyed (or rendered useless to a prosecution, etc.)</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>This wouldn't happen. The moment you are placed under arrest you are handcuffed and detained. Not only for officer safety, but also for that very reason (so you cannot destroy or secret away evidence).</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The officer asks me to produce the evidence, and I refuse. Consider several scenarios:</p>\n<ol>\n<li>Do I have grounds to refuse to produce it because it would be incriminating; I am under no obligation to incriminate myself?</li>\n</ol>\n</blockquote>\n<p><strong>No.</strong> If the officer is searching you pursuant to arrest (and under your scenario he need not get a warrant as there is evidence in plain view, although he could begin cursory search and have a warrant executed and brought over within an hour, just to be safe). Regardless, you are not consulted as to whether it's OK or not, hence no right to refuse. Further, your 5th amendment right against self incrimination gives you the right not to answer, but you can expect your dwelling to be completely destroyed if they know there is evidence there. Since we are supposing: suppose you actually did get away from the police, before they cuffed you, and were able to get to evidence before being searched and without getting shot (unlikely). They would tear your place apart and would find it.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li>The officer, perhaps not knowing the risk involved, attempts to retrieve the evidence and fails, causing the evidence to be destroyed. If the officer can show that I knowingly put the (alleged) evidence in such a situation and allowed him to destroy it, what might the repercussions be after the fact?</li>\n</ol>\n</blockquote>\n<p>You would be charged with destruction of evidence, on top of whatever you were originally arrested for that they saw in plain view. Further, forensics would almost certainly find some trace of what you were hiding. This scenario is highly unlikely.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<ol start=\"3\">\n<li>The officer, perhaps understanding the risk, goes to a court and asks them to compel my cooperation. Could this happen and, if so, how?</li>\n</ol>\n</blockquote>\n<p>The officer, if he knew it, would just find a way to get at it that wouldn't allow for its destruction. They can literally take out pieces of walls, pipes, whatever. They have the resources to get to anything. If the search would become unreasonable lest the Court knew of your dastardly plan, they would just expand the scope of the search via the warrant.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<ol start=\"4\">\n<li>Suppose I intend to cooperate but accidentally cause the evidence to be destroyed. What might the repercussions be for me, and who would bear the burden of proof?</li>\n</ol>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Same result. You hid it. You destroyed it. You decided to potentially destroy it when you put it in that place, so the outcome is not different.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<ol start=\"5\">\n<li>Suppose the device has another function which produces some other items which are not incriminating. Suppose the officer retrieves these instead of the real evidence. Am I under any obligation to tell the officer whether those are the only items to be found, if I am hiding other items, etc.?</li>\n</ol>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Your only obligation if you're being searched is to <em>be quiet</em>! You have no obligation to help, nor should you help, with the search of your property. But this is not something out of James Bond or Batman. What? Your secret device turns cocaine into sugar? Seriously, this wouldn't happen. If the police thought evidence to be in a place, they wouldn't stop looking because they found something innocuous. They would take whatever it's in apart revealing all its contents.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<ol start=\"6\">\n<li>Can the mere possession of such a device be used by the prosecution to show criminal intent (e.g., a crowbar, flashlight and ski mask in my trunk)?</li>\n</ol>\n</blockquote>\n<p>What device? Now I'm really confused. If you are being searched on suspicion of burglary or robbery for example, the tools a burglar would use or if the robber wore a mask are all viable as potential evidence and would all be seized as such.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "criminal-law", "police", "human-rights", "evidence" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5134, "body": "<p>Congress is not questioning the validity of the debt.</p>\n\n<p>Congress occasionally refuses to authorize borrowing more. If the government cannot borrow more, it must run a balanced budget. The U.S. government's budget is currently so unbalanced that large spending cuts are required to balance the budget.</p>\n\n<p>In theory, Congress could raise taxes instead of implicitly preventing spending. However, when Congress refuses to authorize borrowing more, it rarely is in a mood to raise taxes by enough to immediately balance the budget.</p>\n", "score": 3 }, { "answer_id": 5138, "body": "<p>Congress is not questioning the validity of the debt when it refuses to allow more borrowing.</p>\n\n<p>In fact, the only one questioning the validity of the debt is the President, who claims that he would default on our debts if we did not allow more borrowing to take place. Currently, we take in enough money to pay off our debt obligations every month. There's even enough left over to pay for other things, like military and medicare. But there isn't enough to pay all of the bills. The President, by threatening default if he does not get what he wants - unlimited borrowing power - is the only party here who is arguably questioning the validity of our debt. I suspect he could be impeached for that if the Congress wanted to do so, but if they wanted to do that then they could have just avoided the whole question in the first place by voting for a balanced budget.</p>\n\n<p>To illustrate, suppose government spending were composed of Military, Medicare, Social Security, Education, FBI, and Debt Service. What the president says is that if he did not physically have enough money to pay for all of those things (due to his lack of borrowing power, not given by the Congress) he would not prioritize Debt Service first. He would pay for Education, FBI, Social Security, Medicare, and Military and ignore the debt because he did not have enough money left over. Therefor, if anyone has questioned the validity of the debt, it is the President.</p>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "united-states", "constitutional-law", "us-constitution" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5229, "body": "<p>No</p>\n\n<p>One of the criteria for registering a trade mark is that it be original. If someone has used it before you it cannot be registered.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "trademark" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4530, "body": "<p>In Australia, email addresses, like street addresses are not personal information and are not protected by the Privacy Act (which doesn't cover all businesses in any event)</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "canada", "privacy", "civil-law", "class-action" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5222, "body": "<p><a href=\"https://www.fcc.gov/blog/clearing-air-wi-fi-software-updates\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">The FCC has clarified their stance on this</a>:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>... were we mandating wholesale blocking of Open Source firmware modifications?</p>\n<p>We were not, but we agree that the guidance we provide to manufacturers must be crystal-clear to avoid confusion. So, today we released a <a href=\"https://apps.fcc.gov/kdb/GetAttachment.html?id=zXtrctoj6zH7oNEOO6De6g==&amp;desc=594280%20D02%20U-NII%20Device%20Security%20v01r03&amp;tracking_number=39498\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">revision</a> to that guidance to clarify that our instructions were narrowly-focused on modifications that would take a device out of compliance. The revised guidance now more accurately reflects our intent in both the U-NII rules as well as our current rulemaking, and we hope it serves as a guidepost for the rules as we move from proposal to adoption.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Essentially, Open Source firmware modifications <strong>are</strong> allowed, the modifications are disallowed are things like excessively increasing signal strength.</p>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "united-states", "fcc" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5220, "body": "<p>What they're really referring to is the act that the Telecommunications Act was largely an amendment of: the Communications Act of 1934. This is the big law the FCC deals with; in the vast majority of cases, someone citing a provision of telecommunications law (that's not FCC regulations) is citing this act. Title I of the act, like in many big setting-up-a-field-of-government-regulation acts, is general provisions; this is what the FCC can do for <em>all</em> forms of communication. Title II is common carriers; the Telecommunications Act inserted definitions that established that telecommunications service providers were normally common carriers regulated under Title II of the Communications Act.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "united-states", "internet", "fcc" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5190, "body": "<p>Prima facie, yes</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=64.34.324\" rel=\"nofollow\">RCW 64.34.324</a></p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Subject to the provisions of the declaration, the bylaws may provide for any other matters the association deems necessary and appropriate.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>However, the by-laws cannot contravene local, state or federal law (including common law precedent). So, if a law at that level allows it the by-laws cannot stop it.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "real-estate" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4102, "body": "<p>No.</p>\n\n<p>I can't give a more detailed answer without reference to a specific statute. But just about every state anti-bullying statute in the U.S. restricts the definition to...well, bullying. There is a good summary of state bullying and cyberbullying statutes <a href=\"http://cyberbullying.org/Bullying-and-Cyberbullying-Laws.pdf\">here</a>.</p>\n\n<p>The laws are varied, but they invariable contain words like \"harassment\", \"abuse\", \"threatening,\" \"fear,\" and \"hostile environment.\"</p>\n\n<p>Would it be possible to \"cyberbully\" someone on Stack Exchange under some of these statutes? Sure. You could do it in comments; in answers; even in questions. \"Question: Is Bill in my algebra class a dork, or a tool?\" Comment: \"This is a terrible question, and I'm going to burn your house down. Downvoting.\" You could probably fit something like that under some of the broader statutes--although they still for the most part haven't been tested for First Amendment issues.</p>\n\n<p>But I don't know of any statute broad enough to include downvoting a question or answer, on a site people post on knowing that the whole purpose of posting is to allow their posts to be upvoted and downvoted.</p>\n\n<p>If there was such a statute--and again, I don't know of any--it would almost certainly be unconstitutional. There is no law against hurting people's feelings, at least in the United States, and a law that allows people to seek legal redress for someone saying \"I disagree with you\" is pretty much the poster child for a First Amendment violation.</p>\n", "score": 13 } ]

[ "internet" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5208, "body": "<p>Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution specifies that</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide.</p>\n<p>Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>It therefore seems likely that if there is any procedure specified for the resignation of a senator, it is specified in the Senate rules. Since Senate rules are passed by the Senate only, not being voted on by the House of Representatives nor presented to the President for his signature, they are not laws.</p>\n<p>My quick perusal of the rules, however, did not find anything.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "us-senate" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5204, "body": "<p>They ran the mail service for the <em>House of Representatives</em>, not for the country as a whole (that was, and still is, run by the Postmaster General). <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmaster_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives\">The position was eliminated in 1993</a>, with duties reassigned to other personnel.</p>\n", "score": 7 } ]

[ "united-states", "legislature" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5192, "body": "<p>Self-driving cars (aka Driverless Cars) are being researched widely by different companies. The Nevada State was the first one to allow such cars to be tested in the roads. Google is behind this achievement.</p>\n\n<p>Similarly to Uber and some other apps that impact the way we live, each country will have it's fair time of court to debate whether driverless cars are allowed or not. Without a specific jurisdiction in mind, your question is too-broad, but I believe that there will be countries with early authorization of such cars, whereas some countries will still take up a few decades to start introducing this new technology. </p>\n\n<p>Up to this day, it is beyond the scope of my knowledge any driverless car in which the company states that a human driver is not required in the driver seat. Considering that it's a brand new technology and the outcomes are still not quite definitive, it's safer to require a human ready to act up and it shields the company from liability. We know the cars are being tested and we know drivers are required to be focused, so if an accident happens the driver is liable.</p>\n\n<p>Here is a map of the USA jurisdiction about autonomous cars:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/3SzEU.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/3SzEU.jpg\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></a>\nSource: Wikipedia</p>\n\n<p>Currently, there are news about USA, UK, France and Switzerland allowing such cars to be tested in public roads. </p>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "software", "transportation" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5161, "body": "<p>At least in the U.S., criminal investigations are privileged. The victims of a crime do not have a special right to information while an investigation is open; all information made public is done so at the discretion of the investigating officers. Only once an investigation is closed is there considered to be a public right to know the results of the investigation, and even then many \"work-product\" details can be withheld from the public.</p>\n\n<p>Unless India has much more liberal \"right-to-know\" laws (which I doubt) the only means by which you can obtain information is by appealing to the sympathies of the investigators and convincing them that whatever information you seek will not jeopardize their investigation.</p>\n\n<p>Only if you suspect and can provide compelling evidence of corruption or gross incompetence could you appeal an investigator's discretion to another law enforcement agency, or to a court.</p>\n", "score": 2 }, { "answer_id": 5194, "body": "<p>Sorry about your loss. No matter what, you will not get your father back. As far as restitution for you and your family goes, a civil case will be the most effective method as this guy sounds like he is in business. Contact a civil attorney ASAP and have them begin that process soon so that properties and monies are not shifted/hidden away.</p>\n\n<p>The criminal case will come but the civil case can begin immediately. Your life will be unaffected by his conviction and incarceration. None of that will provide you relief. Taking his money is what you can do.</p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "criminal-law", "india" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5191, "body": "<blockquote>\n <p>What do I do?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Don't replace the same teacher for more than 30 days. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Is there really a penalty for me if anyone finds out? </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Yes, the commission has wide ranging powers to sanction a teacher for misconduct. Knowingly breaching the terms of your permit would prima facie be misconduct. See <a href=\"http://www.ctc.ca.gov/educator-discipline/FAQ.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.ctc.ca.gov/educator-discipline/FAQ.html</a></p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "education" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4385, "body": "<p>The school-teacher-student relationship has historically often been given some of the same privileges and legal exemptions that are granted to the family-parent-child relationship, corporal punishment among them.</p>\n\n<p>All I can find on Pakistani law <a href=\"http://www.corpun.com/rules2.htm#pakistan\" rel=\"nofollow\">suggests corporal punishment is legal but discouraged</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>At federal level, corporal punishment is lawful in schools under\n Article 89 of the Penal Code. Ministerial directives in the different\n provinces have instructed teachers not to use it, in some cases even\n in private schools ... but these are clearly not enforced in practice.</p>\n</blockquote>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "education", "punishment" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5167, "body": "<p>In almost all states of the US, the Attorney General is the chief law enforcement officer of the jurisdiction as well as being the government's chief lawyer. Assistant attorney generals occupy the next rung down and have generally been delegated all or a subset of the powers of the Attorney General.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I would think if there was a dispute between an AAG and a citizen and a body the AAG represented, some consideration would be given by the AAG to the argument of the citizen.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>So would I. In fact lets extend this, if person A makes a complaint to person B about the organisation person B represents then I would expect that person B would give due consideration to that complaint and, if they believe the complaint is justified, take the appropriate action. In any event, they should respond to person A's complaint in a polite and considered manner.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Government bodies shouldn't be able to \"lawyer up\" if they're doing something wrong.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Well, the AAG is probably a lawyer to start with so them applying their legal training to the complaint is hardly \"lawering up\" but I get the point. </p>\n\n<p>If the government is doing something wrong then they should, like everybody else, stop doing it.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Of course \"wrong\" is sometimes a matter of interpretation.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Here I disagree with you. \"Wrong\" is <strong>always</strong> a matter of interpretation. Sometimes the interpretation is easy: genocide is wrong, 2x3=5 is wrong, child abuse is wrong. Sometimes it is not easy: is the granting of this particular mining lease wrong, is homosexual marriage wrong, is representative democracy wrong?</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Do they swear loyalty to the law, to the government official they represent, to the people? To the governor? To the Attorney General?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Most AAG will be lawyers and will be obliged to follow that ethical code. They are employee's of the Department of Justice for their state and are obliged to obey their employer's directions like all other employees. They are officers of the court and are obliged to follow the law. They have the state as their client and are obliged to defend their client's interests to the best of their ability.</p>\n\n<p>Do these obligations sometimes create ethical and legal dilemmas? Of course.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "united-states" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5182, "body": "<blockquote>\n <p>Would this be an infringement of copyright law? </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Unless it met the fair use/ fair dealing criteria of the country of publication then, yes, this is copyright violation. Fair use/fair dealing is jurisdiction specific and depends on the extent of copying and the use to which it is put. Note that US fair use is about the most liberal in the world: other nations are <em>much</em> more restrictive.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>... who gives permission for something like this ...?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The owner of the copyright - this is usually the producer of the video and is usually stated with the copyright notice at the end of the credits.</p>\n\n<p>Please note that the participants will commonly have <em>moral</em> copyright in most jurisdictions. This is not a proprietorial right but includes the right for attribution and integrity in the work (i.e. not to have their work dealt with in a way that is disparaging). A direct translation is <em>unlikely</em> to violate this but if the subject is highly controversial then you need to be very careful of language nuances that may not translate and that may subtly change the meaning of what was said; particularly if it is to be distributed without the original audio and visuals.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "copyright", "intellectual-property", "fair-use" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5042, "body": "<p>It is a principle of equity (of which damages are a part) that you are not entitled to be enriched.</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>That said, let your insurer sort it out - that's what you pay your premiums for.</p>\n", "score": 7 }, { "answer_id": 5180, "body": "<p>You file another claim. Period. It's not unjust enrichment. You have no duty to fix your car. You are being compensated for the reduced value. Say I hit your door backing into a spot and cause a tiny dent. You get paid x for that dent. Then someone comes and rips the door off. The door needs to be replaced anyway. You are legally allowed to put in a claim for that damage. IF someone is to be enriched beyond what they are due, it is never the wrongdoer or the insurer. It is not relevant that you never fixed the small damage. </p>\n\n<p>Now, if you got paid for a small dent on the rear right fender and then you get hit on the door, they only have to pay for the door, not the damage that already existed. In this case you would just list that in the questionnaire about any preexisting marks or dents.</p>\n\n<p>If the car is totaled, you just get book value, so you are out money anyway, because (aside from certain replacement policies) you don't get replacement value only actual value.</p>\n", "score": 7 } ]

[ "insurance", "utah" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5179, "body": "<p>There is no law that helps you. The dentist is under no obligation to tell you about the business and has no duty to be honest with you about such questions. Unless you have a private agreement, for example:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Dentist: Would you like to buy a toothbrush?<br>\n You: Yes I will, but only if you do not profit from it.<br>\n Dentist: I do not profit.<br>\n You: OK, I will buy it. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>If the dentist is lying, this would constitute fraud in the inducement, which you can research if you like. Keep in mind that your remedy is litigation.</p>\n\n<p>The nightguard is a different question. Unnecessary appliances and procedures have their own set of consequences, but that is not your question. </p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "fraud", "medical" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5173, "body": "<p>You don't have a right to publish on Google Play. The platform is owned by Google and they have the right to reject your work for whatever reason they want - legally justified or not.</p>\n\n<p>But why would they?</p>\n\n<p>Even if your app doesn't actually have any copyright problems, Google might still be afraid that it does. All proof they have is your word, and all proof you have is the word of anonymous wikimedia commons contributors. Google doesn't want to spend the resources to confirm for themselves that every single image is indeed rightfully CC-BY-SA licensed. And when they don't want to, you can not force them to take your business.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "copyright", "creative-commons" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5166, "body": "<p>First, no one can tell you what is \"generally taught\" in the thousands of law schools across hundreds of jurisdictions.</p>\n\n<p>Second, <em>dishonesty</em> is defined by the OED as \"deceitfulness shown in someone's character or behaviour\" and <em>deceit</em> is defined as \"the action or practice of deceiving someone by concealing or misrepresenting the truth\".</p>\n\n<p>\"Someone\" can be the person who makes the statement so if you deceive yourself <em>or</em> someone else you are being dishonest. You do not have to make a statement to be dishonest; not saying something can be deceitful.</p>\n\n<p>However, dishonesty is not in and of itself a crime or a tort; it only becomes so when the law imposes a duty to be honest. When that happens, the statute (if applicable) and the case law is usually pretty clear about what honesty requires. This will differ between jurisdictions and within jurisdictions with context.</p>\n\n<p>For example, many jurisdictions impose an obligations on business not to engage in \"false or misleading\" conduct. However, you can tell lies and still comply with the law because obviously outrageous advertising claims (e.g. \"Sale of the Century\", \"The greatest thing since sliced bread\") while (probably) false are not misleading.</p>\n\n<p>Alternatively, you can be scrupulous about not telling lies and still be dishonest. A case in NSW (name escapes me) where a potential buyer of a restaurant asked \"How many does it seat?\" and receiving a reply of \"X\", a perfectly accurate answer based on the number of place settings, was able to successfully sue when he discovered after the purchase that it was <em>licenced</em> to seat \"Y\"; substantially less than \"X\". The judge held that while the statement was a factually accurate response to the literal question posed, it was dishonest in the context of the transaction the parties were contemplating.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "perjury" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5163, "body": "<p>Both .mp3 and .mp4 use patented technologies, and would require a license. Your customer most likely uses an audio player or video player on their computer where the computer manufacturer or the OS manufacturer has paid license fees so that you can play anything for free. And the same is most likely true for the tools that you are using to produce the files. </p>\n\n<p>Youtube is possible because Google pays license fees for all encoding that you are doing, and if you play Youtube on your Mac or Windows PC, then Apple or Mirosoft pays license fees for the playback. Actually, a very small fee for each copy of the player. </p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "licensing" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5142, "body": "<p>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:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>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.</p></li>\n<li><p>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.</p></li>\n<li><p>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.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>One comment asks why I recommend never accepting a counteroffer. There are at least two reasons:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>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?</p></li>\n<li><p>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.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>I'm not saying that accepting a counteroffer has always turned out badly. <a href=\"http://www.brainjet.com/random/1092/9-unexpectedly-high-death-statistics-you-wouldnt-believe#page=1\">Falling coconuts kill 150 people every year.</a> Still, I am not going to add a coconut rider to my insurance policy and I am not going to accept a counteroffer.</p>\n", "score": 26 } ]

[ "united-states", "employment" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5155, "body": "<p>The Data Retention Directive (DRD) was written in 2006, in 2009 the UK implemented the DRD as the Data Retention Regulations (DRR). However, in 2014 the European Court of Justice (ECJ) rules the DRD was non-compliant with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CFR). The DRD was annulled and so was all implementing legislation. As an aside, countries which were fined for NOT implementing the DRD were reimbursed.</p>\n\n<p>For a report on the whole affair you might like to read this:</p>\n\n<p>Cole, M., &amp; Boehm, F. (2014). Data Retention after the Judgement of the Court of Justice of the European Union.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "united-kingdom", "european-union", "england-and-wales" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5149, "body": "<p>The probable answer is right there in the article: the Kim Dotcom case has been a PR coup but a legal disaster. Mr Dotcom has not, at this time, been jailed and it may have become apparent to US and NZ law enforcement agencies that he probably <em>never will be</em>!</p>\n\n<p>It is really, really easy to accuse someone of committing a crime; it can be really, really hard to prove it beyond reasonable doubt in a court of law.</p>\n\n<p>So after initiating a case that has turned out to be a total disaster, why would you expect them to do the same thing a second time?</p>\n", "score": 6 } ]

[ "internet", "online-piracy" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5148, "body": "<p><strong>California</strong>:</p>\n\n<p>Results from lab tests ordered by a health care professional must be provided by the health care professional to the patient if the patient requests them. This is codified in <a href=\"http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=hsc&amp;group=123001-124000&amp;file=123100-123149.5\" rel=\"nofollow\">California Health and Safety Code 123148</a>. That section states:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>(i) A patient may not be required to pay a cost, or be charged a fee, for electing to receive his or her laboratory results in a manner other than by Internet posting or other electronic form.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><strong>Massachusetts:</strong></p>\n\n<p>Massachusetts' law allows for a charge of $15 for each request of records plus a per page charge of $0.50 for each of the first 100 pages and $0.25 for each page in excess of 100 pages. There are some exceptions to the charges for certain conditions in <a href=\"https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXVI/Chapter111/Section70\" rel=\"nofollow\">Massachusetts law</a>.</p>\n\n<p><strong>United States</strong>:</p>\n\n<p>If your health care provider transmits health records electronically then they are covered by the Privacy Act. If they are covered by the Privacy Act then they cannot <a href=\"http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/consumers/medicalrecords.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">deny you a copy of your records</a> however:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>...a provider may charge for the reasonable costs for copying and mailing the records.</p>\n</blockquote>\n", "score": 2 }, { "answer_id": 5146, "body": "<p>Current US law says no. You can always request a copy of your medical records for no more than the cost of reproduction. We note that electronic distribution costs nothing these days and is already required to exist due to other laws.</p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "united-states", "california", "health", "massachusetts" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5144, "body": "<p>What is allowed and what happens are different things; this is why we have police, courts and prisons. If everyone followed all of the laws all of the time we would need none of these.</p>\n\n<p>The videos are copyright and without the permission of the copyright holder (the NFL) you cannot reproduce or distribute them. A defense to copyright violation is if the usage is fair use or fair dealing.</p>\n\n<p>What you see on line is:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Done with permission of the NFL</li>\n<li>Fair use as it is being used to comment on or analyze the performance; like a critic's book review.</li>\n<li>Unlawful and not pursued (yet) because the NFL considers it not worthwhile. </li>\n</ol>\n", "score": 4 } ]

[ "copyright", "internet", "fair-use" ]

[ { "answer_id": 3475, "body": "<h1>Short Answer</h1>\n<blockquote>\n<p><strong>It depends on the totality of the facts and circumstances.</strong></p>\n<p>But based on your description, this approach is likely problematic and might not withstand judicial scrutiny.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<h3>Explanation</h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Plaintiffs can attack this behavior as a <em><strong>sham transaction</strong></em>.</li>\n<li>Court could find this to be a <em><strong>fraudulent conveyance</strong></em>.</li>\n<li>and provide relief via <em><strong>clawback order</strong></em>.</li>\n</ul>\n<p><strong>Badges of Fraud</strong> include: (<a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraudulent_conveyance\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Source: Wikipedia</a>)</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Becoming insolvent because of the transfer;</li>\n<li>Lack or inadequacy of consideration;</li>\n<li>Family, or insider relationship among parties;</li>\n<li>The retention of possession, benefits or use of property in question;</li>\n<li>The existence of the threat of litigation;</li>\n<li>The financial situation of the debtor at the time of transfer or after transfer;</li>\n<li>The existence or a cumulative effect of a series of transactions after the onset of debtor’s financial difficulties;</li>\n<li>The general chronology of events;</li>\n<li>The secrecy of the transaction in question; and</li>\n<li>Deviation from the usual method or course of business.</li>\n</ul>\n", "score": 8 }, { "answer_id": 4857, "body": "<p>In the US anyway, there is a duty of transparency, and there is a duty to refrain from hypothecation. </p>\n\n<p>However, divorces involving billionaires generally follow their own trajectory apart and away from those of the madding crowd. Does a billionaire not have access to legal resources?</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "united-states", "international", "divorce" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5065, "body": "<p>O.C.G.A. § 44-9-6 is a statute that deals with abandoned properties, typically meaning without ownership, upkeep, failure to observe their obligations related to loans/taxes....it's not just someone not living there for a few months or during construction. If the pipes are the municipality's or they are granted an easement in their deed they have the legal right to access them.</p>\n\n<p>There is really nothing that can stop them from accessing it, because if they applied for and seemingly obtained a building permit, then they would've not issued that permit without access to water and sewer (even if your county or town uses well and septic). The means necessary for obtaining that would've likely meant getting a sewer permit, too. </p>\n\n<p>But yes, these are all locally controlled issues.If you think the deed or the municipality does not grant the access, you can go to the registry of deeds and the county clerks office, and find out. </p>\n\n<p>That said, abandonment takes much much longer than you've described, and it's a legal determination not just a physical absence from the property from a neighbor's perspective if other things are in place. </p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "real-estate", "georgia" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5088, "body": "<p>Although the USA don't like it, there's a department called INTERPOL which is composed by about 150 countries.</p>\n\n<p>When a crime is committed and you need to involve another country to solve it, the sovereignty of each County prevents a police officer from one country acting upon another country. That's when the INTERPOL comes in. They usually requests the police from that country to act up. A judge from that country will grant their local police access to the data to be delivered to the country that requested it.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Can the police get a search warrant for data 'in the cloud'?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Yes. If the servers are located within the boundaries of your own country, it's a normal procedure. But like the above answer states, it's easier to subpoena the records than to execute a search warrant. In a subpoena, the company itself is bound to provide everything the police asks.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Can the police get a search warrant for such third party systems?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Yes. If there's enough probable cause, the investigation can lead to allow the police to try and discover files that are held by servers that store the cloud data. But if the servers are located outside the country and the company does not have any office opened in the country, a search warrant won't have validity in another jurisdiction and the police can't act without breaking the sovereignty principle. That's where the INTERPOL services are handy. The department is built in the principle of polices from different countries helping each other. The downside is that it's too bureaucratic and it takes a lot of time.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>For instance if he has a virtual machine hosted by Amazon, would they serve the warrant on Amazon, or on the suspect?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Like mentioned by @Viktor, if the company has an office within the bounds of your country, it's easier to subpoena the records because that way the company will filter and provide only the data linked to the suspect being investigated. That is, the subpoena will have both the name of the company (Amazon) and the name of the Suspect, so the company can provide only the necessary files.</p>\n\n<h2>Update</h2>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>If the police lack sufficient evidence for a search warrant, but an interpol country was, for some reason, willing to work with the police to collect and provide that information would they be able to use it even if they wouldn't have been able to subpoena a US country?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Hypothetically speaking, I see your follow-up as a company that <strong>do have</strong> a local office and the Federal Police was turned down by a judge on a warrant/subpoena. In that case, there's no reason for another's country police to act on their own country. The suspect is a foreign suspect, the crime is a foreign crime and the police has no reason to work on it.</p>\n\n<p>But for the sake of argument, let's say that the local police was turned down by a judge for lack of evidence or something and the suspect has been investigated by a foreign country or whatever. If the information that the local police desires to obtain is available through the INTERPOL, it's most likely to be accepted since it's a data stored by an international police department. In your scenario, the foreign police was granted a legal right to search and collected the data for legal purpose. Maybe they can't use it in their own country, but since they followed a safe chain of custody and provided the information to the INTERPOL, that information has legal validity and it is not fruit of the poisonous tree if the chain of custody was maintained.</p>\n", "score": 6 }, { "answer_id": 5078, "body": "<p>If the servers are located within the USA, the police typically obtain a subpoena and not a warrant, much less bureaucracy and they don't have to go through the whole process of executing a warrant. The subpoena forces the cloud file hosts to give any data on the subject under investigation. Typically subpoenas can be issued for any company with a presence in the USA, even if the servers are outside the country.</p>\n\n<p>If there is no presence in the USA, the law enforcement officers would have to work with local police to retrieve the data. If it's a particularly important case and the local authorities are not helping, it is possible that the state department would get involved to try to obtain the evidence.</p>\n", "score": 5 } ]

[ "united-states", "search-and-seizure" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5074, "body": "<p>You can put conditions on bequests (subject to other laws that might require you to provide for children etc.), however, these must be antecedent to the gift: once a gift is given you can't call it back.</p>\n\n<p>Of course, you could set up a trust that owns the bequest with rules for when and how the beneficiaries can utilise them that effectively do what you ask. However, this is a morbid and sick way of trying to control people from beyond the grave. The acceptable way to do this is to come back as a ghost, vampire, zombie etc. instead.</p>\n", "score": 11 } ]

[ "wills" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5129, "body": "<p>Stuff email, write him a letter and send it certified mail (or confirmed delivery or whatever the equivalent is where you live).</p>\n\n<p>Of course, this won't help if the landlord is right and Problem 2 really is you issue to deal with. In any event you need to resolve the dispute: win or lose, a resolved dispute is better than an unresolved one.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "landlord" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5128, "body": "<p>First, property ownership information in Australia is publically available. You can contact your local council or the Land Titles Office in your state or territory to find out who owns it.</p>\n\n<p>Legally, you cannot really do anything to the property without the owners permission. However, since you have by now followed the above step you can now contact the owner and ask their permission. They will either grant it in which case you can proceed with your plan. Or they won't.</p>\n\n<p>If they don't, have a solicitor write them a letter putting them on notice that you consider the state of their property presents an ongoing fire hazard to your life and property and that in the event of an adverse event you will hold them responsible and seek damages. Again, offer to do something about it at your expense. I'm guessing they will either do something themselves or give you permission.</p>\n\n<p>If they don't, you now have a relationship with a solicitor and they can advise you better than we can.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "australia" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5125, "body": "<p>My reading is that yes, a blog post which includes individual works qualifies as a collective Work or a Collection. Even if it is just one unaltered licensed image along with your own original text.</p>\n\n<p>The biggest clue comes in Section 4(a) of Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 (3.0 is similar):</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The above applies to the Work as incorporated in a Collective Work,\n but this does not require the Collective Work apart from the Work\n itself to be made subject to the terms of this License.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>\"The above\" refers to imposing terms on an original work. In other words if you publish your blog post under a strict license, the original work must be available under its original license.</p>\n\n<p>Continuing, there is this bit here: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>If You create a Collective Work, upon notice from any Licensor You\n must, to the extent practicable, remove from the Collective Work any\n reference to such Licensor or the Original Author, as requested.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This is saying that if you include a photo in your blog, and you give credit to the licensor but the licensor does not want to be a part of your blogging message (for example), the licensor can ask that you remove the reference.</p>\n\n<p>There is additional information in the license that is helpful to the blog example, like where and how to give credit, but suffice it to say, the answer is yes.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "copyright", "creative-commons" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5075, "body": "<p><strong>tl;dr:</strong> Precedent takes effect on the decision date.</p>\n\n<p>You didn't list a jurisdiction, so I'll give a U.S. example. In <a href=\"https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-205.ZS.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Citizens United v. FEC (U.S. 2010)</a>, there are three dates listed in the header:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Argued March 24, 2009</li>\n<li>Reargued September 9, 2009</li>\n<li>Decided January 21, 2010 </li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Precedent attaches to a decision date. That's also why we see 2010 in the case citation above. However, it's important to note that not all precedent is binding. A decision made in the 7th Circuit isn't binding on a district court in the 2d Circuit, and vice versa.</p>\n\n<p>As to the impact on cases in progress, the party that is more favorably impacted by the change can bring it to the judge's attention. The outcome will depend on the a) whether the decision is relevant, b) whether the decision is binding, and c) how far along the case at bar happens to be. Note: most U.S. cases never go to trial. It is (relatively) lower stakes to incorporate new legal theories in the pleading or discovery stage.</p>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "trial", "precedent" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5091, "body": "<p>Public Law ##-### is a reference to a <em>slip law</em> -- an actual bill, as passed by Congress and signed (or vetoed, if the veto was overridden) by the President. The first number is the number of the Congress that passed it, the second the number of the law in that Congress. (the \"Public\" is in contrast with <em>private</em> bills, which are things like \"XYZ person, who is otherwise ineligible for citizenship, is a citizen\" -- things that affect basically one person).</p>\n\n<p>The US Statutes at Large are a compilation of slip laws (both public and private). Each volume has all the slip laws from a session of Congress, at least these days (I'm not sure how it interacts with the first few Congresses before the Statutes at Large existed). Laws there are still often called PL such-and-such, because that just means \"law as enacted.\" If that doesn't line up <em>exactly</em> with the enrolled bill as passed and signed, something has gone wrong that <em>really</em> shouldn't go wrong. If this happens, someone is getting fired.</p>\n\n<p>The slip law and Statutes at Large are both official, pretty much irrefutable evidence of any laws of the United States. Laws are passed by Congress, and they contain exactly what was passed. Logical. However, while they're logical, they're also a terrible research tool. If you want to find the law from them, you need to scan through every federal law ever passed. They aren't organized in any way having to do with topic. But there is another way: instead of just saying \"everything the legislature has done is the law,\" you can rearrange those laws by topic and <em>update</em> them as the legislature does things. This is not easy: the legislature is passing things organized by what they're trying to do, and you need to put it all in an order that's based on what the laws actually regulate. There's a <em>lot</em> of editorial judgment involved. But it makes a better research tool to see what the law is.</p>\n\n<p>The US Code is the second attempt at that (the first attempt failed). It's made by the House of Representatives Office of Law Revision Counsel, and does not inherently form part of US law. By default, it's merely strong evidence for what US law is; it is not conclusive, and the Statutes at Large takes precedence. This is because codification is hard. However, some titles of the US Code have gone further: the House OLRC cleaned them up and Congress enacted them into law. With the titles where this happened, Congress then passes all laws about them with direct reference to sections of the US Code, the OLRC can't move things around by themselves. The title <em>itself</em> becomes US law.</p>\n\n<p>With these titles, the US Code is just like the Statutes at Large: it's identical to the law as passed, and if not then heads will roll. Also, in such cases, the US Code becomes just as official evidence as the Statutes at Large.</p>\n", "score": 3 }, { "answer_id": 3522, "body": "<p>Oops, if I had checked <code>law.cornell</code> link more closely, I would have noticed this link:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://uscode.house.gov/statviewer.htm?volume=73&amp;page=555\" rel=\"nofollow\">73 Stat. 555.</a></p>\n\n<p>The link takes me to <code>uscode.house.gov</code></p>\n\n<p>The link contains a scan of the original (typewritten?) text, with notes in the margins (per GPO; \"OFR also prepares marginal notes\"), with the title of PL 86-272, and the date of Sept 14, 1959.</p>\n\n<p>Furthermore, the (first few lines) of text content, and the organizational bullets from PL scan are <strong>effectively the same</strong> to the first few lines/bullets of the USC.</p>\n\n<p>PL:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><strong>Sec. 101. (a)</strong> No State, or political subdivision thereof, shall have power to impose, for any taxable year <strong>ending after the date of the enactment of this act</strong></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>USC:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><strong>(a) Minimum standards</strong> No State, or political subdivision thereof, shall have power to impose, for any taxable year <strong>ending after September 14, 1959</strong></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>So I think the answer to my questions are:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Check the <code>uscode.house.gov</code> website for original PL text</li>\n<li>The relationship is that the PL was as-written when enacted, whereas the USC is when codified (after some cleaning-up) into law</li>\n</ol>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "united-states", "legal-research", "legislature" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5124, "body": "<blockquote>\n <p>The official judgements do not reveal the funding for these lawyers; so where can I find this information?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><strong>Nowhere</strong>. The commercial arrangements between lawyers and their clients are private and confidential like any other business transactions. You have no more right to know this then you do to know how your neighbour pays their mortgage.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>how could she have funded litigation in the EWHC and then EWCA before the UKSC?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>She may have rich parents or another benefactor who has in interest in her or the outcome of the case. She may have won the lottery. She may be the heiress of a dead rich uncle.</p>\n\n<p>By the way, \"having\" student loans does not mean you \"need\" student loans. Interest rates on student loans are cheap - if I need to pay $10,000 for a course and have $10,000 earning 5%, I would be nuts to use that if I could take out a loan at 3%.</p>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "united-kingdom", "costs" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5105, "body": "<p>You can legally dispute any charge levied on your credit card. You can legally require a creditor to prove that you owe them money.</p>\n\n<p>However, if they successfully prove that you owed them money then you are liable not only for the money you owed but their costs (including legal costs, bank charges etc.) in proving it and interest from the date you should have paid until the date you do pay.</p>\n", "score": 2 }, { "answer_id": 5119, "body": "<p>You do have the right to speak freely on the internet. The number crunchers at corporate get very sensitive when they start to see a lot of one star reviews, because they can quantify the how much money that loses their franchises. So if I were you, I would pick a \"Thrifty\" with relatively few ratings, and simply state the policy and how it affected you and give them 1-star on Yelp. This won't net you anything, but will really aggravate them, and might even give them some incentive to change the policy. </p>\n\n<p>P.S. If you are really mad and want to write a one star review for all locations in your state, it's probably best to do this in an Anti-SLAPP state.<br>\nP.S.S. If you are in NJ, take a close look at the NJ Consumer Fraud Act. It's fantastic. \nP.S.S.S I am in no way a lawyer. </p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "united-states", "finance", "fraud" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5117, "body": "<p>\"Only the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare, or to authorize someone else to create, a new version of that work.\"</p>\n\n<p>Copyright in Derivative Works and Compilations<br>\n<a href=\"http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf</a></p>\n\n<p>So if you have not been granted authorization, you are violating the right of the owner. It's always recommended that you get permission. Practically speaking, if the owner does not give you permission, there is probably someone else with a similar photo who will!</p>\n\n<p>Pretty famous recent case: <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_%22Hope%22_poster#Origin_and_copyright_issues\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Barack Obama \"Hope\" poster</a></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/gDcLG.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/gDcLG.jpg\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></a></p>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "copyright", "photography" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5077, "body": "<p><strong>tl;dr:</strong> The terms have separate etymologies. Majesty derives from greatness, while magistrate comes from mastering something (people or a trade).</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/majesty\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Majesty</a></p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Middle English (in the sense 'greatness of God'): from Old French <em>majeste</em>, from Latin <em>majestas</em>, from a variant of <em>majus</em>, major.</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=majesty\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Also</a>, c. 1300, &quot;greatness, glory,&quot; from Old French <em>majeste</em> &quot;grandeur, nobility&quot; (12c.), from Latin <em>maiestatem</em> (nominative maiestas) &quot;greatness, dignity, elevation, honor, excellence,&quot; from stem of maior (neuter maius), comparative of <em>magnus</em> &quot;great&quot; (see magnate). Earliest English us is with reference to God; as a title, in reference to kings and queens (late 14c.), it is from Romance languages and descends from the Roman Empire.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/magistrate\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Magistrate</a></p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Latin <em>magistratus</em> ‘administrator’, from <em>magister</em> ‘master’. This also gives us master (Old English), its weakened form mister (mid 16th century), and miss.</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=magistrate\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Also</a>, late 14c., &quot;civil officer in charge of administering laws,&quot; from Old French <em>magistrat</em>, from Latin <em>magistratus</em> &quot;a magistrate, public functionary,&quot; originally &quot;magisterial rank or office,&quot; from <em>magistrare</em> &quot;serve as a magistrate,&quot; from <em>magister</em> &quot;chief, director&quot; (see master).</p>\n</blockquote>\n", "score": 14 } ]

[ "legal-terms", "legal-history", "judge" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5103, "body": "<p>Questions of law can be hard when (among other things):</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>the fact pattern has not been seen before (<em><a href=\"http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-796_c07d.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">Bowman v. Monsanto</a></em>),</li>\n<li>there is ambiguity in a statute (<em><a href=\"http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-114_qol1.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">King v. Burwell</a></em>),</li>\n<li>there is conflict between a statute and the constitution (<em><a href=\"http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-307_6j37.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">United States v. Windsor</a></em>), or</li>\n<li>there is apparently conflicting precedent (<em><a href=\"http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/campbell-ewald-company-v-gomez/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Campbell Ewald Co. v. Gomez</a></em>).</li>\n</ul>\n", "score": 3 }, { "answer_id": 5113, "body": "<p>There are many and innumermable reasons that a certain legal question might be considered \"hard\". The previous answer lists some of the more definitely-relevant ones especially \"conflicting precedent\"; that's often a situation that's particularly fruitful for giving rise to cases that are called hard.</p>\n\n<p>But...there's kind of a big problem underlying this whole endeavor: the question of whether a case is \"hard\" is very often is a contentious battle between legal scholars/observers/commentators--and more importantly, between judges--<em>itself</em>. There really can be no firm, decisive set of criteria for dissecting whether a case is hard or not, because, generally speaking, to say \"This is a hard case to me.\" usually means \"In my mind, the question of which side should prevail in this case is a close call.\" And the sides can be close in a given jurist's head in a certain set of circumstances due to .... well, any combination of many, many, many factors.</p>\n\n<p>In sum, in law even the question of what it means for a case to be \"hard\" is really pretty much impossibly hard. :) </p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "academia" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5110, "body": "<p>Don't overthink this:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Have you remixed, transformed or built upon the material? If you put a picture in your article to illustrate a point made in that article then no. If you drew a moustache on the portrait then yes.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "copyright", "creative-commons", "photography" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5107, "body": "<p>No, in the absence of specific terms regarding termination then the law of the relevant jurisdiction will be applicable including what \"probation\" means.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "contract-law", "employment", "terms-of-service", "india" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5106, "body": "<p>In placing an order (for anything, not just in a restaurant) and in the supplier accepting it then a legally binding verbal contract has been created. There are terms that come into being implicitly: some come from statute law and some from common law.</p>\n\n<p>For example, in most jurisdictions there will be either a common law or specific statute that requires the product to be of merchantable quality and fit for the purpose the customer explicitly or implicitly made known to the vendor. In a restaurant, this means that the food must be presented in a way that enables you to eat it and it must be fit for human consumption.</p>\n\n<p>It also means that, in the absence of a time for delivery being specified, that the meal must be delivered within a reasonable time. Reasonable has a specific legal meaning and is an objective test: what an ordinary, reasonable and prudent person would expect in the specific circumstances.</p>\n\n<p>It is clear that a reasonable time varies with the circumstances. Reasonable in McDonalds is different from reasonable in a 3 Michelin star restaurant and also different from the same McDonald's when it is obvious to the customer that they are currently insanely busy.</p>\n\n<p>If the supplier does not supply the goods and services within a reasonable time then they have breached a term of the contract. The customer has several options: </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>repudiate the contract and sue for damages if this is a breach of a condition of the contract (a condition is a term that is fundamental to the contract; late delivery of food probably isn't a condition),</li>\n<li>repudiate the contract and sue for damages if this is a major breach of a term of the contract (late delivery probably is),</li>\n<li>sue for damages if this is an intermediate breach of a term or a breach of a warranty.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Enough generalities, for your specific queries:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>What law in involved in restaurant orders?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Contract law, consumer protection law, health and safety law, business law, food hygiene laws, tax laws etc. etc.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>If I go into a restaurant and order hundreds of dollars of food, then leave before it arrives, I would imagine there is some recourse that the proprietor could take.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Sure, there is a contract, you breached it, the restaurant can sue for damages. In addition, they could make a complaint to the police that you have acted fraudulently by ordering food you never intended to pay for.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>However, if I order a single item and it doesn't show up for over an hour, despite me inquiring about it's status, would I be compelled to pay?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>It depends on if an hour is a reasonable time or not. By inquiring you have demonstrated that you don't believe that it is but you may not be \"an ordinary, reasonable and prudent person\". If the breach is actual and egregious enough then you probably have the right to repudiate the contract; that means the contract is at an end and neither of you have any further obligations under it including an obligation to pay.</p>\n\n<p>That said, you would be on surer ground if you attempted to renegotiate the contract to make time a condition. \"Look, if the meal is not here in 15 minutes, I'm leaving\"; if the restaurateur accepts this renegotiation by, for example, saying \"I'm terribly sorry, we will sort it out\" then your position is much clearer.</p>\n", "score": 6 } ]

[ "restaurants" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5101, "body": "<p>Yes.</p>\n\n<p>The formation of a contract requires (among other things) that the parties intend to be legally bound. Their sending the offer from a corporate email address shows this. You replying in the same way shows your intention. Signatures are optional.</p>\n\n<p>Consider, verbal contracts are binding; how do you sign those?</p>\n", "score": 5 } ]

[ "contract-law", "employment", "terms-of-service", "india" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5093, "body": "<p>Depends on where you are. It's called <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_piggybacking#United_States\" rel=\"nofollow\">piggybacking</a> and its legality varies state to state (and possibly even county to county). You might not get caught, but if you do the penalties may include a fine or a custodial sentence.</p>\n\n<p>For example, you might find yourself doing this in, say, New York - you would probably not run into legal issues there, provided you had no information to suggest your access was unauthorised.</p>\n\n<p>Different laws and principles apply to trespass to land, which exists to vindicate your right to exclusive use and enjoyment of your property - you <em>can't</em> enter someone else's land except where consent is implied. For example, if you have an unlocked front gate and a path that leads up to the front of the house, you'd be able to walk up to it for the purpose of going to the front door to visit. On the other hand, you probably would not be entitled to swim in the backyard pool, or enter the house, even if the gate/door was unlocked - but it'd depend on the specific case. </p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "united-states", "internet", "consumer-protection", "hacking", "property" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5048, "body": "<h1>Summary</h1>\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Encryption legality:</strong> Sending encrypted messages is legal, but exporting advanced cryptographic technology is regulated</li>\n<li><strong>American law enforcement:</strong> Probably cannot obtain decrypted data due to the Fifth Amendment, though it's an open question</li>\n<li><strong>Canadian law enforcement:</strong> Can obtain decrypted data given reasonable grounds and when you are not under investigation (i.e. it's for the purpose of investigating someone else)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<h1>Legality of Encryption</h1>\n\n<p>As pointed out in the comments, encryption is used daily by many in North America. This happens when browsing the internet, using Skype, electronic banking, etc. In Western countries at least, sending encrypted messages is generally legal.</p>\n\n<p>What is regulated, however, is the export of the crypto-technology itself. This is handled through the <a href=\"http://www.wassenaar.org/index.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Wassenaar Arrangement</a>, an arrangement between 40+ countries, of which Canada and the US are a part. The arrangement deals with the exports of conventional arms and dual-use technologies, including cryptographic technologies. The relevant portion is Control List 5, part 2. It contains an exception in Note 3, essentially stating that widely available cryptographic technologies are left uncontrolled.</p>\n\n<h1>American Law Enforcement</h1>\n\n<p>As pointed out in the comments, the American perspective has already <a href=\"https://law.stackexchange.com/q/1523/\">been addressed</a> on this site. Briefly summarizing Mark's and cpast's answers there: </p>\n\n<p>While the issue has not yet reached the Supreme Court, it appears requesting decrypted data violates the Fifth Amendment. There may be an exception though, when the document's general contents are already known.</p>\n\n<h1>Canadian Law Enforcement</h1>\n\n<p>In Canada, The general way to compel someone to give documents or data is through a Production Order defined in <a href=\"http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/page-257.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">§ 487.014</a> of the <em>Criminal Code</em>. There are a few types of production orders, but I'll cite the general one:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>(1) Subject to [the more specific production orders], on <em>ex parte</em> application made by a peace officer or public officer, a justice or judge may order a person to produce a document that is a copy of a document that is in their possession or control when they receive the order, or to prepare and produce a document containing data that is in their possession or control at that time.</p>\n \n <p>(2) Before making the order, the justice or judge must be satisfied [...] that there are reasonable grounds to believe that (a) an offence has been or will be committed under this or any other Act of Parliament; and (b) the document or data is in the person’s possession or control and will afford evidence respecting the commission of the offence.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>There is no specific reference to decryption here, but I believe (1) implies it must be done: if you are able to decrypt a message, you are in possession/control of the data. However:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>(4) A person who is under investigation for the offence referred to in subsection (2) may not be made subject to an order.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Because the suspect cannot be subject to the order, the main use case of production orders is to compel third parties to produce documents/data that would aid in prosecution of the suspect. </p>\n\n<p>The third party is afforded some protection under <a href=\"http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/page-261.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">§ 487.0196</a>. They cannot refuse the order on the basis of self-incrimination but if the compelled documents/data happen to incriminate the third party in some other offence, that evidence is not admissible against them (except for cases of perjury). Note that this is very similar to the provisions provided for in Charter sections <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_Eleven_of_the_Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and_Freedoms#Right_not_to_be_compelled_to_be_a_witness\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">11(c)</a> and <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_Thirteen_of_the_Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and_Freedoms\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">13</a>.</p>\n\n<h1>Self Incrimination Note</h1>\n\n<p>Tangentially, this answer touched on a key difference in self-incrimination law between Canada and the US. In the US, you can plead the Fifth in <em>any</em> criminal proceeding. In Canada, you can only do so in your own, though what you reveal otherwise is not later admissible against you.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "united-states", "criminal-law", "canada", "privacy", "cryptography" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5073, "body": "<p>Based on some quick searching, this would likely be a wrongful death action. I have to pick a state, so I'll pick Nevada.</p>\n\n<p>The first question is what damages could be. I don't know offhand what is typical in wrongful death suits, but this appears to be beyond mere negligence: there was a hit and run involved. I have no trouble believing the claim would reach at least six figures. This is important, because federal diversity jurisdiction only includes lawsuits with over $75,000 at stake. Now, Santa Claus's citizenship matters; if he were stateless it'd be an issue, but he is a <a href=\"http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2008/12/23/7839591.html\">citizen of Canada</a>.</p>\n\n<p>That means that federal court has diversity jurisdiction: because the lawsuit is between a citizen of one state on one side and a foreign citizen on the other (no state has citizens on both sides of the lawsuit), and meets Congress's extra requirements (enough money at stake), it can be in federal court. The way diversity jurisdiction works is that the plaintiff can file in federal court, but if they choose to file in Nevada court then the defendant can <em>remove</em> the case to federal court. Either party can get it into federal court.</p>\n\n<p>Conventional wisdom is that federal court is more defendant-friendly than state court on state law claims. It is likely that if Grandpa files the case in any court in Nevada, the case will end up in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada.</p>\n\n<p>But suppose it is in state court? Most states don't have separate \"county court\" and \"state court\" systems; county courts are a thing, but they're a specialized thing and the serious stuff is not in those. A six-figure wrongful death claim won't go in Nevada's equivalent of small claims court. It'd go in Nevada district court, if it's in state courts.</p>\n\n<p>But what about other courts? Grandma was walking home, so it can be assumed she was a Nevada resident. Assuming Grandpa lived with her (which is rather likely), so is he. They then can't sue in any US state <em>other</em> than Nevada without being laughed out of court -- a lawsuit needs to have <em>something</em> to do with where you're suing. The other option is Canada, but such a suit is unlikely.</p>\n", "score": 5 } ]

[ "united-states" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5038, "body": "<p>In New Zealand, under s37 of the Copyright Act 1994, it is secondary infringement (it's an offence under s131) to provide the means for making infringing copies. Every person who watches the video is effectively making an infringing copy, but the provision only catches the person who uploaded the video without the correct license.</p>\n", "score": 4 }, { "answer_id": 5072, "body": "<p>No. Copyright is the exclusive legal right, given to an originator or an assignee to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material, and to authorize others to do the same.</p>\n\n<p>Viewing does not fall under any of those acts.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "copyright" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5053, "body": "<p>You can contract to do anything that is not illegal. In many jurisdictions unconscionability is a thing that statute or case law makes illegal. These clauses may be unconscionable, however ...</p>\n\n<p>In most jurisdictions real estate rental agreements are <em>highly</em> regulated; particularly as regards eviction. So, even if these don't cross the line into unconscionable (and for what it's worth, they're nudging it at least) they are probably prohibited anyway.</p>\n\n<p>There probably is an independent third party that decides on evictions anyway in the form of a court or rental tribunal.</p>\n", "score": 4 } ]

[ "contract-law", "rental-property" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4749, "body": "<p>The funding of public-service broadcasting in Germany was changed effective 2013-01-01. Under the current rules (<a href=\"https://www.rundfunkbeitrag.de/e175/e800/15terRundfunkbeitragsstaatsvertrag.pdf\" rel=\"noreferrer\"><em>Rundfunkbeitragsstaatsvertrag</em></a>, in German), a monthly fee is to be paid for every single unit of housing (flat or single-family house), unless it is uninhabitated. It is otherwise immaterial how many people live there or whether any of them owns a receiver¹ or not. Certain people are exempt from the broadcasting fee or eligible to a reduced fee; however, in a multi-person housing unit, this only applies if each inhabitant satisfies the criteria for exemption or reduction. The “ARD ZDF Deutschlandradio Beitragsservice”, or <em>Beitragsservice</em>² for short, is the entity tasked with collecting the broadcasting fees.</p>\n\n<p>According to section 2(1) of the <em>Rundfunkbeitragsstaatsvertrag</em>, if a housing unit has multiple inhabitants, they are jointly and severally liable for the broadcasting fee. This means that the <em>Beitragsservice</em> gets to choose which inhabitant they claim the money from; and apparently, in your case, they have chosen you. You, in turn, can claim a proportionate amount of the fee from your flatmates or former flatmates, according to general principles of civil law. This may be difficult in practice, though, if your former flatmates aren’t willing to pay or are hard to reach; enforcing your claim may be time-consuming and costly.</p>\n\n<p>Regarding the announced visit, I can only speculate. One possibility is that the <em>Beitragsservice</em> might want to check whether your flat is really just a single unit of housing; if one of your flatmates, e.g., has a separate entrance, their room might be another unit for which they would have to pay their own broadcasting fee. (Note that <em>Beitragsservice</em> representatives have no special rights; you are never required to invite them in.) A second, more unpleasant possibility is that the matter has already progressed and a bailiff will appear in order to carry out a distraint. (<em>They</em> do have special rights, and it is not a good idea to try and lock them out.) If the letter is indeed from the city administration, that unfortunately hints at the second possibility. In that case, you should definitely see a lawyer, as soon as possible.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>¹&nbsp;Note that under the rules valid until 2012, where it did matter, a computer with Internet access was also considered a radio, termed a “neuartiges Rundfunkgerät” (“novel radio receiver”).</p>\n\n<p>²&nbsp;It used to be known as <em>Gebühreneinzugszentrale</em>, <em>GEZ</em>, an acronym that is still often used informally.</p>\n", "score": 6 }, { "answer_id": 4748, "body": "<p>You seem to have a few misconception as to the GEZ fee:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>whether you are a German citizen has no bearing on whether you need to pay </p></li>\n<li><p>since 2013, it does not matter whether you have a TV, radio, Internet device, or not has no bearing on whether you need to pay the fee. Every household needs to pay it <a href=\"http://www.oeffentlichen-dienst.de/wirtschafts-news/92-telekommunikation/513-neue-rundfunkgebuehr-der-gez.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">1</a></p></li>\n<li><p>if you and your roommates were registered at your address, I can almost guarantee you that you received letters from the GEZ during that time. They are a very persistent bunch there and they get the addresses from the city registration. (even if you didn't receive any letters, though, you'd have to pay, so not having received anything will not get you out of this...) </p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>As I understand it, it is likely that not just you are liable for these past fees, though. While the 2013 changes meant that the fee is now only due once per household, if you live within other people and only one pays, all the others have to report this to the GEZ. As your roommates did not do this, they potentially have the <em>same</em> debt as you have with the agency. </p>\n\n<p>Now going forward... </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>You do not ever have to open the door to the people from the GEZ <a href=\"http://www.recht-finanzen.de/contents/1375-gez-gebuehr-muss-ich-den-gez-mann-in-die-wohnung-lassen\" rel=\"nofollow\">2</a>. They have no right to that, so if you don't want to talk to them, you can just shut your door. </p></li>\n<li><p>However, they have your address and you do owe them money, and the GEZ does not suddenly stop demanding money because you shut the door into their faces. They are actually legally obligated to collect this money. Not paying can result in an \"Ordnungswidrigkeit\" <a href=\"https://anwaltauskunft.de/magazin/gesellschaft/kultur-medien/569/rundfunkbeitrag-was-passiert-wenn-man-nicht-zahlt/\" rel=\"nofollow\">3</a> (there is also a lot further information you might need in that link) </p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>You should definitely contact your former roommates. You are in fact liable for these charges, and should probably also contact a lawyer if you can't pay them or find an easy way to share this with your former roommates. </p>\n\n<p>And you and your new roommates need to start paying the fee going forward - one of you collects the money and pays, the others all tell the GEZ they live with a person who pays the fees. </p>\n", "score": 4 }, { "answer_id": 5062, "body": "<p>So, what I did was I spoke to my student council lawyer and he helped me fix the issue. We went and paid the bill in the money collector's office and it all got sorted. We also tracked the people who lived in this apartment before us and made them pay their share :) </p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "tax-law", "germany", "fees" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5056, "body": "<p>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. </p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>If the people reading it think it's reasonable, it may have a social effect based on what it conveys to them, which <em>could</em> lead to <em>voluntary</em> 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. </p>\n\n<p>It could also make for a really awkward moment, depending on the views of and relationships between survivors. </p>\n\n<p><em>Addressing user662852's comment on the question:</em><br>\nYou 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 \"<a href=\"http://www.babycenter.com/0_why-every-parent-needs-a-will_353.bc\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Why Every Parent Needs a Will.</a>\").</p>\n", "score": 8 } ]

[ "wills" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1288, "body": "<p>From a financial perspective, the electric company's error has worked to your benefit - you have had the use of money that you should have paid to them many months ago. This would make it hard to take common law legal action.</p>\n\n<p>I suggest that <em>before</em> you resort to the law you talk to the electric company and make an arrangement to pay the year's bill by instalments. You might also try to pursue a discount if the amount of electricity consumption seems high - you can argue that you would have changed your usage if you had seen the monthly bills.</p>\n\n<p>If you are unsuccessful in this there is probably an ombudsman or equivalent that you can go thru before going to court (I am unfamiliar with UK consumer law).</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "united-kingdom" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5058, "body": "<p>I am not a lawyer, but all of this would be contained in the contract. When you pre-order a piece of software you sign a contract. That contract stipulates terms of delvery, including if there is a specific release date (you would be dumb to sign one that says \"you give us $x and we will give you some software sometime\" but that is effectively what most pre-orders are). The contract also specifies what happens if a date is missed (probably nothing). If it is early there is no harm so nothing could be recouped anyway. </p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "software" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4516, "body": "<p>The burden for proving claims in civil actions is \"<a href=\"http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/preponderance_of_the_evidence\" rel=\"noreferrer\">preponderance of evidence</a>,\" i.e., merely that \"more than 50% of the evidence favors a conclusion.\"</p>\n\n<p>However, the standard for conviction of any <em>crime</em> is \"beyond a reasonable doubt.\" I.e., if the defense can raise reasonable doubt about one's guilt then the defendant should be acquitted. </p>\n\n<p>There is quite a bit of space between the two standards, which is compounded by prosecutorial discretion to even bring criminal charges.</p>\n", "score": 7 }, { "answer_id": 5022, "body": "<p>First of all, you can't \"sue yourself.\" In this case, the estate of the husband is suing the wife. Apparently the wife is trying to manipulate insurance into paying her for accidentally killing her husband through her own negligence. That is really shameless, assuming she's to benefit.</p>\n\n<p>That said, you can admit to negligence and not expose yourself to criminal charges. Manslaughter requires more than mere negligence. It would need to be gross negligence &ndash; such reckless and abhorrent behavior that it would imply malice. Ordinary negligence, which is a plain old accident, does not rise to this level. It's not outcome-specific, but rather an action-specific analysis. So, hypothetically, you could admit negligence and not be admitting to a crime. Though your lawyer would need to ensure you testified carefully!</p>\n\n<p>Notwithstanding the above: The insurance industry is certainly not going to allow itself to be manipulated in this way. No liability or umbrella policy provides coverage against litigation from someone listed (or who should have been listed) on the policy. Even if the policies didn't explicitly exclude such coverage you would not likely prevail: The insurance lobby will fight this all the way to the Supreme Court if they have to, and I think they'd ultimately win, because it's bad policy to allow a policyholder to sue himself anytime there's an accident; if that logic held, you could conceivably sue yourself on your own behalf for your own injuries. This would flood the courts with even more frivolous suits, as what's one have to lose in a judgment against themselves if the insurance could be liable. I'm quite sure that would be untenable; the rates for liability insurance would have to be exponentially larger if that were ever enforceable, even in the absence of exclusionary language (although i've never seen a policy that would allow such a thing, it doesn't mean it couldn't exist in theory).</p>\n\n<p>The legal system is meant to be adversarial. An example like this, in which \"the estate\" of one's spouse is suing the spouse, <em>but the spouse is the only beneficiary of the estate</em>, is ludicrous and against all tenets of the judicial process. If the judge doesn't reject it I wouldn't expect any jury to want someone to benefit from a death in which they admit negligence. And in court it is very easy to pierce any \"veil\" that might be constructed to hide the ultimate beneficiary of an award.</p>\n", "score": 5 }, { "answer_id": 4549, "body": "<p>When you sue a person in a civil court you <em>claim</em> that they caused you damage and should pay for it. The fact that you sue doesn't mean that your claim is true. It doesn't even mean that you believe it to be true (obviously you <em>shouldn't</em> sue in such a case, and it might create liability, but you can sue for things that you know are false). </p>\n\n<p>So the suing doesn't create any evidence that your claim is true. But then there is the difference between your claim that damage has occurred, and whether there was an actual crime. While some civil cases are about crimes (if I take a hammer to your car, that is criminal, but you don't care about the crime, you want me to pay for the damage), many, many are not. </p>\n\n<p>I'd say it is perfectly possible to sue for some claim, win the case, and then in criminal court completely deny that claim. Not a nice thing to do, but possible. </p>\n", "score": 2 }, { "answer_id": 4523, "body": "<p>Reading only slightly deeper into the given example in Utah, of the woman \"suing herself,\" as it typical the media got it essentially wrong. From a legal standpoint, the decedent husband's estate is suing her, not herself...though she is in this case the Administrator of her husband's estate. And, as would naturally follow from that, there is a third-party-payor, an insurance policy.</p>\n\n<p>Another scenario where this kind of thing plays out is when a family-owned business sues the family (or vice versa). Generally speaking, a court does not allow a co-respondent where that person is also a petitioner, because they recognize that such a person will by definition be hostile to their own defense, and usually to the detriment of the other co-respondents.</p>\n\n<p>I was involved in just such a NH superior court case: A couple is in divorce procedings. Parents of spouse A sue the couple for repayment of an alleged 2nd mortgage. (leaving aside the question of validity or lack thereof of the mortgage itself) The mortgage is held by a trust for which the parents of \"A\" are trustees, and spouse \"A\" is a beneficiary. Therefore, through the intermediary of the trust, spouse A is suing herself and spouse B, to the detriment of spouse B.</p>\n\n<p>Ultimately the petitioners' case foundered on the question of the validity of the mortgage, which was found to have been discharged years before: Additionally, spouse A was denied as a co-respondent; allowing her as such would in that case have meant that she could unilaterally admit the mortgage debt as valid, where it would then become part of the divorce marital inventory...a sly gambit that was denied. If the case had been allowed to move forward, spouse A would have been enriched at the expense of spouse B no matter win or lose.</p>\n\n<p>But further to the OP's question: There's quite a bit of daylight between being negligent and being guilty of manslaughter. As was well-put by Feetwet, the tort process and the criminal process are quite different things.</p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "criminal-law", "insurance", "civil-law", "negligence" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5054, "body": "<p>If the employment was at will, the most the company could have done was fire her. If the employment has already been ended on good terms, the most the company can do is refuse to rehire her and/or give bad references. As you point out, no contract existed and they'd have a devil of a time proving damages anyway.</p>\n", "score": 4 } ]

[ "employment" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5049, "body": "<p>I believe in most jurisdictions the payment of the difference can be enforced, though there are usually some mitigations built in for the debtor, and the time limit for enforcement (statute of limitations) may be shortened.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>In particular, in <strong>Germany</strong> the situation is roughly:</p>\n\n<p>The invoice itself usually only carries limited legal weight. It is important for taxation purposes, and is a precondition for enforcing unpaid debts in court, but not much more. In particular, it does not determine the amount payable - that is in the contract. So, if contract and bill disagree, it's the contract that counts.</p>\n\n<p>For example, after entering into a contract, in general a service provider is free to send multiple invoices, each for a part of the total agreed. So if the bill lists a certain value, that is no guarantee that you do not need to pay more - however, you <em>must</em> receive a new bill before you can be sued for non-payment. Asking for more money only becomes impossible when the statute of limitation has expired (in Germany, usually after three calendar years).</p>\n\n<p><em>Warning:</em> The exact situation will depend on the type of contract, the nature of the parties involved (private individuals or companies), and on any applicable small print. So the customer <em>may</em> be able to avoid paying, but usually not.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>Here is a report on a court judgement:\n<a href=\"http://www.freiepresse.de/THEMEN/Vergessener-Rechnungsposten-kann-nachgefordert-werden-artikel7562746.php\" rel=\"nofollow\">Vergessener Rechnungsposten kann nachgefordert werden</a></p>\n\n<p>A company had sent a bill for construction work, then later sent an additional bill claiming they had forgotten one item. The customer refused to pay, was sued and lost. The court decided that the claim is justified and must be paid, unless the company explicitly declared that they will abandon the claim (which it did not).</p>\n\n<p>Also, the court noted that the decision might have been different if the contract had used a different set of terms and conditions.</p>\n", "score": 2 }, { "answer_id": 4994, "body": "<p>There are two different things: There is the contract where you agreed to provide a service for X amount of money, and the customer agreed. Then there is the bill, where you ask the customer to pay the money owed. </p>\n\n<p>In most cases, the contract is what decides. If the bill is too low or too high, then either the customer has to pay the missing amount or you have to return the excess payment. </p>\n\n<p>This may be different if there are several monthly payments, leading the customer to believe that the price in the contract is different from what it actually is. If there is a contract for $50 a month, but I paid $30 a month for two years, then you'll have a hard time getting that money. That's because I was led to believe that $30 was the correct amount, and if I had known that $50 is the correct amount, I would likely have cancelled the contract and found someone cheaper. </p>\n\n<p>In this case, the customer cannot reasonably believe that zero was the correct amount. </p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "consumer-protection", "new-zealand" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4977, "body": "<blockquote>\n <p>By which law I am enforced to share my personal details (such as my full name) on forum publicly to on-line people which I even don't know (when commenting on random posts)?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Contract Law. Google have made it a term of the contract that you use your full name. You can: </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>contact Google and negotiate a change to that term,</li>\n<li>accept that term,</li>\n<li>choose not to enter the contract.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>so I can enforce on my privacy rights without removing my Google Plus account?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>As a person subject to UK law, your privacy rights involve limiting who and in what circumstances Google can divulge personal private information to. Your name is <strong>not</strong> personal private information; things like your medical history and bank balance are.</p>\n\n<p>Aside from that, you do not have a right to privacy. Anything you do or say that is visible or audible from a public place (like the internet) or a private place where the person in control of that place does not insist on your privacy (i.e. almost everywhere that you are not in control of) is <strong>public</strong>!</p>\n", "score": 7 }, { "answer_id": 4976, "body": "<p>Google doesn't need a law to justify its Names Policy, and you don't have to use your full name or personal details. <strong>There's no requirement in either the Google+ Names Policy or the Content Policy that you use your real name.</strong></p>\n\n<p>Provided that Google's Terms of Service don't otherwise violate the law, they're under no obligation to allow you to use a pseudonym.</p>\n\n<p>If you don't want to share your full name, don't. It's as simple as that.</p>\n\n<p><em>On the other hand</em>, provided that you otherwise comply with their requirements, you might be able to use any other combination of words as your Google+ name. They probably can't tell that your name is/isn't what you say it is, though even if they can't <em>prove</em> it they may still be able to take action to make you change it.</p>\n", "score": 4 } ]

[ "united-kingdom", "internet", "privacy", "terms-of-service" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4145, "body": "<p>Congratulations, intrepid legal enthusiast or learner!</p>\n<h3>What you'll need</h3>\n<ul>\n<li><p>A legal dictionary, especially if you're just getting started.<br />\nIf you don't own one, you can try <a href=\"http://thelawdictionary.org/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Black's Law Dictionary</a></p>\n</li>\n<li><p>A little bit of patience and time.<br />\nOr maybe a lot, depending on the particular case and the particular question you're trying to answer.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>Maybe a normal dictionary, too.<br />\nAgain, if you don't own one, there's plenty online. <a href=\"http://onelook.com\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Onelook</a> is a dictionary search engine, so it'll search a lot of dictionaries at the same time.</p>\n</li>\n</ul>\n<h3>Okay, I've got those things, now what?</h3>\n<p>Alright, there's a few things you should know.</p>\n<p>Firstly, decisions of superior courts are binding only on those inferior courts within the same hierarchy. This means that you can appeal to a higher court so long as it has <em>appellate jurisdiction</em>. Generally, a state (meaning a country) will have a supreme or highest court, with <em>appellate jurisdiction over all other courts</em> - in Australia, this is the <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Court_of_Australia\" rel=\"noreferrer\">High Court of Australia</a>, in the United States, this is the <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Supreme Court of the United States</a>, and in the United Kingdom, this is the <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_Kingdom\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Supreme Court of the United Kingdom</a>.</p>\n<p>Secondly, decisions of a court are generally binding only on the matter in dispute. For example, if in a case, the matter of whether the police owe a duty of care to citizens in detecting crime, a comment on whether the police had correctly parked their vehicle is not binding - it is called <em><a href=\"http://thelawdictionary.org/obiter-dictum/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">obiter dictum</a></em> (plural <em>obiter dicta</em>).</p>\n<p>What we're looking for in a judgement is the <a href=\"http://thelawdictionary.org/ratio-decidendi/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">ratio decidendi</a> (plural <em>rationes decidendi</em>), which is the reason for the decision. This is what is binding, and would be considered in future decisions. The problem? <strong>It's not always easy to tell the <em>ratio</em> from the <em>obiter</em>.</strong></p>\n<p>Finally, often, the only way to know whether our interpretation of a case is right is to see whether it is applied in a future case, or overruled.</p>\n<h3>Examples, examples!</h3>\n<p>Sure. Let's try something easy to start with.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><strong>Do product manufacturers owe a duty of care to their customers?</strong></p>\n<p>Yes. The decision in <em>Donoghue v Stevenson</em> [1932] UKHL 100 found that product manufacturers - in this case, a ginger beer manufacturer - have a duty of care to ensure their products are safe for use or consumption. Lord Atkin said:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The answer seems to be – persons who are so closely and directly affected by my act that I ought reasonably to have them in contemplation as being so affected when I am directing my mind to the acts or omissions which are called in question.</p>\n</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Okay, so the answer to this question is yes. How do I verify it?</p>\n<ol>\n<li><p>Get the source of the judgement.<br />\nWithout this, you're going to be relying on hearsay. The next best thing is a subsequent judgement that applies the one you're looking for, because <em>if</em> the judgement says what it's supposed to, it'll be mentioned in the subsequent judgement. <a href=\"http://www.scottishlawreports.org.uk/resources/dvs/donoghue-v-stevenson-report.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">I've found this one</a>.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>Decide whether the matter in dispute is actually being decided.<br />\nIn our case, it is. But if I was quoting this from a judgement on whether product manufacturers have an obligation to transfer title for goods supplied on a credit agreement, it wouldn't be binding.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>Find the quote.<br />\nIf you've been given a quote. Otherwise, grab a cup of tea or coffee and get ready to read. A lot. If you can't find something that says, or means, what it's supposed to, it's probably not accurate.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>Make sure the judgement hasn't been overruled<br />\nThis is tricky, unless the judgement database you're using has a way of searching it. Most do. In any case, it's much like trying to prove a negative. In fact, it's exactly that. But always check whether the judgement has been overturned on appeal.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>Make sure the judgement hasn't been obsoleted by statute<br />\nAgain, this is tricky. It's proving a negative, again. And trying to find statute might be an answer for another time.</p>\n</li>\n</ol>\n<hr />\n<h3>Is that it?</h3>\n<p>Pretty much, I think. These are at least the main points. There's a whole laundry list of things you shouldn't do with judgements, but they're more about reasoning than legal principles. It's a skill you can really only develop by using, and I'm constantly practising myself.</p>\n<p>Many discussions about cases are precisely about what their effect is. Yes, the decisions and orders are usually pretty clear-cut - for example, the decision is that the manufacturer has a duty of care, and the orders are for damages and costs to be paid.</p>\n<p>But what it means beyond that can be murky. Luckily for us, judges have become better at writing their judgements so that others can understand.</p>\n<p>Also, for more important cases, where the entire country, or world, is watching, others will interpret it for you - consider <em><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obergefell_v._Hodges\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Obergefell v Hodges</a></em>, for example. Not everyone can be trusted, but <em>everyone</em>, taken together, is a much more trustworthy source than just one person.</p>\n<p>In the end, there's not a mathematical formula for determining what judgements mean. There's some interpretation involved, some judgement. There's not always going to be <em>one</em> judgement that's enough to prove your matter. I'm struggling to end this post neatly so I'll just finish it with a cliff-</p>\n", "score": 6 }, { "answer_id": 4178, "body": "<p>Let's roll back a couple of conceptual steps: before deciding how to interpret a judgement you should know what a judgement <em>is</em>.</p>\n\n<h2>What is law?</h2>\n\n<p>I quote from <em>Australian Business Law 2002</em>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The law is a body of generally accepted principles, established by Parliament (i.e. by our representatives) and by the courts. Law is therefore made <em>by</em> us (the men and women who are parliamentarians and judges) <em>for</em> us, is legally enforceable and has developed to set standards of conduct between people, businesses and government. If these standards of conduct are not adhered to, the law provides for <strong>resolving the conflicts</strong> that arise, and punishing those who breech those standards of conduct.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<h2>Resolving Conflicts</h2>\n\n<p>A judicial or quasi-judicial decisions (i.e. made by non-judicial tribunals, adjudicators etc.) are about the resolution of a <em>specific</em> conflict between 2 or more people, businesses or governments. This is obviously true for civil cases but it is also true for criminal cases; in criminal cases the conflict is that the state claims the defendant committed a crime and the defendant says they didn't.</p>\n\n<p>By and large, <strong>if everyone agrees there will be no need for a judgement</strong>. Exceptions are judgements to give effect to what the parties agreed (e.g. many family law matters) and judgements that hand out penalties (e.g. criminal matters).</p>\n\n<h2>What a judge decides</h2>\n\n<p>A judge decides:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>The facts</li>\n<li>The law</li>\n<li>How the law applies to the facts.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p><strong>The facts</strong></p>\n\n<p>There are 3 sets of facts: a) what the plaintiff says happened, b) what the defendant says happened and c) what really happened.</p>\n\n<p>The judgement has to show the process of reasoning used to get from a) and b) to c). The judge is obliged to engage with the evidence presented and reason from that to their findings of fact.</p>\n\n<p>A good judgement will set out what the parties agree are the facts, where they agree there is disagreement over the facts and where they disagree that they disagree. Where there is agreement then the judgement should say so; where there is disagreement the judgement needs to resolve the disagreement (if relevant; facts that don't change the outcome don't need to be determined) and explain the reasoning that led from the evidence to the conclusion. This includes such things as why a judge prefers the evidence of one witness over another, or how they determined the date or time of an event from the often conflicting evidence presented.</p>\n\n<p>This is an area where a lot of disputes lie. It is also generally the easiest part of the judgement.</p>\n\n<p><strong>The law</strong></p>\n\n<p>The judgement needs to set out what the <em>relevant</em> law is. </p>\n\n<p>The judge needs to know the statutes and the case law that is applicable; a lot of this will be raised by the parties. However, a good judge is mindful that the parties only draw attention to the law that favours their position, so they need to be across the law independently. Furthermore, the principles of natural justice require a judge to draw the parties attention to a law they have overlooked: a judge is not permitted to make a decision on a point that the parties have not contended; appeals lie in that direction.</p>\n\n<p>The law consists of what is written in the statute books and legal precedent; precedent may be binding (based on the decision of a superior court in the jurisdiction) or persuasive (based on the decision of the same or lesser court in the jurisdiction or a common law court in a <em>completely different</em> jurisdiction). Decisions in the US can influence decisions in the UK, Australia, Canada etc. and vice-versa, however, the \"distance\" between the laws limits the extent to which this occurs.</p>\n\n<p>This is <em>also</em> an area where a lot of disputes lie.</p>\n\n<p><strong>How the law applies to the facts</strong></p>\n\n<p>Having decided what the facts are and what the law is the judgement needs to set out the reasoning of how applying <em>this</em> law to <em>these</em> facts leads to the decision the judge made.</p>\n\n<p>This <em>too</em> is an area where a lot of disputes lie. An enormous amount of argument in courts revolves about why or why not <em>this</em> law applies to <em>these</em> facts and consequently why the judge should or should not be bound by precedent. A good judgement should take the arguments presented and reason from them to the decision about the interaction of the law and the facts.</p>\n\n<p><strong>It's all mixed together</strong></p>\n\n<p>In order to decide the law you have to know what the facts are but in order to decide if the facts are relevant you have to decide what the law is. You also have to determine what the parties agree and disagree about when they might not be sure about it themselves. This is why justice is expensive.</p>\n\n<h2>The Judgement</h2>\n\n<p>The judgement is <strong>primarily</strong> about explaining the reasoning that led to the decision to the party that <em>lost</em>. The party that <em>won</em> doesn't really care; they're off banking their cheque or celebrating their freedom or whatever.</p>\n\n<p>The reason this is done is called \"justice\"; the losing party needs to understand why the law was not on their side and that the decision the judge made was not arbitrary or capricious. The judgement is the only mechanism the judge has to communicate to the parties.</p>\n\n<p>It also allows the losing party to consider if the judge $%&amp;*ed up and they have grounds for an appeal. It also allows the appeal court to decide if the judge $%&amp;*ed up.</p>\n\n<h2>Common law</h2>\n\n<p>The reason anyone outside the parties concerned cares about a judgement is that every judgement becomes part of the common law.</p>\n\n<p>In common law countries (i.e. most former British territories) the law on the statute books is only half the law. The other half comes from the law <em>as interpreted</em> by the courts.</p>\n\n<p>Every judgement by every judge is part of that canon, however, not all judgements are created equal. The <em>overwhelming</em> majority of decisions add next to nothing to the law; they follow well understood precedent and the variance lies in the particular facts. One of the truisms of common law legal systems is that similar facts should give similar outcomes.</p>\n\n<p>Every so often a case comes along which <em>substantially</em> (or more rarely <em>completely</em>) changes the way the law is understood. Some examples include <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade\" rel=\"nofollow\">Roe v. Wade</a> in the US which limited state regulation of abortion to the third trimester, <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabo_v_Queensland_(No_2)\" rel=\"nofollow\">Mabo v Queensland (No 2)</a> in Australia which overturned the doctrine of <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_nullius\" rel=\"nofollow\">Terra nullius</a> and <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donoghue_v_Stevenson\" rel=\"nofollow\">Donoghue v Stevenson</a> in the UK which established many of the principles of negligence that are applied in most common law jurisdictions.</p>\n\n<p>It is worth noting that all of these were decisions of the highest court in each jurisdiction and therefore bind all other courts in the same jurisdiction. Landmark cases are often decided at that level; it is there that they have the most wide-ranging effect and influence but it is not necessarily so. Sometimes a decision of a lower court is not appealed, perhaps because it is obviously correct or the stakes are not high enough to justify the cost of an appeal. If it is good law, courts at the same level, higher courts and even courts in parallel jurisdictions may adopt it and it is only with the benefit of hindsight that it is recognised as a landmark decision.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Reading the #$%* things</strong> </p>\n\n<p>Unless you are a legal masochist you don't read these things for fun.</p>\n\n<p>Start with law that you have an interest in and know the general principles of. Have a set of facts in mind that the law would apply to. Look for cases about that. Read the judgements. Try to determine if and how the facts match the facts you are thinking about. See how the judge has applied the law to the facts they had before them. Try to reason out how the case would be decided on your facts.</p>\n", "score": 4 } ]

[ "common-law", "legal-research", "case-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5045, "body": "<p>Copyright is not an issue; trademark is. Arwen is quite likely a trademark of Tolkien Enterprises, registered or not.</p>\n\n<p>Your proposed use which is to specifically involve the allure of the brand would breach the trademark.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "trademark", "branding" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5043, "body": "<blockquote>\n <p>Can the bank unilaterally take money from other accounts he may have at that bank to make the required loan payments?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Unilaterally, no. However, there is probably a provision in the loan agreement which has <em>bi</em>laterally agreed to it.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Can the bank take money from the accounts of blood relatives (e.g., spouse or child) to satisfy the loan?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Generally not. An exception may apply where the person has stood as a guarantor of the loan; again what they agreed to is in the guarantee document.</p>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "united-states", "human-rights", "consumer-protection", "banking" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4973, "body": "<blockquote>\n <p>Why is it the case that contractual liability is usually defined by basis of foreseeability rather than negligence (like in tort law)?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I find this statement confusing; what liability?</p>\n\n<p>Your liability under a contract is to do (or refrain from doing) those things that you contracted to do. Obviously, these have to be foreseeable (at least in a general sense) or you can't form a contract around them.</p>\n\n<p>Your liability with respect to negligence is not to negligently breach any duty of care you have to people to whom you have a duty of care.</p>\n\n<p>If you are instead talking about quantifying damages arising from a breach of contract or the tort of negligence then the foreseeability of those damages arising from the breach or the negligence is explicit in both doctrines. Unforeseeable damage is not recoverable under contract (see Victoria Laundry (Windsor) Ltd v Newman Industries Ltd [1949]) or negligence (see Overseas Tankship (UK) Ltd v Morts Dock &amp; Engineering Co Ltd [1961]).</p>\n\n<h2>Edit in light of OP clarification</h2>\n\n<p><strong>Breach of Contract</strong></p>\n\n<p><em>You have to prove there was a breach. The cause of that breach does not have to be negligent.</em></p>\n\n<h2>Negligence</h2>\n\n<p><em>You have to prove there was negligence. See <a href=\"https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/869/business-sending-personal-info-to-a-random-email-address/870#870\">Business sending personal info to a random email address</a> for how to do this.</em></p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "contract-law", "liability" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5040, "body": "<p>According to this glossary of abbreviations, NOOC stands for \"No order on court,\" which is explained as \"charge dropped -- Illinois\":</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://smwreports.sterlingdirect.com/documents/CourtAbbreviations.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://smwreports.sterlingdirect.com/documents/CourtAbbreviations.pdf</a></p>\n\n<p>Note \"court\" with an \"r,\" not \"count\" with an \"n.\"</p>\n\n<p>It is remarkable how few Google hits there were for the exact phrase \"no order on court.\" There were two instances of this document, a news article about tennis and a book result on badminton.</p>\n\n<p>However, \"no order on count\" had even fewer hits, namely, two different links to this stackexchange question.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "trial", "process", "illinois" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5036, "body": "<p>In Exxon Corp v Exxon Insurance Consultants International Ltd (UK court of appeal), Exxon (the large corporation) tried to claim copyright in their name, saying that they had invented the word. It was held copyright didn't subsist in the word because a literary work has to afford information or pleasure, and their one word couldn't do this. Its very unlikely an author could claim copyright over one word, I don't know of any cases of this happening. So you could probably use it.</p>\n", "score": 2 }, { "answer_id": 5037, "body": "<p>A key question to consider in whether or not this would be copyright infringement is the question of if it's a \"derivative work.\" For example, if you make a book into a movie, you need to license the rights to do so from the author. A business that happens to be named the same, particularly if it's a common kind of business, is not likely to pose an issue. If you think the author of the book would be supportive of there being such a business with the same name, you could consider writing to the author and finding out what they think. They may also have insights that you'd like to be aware of, such as that there's a sequel coming out where that business turns out to be up to some very shady dealings, and you might not want to have your real-life business sharing its name and type, etc.</p>\n\n<p>Sometimes, businesses do cross over from fiction into reality.</p>\n\n<p>For an example of this in practice, check out the <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubba_Gump_Shrimp_Company\" rel=\"nofollow\">Bubba Gump Shrimp Company</a>, a real-life business (seafood restaurant chain) with a name inspired by the fictional business of the same name in the film <em>Forrest Gump</em>. That was done with the permission and support of the owners of <em>Forrest Gump.</em></p>\n\n<p>Also consider <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_%28drink%29\" rel=\"nofollow\">Soylent</a>, the originally fictional meal substitute.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "intellectual-property", "business", "trademark" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4885, "body": "<p>According to Wikipedia <em>Vicarious Liability</em> is a type of liability under the doctrine of \"Respondeat Superior\" (an employer is responsible for the actions of employees performed within the course of their employment). </p>\n\n<p>Now, in the first case that you have mentioned, the employee was on duty and was supposed to be under the supervision of the supervisor. Therefore, any mishap that might happen would be considered to be during the course of employment. Thus, attracting Vicarious Liability for the employer.</p>\n\n<p>While in the second case, an independent contractor (or a third-party) was put to work. This contractor is not an employee of the Rail company, but rather someone who is under a contract to fulfill a particular task. This essentially means that the Rail company cannot have complete control over the actions of the contractor, as it is not governed by the rules of the rail company as set out for its employees. But because both the parties were under some contract, the contracting party (that wanted to have a task accomplished) should have supervised in some manner, which translated to the Rail Company's personal liability.</p>\n", "score": 3 }, { "answer_id": 5035, "body": "<p>So the answer was actually not based on whether the person was an employee or a contractor, because under the Health and Safety in Employment Act, employee has a very wide definition and includes contractors.</p>\n\n<p>The answer was that in the contractor case, there were no policies, etc. of the company that the contractor didn't follow to ensure the health and safety of others. So the company was vicariously liable for the damage he caused, because they should have had policies in place. The company didn't directly cause damage, but someone in their place of work did, so his act was attributed to them.</p>\n\n<p>In the case with the employee who was electrocuted, both the company had duties and safety practices in place that the supervisor as the company representative didn't enforce. So it was a direct failure of the company itself. The supervisor was personally liable, and the company was directly liable.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "employment", "liability", "new-zealand" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5030, "body": "<p>Nobody can enter your home without permission, nor can they stay on your property after you ask them to leave, unless they have a warrant, or unless there exists some \"exigent circumstance\" (e.g., \"hot pursuit\" by police, or evidence of something like a fire or medical emergency). Obviously neither of these exceptions applies to a census worker.</p>\n\n<p>Someone (including a census worker) who enters your home without permission could be charged with various crimes (e.g., Breaking or Entering). Likewise, someone who stays on your property after you ask them to leave could be charged with lesser crimes like \"Trespass.\" In any case, only the law enforcement system can prosecute crimes, so someone faced with such a situation should call the police and/or file a criminal complaint.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "united-states", "harassment" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5025, "body": "<p>The point of the Bluebook is to give uniform citation rules, so that anyone who reads a citation to a public record like a case, statute or regulation will be able to find it for themselves. It's generally used for brief writing.</p>\n\n<p>If you're talking about a private contract between two individuals, nobody is going to be able to look it up, because it's not a public record; there is no \"citation\" that will magically get them to it.</p>\n\n<p>Instead, you would ordinarily attach the contract as an exhibit, then cite it accordingly. On first reference:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>April 20, 2014 Agreement of Sale (\"Sale Agreeent\"), attached as <strong>Exhibit A</strong>.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>On later reference:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Sale Agreement (<strong>Exhibit A</strong>).</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Of course, your court's citation rules may vary.</p>\n\n<p>If you're looking to cite something for an academic paper rather than a court filing, and you have to use bluebook format rather than a real academic citation format like MLA or Chicago, follow rule 17.1, the general rule for unpublished materials. For these purposes, a contract is no different from a letter or another non-public document.</p>\n", "score": 4 } ]

[ "contract-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5023, "body": "<p>Under United States law, copyright is normally held by the creator of a work.</p>\n\n<p>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: <a href=\"http://copyright.gov/circs/circ09.pdf\" rel=\"noreferrer\">here</a> 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.</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>If you're in a situation where you need to know, for example:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>That you are allowed to use the artwork forever, and the artist can't ask you to stop later;</li>\n<li>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</li>\n<li>That, if your product is successful, the artist won't be able to sell another license to someone else to compete with you;</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>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).</p>\n", "score": 5 } ]

[ "united-states", "copyright", "intellectual-property" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5021, "body": "<p>You can check the legality of an agreement by hiring a lawyer to review it for you.</p>\n\n<p>You can confirm that an agreement is genuine by contacting the broker that supposedly issued it.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "contract-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4971, "body": "<p>I think you should be able to get referred to qualified legal counsel willing to represent you from any or all of the following sources:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>The legal department of the SEC</li>\n<li>Your state Attorney General's office</li>\n<li>Your local U.S. Attorney's office</li>\n</ul>\n", "score": 1 }, { "answer_id": 5016, "body": "<p>Without knowing what we're missing from the situation: I would <strong>contact the Bar association</strong> in any state that may have jurisdiction in the matter. They all have referral services, and if you explain that you have been denied service by licensed attorneys for \"reputational\" risk <a href=\"https://law.stackexchange.com/a/915/10\">I would hope</a> that the Bar would take an exceptional interest in seeing that you find competent representation. Ensuring accessibility to legal counsel is, after all, one of the supposed foundations of the legal profession and its cartel.</p>\n\n<p>If you are still unable to find a competent lawyer through the Bar please share the details of your efforts and their results, because that would be a fascinating and eye-opening situation! (And, in such a case, there would be some more extreme measures available to you. E.g., I imagine if you fully documented your efforts then you could petition a court to <em>compel</em> one of its officers to serve as your legal council.)</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "fraud", "regulations" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5012, "body": "<p>You would think that if someone steals your things and you find the thief and the things, you have the right to get them back. Often, but not always. </p>\n\n<p>If the stolen goods are distinguishable items, you have the right to get them back. If B steals a car from A, then sells it to C, A can ask C for his car back. But if B steals $10,000 from A and pays his debts to C, A cannot get the money from C. Cash is not distinguishable items, so A can only get his money back from B - bad luck if B doesn't have any money. </p>\n\n<p>In this case, the parts stolen from Bob don't exist anymore. They have become part of the ship. The ship is property of Eve. Eve has to pay damages to Bob and Alice, probably to be determined by court. And the court will probably say that Eve has to sell the ship to get money to pay back Bob and Alice. (She may have to empty her bank account as well, and sell other things). If the money isn't enough, tough. And if Eve has more debt, I don't think Bob and Alice are higher up the list than others. </p>\n\n<p>Whether Bob and Alice feel entitled to the ship doesn't matter because neither of them is entitled at all. If the design is copyrighted then nobody can just copy it; if the design is just a trade secret, that trade secret is gone. </p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "united-states", "intellectual-property", "international", "ownership", "data-ownership" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4936, "body": "<p>In short: Plea bargain benefit society as a whole.</p>\n\n<p>If a defendant exercises his/her constitutional right to a jury trial, the trial takes up a lot of time and preparation. A jury trial costs a significant amount of time and money. Additionally, judges have to set aside court time for the trial, when instead they could be doing other things. In most states where there are elected judges, judges want to have a large number of criminal convictions, ie. Plea deals so they can say they are tough on crime. In states with appointed judges, judges will get promoted based on their number of finished cases in a year or their efficiency.</p>\n\n<p>For prosecutors, they favor plea agreements because a plea agreement removes any chance the defendant will have his/her conviction overturned. When one agrees to a plea one waives any and all right to appeal one's conviction; otherwise, all defendants are guaranteed at least one appeal, which are once again expensive. Additionally, defendants can petition for habeas corpus. When they plead guilty the government won't have to defend against these petitions.</p>\n\n<p>Defendants win because they get a lower sentence.</p>\n\n<p>In the end pleas are ethical because they help society as a whole making the system more efficient. The criminals who plead serve their time and cannot get their convictions overturned.</p>\n", "score": 5 }, { "answer_id": 4940, "body": "<p>Ideally, the criminal justice system should:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>provide justice (fair and impartial)</li>\n<li>provide consistency (similar facts should receive similar sentences)</li>\n<li>be efficient (in time and money)</li>\n<li>provide fitting punishment and/or restitution (society needs its vengeance tempered by mercy)</li>\n<li>act as a deterrent (society needs protection)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Some of these aims are in direct conflict; for example, justice is expensive in both time and money.</p>\n\n<p>As an officer of the court a DA will not bring a case to trial unless they have a genuine belief in the accused's guilt <em>and</em> a reasonable expectation of proving it. </p>\n\n<p>Plea bargains benefit society be reducing the cost of justice, both in the courts and in corrections (shorter or no custodial sentences). They benefit the guilty by reducing their costs and punishment. They do not impact on the innocent because they can choose to go to trial.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Edit re comment</strong></p>\n\n<p>The OP commented:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Well thought out, but, as you know nobody can define what justice is (e.g. Socrates, Plato). The courts provide no consistency nor are they efficient (or ever on time). They never provide fitting punishment. However, they do act as a deterrent, I'll agree to that. That said, the scope of this question regards plea bargains. Why is someone punished for choosing to not give up his constitution right to trial. If you ask how they are punished the answer is that a harsher penalty is advocated for and approved of by the State and the case remains open for additional months or even years.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>As comments are transient, I thought it worth addressing some of the issues this raises in an edit.</p>\n\n<p>I will just ignore the fact that my answer deals with an \"ideal\" justice system while the comment criticises the actual justice system. Any real system will fail to achieve the ideal because it requires fallible people and limited resources to implement a real system. Notwithstanding, the ideal system proposed has inherently conflicting objectives and any realisation <em>of necessity</em> requires a compromise between them.</p>\n\n<p>\"nobody can define what justice is\" - not true <a href=\"http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/justice\" rel=\"nofollow\">here</a> is dictionary.com's definition; other dictionaries provide consistent definitions. In the specific instance of a criminal trial, justice involves being treated equally and impartially and being allowed to know the case against you and mount a defence. Plea bargaining does not in any way infringe this.</p>\n\n<p>\"The courts provide no consistency\" and \"They never provide fitting punishment\" - you <em>really</em> need to read some judgements before making a claim like this. When a judge sentences someone, except for very minor offences (which are not the type of things that attract plea bargains anyway), they <em>must</em> write down their reasons for the sentence given. This provides both consistency as these reasons will refer to the punishments in other cases and \"fitting punishments\" as, if the reasons given do not support the sentence then both the defence and the prosecution have a right to appeal it. Read the judgements; don't rely on media hyperbole. A judgement exists to set out the judge's reasoning; a media report exists to sell advertising and cater to the prejudices of their audience.</p>\n\n<p>\"nor are they efficient (or ever on time)\" - Second point first; my experience is that a judge sets the date and time allocation for a trial based on what the prosecution and the defence agree is achievable. In general, they are not too bad at this. Delays happen, but they happen in the construction industry, the logistics industry and the manufacturing industry as well.</p>\n\n<p>\"Efficient\" means achieving the objectives at the lowest possible cost and is a question of management rather than justice. It is inefficient to have so few courts and judges that the wait for a trial date is \"too long\" (whatever you decide that means). Equally, it is inefficient to have so many that some are standing idle for large periods of time. Most real justice systems fail on the side of having too few resources but ultimately that is a political decision, not a legal one. Suffice to say I will refer you to the concept of the Time-Cost-Quality triangle of management - changing one of the sides of that triangle <em>always</em> has an impact for good or ill on the others. </p>\n\n<p>\"they do act as a deterrent\" - I'm on a roll here because I'm going to disagree with you on this too. Many studies have shown that the severity of a sentence has an infinitesimal impact on a perpetrator's decision to commit a crime. Of far more significance is the perception the perpetrator has on their chance of being caught irrespective of the likely sentence; efficient policing is more important than the sanction.</p>\n\n<p>You say in your question \"Defendants are punished for exercising their right to trial\", however, this could be stated equivalently as \"Defendants are rewarded for waiving their right to trial\". By giving up their right they receive compensation but are under no compulsion to do so. If it is a good deal they will take it, if its a bad deal they will reject it; something for something is not unethical. </p>\n", "score": 3 }, { "answer_id": 5003, "body": "<p>Other answers appear to assume a utilitarian ethics and argue that plea bargains are beneficial to society (cost, efficiency, etc.) and therefore ethical. However, they fail to address what I feel is the real concern here: the deontological position that it is unethical to believe one thing (the defendant is guilty of murder) but do another (punish the defendant as though the defendant is guilty of manslaughter).</p>\n\n<p>One way out of this particular problem might be to rethink what a plea bargain really is. Instead of the plea bargain being understood as implying something about the crime, we can instead see a plea bargain as a modification of the punishment. In this way of thinking, acceptance of a plea bargain would be more similar to a confession of guilt to the true crime than to some lesser crime, and the reduced sentence simply leniency on the part of the prosecutor and judge.</p>\n\n<p>If the leniency aspect is still troubling, you might even consider that typical sentencing guidelines assume that the case will go to trial and consist of two parts: one part related to the actual crime, and one part related to the \"meta-crime\" of failing to confess to a crime of which you knew you were guilty. This introduces some difficulty for punishments that seem incommensurate - like jail vs. death - but you might be able to escape from that difficulty by applying some utility function to the punishments which normalize them to some sort of standard measure (e.g., \"death\" is really just like being in prison until you die of natural causes, or that plus some extra, etc.)</p>\n", "score": 1 }, { "answer_id": 4978, "body": "<p>I disagree with multiple premises of this question.</p>\n\nFaulty premise #1\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Defendants are punished for exercising their right to trial</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The rest of that sentence fails to logically support this assertion.</p>\n\nFaulty premise #2\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Further, the trial adds several months of delay to the adjudication of her case. So, the punishment is further multiplied.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The trial doesn't <strong>add</strong> delay. The plea bargain <strong>reduces</strong> the time it would take to go to trial.</p>\n\nFaulty premise #3\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Plea bargains are lies</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>All plea bargains are not a lie.</p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "plea" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4674, "body": "<p><em>If</em> there <em>is</em> a trade mark and <em>if</em> Polaroid <em>owns</em> it and <em>if</em> you infringed it then <em>yes</em> 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 <em>for</em>!</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n", "score": 4 }, { "answer_id": 5007, "body": "<p>Practically it appears unlikely that Polaroid can protect that border shape. In addition to <a href=\"https://photo.stackexchange.com/a/58080/27832\">the background on Polaroid's failed attempts to protect it described here</a>, you can find borders like that in use without attribution in other commercial applications and even AppStore products, like <a href=\"http://www8.hp.com/us/en/ads/print-projects/social-media-snapshots.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">HP's Social Media Snapshots</a>.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "copyright", "intellectual-property", "software", "trademark" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4058, "body": "<p><a href=\"https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2744324?hl=en\" rel=\"nofollow\">This page</a> on Google's removal policies states that the information they really make an effort to remove are:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Government IDs of any kind</li>\n<li>Financial information (routing numbers, credit/debit card numbers, etc.)</li>\n<li>Nude or otherwise personally explicit photos</li>\n<li>Other info that can be used for fraud (such as your signature)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>It also states information they usually don't take action to remove:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Date of birth</li>\n<li>Addresses</li>\n<li>Telephone numbers</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>By looking at this, I'm assuming email addresses fall into the list of info they <em>won't</em> take action on. Now, your email and password may be used to login to something critical such as a bank account. In that case, contact Google again and tell them that's what your credentials are for (no need to tell them exactly what bank or anything obviously). Just let them know the credentials on that website can be used to directly harm you and others financially or in another very personal way, assuming that's the case here.</p>\n", "score": 2 }, { "answer_id": 5006, "body": "<p>I would write to the blogger or the host (e.g. Blogspot) and ask that your sensitive information be removed from this blog. I would certainly contact the host of the blog and relay the same information. I think it goes without saying that your information has been harvested and I would change all passwords (enable two-factor authentication as well). Thorough research on security topics is advisable and wouldn't hurt to monitor your credit in case someone has already made use of your email information. Good luck.</p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "united-states", "copyright", "privacy" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5002, "body": "<p>Not in US courts. It would be more accurate to say the UDHR overrides nothing and is not US law. It is a <em>nonbinding</em> UN General Assembly resolution; while it is very powerful persuasive authority and much is customary international law, it is persuasive authority only. See <em>Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain</em>, 542 U.S. 692. </p>\n\n<p>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. </p>\n\n<p>Even if it <em>was</em> possible to enforce the ICCPR in US court directly, <em>Reid v. Covert</em> 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. </p>\n", "score": 6 } ]

[ "international", "human-rights", "us-constitution" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4996, "body": "<p>If you are a small business, you apply VAT the same way as you would apply it for customers of your own country.</p>\n\n<p>There is a threshold for sales made to a certain country. If you do not exceed that threshold, you can apply your own country's VAT rules to customers from that country and deliver VAT to your own tax office.</p>\n\n<p>If you do exceed that threshold, then you have to worry about other countries' VAT laws. But if you exceed those thresholds in any country, you have enough money to hire a tax advisor.</p>\n\n<p>What those thresholds are depends on the customer's country. You can find a table here: <a href=\"http://www.vatlive.com/eu-vat-rules/distance-selling-eu-vat-thresholds/\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.vatlive.com/eu-vat-rules/distance-selling-eu-vat-thresholds/</a></p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "tax-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4986, "body": "<h2>Short Answer</h2>\n<blockquote>\n<p><strong>I would take a two prong approach.</strong></p>\n<ol>\n<li>Prioritize safety first.</li>\n<li>Then get evidence.</li>\n</ol>\n</blockquote>\n<h3>Safety</h3>\n<p>Firstly, regarding the safety issue, I would get some form of <em><strong>judicial order</strong></em> of restraint (e.g., restraining order, order of protection, no contact order, etc. depends on jurisdiction.) Often times you can just go down to the courthouse and obtain a Temporary Restraining Order <em><strong>ex parte</strong></em> (without notice to the restrained party) and <em><strong>pro se</strong></em> (without counsel) on the same day.</p>\n<p>You just need to fill out some forms and swear a statement before the commissioner in my jurisdiction. There are even people at the courthouse who will help guide you through the procedure (mostly volunteers for Domestic Violence prevention). A permanent restraining order can come later. But this should at least address the issue of the counterparty showing up at your door. If he does so after you get a restraining order (and have him <em><strong>served</strong></em> with it), you can call the police and have him arrested for violating the restraining order even if he does nothing else wrong.</p>\n<h3>Evidence</h3>\n<p>Secondly, I would build a legal case. <a href=\"https://www.google.com/search?q=decibel%20meter\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">If you search google for the term <em><strong>decibel meter</strong></em> you will see that you can purchase one for about $70-$80</a>. (Or there are probably some phone apps you can download too.) You might want to get one, then measure the decibel levels next time your neighbor complains or just in general.</p>\n<p>Record on video the measurement in various rooms of the apartment then compare that to what the law says. If you are under the threshhold then your evidence would be the video and (maybe, if you can swing it) the testimony of his roommate. Although since he's the roommate and has to live with the guy that might be an iffy proposition.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "criminal-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4985, "body": "<p>No. Federal criminal law doesn't control what state criminal sentences are, and Congress does not have the power to define what counts as \"cruel and unusual\" at the state level. It is quite common for federal sentences to be different from state ones.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "criminal-law", "human-rights", "us-constitution" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4974, "body": "<blockquote>\n <p>are they allowed to immediately try to recover the debt or must they go to court first?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>They can try to recover the debt, either directly or through a debt collection agency. They do not have to go to court first; courts are for the resolution of a dispute and <em>right now</em> there isn't one.</p>\n\n<p>If the <em>consumer</em> disputes the debt (which they should do in writing) then the debt is held in abeyance until the <em>dispute</em> is resolved. While in this state debt collection must stop and the debt must be noted as disputed on any credit agency checks. Dispute resolution may be through negotiation, litigation, mediation, arbitration or a statutory mechanism (e.g. involving a government agency or ombudsman if applicable).</p>\n\n<p>If the supplier chooses litigation then they must go to the court and summons the consumer; stating the basis of their claim. The consumer is then entitled to mount a defence.</p>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "united-kingdom", "contract-law", "consumer-protection" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1388, "body": "<p>I'm not from Brazil, but I have Brazilian friends, and I will answer based on my knowledge of American law.</p>\n\n<p>\"A long time\" in this context, would be measured by how long it would genuinely take to service a client. </p>\n\n<p>Five minutes can be considered a long time, if each \"service\" takes 30 seconds, and you are continually bypassed for people behind you. </p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, if your problem routinely takes a day to fix because there is one provider and a long line, \"hours\" would not be a refusal of service. On the other hand, a month would be, and a week may be.</p>\n", "score": 1 }, { "answer_id": 4958, "body": "<p>According to the Brazillian <strong>Customers Right</strong> (an addendum to the law), <strong>any warranty repair service is limited to 30 days of execution</strong> starting from the moment you notify the company of the defect [Read the <strong>Warranty Section</strong> of this Post]</p>\n\n<h2>Same City Services</h2>\n\n<p>If the company provides an authorized agent to repair your product in your city, you can be asked to carry the product to the place where the repair will take place. After that, start counting 30 days (not business days, 30 rush days).</p>\n\n<h2>Different Cities Services</h2>\n\n<p>If the company does not offer a repair service in your city, the countage <strong>may</strong> start from the moment you notify them of your problem. After the notification, they should provide for the product's transfer without any additional cost to you. You may be asked to take the product to a Post Office. Although the law does not specify whether the 30 days start counting when you notify the company or when they have the product in their hands, common sense takes place to define these cases. For instance, the repair may as well had taken 3 days to be executed, but if the product took 15 days to arrive at the company and 15 more days to be back in your hands, it exceeded the 30 days limit. If you send your product and in 30 days you do not have at least a <strong>tracking code</strong> from the Post Office to deliver it back, it is reasonable to take legal actions.</p>\n\n<h2>Warranty Law</h2>\n\n<p>The warranty law is considered to be the Article 18º of the <strong>Código de Defesa do Consumidor</strong> (Customer's Defense Code), which is considered to be the law of the marketplace. The article 18 states that the repair shall be executed in the extense of 30 days. If your product exceeds the 30 days in a repair store, you can <strong>a)</strong> require the full reimbursment of the receipt or <strong>b)</strong> request a new product of the same model or similar.</p>\n\n<h2>Execution of the Law</h2>\n\n<p>In case your product stays for more than 30 days in the repair shop, you can request for a <strong>tracking code</strong> or <strong>service order number</strong>. With that in hands, contact the Customer Service Support of the company and say that your product is over 30 days in the repair and ask for a new one or the money back (whatever you prefer). Different companies have different work-style and they'll guide you through their process. There might be cases where you want a new product, but the company no longer manufacture that specific model and in those cases they tend to offer the money you paid for the product. Even though you want a new product, it's easier and faster to just accept the money back, since the company is not obliged to manufacture an out-of-stock product just to pay you back.</p>\n\n<h2>If the company doesn't help me</h2>\n\n<p>You can contact the <strong>PROCON - Superitendência de Proteção Aos Direitos do Consumidor</strong> (Customer's Right Protection Department) with the <strong>tracking code</strong>. They will notify the company of your complain and they'll have 30 days to respond. Although this course takes a little more time, it usually is the ultimate solution.</p>\n\n<h2>Civil Court</h2>\n\n<p>Although the PROCON may help you, they're limited to <strong>customer's right</strong> handbook which states the full restitution of money or a new product. If you feel that you were morally damaged by the company (usually happens when you need to request repair services more than once in 1 year) you can sue the manufacturer in Civil Courts through the <strong>Specialized Civil Courts</strong>. The max amount of the case is set to 20 minimum wages and you are not required the presence of a lawyer. You can ask for restitution plus damages.</p>\n\n<h2>Update to Answer comment</h2>\n\n<p>The wait in line differs from warranty services. You are not required to stay at the repair shop for 30 days. You are just required to have a tracking code for the <strong>service order</strong>. When you request a repair service, the repair shop is obliged to provide you with a code that corresponds to the service that you requested. That code will be linked to the day that the company starts to have responsibility. After 30 days if the product is not repaired, you can request a new one or the money back as explained previously. If you don't have the <strong>invoice</strong> or the <strong>receipt</strong>, the law does not see you as the owner of the product and, therefore, you are not covered by the <strong>customer's right defense code</strong>.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "warranties", "brazil" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4405, "body": "<p>In general:</p>\n\n<p><strong>You cannot be authorised by <em>anyone</em> to break the law!</strong></p>\n\n<p>It is worth noting that people who break \"normal\" laws in the course of their duties (e.g. soldiers, law enforcement operatives, espionage agents etc.) are in fact following the law because there are laws that allow them to break laws that apply to other people.</p>\n\n<p>If you were \"authorised\" by your employer to break the law, both you and your employer (and the person(s) who authorised you) would be subject to prosecution or civil action. If you were not authorised then you and your employer would be subject to prosecution or civil action unless the employer could demonstrate that you were \"on a frolic of your own\" (i.e. they did not and would not have requested you to do it, it was against policy and they did not know) in which case its just you that are in trouble.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>If I, knowingly, break a site's terms of use as part of my job, am I liable in any way?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>You are liable in every way. So is your employer and the person who signed the note.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>How would that change if I wasn't aware of the possible damages?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Not at all.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I'm interested in both US or Brazil-specific answers.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Brazil I am not familiar with but I would expect this to be the same pretty much universally. The US and other common-law jurisdictions is as stated above.</p>\n", "score": 2 }, { "answer_id": 4410, "body": "<h2>United States</h2>\n\n<p>Generally, the <em>respondeat superior</em> doctrine make the employer liable in the event that they order you to break the law¹.</p>\n\n<p>The Restatement (Second) of Agency determines the limits of whether conduct falls within the scope of employment where:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>the conduct of [the employee] is within the scope of employment, but only if:</p>\n\n<p>a. it is of the kind [the employee] is employed to perform;<br>\nb. it occurs substantially within the authorized time and space limits;<br>\nc. it is actuated, at least in part, by a purpose to serve the master, and;<br>\nd. if force is intentionally used by the [employee] against another, the use of force is not [unforeseeable to the master]</p></li>\n<li><p>Conduct of an [employee] is not within the scope of employment if it is different in kind from that authorized, far beyond the authorized time or space limits, or too little actuated by a purpose to serve the master.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>There are limits to this doctrine:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p><em>Bates v. United States</em> 701 F.2d 737 (8th Cir. 1983)² </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>[t]he court found that the employer was not liable for the actions of a military policeman who pulled over a car of four teenagers. The officer shot and killed all four of the teenagers after he raped two of them. The court found that an employer could not be held liable for acts of an employee that were so excessively violent, without reason or responsibility and completely outside the reasonable scope of the employee's duties.</p>\n</blockquote></li>\n<li><p><em>Heindel v. Bowery Savings Bank</em> 525 N.Y.S.2d 428 (App. Div. 1988)³ </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Acts that are purely motivated by personal interests or that are outrageous in nature are to be considered outside the scope of employment.<br>\n A security guard at a shopping mall forced a 15-year-old into the mall's security office, where he assaulted and raped her.</p>\n</blockquote></li>\n</ul>\n\n<h3>So...</h3>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>If I, knowingly, break a site's terms of use as part of my job, am I liable in any way?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><strong>Yes.</strong> You are still liable, however you can seek indemnity from your employer if it was carried out in the course of your duties.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>How would that change if I wasn't aware of the possible damages?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The same would apply.</p>\n\n<h2>Brazil</h2>\n\n<p>Unfortunately, I'm not familiar enough with Brazilian principles. However, civil law jurisdictions tend to provide for some kind of vicarious liability. Brazilian law apparently derives from Portuguese, French, Italian, and German law. I only know for a fact that French law provides for vicarious liability in employer-employee relationship.</p>\n\n<p>Having said that, a brief search for vicarious liability in Brazil shows at least one article⁴ states that:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>although there is no doctrine of vicarious liability in Brazil, the provisions on joint strict liability might be used to the same effect</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I'm not going to try to give as definitive of an answer for Brazilian law.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>^{\n1. Davis EM. The doctrines of respondeat superior: an application to employers' liability for the computer or Internet crimes committed by their employees. <em>Albany Law Journal of Science &amp; Technology</em>. 2002;12:683.<br>\n2. <em>ibid.</em> p. 692<br>\n3. <em>ibid.</em> p. 690<br>\n4. <a href=\"http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/page/wilmap-brazil\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/page/wilmap-brazil</a><br>\n}</p>\n", "score": 2 }, { "answer_id": 4959, "body": "<h2>Brazil</h2>\n\n<p>Although both answers from @jumsug and @Dale M are complete and extent, I'd like to add a few insights in regard of the specific question.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>(in a way like copying its material, when it explicitly states it's forbidden)</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The question specifies the subject of copyright infringements and brazillian laws do not categorize that as a crime. <strong>USUALLY</strong> (note that I said with big letters), a crime is committed by a person, not a company. A crime is non-transferable and judged in the criminal courts. Since you're not committing a crime, it's not up to the criminal justice to try you in a court of law. But if you were, it's most likely for you to be held accountable for your actions, as well as your supervisor. Maybe you can get lighter sentence, but to be ordered to commit a crime is not an excuse to commit a crime.</p>\n\n<p>That said, copyright infringements are a matter of civil court and this type of judicial process is more likely to hold your supervisor accountable than you.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "united-states", "copyright", "liability", "brazil" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4938, "body": "<p>You need what's known as an <strong>Operating Agreement</strong>. This has to be drafted in compliance with the laws and rules for LLCs proscribed by the state in which the LLC is domiciled. Any business attorney should be able to draft (or refer you to an attorney who can draft) an Operating Agreement. For typical multi-member LLCs without anything unusual this would be mostly \"boilerplate.\"</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "business", "colorado" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4951, "body": "<p>Not very.</p>\n\n<p>In 1998 the Boston Bar Association Task Force on Unrepresented Litigants did a detailed study on this subject entitled <strong><a href=\"http://apps.americanbar.org/legalservices/delivery/downloads/bostontaskforce.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">Report on Pro Se Litigants</a></strong>.</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://apps.americanbar.org/legalservices/delivery/downloads/bostontaskforce.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://apps.americanbar.org/legalservices/delivery/downloads/bostontaskforce.pdf</a></p>\n\nAmong their findings was:\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>In some types of matters unrepresented litigants do not obtain results as favorable as those with counsel;</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This conclusion is consistent with my personal experience.</p>\n", "score": 2 }, { "answer_id": 4931, "body": "<p>They fare poorly.</p>\n\n<p>An attorney is considered an officer of the court. Their word is considered ethical gold in court. A non-lawyer has ZERO gravitas before the court, and so everything he/she says is assumed \"suspect\" before the court.</p>\n\n<p>I was involved (respondent) in a case where the factual documentary evidence was incontrovertible, public record, and it completely supported my case. It seemed such an obvious slam dunk that I didn't hire counsel. The other side's attorney argued on a pro-forma basis to dismiss my motion to dismiss, and the case continued. I am certain that if I had hired counsel and my counsel had said the exact same things I said, the case would have been dismissed.</p>\n\n<p>The courts really dislike talking directly to petitioners and respondents.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "process", "pro-se" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4946, "body": "<p>As @amon stated in a comment, copyright requires creativity. If the author of a tool wants to claim copyright on the output of that tool, then that output must contain something that required the creativity of the tool author.</p>\n\n<p>For a tool that just re-indents its input, the output is created from the input with a mechanical, non-creative, transformation and the output does not contain any creative content that wasn't already present in the input. For that reason, authors of such tools can't claim any copyright on the output.</p>\n\n<p>For a tool like <code>bison</code>, which was mentioned in the comments, the output contains a measurable amount of creative content that was <em>not</em> present in the input, but which was provided by the authors of <code>bison</code>. For that reason, the authors of 'bison' <em>do</em> have a copyright claim on the output of the tool (for which they give a broad permission to use).</p>\n\n<p>So, the basic question becomes, how much of the (creative) content of the output can be traced back to the tool itself and not to the input that the tool processed. For linters/formatters, that is likely to be very little. For code generators, it can be anywhere between very little and all of the output. </p>\n\n<p>The license restrictions on the code produced by the tool itself are by default the same as the license restrictions on the source of the tool, but the tool author can choose to apply any other license to the tool code that ends up in the output.<br>\nIf the output of the tool is, at least in part, dependent on an input file, then the authors of the input file also have a copyright claim on the tool output (as their creative work influenced the output), so the tool author can not claim exclusive ownership.</p>\n\n<p>The usual situation is that for tools that don't add creative content to the output, the author explicitly states that the don't have any copyright claims on the output.<br>\nFor tools that <em>do</em> add creative content, that content might be released under very permissive conditions (like, \"you can use the output as a whole for any purpose, but you can only separate out the code that comes from the tool's codebase if you adhere to the &lt;X> license\")</p>\n", "score": 4 } ]

[ "licensing" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4943, "body": "<p>A <a href=\"http://joshblackman.com/blog/2014/04/04/that-time-justice-breyer-certified-a-question-to-the-pennsylvania-supreme-court-and-then-reversed-circuit-judge-alito/\">blog post</a> tracked this to <em>Fiore v. White</em>, a 1999 case in which Breyer <a href=\"https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=4157023366955709575&amp;q=fiore+v+white&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=40000003\">wrote an opinion</a> certifying a question to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, after which SCOTUS <a href=\"https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=12396895581251745262&amp;q=fiore+v+white&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=40000003\">reversed the Third Circuit</a> <em>per curiam</em>. The Third Circuit opinion in question was written by <a href=\"https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8126056775761412557&amp;q=fiore+v+white&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=40000003\">Circuit Judge Samuel Alito</a>. </p>\n", "score": 4 } ]

[ "us-supreme-court", "case-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4941, "body": "<p>20th Century Fox have a trademark on \"Simpsons.\" They have trademarks on \"Bart Simpson\", on \"D'oh\", on \"Duff Beer\". I would assume that they take their trademarks seriously. </p>\n\n<p>What you can't do is to use someone else's trademark to make people believe your commercial product is related to theirs. It's quite reasonable to assume that someone seeing your book in a store would think it is written by the makers of <em>The Simpsons</em> show and therefore buy it. Even if you say that isn't your intention, it is what would happen. </p>\n\n<p>I'd try coming up with some different titles, maybe \"How to write animated TV shows\" with \"Example: The Simpsons\" (well, you are the writer so you should come up with something better), and take them to a lawyer. And then contact the makers of the show (again asking the lawyer for advice how to do this) because even if your lawyer says the title is fine, that doesn't mean you can't be sued. </p>\n", "score": 3 }, { "answer_id": 4882, "body": "<p>I'm answering from New Zealand, so my answer may or may not be correct for the US. </p>\n\n<p>Over here, brand names generally do not have copyright. So you could use it in your book. It would be very difficult for authors if they were never allowed to use names of companies in their work.</p>\n\n<p>In terms of using it in the title/ on your book cover, maybe be careful, because they may have a trademark over the image of the words (font, capital letters, etc.), as well as the actual brand name. They could argue also something like you are passing off/ misrepresenting your work as being a product of their company.</p>\n\n<p>It also isn't an issue here about how much of your book is original, it is about whether you have used a substantial part/ the essense of the scripts, etc. So in other words is what you have taken a big/ important part of The Simpsons works. </p>\n\n<p>Here you could use the fair dealing defense, in the US the equivalent (much wider) is <strong>fair use</strong>. Fair dealing in NZ means you could use parts of someone else's copyright work if it is for comment, criticism, etc.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "united-states", "trademark" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4924, "body": "<p>In theory, these rights are granted to US citizens by the Constitution and its amendments. As to whether or not US citizens actually have these rights, Constitutional scholars can and will argue back and forth on that without making a real decision, partly due to the non-specific nature of the rights described in your quote.</p>\n\n<p>It's important to note that the quote you provided is actually from the <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence\" rel=\"nofollow\">US Declaration of Independence</a>, which declared that the 13 colonies were no longer going to be British colonies, but rather their own separate nation (keep in mind that from a British perspective, this was treason).</p>\n\n<p>The actual rights that US citizens possess are granted primarily by the <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution\" rel=\"nofollow\">US Constitution</a> and its amendments (especially the first ten, also known as the Bill of Rights). This forms the basic foundation for our governmental system, on which all other parts of it are built. While many people feel that the wording of the Declaration of Independence should be used to help interpret the Constitution, there's nothing in the Constitution that formally states that. Historically, it's also important to recognize that the current Constitution is not the original one - the first document formalizing the federal government of the US was the <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation\" rel=\"nofollow\">Articles of Confederation</a>, which was the law of the land for over a decade before being superseded.</p>\n", "score": 1 }, { "answer_id": 4934, "body": "<p>Actually, unalienable rights are not granted but are self-evident. Therefore, the formative documents of the US sovereign state attempt to lay out those rights which are belayed and appropriated to the State, rather than to lay out those rights which are reserved to the individual. The State takes certain rights, as enumerated in the origin documents, and makes no statement nor opinion as to any other rights as may exist (or not.)</p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "united-states", "criminal-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4541, "body": "<p>In the U.S. there is no law that requires you to ever say a word to a law enforcement officer, and lawyers generally encourage you to minimize what you communicate to them anyway.</p>\n\n<p>I can't think of any situation where a request for information could not be demanded in writing. As a practical matter, in some situations you will probably be subject to some extra scrutiny and inconvenience: E.g., in a <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_and_identify_statutes\" rel=\"nofollow\">stop-and-identify</a> situation, you could hand the officer a note saying, \"Please make any requests for information from me in writing.\" The officer may infer that you have some disability, but if he does not (or discovers you don't) he may get irritated enough to subject you to harassment for \"<a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_cop\" rel=\"nofollow\">contempt of cop</a>\".</p>\n\n<p>Of course, if you can understand him, you are still required to obey an officer's lawful orders no matter how they are communicated. But \"speak\" is not a lawful order.</p>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "united-states", "traffic", "massachusetts" ]