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When people drink and drive and then cause an accident especially where if someone dies they get years and years in prison but just the act of drunk driving is punished way more lenient. Shouldn't the 2, drunk driving and drunk driving then causing accident be similarly punished? I feel like a lot of times it's luck whether an accident happens.

Moral luck You have raised the issue of moral luck, a long recognized problem in criminal theory. The classic expositions of this issue are by Thomas Nagel, in his chapter, Moral Luck (1979) and Bernard Williams, Moral Luck (1976). Specifically, you are describing what they call outcome luck, or consequential luck. Driving while intoxicated vs. driving while intoxicated and causing death is not the only example where moral luck results in a distinction in punishment. Other examples are: dangerous driving vs. dangerous driving that causes death a successful offence vs. an attempted offence (generally resulting in a maximum sentence less than that of the successful offence) Nagel writes: If someone has had too much to drink and his car swerves on to the sidewalk, he can count himself morally lucky if there are no pedestrians in its path. If there were, he would be to blame for their deaths, and would probably be prosecuted for manslaughter. But if he hurts no one, although his recklessness is exactly the same, he is guilty of a far less serious legal offence and will certainly reproach himself and be reproached by others much less severely. To take another legal example, the penalty for attempted murder is less than that for successful murder – however similar the intentions and motives of the assailant may be in the two cases. His degree of culpability can depend, it would seem, on whether the victim happened to be wearing a bullet-proof vest, or whether a bird flew into the path of the bullet – matters beyond his control. ... ... How is it possible to be more or less culpable depending on whether a child gets into the path of one's car, or a bird into the path of one's bullet? Perhaps it is true that what is done depends on more than the agent's state of mind or intention. The problem then is, why is it not irrational to base moral assessment on what people do, in this broad sense? It amounts to holding them responsible for the contributions of fate as well as for their own – provided they have made some contribution to begin with. ... If the object of moral judgment is the person, then to hold him accountable for what he has done in the broader sense is akin to strict liability, which may have its legal uses but seems irrational as a moral position. Two offered justifications for making distinctions based purely on outcome Two considerations often raised as justification for differential treatment based on outcome are (David Enoch & Andrei Marmor, The Case against Moral Luck, 26 LAW & PHIL. 405 (2007), pp. 415–17) epistemological / evidential — the person who actually killed a person was more likely to have been driving more recklessly the theory that the actor should have to internalize the risk, fully, when they set out on a risky activity — if they happen to kill someone, the risk of this higher punishment was part of what they should have accounted for when deciding to embark on the risky activity A couple of quotes from Enoch and Marmor: All other things being equal, the occurrence of an accident is plausibly considered as at least some prima facie evidence for recklessness, or indeed for a higher degree of recklessness. A conception of fairness that requires agents to internalize the costs of their risky activities does not necessarily reflect a view of responsibility or blameworthiness. It may simply reflect a judgment about the appropriate distribution of the costs of risky activities.

Why is drunk driving causing accident punished so much worse than just drunk driving?

What counts as consideration in contract law? Does consideration from party A have to be to the benefit of the party B?

See generally Hamer v. Sidway (1891), 124 NY 538, citing indirectly Currie v Misa (1875) LR 10 Ex 893: 'A valuable consideration in the sense of the law may consist either in some right, interest, profit or benefit accruing to the one party, or some forbearance, detriment, loss or responsibility given, suffered or undertaken by the other.' Courts 'will not ask whether the thing which forms the consideration does in fact benefit the promisee or a third party, or is of any substantial value to anyone. It is enough that something is promised, done, forborne or suffered by the party to whom the promise is made as consideration for the promise made to him.

What counts as consideration in contract law?

My high school daughter worked for about a year for an employer who owns a tutoring company in our town. Due to friction between my daughter and the employer, my daughter recently quit but she realized that she was being underpaid for much of this year (2023) because the minimum wage here in California is currently $15.50 for 2023 but she was still getting paid $14.00, the California minimum wage for 2022, when she recently quit (in August 2023). Now according to my daughter there is a provision in California law which allows employers to pay only 85% of minimum wage for new workers with no prior experience for their first 160 hours of work. For 2023, that new worker wage level would work out to $13.17 per hour, but my daughter said that she exceeded her first 160 hours of work for the employer back in March 2023. So, basically, my daughter was being paid under the proper CA 2023 minimum wage for over the past 4 months. When my daughter contacted her former employer about this problem, the employer was apologetic and emailed back saying that a financial transaction to her to correct for the underpayment would be sent as soon as my daughter emailed back an enclosed payment settlement form. The settlement form basically says I hereby agree that the net payment of $XXX represents the full and final settlement of my account with Company XXX, and there are signature lines at the bottom of the form for my daughter's signature as well as my signature as her parent. I'm currently thinking Why should I, the parent, need to sign anything here?. The employer underpaid my daughter and she acknowledges that she underpaid my daughter, so it seems that she is responsible for paying my daughter the money she already owes her for the work that my daughter already did, regardless of whether I sign any form or not. Any thoughts on all of this?

Read the terms It's quite likely that, if you took this to court, the employer would be liable to pay your daughter interest on the underpayment and possibly be fined by the state for failing to follow the law. The terms probably are offering to pay the back pay with no interest and your daughter agreeing to confidentiality about the breach. Probably - I haven't read them. In other words, they're asking her to sign a contract saying she gets $XXX now, and can't make any further claims against them. Such releases are commonplace when setting a dispute and there's probably nothing underhanded going on. Probably - I haven't read them. Because minors can void contracts if they are not in their interest, they want you, as her legal guardian, to also sign so that can't happen. A relatively prudent precaution on their part. The alternative is to not sign the document and they presumably won't pay. It will then be up to you whether to sue them which will cost you money, possibly more than you will get if you win. As to whether there is a dispute: they want your signature, you don't want to sign - that's a dispute. Any admissions they have made in their settlement offer are almost surely without prejudice, meaning they are inadmissible in court. If you want to sue, you would have to prove the underpayment without relying on their admissions. As stated above, maybe there is no underpayment. Only you and your daughter can decide if this is a good deal.

Question Concerning Responding to Employer of Minor Daughter Paid Under Minimum Wage

Can Hawaii secede from the U.S. through legal means or is it forbidden by U.S. law? I am asking, because I doubt the U.S. would accept the result of a referendum that rules that the Hawaiians want to secede from the U.S. just like Russia or China wouldn't accept it.

Currently, there is no legal means for a state to secede form the U.S. A quick Google search yields So you want to secede from the U.S.: A four-step guide - The Washington Post: When the Confederate states seceded in 1861 and were then defeated in the Civil War, the argument is that they demonstrated that you can't secede from the Union. The 1869 Supreme Court case TEXAS v. WHITE ET AL (Legal Information Institute) determined that the secession was never actually a real thing in the eyes of the federal government. The Confederate States of America wasn't an independent country any more than your house is its own country simply because you say it is. 'The Constitution, in all its provisions,' the justices wrote, 'looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible States.' Also from that Post piece: In 2006, Justice Antonin Scalia was asked by screenwriter Dan Turkewitz if the idea of Maine seceding from the country made sense as a possible plot point. Scalia, perhaps unexpectedly, replied. I cannot imagine that such a question could ever reach the Supreme Court, Scalia wrote. To begin with, the answer is clear. If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede. ... Secondly, I find it difficult to envision who the parties to this lawsuit might be. Is the State suing the United States for a declaratory judgment? But the United States cannot be sued without its consent, and it has not consented to this sort of suit. A state could secede if the US Constitution was amended to allow secession, but the chances of that happening are low. Also see Secession in the United States - Wikipedia

Can Hawaii secede from the U.S. through legal means?

It seems that the principal impetus of moving migrants onto barges like the Bibby Stockholm is to save the costs of renting property in which to accommodate the migrants on dry land. Rental costs are no doubt high as anyone will know. But what is the legality of mooring semi permanent barges such as the Bubby Stockholm off the British coast, whether for the government or for private citizenry? If anyone is allowed to construct and moor barges like that off the coast and then not have to own or rent property to inhabit, then what stops private citizens from residing on such structures?

england-and-wales then what stops private citizens from residing on such structures? Nothing. Anyone who can be a tenant of a house or apartment can be a tenant of a boat. The [general framework at a very broad and high level] of legality of mooring semi permanent barges such as the Bubby Stockholm off the British coast, whether for the government or for private citizenry? The owner must moor it somewhere. If the mooring doesn't already exist then you need licences and/or permissions and/or consents from the relevant authorities/owners to make it. The Crown Estate owns about 50% of the UK foreshore and most of the seabed. There could be more than one authority/owner of the space to be occupied. On the inland waterways you will need either a permanent mooring licence or a continuous cruising licence. If you stay in one place sufficiently long you become liable for council tax. You will either somehow travel to the mooring or (more conveniently) the mooring is near a jetty. Does the jetty already exist or must it be built? Is there additional infrastructure to be built, such as parking, utilities (electricity, water, gas, sewerage), 24/7 security etc? To accomodate 500 people on one vessel you will need more than is required by occupants of a 34ft yacht or 70ft narrowboat. To lawfully start building things you need the appropriate permissions/consents. In the case of Bibby Stockholm and Portland Port, the government's position is that the barge is below 'mean low water'. This means planning permission to situate the barge is not required from the local authority - it is outside the LA's control. But the Mayor in her capacity as a local resident, not her office, claims the additional works such as the utilities infrastructure, exercise area and fences come into the jurisdiction of the local authority's planning powers.

Legality of privately bibby Stockholming to save land costs

In this answer to my Politics SE question *Is former president Trump out on bail as Chris Christie asserts? If so, were campaign funds used? which ends: Bail is a particular type of bond in which the defendant submits an upfront payment that will be held until he returns to court, but there's no indication Trump was asked to post bail. there is a discussion about what but there's no indication means, including: Isn't posting bail generally a matter of public knowledge? We often hear about person X was released wrt case Y for Z amount of money. Which would bolster this answer. and Generally yes, it's disclosed to the public. I just don't know if it's legally required to be disclosed, or whether the judge has discretion. Law is weird... Chuckles that Politics SE would think Law is weird aside, this has piqued my curiosity. Christie is a former US attorney with extensive experience in arraignments for corruption and similar crimes, and would be keenly aware of the difference between bond and bail. Further, the out on bail statement was made on national television amidst a discussion on truth and honesty in politics. And yet I can't tell if the out on bail assertion is true, false, or currently unknowable with any certainty. Question: Can defendants arraigned in federal court sometimes be out on bail secretly with no way for the public to know about or verify the bail?

Here is one of the three Trump appearance bonds. As you can see, it is a personal recognizance bond, and not a dollar amount bond. He promises to appear, as required, and there is no money involved. There is a direct indication that he was not required to post bail, which is a stronger statement that no indication that he was.

Can defendants arraigned in federal court sometimes be out on bail secretly with no way for the public to know about or verify the bail?

I am a minor and my mother would be signing both the incorporation documents, I am under the impression there is no problem there as she would have no role. Since she signed these documents, does she hold any additional duties or responsibilities as a result of that signature? How can she relinquish those responsibilities?

Running a C-Corp is no easy matter, I would suggest first you look very hard at why you want to do a C-Corp vs an LLC with an S-Corp election. There is a lot of documentation/formalities that if not followed allow somebody to "pierce the veil" and bind the principles legally. You also miss out on tax savings opportunities with recent legislation and subject yourself to double taxation, which is beyond the scope of this question. Think carefully. To answer your question, the person who signs the documents is the founder/former of the corporation. You can file paperwork to remove that person from the corporation, however in your case I would not do that, and here's why... One of your principle shareholders will be a minor. A minor cannot be held to the same contract standards as majority adults. This means that many organizations that would otherwise gladly do business with you (like a bank account) will immediately turn away. You need an adult to bind the company and all the principles should be legal adults. You cannot allow your minor business partner to be part of any contract or a party to a signatory on a contract. Yes, a minor can hold "shares" of a corporation, but they are severely limited in that they carry no voting rights. They do give the holder dividends, but there are tax implications there too that the corporation needs to be careful of. You will need to disclose that your business partner is a minor in your dealings, not doing so can open you up to all kinds of trouble. That alone is enough to make many organizations walk away. I would suggest that you keep all your principles as majority adults and draft documents that transfer the shares to the minor upon the age of majority.

What role does the person who signs post incorporation paperwork have in the company?

Does the following statement mean that the 3 point credit is only good for 2 years and after that the credit points will disappear? If a Government-approved defensive driving course has been successfully completed prior to accumulating 15 or more points, a 3 point credit is applied to your driving record for a 2-year period.

Yes, that's what that means. But if you continue reading the article that you referenced, you will see that demerit points themselves also expire after 2 years: When 2 years have passed from the date of a conviction, the demerit points assessed for that conviction are removed from your driver's record.

A 3 point credit is applied to your driving record for a 2-year period

Is there a viable cause of action for exposing someone's academic misconduct from a country different than the one the exposed person lives and works. For instance if you live in a European country, the exposed person also lives in a different European country and the site that exposes him is based in America such as this case:https://rwincblog9.wordpress.com/2023/06/15/11/, are the elements of defamation made out?

If A defames B, the fact that the parties live and work in different countries is not a bar to a defamation lawsuit. This is not changed when platform C is headquartered in a third country. A choice of law question does arise, which is important because B can always sue A, but they might have a legally-better outcome if they sue in the defendant's jurisdiction (plaintiff-friendly rules) yet they might be concerned over the home courts advantage. The EU has a rule applying to non-contractual obligations in civil and commercial matters which expressly excludes non-contractual obligations arising out of violations of privacy and rights relating to personality, including defamation (there is no uniform EU answer). This article touches on such considerations in transnational defamation. Whether or not some specific content rises to the level of defamation depends on the actual facts (was there plagiarism, which is not a legally-defined category unlike copyright infringement), and the choice of law.

Is there a viable cause of action for exposing someone of academic misconduct?

Bob threatens John with a gun. Alice, who is also carrying a gun (legally), draws her gun and aims at Bob, intending to shoot him in defense of John, who is unarmed. John says to her, Don't shoot him! Alice shoots Bob anyway. Is this legal? Assume that it would have been unquestionably legal had John consented or remained silent.

england-and-wales Alice's defence will be that she had an honest belief, given the circumstances, that force was necessary and the force she used was reasonable in defence of John (and possibly Alice). John's consent is irrelevant unless it had some bearing on that. Why did John oppose the use of force? Did John tell Alice not to shoot because he would rather die than cause a death? Irrelevant. Did John tell Alice not to shoot because he believed Bob was not a real threat due to circumstances X, Y and/or Z that he wanted Alice to heed? Relevant.

Is use of force in defense of another legal if the person being defended opposes the use of force?

Let's say there is a patented product A for domain A and there is a product B that does the same work but is invented for a different domain B. If a company in domain A shows its customers that they can also use product B for domain A, is it an infringement of the patent? The intention is obviously to lead users to be able to access the cheap solution. In case it is an infringement, what if a Youtuber makes a tutorial and shows how to use the cheap solution to the domain A to people? I don't think there is a way to prevent this even if the company does not want it. For example, there is a broadcasting camera tracker which cost around 100k~200k but a similar product that does the same work but was invented for robotics is just 1k. What's your thought? Added: Patent of the product A, intended for the broadcasting industry: https://patents.google.com/patent/AU2013257788B2/en?assignee=ncam&oq=ncam An example of product B, used for different domains. https://www.intelrealsense.com/tracking-camera-t265/ A similar algorithm is used on both products. According to the patent, it sounds like using product B for the broadcasting industry is infringing their IP. I want my customers to be able to buy a tracker for under $200.

There are several issues - one is that patents are given for specific ways of solving a problem, sometimes very narrowly different from other ways of solving a problem, not for a result. There are usually many ways to achieve a result. Another, that you bring up, is “field of use”. That comes into play in method claims but not usually in device or systems claims. A claim to a “thing”- system, device, machine etc. is infringed by another thing (that fits within the claimed definition) just sitting on a shelf in a box. Intended use is not traditionally relevant. If a device for any intended use fits the words of a claim, it infringes. In your case the preamble of a system claim says “system for mixing or compositing in real-time, computer generated 3D objects”. At least in the US that would not usually be limiting to that use but just taken as a description of the thing, not requiring actual specified use to infringe. Read it as “capable of being used for”. Method claims can limit field of use. A method for getting rust cleared from a screwdriver that had a step “provide a rusty screwdriver” would be limited to that use. Another example would be a back scratcher configured exactly as a small garden rake but claimed in a method for scratching one's back. Assume the garden rake is known - the backscratcher as a thing could not be patented, but a method of using something of a certain shape and design (small garden rake) to scratch your back could be. Someone with a garden rake couldn't scratch their back even though they owned the garden rake. Note that a small garden sold as good for use as a backscratcher would be committing contributory infringement unless they had a license. Something being covered by a patent owned by its manufacturer does not mean it, or its use, does not infringe some other patent owned by a totally unrelated entity. Of course it is possible a manufacturer has licensed relevant patents of others. The patent you link to is not only described as used for broadcast. Gaming and other entertainment uses are mentioned. As mentioned in another answer, the Intel device works in a way that doesn't fall under the claims of the sited patent. It has two cameras in total while the claims require a main camera and two additional cameras to do the position determination another with other inertial sensors. Some uses of the Intel device could theoretically infringe method claims in one or more un-sighted, unknown, patents. If someone bolted the intel device to a “film camera” and used the combination as described in the method claim you might get the quality image you need and only use the intel device for the position information. Then you might infringe.

Leading customers to use cheaper solution invented for another domain instead of expensive patented solution. Infringement?

I have an online resume website that I created, and I list the logos of companies I've work with over the course of my career. Rather than a dry date list of work experience, I'm just listing the names and logos of the companies on the website. I even have a disclaimer stating this in no way represents endorsement or sponsorship. I assume this use of the names / logos is considered fair use, an anyone can put a companies name or logo on their resume to state where and who they've work with when talking about their work experience / history. This is exactly what I'm doing here, and what happens when people fill out their LinkedIn profiles too. Is is considered trademark fair use to use a company logo on your resume? My website is an online resume / portfolio to use as a digital resume outside of LinkedIn or other places. For reference, it's located here: http://chrispietschmann.com

No, it's not fair use. It's also not nominative fair use (the fair use equivalent for trademarks) as another answer suggests. Why is it not nominative fair use? There are three conditions for nominative fair use (taken from Wikipedia): The product or service cannot be readily identified without using the trademark (e.g. trademark is descriptive of a person, place, or product attribute). The user only uses as much of the mark as is necessary for the identification (e.g. the words but not the font or symbol). The user does nothing to suggest sponsorship or endorsement by the trademark holder. This applies even if the nominative use is commercial, and the same test applies for metatags. The first two conditions really rule out any right to use a company's logo on a resume. Instead, the careful reader will notice that nominative fair use is actually the legal basis for your right to name the companies on your resume at all.

Is it trademark fair use to use company name/logo on your resume?

Under state law parents have a legal duty to among other things educate minor children until they graduate from high school or an approved equivalent. The state also provides for public schools which are mostly taxpayer funded (the final two years of my high school education would have cost my parents about $1,500 in unavoidable fees). Both of my parents signed nine legal documents that spelled out every party's responsibilities ad nauseam. My high school agreed to pay for 50 credit hours at a local college and accept those credits as the complete fulfillment of my high school graduation requirements. My guess is that the district received some manner of a discount. But were my parents to purchase this it would cost them about $47,000. My father is trying to abrogate the deal he signed -- so far he hasn't met with success because the paperwork itself clearly states that all of the signatories (me, Mom, Dad, my counselor, and the principal) must agree to and countersign any modification to the agreement. He states that since I am receiving the benefit, an education valued at about $47,000, and he could have satisfied the state's educational requirement in another way (sent me to a parochial school or laugh homeschooled me) the contract(s) he signed are invalid because the fact that he doesn't have to pay required text book fees, technology fees, lab fees, diploma and registration fees doesn't count as consideration so it isn't a binding contract. PS: My father is so smart that he felt no need to have a lawyer review anything before he signed it.

Contracts are routinely held to be valid even when there is negligible or literally zero financial “gain” (compensation, which they take into consideration in order to enter into the contract). A document purporting to be a contract might be held invalid if it is a bare promise like “I promise to give you $100 on Friday”, but you can make it an enforceable contract by including “if you give me a french fry today”. Reasoning that party “could have” done something else does not invalidate a contract, for example the party might have had $3 at the time and could have purchased a whole bag of fries. The only imaginable relevance of “I could have” thinking would be if the terms of the contract are so unclear that the party would not reasonably have understood the contract to have obligated them to pay $100, or that they would have reasonably believed that they were to receive a suitcase full of french fries. There is a (huge) difference between subjective errors in interpreting a contract and objective uncertainty. Objective uncertainty is fundamentally about the linguistic structure of the agreement, i.e. words like “it” which have no intrinsic referent, or “required books and clothing” (which could mean “required books and all clothing”, or “required books and required clothing”). There may be special rules of legal interpretation addressing how such ambiguities are resolved (this one is not well established, but is known in some spheres as the “across-the-board rule”). Personal interpretation does not enter into decisions as to the validity of a contract: if you misinterpret the words of a contract, regardless of how strong your proof is that at the time you did not understand the contract, that doesn't matter, unless you can show that at the time you were actually not competent (did not know Armenian and could not have understood what the contract required). The courts look at the words of the contract, assume that the parties have availed themselves of wise legal counsel, and understand how the courts would interpret the contract, then they filter the words of the contract through a sieve composed of rules constituting the law, and declare what parties A and B must do.

Is performing another's duty a valid form of consideration?

At Sigma-Aldrich I can buy one liter of unadulterated ethanol for just 26.60 EUR. This ethanol contains no additives and is pure enough for analytical purposes. Its made by fermenting grain or sugarcane. The solution contains 95.5% ethanol. However, when I try to buy the same amount of consumer grade ethanol, then I suddenly have to pay 73.63 EUR because of excise duties. This is strange because the research grade ethanol from Merck is about as pure as the consumer grade one. In the EU pure ethanol is only exempt from excise duties when it is denatured in some way but the ethanol sold by Merck / Sigma-Aldrich doesn't seem to be denatured in any way. It is not marketed as a biofuel either. Its an ethanol solution that's nearly as pure as the consumer grade ethanol but it somehow is still exempt from excise duties. Why is that? EDIT: Apparently the website can show different prices depending on the country you live in. Here's a screenshot of the prices I'm seeing. I live in the Netherlands. Here's the price at checkout. Some tax is added but I don't think its excise duty related. The total price is still far lower then the price you pay for consumer grade ethanol.

Because there's an exemption Which requires denaturing. But there's also an exemption to the exemption for when denaturing is not appropriate. Such as for laboratory use.

Why is research grade ethanol seemingly exempted from excise duties while pure ethanol ment for consumption isn't?

I'm working in an office space where I don't have fixed daily hours but a weekly amount of hours in my contract. Electricity is necessary to do my job (on computers). We had a power outage due to a snow storm, resulting in ~2 hours without electricity. In those 2 hours, I took my 30 minute mandatory pause. When it seemed like the outage would take longer, the manager told us to either call it a day and go home, or wait it out and continue working when power was back. I waited it out and continued work after the outage. However, the company is of the opinion that the time we waited until the power came back is not work time. I did a little research online and so far found that time spent in the workplace unable to work because of reasons beyond my own ability to work is at the employers risk. I know that I need to accept different tasks that would be possible during the outage and are doable by my abilities. However, I wasn't asked to do something else. My question is whether the company or my research is correct and if the company can subtract 1.5 hours from my worktime ? Did giving me the choice of going home (which of course means doing overtime on other days to meet the weekly quota) or staying put the risk in my lap ? Should I have actively asked to get other work assigned ?

If you were in the office, and ready to take instructions what to do from your manager, then you were legally working and need to be paid. There's plenty of things you can do in an office without electricity unless it's too dark. If the manager didn't ask you to do anything, it's the company's problem, not yours. If you took the opportunity to leave for 90 minutes to do your weekly shopping, then you shouldn't get paid.

Work time when unable to work due to power outage (germany)

A school is going on an excursion. The child is given the permission slip to take home and get signed by his legal guardian, but he forges the signature instead. On the excursion, he gets injured. Who is legally responsible for the child? Is it the school (since the waiver is void, and by default the school is responsible for the child when a roll is taken) or the parent (since the school sincerely thought the parent had signed the waiver and if the waiver was correctly signed then the parent would be responsible)? Preferred jurisdiction Australia; I will accept any answer however.

So many things were not addressed, so a precise answer is not possible. But to try to raise the proper questions you should be thinking about: Should the school have known the permission slip was forged? Was the forgery particularly bad, and the school was lax in not examining it? Did the student have a history of forging slips that the school should have been aware of? If the school was negligent in accepting an obviously bad signature, they may find their exposure is increased. If the school had no reasonable way to know the slip was forged, they were acting reasonably in taking the student on an excursion. Was the injury typical, foreseeable and recoverable? Such as a broken ankle on a hike? Minor accidents happen even when all reasonable precautions are taken. The injury will heal with time and care. Was the activity that lead to the injury inherently risky / dangerous? There is definitely a question of if the school took all reasonable precautions. Even if permission was legitimately given, the school is responsible for taking reasonable precautions, especially if the activity has inherit and obvious dangers. (for example, river-rafting or rock climbing) What sort of responsibility are you interested in? If you're asking who is financially responsible for the cost of treating the injury, then regardless of how it occurred, it would likely fall to the child's health insurance (presumably provided by the parents). If the school was truly negligent in allowing a forged permission slip to a dangerous activity, then they could be found responsible for extraordinary costs associated with the injury, other costs (pain, suffering, loss of opportunity, emotional consequences, etc) and perhaps even punitive damages. If you're suggesting that someone might be criminally responsible, then a very high bar would need to be cleared. It would need to be proven that a school representative (eg. teacher or administrator) deliberately put the kid in danger for some reason, knowing what the likely outcome would be. That standard seems extremely unlikey to be met.

Who has ultimate responsibility for a child injured on a school trip?

Donald Trump, ex-president of U.S.A., has many indictments on him, but yet he is still roaming as a free citizen. Questions: How many indictments does it take for Donald Trump to be imprisoned? Can a person who is indicted, before running for president, become president? What's the purpose of indicting Mr. Trump if indictments are only an accusation?

How many indictments does it take for Donald Trump to be imprisoned? An unlimited amount. Imprisonment is usually authorized as a result of a conviction rather than from an indictment. Pretrial detention following an indictment but prior to a conviction is permitted, but discretionary in the judgment of the judge. Also, there is a right to post a judicially determined reasonable bond to obtain release from pretrial detention after one is indicted and before one is convicted in the vast majority of cases (including the ones that President Trump is facing). Can a person who is indicted, before running for president, become president? Yes. Indeed, the majority view of legal scholars (it is has never been tested in a real case) is that someone who is convicted and serving prison sentence can still become President if that is who the voters choose. What's the purpose of indicting Mr. Trump if indictments are only an accusation? An indictment is a pre-requisite to trying someone for a felony in federal court. To convict someone of a crime one needs to first indict them, then have a jury trial, and then have a jury unanimously vote to convict a person, before they can be convicted of a crime and sentenced for it. Even after conviction, there is a statutory (but not a constitutional) right to a direct appeal of that conviction to an appellate court. Also, an indictment is more than a mere accusation. An indictment in a determination of a grand jury that probable cause exists to believe that the person indicted committed the crime charged. In the federal court system grand juries are composed of 16 to 23 members and 12 members of the grand jury must concur in a decision to indict a defendant on a charge for there to be an indictment on that charge. This prevents people from enduring criminal prosecutions on charges that a majority of a grand jury finds are so baseless that there is not sufficient evidence to establish probable cause that the defendant committed that crime. The grand jury must base its decision to indict or not on actual evidence in support of the charges in the form of sworn witness testimony and exhibits, not just the allegations of the prosecutor. As a practical matter, the standards of professionalism in federal criminal prosecutions is so high that almost all charges sought by federal prosecutors from grand juries result in indictments on those charges (federal grand juries refuse to indict approximately one in 16,000 times). But, in state courts that use grand juries, which can't pick and choose only the best cases to prosecute, grand juries routinely refuse to indict defendants on a substantial share of charges brought to them by prosecutors (on the order of one in 20). One source notes: Statistical figures showing a higher prevalence of grand jury reluctance to follow the government in ages past are almost nonexistent. However, a table of felony arrests in New York County between 1900 and 1907 found on page 111 of the 1926 book The Prisoner at the Bar by Arthur Train provides some rare illumination. In those seven years, some 5,214 out of 57,241 people were arrested by the police on felony charges whom New York state grand jurors decided not to indict. Grand juries are especially likely to decline to indict defendants in cases involving celebrities, politicians, law enforcement officers, and other high profile cases with political implications. See also Kaeleigh Wiliams, Grand Juries Should Not Hear Police Misconduct Cases: Grand Juries will Indict Anything, but a Police Officer SLU Law Journal Online 79 (2021).

How many indictments before imprisonment?

This question is prompted by me sitting at a green light today while multiple people streamed through from the opposite direction, turning to their left, against a red turn arrow. (Throughout this question, assume right-side traffic, as in North America, and no one-way streets.) If I have a green light and enter a clear intersection, then it would seem obvious that an unseen red light runner on the cross-street, coming from my left/right, would be at 100% fault for hitting me and causing an accident. But suppose I am sitting at an intersection waiting to go straight through and facing a red light, while traffic on the opposite side of the intersection has a green left-turn arrow, and are turning across my intended path. The left-turning cars lose their green arrow, get a red arrow (or red light, or other signal that they no longer have the right-of-way), and I now get a green light, but the line of cars still continues, turning left and driving across in front of me, running their red left-turn arrow. If I now enter the intersection and an accident occurs, who is at fault? Is it the opposing car for obviously running a red left-turn arrow? Or is it me for performing an unsafe action, even though I had a green light? I can imagine that I would be allocated some/all fault if I can see all these cars driving in front of me but still enter the intersection, yet at other times there is some car wanting to turn that is lagging all of the others and it enters the intersection after I have already entered it (and I don't see them coming, making it like the original red light runner scenario I mentioned above). In such a case I would expect the turning car to be at fault. So there would seem to be an area where fault allocation moves from one driver to another. I'm mainly interested in US interpretations, but any jurisdiction would be interesting to me.

The apportionment of fault will be highly case specific, based on ordinary principles of negligence. In one example, the fault was apportioned with 60% of the fault to the late left turner and 40% of the fault to the driver advancing imprudently into the intersection on a green light. See Pierce v. ING Insurance, 2006 NSSM 31 (my annotations and emphasis): [11] I believe that Mr. Pierce [the left-turning driver] was late in entering this intersection. I do not accept that he could not have stopped on the amber which he asserts. However, I am not prepared to find that he is solely responsible at law for the collision. [12] As stated above, I am unable to conclude with precise exactitude which signal light was on when Mr. Pierce [the left-turning driver] entered the intersection. I can conclude that the amber light had ceased and the green light for Mr. Williams [the through driver] had turned on at some point prior to the collision. The intersection is a well known intersection and given Mr. MacKinnon's evidence of the relative speed of Mr. Pierce's vehicle and what I understand to be the distances involved, I cannot accept that the signal light was green and turned to amber as Mr. Pierce entered the intersection. [13] On the other hand I am struck by two inescapable facts. First, the fact that Mr. MacKinnon who was stopped next to Mr. Williams did not proceed through the intersection because he knew it would not be safe to do so. While to some extent I take Mr. Boyte's point that Mr. MacKinnon was, because of his experience with the intersection “hyper aware” to the prospect of drivers being late, I cannot entirely dismiss the fact that he obviously exercised prudence in not proceeding. The fact that Mr. Williams did not see Mr. Pierce's vehicle is not an answer. In fact, just to the opposite in my view. [14] In my opinion, there is clear a duty on drivers stopped at an intersection to ascertain that the intersection is clear before proceeding once a light turns from red to green. Had Mr. Williams discharged this duty, the collision could well have been avoided. Your scenario is even more stark—not just a single late left turner, but an entire line of late left turners, readily apparent as an obstacle to safe advance. I would not be surprised if a judge were to attribute even more than 40% fault to the driver entering on the green. The Court of Appeal for British Columbia has even said (Pirie v. Skantz, 2016 BCCA 70, para. 14): ... where a through driver ... should have become aware of the left-turning driver's own disregard of the law in circumstances that afforded him a sufficient opportunity to avoid the accident through the exercise of reasonable care, the through driver may be found wholly or primarily at fault for the accident.

Who is at fault in a car accident when running a red light?

In its opposition to the government's motion for a protective order in United States of America v. Donald J. Trump, Waltine Nauta, and Carlos De Oliveira, Waltine Nauta's defense refers to Donald Trump as the lead defendant. I'm wondering whether this is a precisely defined legal term. The term is apparently in common use, including in official government communication (e.g. here, here, here), but I can't find a definition for it anywhere. The term seems to appear neither in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure nor in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The Wikipedia article on Obergefell v. Hodges says Wymyslo was substituted as the lead defendant, and the case was restyled Obergefell v. Wymyslo, but none of the documents in the references for that statement contain the term lead defendant. The statement seems to indicate that the lead defendant is the first one in the list of defendants, whose name is used for the case style. If so, does this have any legal relevance beyond the style? In the original indictment and the superseding indictment, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira are referred to as Trump's co-conspirators, whereas Trump himself is never referred to as a co-conspirator. That might suggest that Trump is alleged to be something like the lead conspirator, but the conspiracy statute makes no distinctions among the conspirators. So my impression is that lead defendant is just an informal term for the defendant whose name appears first in the list of defendants, and that this carries no legal implications. Is that correct?

england-and-wales Lead defendant is not used, unless colloquially by some, but a comparable term would be principal defendant which is more than mere style as it becomes important when establishing the hierarchy of defendants for, say, culpability and at sentencing (i.e. it has some legal implications). It could also relate to the first-named on the indictment (see rule 3.32(1)(b)(ii) Criminal Procedure Rules 2020) and often this is the principal, but the prosecutor has discretion on the order of names on the indictment, because: It is important to bear in mind that defendants are called to give evidence in the order in which their names appear on the indictment. This means that a tactical decision may need to be made as to the order of defendants on the indictment, bearing in mind the evidence and the nature of the case. Source Although tagged united-states, I have followed the guidance from the LawSE Help Centre: Even if you supply a jurisdiction tag, we expect and encourage answers dealing with other jurisdictions ... please tag your answer using the tag markdown: [tag: some-tag]

What is a lead defendant in U.S. law?

I've noticed a typo on an investment company's disclaimer in a brochure, to the effect: This company and its research affiliate June continue to have such dealings and June also have other ongoing business dealings with other firms whose products are included herein. Clearly some one replaced all instances of may and replaced with June. Question In the event that anything relating to this disclaimer does make its way all the way to court, what would the implications be? Would this be insufficient to cover the legal liability it was originally written to, given that it's now effectively garbled and ambiguous?

Garbled and ambiguous? I guess it took you all of 20 seconds to work out what it meant. Why do think a court can't do that too? Documents contain typos, that doesn't necessarily make them ambiguous. The automatic correction of typos is known as the Scrivener's doctrine - a scrivener being an almost archaic term for a clerk, scribe, or notary, because documents were written for many centuries before the invention of the typewriter.

Typo in disclaimer - worst case scenario

Bob has $100,000 in an account at First Example Bank. Bob robs the bank, taking $50,000, and he escapes. He is never caught, but the bank is 100% sure that he is the one who robbed the bank. Can they deduct $50,000 from his account to cover the loss, effectively turning the robbery into a withdrawal? Obviously, this doesn't make the robbery any less illegal, but it does offset the bank's loss.

If there has been no trial establishing Bob's guilt, the bank does not know that it was Bob who did rob the bank. Even if the bank has Bob on the security video feed, claiming that, As my name is Bob, I will shoot anyone who does not follow my instructions, and Bob left behind his driver's licence at the heist, the bank does not know that it was Bob. The bank could sue Bob in a civil action in order to get the money back. It would have to follow some procedures to notify Bob of the lawsuit and, if he did not appear, it would win by default. If Bob were to appear, he could make his case about why the bank should not be entitled to that money (It was not me / I only took $1,000 / whatever). After the trial had happened, the bank still could not take the money right away. Maybe Bob would offer some other assets worth $50,000 to pay the bank. After it had become evident that Bob was unwilling or unable to comply with the payments, then the bank could ask the court to seize Bob's assets. The court would decide which assets could be seized, would order to have them seized, and then would provide them to the bank. That does not mean that Bob would be free to use his $100,000 during this time. Before the trial is over, the bank could request the judge to freeze Bob's account, as a way of ensuring that he does not withdraw the money from it. The judge would evaluate the likelihood of Bob losing the trial and refusing to honour it (and whatever Bob's lawyer's objections to this are) and decide on the issue. But that would only affect Bob's ability to use the money, not his ownership.

If someone robs a bank at which (s)he has an account, can the bank deduct that amount from the robber's account?

Someone withdrew money from my checking account (in several transactions) without my knowledge or permission. I was able to see the withdrawal slips online, and my signature was forged. I reported this to my bank as soon as I found out, and Chase said that the money would be reimbursed once they completed their investigation (within 10 business days). It has now been 13 business days, and I have checked on the status twice and was told both times that there had been no status update, and they were unable to provide an updated ETA. It's a fairly large amount of money, and I need to get it back as soon as possible. I'm trying to figure out if I have legal footing here. Does the law protect me from this type of fraud? And if so, does it require the bank to respond within any particular timeframe? I live in California.

I reported this to my bank as soon as I found out, and Chase said that the money would be reimbursed once they completed their investigation (within 10 business days). Chase was likely indicating that the money will be reimbursed within 10 business days of completing their investigation; not 10 business days from the date you told the that someone forged checks on your account. This would make sense when you think about it, as they need to make sure that you were not complicit in the crime (you would be surprised how many people have had someone cash multiple checks from their account only to split the money with them and file a claim for fraudulent transfer/forgery). Further, checks are a negotiable instrument, unlike a credit/debit card, where specific protections exist pursuant to its terms and conditions of use. You have a duty to keep a negotiable instrument safe, and while most banks will reimburse you if it can be established that you had no involvement and you were not grossly negligent in the keeping of the instruments, it is a different animal in and of itself. It has now been 13 business days, and I have checked on the status twice and was told both times that there had been no status update, and they were unable to provide an updated ETA. Unless your bank indicated in the disclosures of the checking account application and acceptance documentation that in the event of a stolen check you will be reimbursed in X amount of days, they have the absolute right to complete their investigation before reimbursing any funds to your account. It's a fairly large amount of money, and I need to get it back as soon as possible. I'm trying to figure out if I have legal footing here. Does the law protect me from this type of fraud? And if so, does it require the bank to respond within any particular timeframe? Federal banking regulations provide broad protections to consumers when it comes to fraud involving credit/debit cards, as these are easily stolen from all sorts of means. That said, checks do not carry the same protections, although oftentimes some. National banks may be required to reimburse customers for forged checks. However, based on individual circumstances, the bank can investigate to determine if the customer is entitled to a reimbursement. There is not duty to reimburse until the investigation is complete. This is why I think you've potentially misconstrued what they said about how long it would take. They cannot promise a time certain when they don't know how long the investigation will take. Whether the bank is liable for the customer's loss depends on the specific circumstances of the case. Generally, a bank is liable for accepting a check that has been forged, altered, or improperly endorsed. However, if the bank can prove two things — that it accepted the check in good faith and exercised ordinary care and diligence in handling the transaction — it may not be liable. If your actions — the way the check or checkbook was handled, issued, completed, or made payable — contributed to the making of the forgery, you may be at least partially liable. Generally, the bank will require you to complete an affidavit. It may also request that you file a police report. ** Addition: I forgot to mention that if the checks were not "cashed" (i.e. filled out to cash or cashed in person), but rather were presented to a 3rd party for payment in receipt of goods or services, you are also going to need to contact those individuals or businesses (their name is on the check) and alert them to the fraud, and allow them to contact their banks, lest you will be assessed fees by them for insufficient funds if your bank later takes the money back as a result of the investigation. Also, in the event the checks were recreated rather than stolen, or if you don't know exactly how many were stolen, you are going to need to close your account while you wait for the investigation to bear fruit (hopefully), and open a new account, as you now have a duty to account for any and all checks stolen at that event (so, if you know a book is out there and 10 checks have cleared you know there are 15 remaining that the bank is not going to cover if you don't take steps to protect yourself). One would think they've asked you this and have already done something to prevent further checks from coming in, but if not, you need to get on it. Also, you may want to hire your own investigator if you have the funds to do so. While stolen cards are often strangers, stolen checks (unless it's one washed check) is nearly always someone you know.

Someone withdrew money from my bank account - what are my rights?

I understand that in the US, concealment of birth is against the law. I looked it up, and apparently it is a felony in most US states. (FYI I'm asking because it pertains to a work of fiction I'm writing before anyone gets the wrong idea about me!) Here's the question... What are the legal ramifications towards an individual whose parents are deceased but they committed concealment of birth when the individual was born. As a result, this individual has no SSN and might not legally exist. Could they be in legal jeopardy in any way? Can the US or their state of birth (lets say WV) compel them to register in some way?

Does this person have witnesses to his existence? Particularly before the age of five? Under 8 U.S. Code § 1401, native-born citizens include a person of unknown parentage found in the United States while under the age of five years, until shown, prior to his attaining the age of twenty-one years, not to have been born in the United States; If he appears out of nowhere, he is likely to be suspect of illegal immigration. Age may be a factor there, too.

What are the legal ramifications for someone whose birth was concealed?

According to reports, Iran may claim $18 billion in damages from Pakistan for an unfinished pipeline if Pakistan does not complete its part of it as agreed. What forum would such a claim take place in?

According to reports, one potential forum is the International Court of Arbitration. All reports I see say that the agreement specifies that the forum will be an arbitration forum. Whether it can be any arbitration forum or if it must be the ICC, or can be selected from a list, depends on the specific wording of the Gas Sales and Purchase Agreement of 2009, which I have not been able to find.

In what forum would Iran sue Pakistan in for damages?

What period did it come into regular legal usage? Did it originate as a judicial device first or did it begin as something that would be explicitly coded into statutes?

See Harold J. Berman, The Origins of Historical Jurisprudence: Coke, Selden, Hale (1994) 103 Yale Law Journal 1651, p. 1691, n. 101: the translation of reason into reasonableness and the exaltation of common sense are English developments of the seventeenth century, to which Coke contributed. At p. 1718-19: Coke had said it is the nature of law to be reasonable, and that the test of reasonableness is its ability to withstand the test of time. See also S.E. Thorne, Dr. Bonham's Case (1938) 54 Law Quarterly Review 543, p. 543: To students of the origins of American constitutional law and theory no judicial utterance of Sir Edward Coke can surpass in interest and importance his so-called dictum in Dr. Bonham's case, decided in the Court of Common Pleas in 1610. It is widely regarded as foreshadowing not merely the power which American courts to-day exercise in the disallowance of statutes on the ground of their conflict with the constitution, but also that very test of 'reasonableness' which is the ultimate flowing of that power. This concept as a ground of review arose in the context of conflict between Parliament and the Crown over the nature and limits of prerogative and the common law (Michael Foran, The Constitutional Foundations of Reasonableness Review: Artificial Reason and Wrongful Discrimination (2022) 26:3 Edinburgh Law Review 295, p. 299). In one case, the Case of Prohibitions (1607) 12 Co. Rep. 63, 77 E.R. 1342 (K.B.), Coke repealed a judgment of King James I, on the basis that the judgment was not grounded in the common law. Coke said: causes which concern the life, or inheritance, or goods, or fortunes of his subjects, are not to be decided by natural reason but by the artificial reason and judgment of law. This is in contrast to a view that Crown action would not be substantively reviewable. By defining reasonableness as something that can only be determined through the wisdom of judges, Coke was broadening the judicial power.

Where when and how did the idea of “reasonableness” originate?

Criminal indictments used to use much more detailed and flowery language than they do now. I was surprised to learn, while looking at some early U.S. documents, that they had retained a feature of indictments from English common law. For some crimes, the accused was said to have done the deeds not having the fear of God before his eyes but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the Devil For example, this was said of Aaron Burr in three documents from New Jersey, New York, and the Federal courts: NJ indictment for the murder of Alexander Hamilton, 23 October 1804: The Jurors [...] upon their oath present that Aaron Burr late of the Township of Bergen in the County of Bergen esquire not having the fear of God before his eyes but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the Devil on the eleventh day of July in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and four at the Township of Bergen in the County of Bergen aforesaid and within the jurisdiction of this Court, feloniously Wilfully and of his malice aforethought did make an assault upon Alexander Hamilton in the peace of God and of the said State then and there being. NY coroner's inquest for the same, 2 August 1804: Aaron Burr, late of the Eighth Ward of the Said City in the Said County Esquire and Vice President of the United States, not having the fear of God before his eyes, but being moved and seduced by the Instigation of the devil [...] Federal indictment for treason, etc., August 1807: Aaron Burr, late of the city of New York, and state of New York, attorney at law, being an inhabitant of, and residing within the United States, and under the protection of the laws of the United States, and owing allegiance and fidelity to the same United States, not having the fear of God before his eyes, nor weighing the duty of his said allegiance, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil, wickedly devising and intending the peace and tranquility of the same United States to disturb and to stir, move, and excite insurrection, rebellion and war against the said United States [...] I believe that criminal indictments do not currently contain this language, but a web search showed several other American examples from later in the nineteenth century. Evidently this stopped at some point, but when and why? (For England and Wales, this would have happened no later than 1915, and indictments today are quite straightforward in content.) In particular, I wonder if changing feelings about the establishment of religion might have led to removing devil-references. The NY and NJ constitutions both had language around religious freedom and lack of a state religion, and of course the Federal constitution has its First Amendment - but perhaps people originally saw these references to God and the Devil as being basically neutral, and later changed their minds. Alternatively, perhaps the language was dropped because it was unnecessary detail, or in some way detracted from the accused being culpable (i.e. why are we going to punish you if the Devil made you do it?). I'm interested in any answers that are backed by evidence about when the changes were made, and what legal theories motivated them.

It appears that: This language was seen as a bit ridiculous and unnecessary even at the time, and more so as the 19th century progressed. The main objection is that the language is redundant or merely decorative. There was a general trend to make indictments describe the alleged offences in more ordinary language, with use of precise legal terms when needed. In particular, indictments were made to match the legal elements of the offence that were required to be proved, rather than being polemics about the wickedness of the offender. Different jurisdictions abandoned it at different rates, depending on local circumstances. There does not appear to be any particular campaign about it, and since the language was seen as unnecessary rather than wrong, some prosecutors continued to use it without problems. Religious freedom, or establishment of religion, has nothing do to with it. Much of the common-law understanding was driven from England where the constitutional settlement was completely different. Despite the mention of God and the Devil, this was a completely stock phrase that was devoid of any real religious content. My main sources here are 19th century legal textbooks, which contained some citations to case law. There does not seem to have been very much statutory activity. Quoting from Joel Prentiss Bishop's New criminal procedure; or, New commentaries on the law of pleading and evidence and the practice in criminal cases (Chicago: T. H. Flood, 4th ed., 1895), section 501 in volume 1: It was formerly the style, nor at the present day is it quite abolished, to charge, especially in treason and felony, that the defendant did it not having the fear of God before his eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil. Both in reason and by all authority, these words are not necessary. Their original purpose seems to have been to make the accusation correspond in form to the fact; for, as Cotton Mather said, speaking of what he and others of this time believed: When men do commit a crime for which they are to be indicted, they are usually moved by the instigation of the devil. Yet even in this view, they could never have been required; because in law, no instigation to crime justifies the doer, so that the devil's instigation is wholly immaterial. Among other sources he cites Joseph Chitty's A practical treatise on the criminal law, which in an early American edition (Philadelphia: Isaac Riley, 1819) confirms at 240 that these words concerning the Devil though usual, are not necessary to be inserted, elaborating that where the common law, or a statute, forbids the doing of a thing, the doing it wilfully is indictable, though without any corrupt motive, and consequently it need not in any case be averred. There are several other textbooks that discuss related but less colorful terms, such as wilfully or wickedly, using essentially the same argument for why they are unnecessary. The idea is that when somebody is being tried for murder, the prosecutor is trying to show that they killed someone on purpose - not that they were wicked while doing it, which is implicit, or that the Devil was metaphysically responsible, which is irrelevant. Many of these books seem to copy the language from Joseph Burn's Justice of the Peace and Parish Officer at section 11 of the entry on Indictment (references omitted) in volume 3 (London: 26th ed., 1831): The words wickedly, maliciously, of his own wicked and corrupt mind, being a person of evil disposition, &c. are, in general, mere matter of aggravation and not material. But where an act must be done with a particular intent, in order to render it criminal, an evil intention must be averred upon the record; and, in such case, the intent must be proved as laid or the variance will be fatal. From the general tenor of these books, we can see that there were great difficulties with indictments that did not match the legal requirements of the offences to be tried: there are several accounts of defendants who were able to defeat the charges because of drafting problems. Additionally, the idea of a right to a fair trial (whether seen as a matter of natural justice, or founded in positive law such as the Sixth Amendment right to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation) added pressure on prosecutors to express the charges with precision and clarity. The textbooks are overall quite scathing about the inclusion of decorative phrases. In case law, an American case that is directly on point is from Massachusetts, Commonwealth v Murphy 11 Cush. 472 (1853), which apparently confirms the devil-reference as unnecessary, though I haven't located the primary source. For the general idea of these references being not essential, the textbooks mainly cite an English case from the Court of King's Bench, R v Philipps (1805) 6 East 472. The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Ellenborough, considered an indictment alleging among other things that Philipps wickedly and maliciously did endeavour to stir up, provoke, and excite [someone else] to challenge the defendant to fight a duel with him. Citing Lord Mansfield in the seditious libel case of R v Woodfall (1770) 5 Burr 2667, he said that terms of opprobrium like wickedly were mere formal inferences of law and did not contribute anything material to the description of the offence and any required element of intent. The defendant's counsel in Woodfall had objected to what the judge described as the usual epithets, and the judge told the jury to ignore them but concentrate on the alleged facts: they were not being asked to determine whether the publication was sufficiently odious to deserve the colourful language used in the indictment. By extension, juries are not asked to make determinations about the theological circumstances surrounding sinful acts and the agency of the devil. The 1805 case, coincidentally about duelling, is from after the Burr-Hamilton duel and it evidently took a while for this logic to penetrate the legal community in general (Bishop in 1895 calling the devil phrase [not] quite abolished). Notably, while the case does not rest on any specifics of the American legal or cultural order, it does appear to have been influential on American jurists who accepted it as a statement of the common-law position. The American writers do not raise any objections to the phrase on grounds relating to religion, and universally treat it as stock language.

When did indictments stop saying people were moved and seduced by the instigation of the Devil?

If software is saving the timestamp of the last login of a user, would that timestamp itself be considered personal data by GDPR?

You ask the wrong question first What do you save in the database? Let's take an example of a door: Do you have a legitimate interest to know/save who passed this door? Do you have a legitimate interest to know/save when the door was opened? Do you have a legitimate interest to know/save both? Only now, once you have established that you have any interest in the door passing at all, you have to start to figure out if it is personal data - if you have no interest in saving it in the first place, there's little reason to figure that out. Let's say you have a legitimate interest to save both, because behind the door is the server room, and physical access is limited to authorized personnel and you want to know when who was in there for figuring out if or who was responsible for changes. Now, which of the data is Personal Identifiable Data for you? You know where the door is. That's in itself Location Data, but if you don't know who or when the door was opened, then it is not PII. It becomes PII if you connect it with a person. A pin-code used by the whole department is not always PII, but can become PII in a very small to medium-sized department. e.g. one of all the 20 000 employees in a facility is just saying an employee and is not identifiable, but one of 20 is much more likely is, as you can correlate that with other data to possibly identify a smaller group. The Employee ID or Card would be most definitely PII if saved. Similar, if the login date is saved to the account list on some server. The timestamp on itself is not a PII, if only the timestamp is recorded and no other information exists. Like, if the front door only logs The door was opened/closed but not who did it, to count customers or schedule maintenance. However, together with other information - such as the door being access restricted and the paystubs from timekeeping when all those access carriers were in the building and having a tight access restriction to a decently small group (see above) - that can quickly become PII. It is enough that the information from different information sources compiled can become enough to say it was one of these few people, as that is enough to make it identifiable under GDPR Art.4. Once you know it is PII, you need to handle it as PII. As such, you need consent or a legitimate interest. That's why I pulled the other test before figuring out if it is indeed PII: Ic you have already figured out that this data is required for some legitimate reason, such as that you need to know the door operation log to ensure some other compliance, then you can proceed through the other parts of the GDPR compliance. Now, OP asked about a login timestamp. That is by necessity bound to an identifier, such as a login name. As such, it is the Keycard or Employee ID example and automatically PII because it is tied to a PII. Definitions The GDPR defines PII in Article 4 ‘personal data' means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject'); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person; The US Department of labor defines quite similar PII is defined as information: (i) that directly identifies an individual (e.g., name, address, social security number or other identifying number or code, telephone number, email address, etc.) or (ii) by which an agency intends to identify specific individuals in conjunction with other data elements, i.e., indirect identification.

Is a login timestamp considered as personal data according to GDPR?

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1164085/sidtoday-dea-the-other-warfighter.pdf This is a report explaining that DEA was aided by NSA's surveillance system at the time they were persecuting a wanted criminal Gonzalo Hinojosa while he had been in Panama by using data obtained by NSA's systems. The report suggests this person was very evasive and dangerous perhaps this is why DEA collaborated with NSA. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intelligence-laundering Another example of LE and NSA cooperation. Shouldn't NSA be concerned only about foreing intelligence without doing anything related to LE? If there is a reason for such cooperation to exist, how far can cooperation between a LE organization go with an intelligence agency of the same country? And what type of criminal actions substantiate to do this? Terrorism, child abuse, et cetera. For example, if FBI wanted to research more about a wanted person inside another country out of their reach, may it use NSA's systems to track down this person's movement with cellular networking? Or spy on his Internet activity with surveillance systems mentioned?

As far as the legal powers of the organisation(s) allow By this, I mean that if what the DEA was doing was allowed under the laws that govern the DEA, and what the NSA was doing was allowed under the laws that govern the NSA, then they can cooperate as much as they want. The could investigate jaywalking together if they wanted (of course, this would have to be jaywalking within Federal jurisdiction). Divisions in executive government are practical rather than legal. That is, the executive can carry out intelligence and law enforcement and as a practical matter, they are carried out by different agencies. However, they are functions of the executive and could be carried out by one mega-agency if they wanted to set things up that way. Indeed, the Department of Homeland Security is such a mega-agency.

How far can cooperation between law enforcement and intelligence agencies go?

Is there any country in the EU that forbids ritual cattle slaughter? If so, where are the halal and kosher certified meats sourced from?

Quite the contrary. In most European countries, shechita is - at least under certain conditions - legal. Only in the blue-marked countries is it generally forbidden; in the green-marked countries prior anaesthesia is required. That is, pre-cut stunning is required in Sweden, Belgium and Denmark (and Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, but these are not in the EU). Simultaneous stunning is required in Finland. Post-cut stunning is required in Austria, Slovakia, Lithuania, Estonia and Greece. Only in Slovenia is ritual slaughter banned. Map source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ritual_slaughter_laws_Europe_map.svg

Is there any country in the EU that forbids ritual cattle slaughter?

In an episode of the medical drama 'House', a patient needing a liver transplant is offered a live donation from her girlfriend. During the episode there's a continual argument over the ethics of whether they should tell the donor that the patient was about to break up with her prior to the hospital admission. I am wondering whether the doctor and patient, both strongly believing that the donor would withdraw consent if she knew, would be liable to lawsuit or even committed a crime by hiding this information? Would the doctors be obliged to tell the donor or even be allowed if they wanted to as it is not sensitive medical information?

The primary question is whether remaining silent would constitute a breech of medical ethics. The pertinent ethical principle is AMA Opinion 2.15 One of the requirements is that the donor be assigned an advocate team whose interest is the donor, not the patient, and these should generally be distinct individuals in order to avoid conflict of interest. Assuming that the donor's team is aware of this fact, they have a duty to disclose it, since it materially affects the donor's willingness to donate the organ. The ethical opinion does not specifically address patient breaking up with a directed donor, but there is a general obligation to share information, and it would probably be found to be a breach of medical ethics to suppress relevant non-medical information. The ethics of directed donation from live donors is not well-developed. I will mention that Potential donors must be informed that they may withdraw from donation at any time before undergoing the operation and that, should this occur, the health care team is committed to protect the potential donor from pressures to reveal the reasons for withdrawal. If the potential donor withdraws, the health care team should report simply that the individual was unsuitable for donation. From the outset, all involved parties must agree that the reasons why any potential donor does not donate will remain confidential for the potential donor's protection. In situations of paired, domino, or chain donation withdrawal must still be permitted. Physicians should make special efforts to present a clear and comprehensive description of the commitment being made by the donor and the implications for other parties to the paired donation during the informed consent process. Neither team can tell the patient that the reason the girlfriend withdrew was because they ratted him out (anyhow, we can suppose she said something to him on her own). The hospital knows this fact, and has both a duty to the patient to solve a medical problem but also to the donor to be sure that the consent is informed. The hospital would be suppressing a fact relevant to the donor's willingness to undergo the operation, which is a breach of duty. This fact is not protected by HIPAA, or any other California statute, so does not supersede the obligation to reveal relevant facts.

Does withholding non-medical information affect medical consent?

Maybe one of the fields that has the most ageism is programming and software engineering jobs. There were multiple times I hear of the CEO or SVP at the final approval stage: we want to hire a more junior person, and rejected the candidate and the 10 hours of interviews by 6 tech people and 3 manager level people. Some say, before age 35, a person is most creative and productive, and it is all about productivity. In reality, when you are 25 or 28, you are more likely to stay up working till 3am, sleep, and wake up at 9am and continue to work. However, most companies claim they want 40 hours per week and work life balance, so they won't burn somebody out in 1.5 years and then have to dump them. Also, programming and software engineering isn't like painter or poet or novelist. They don't need that much creativity. They are more like engineers building roads or bridges, where experience is important too. One other reason I can think of is, if the manager is 32, he wouldn't want to hire somebody 38 or 45, because then that person appears more like a manager than he or she is. (and that a 28 year old is more like to listen to the 32, and a 45 year old is probably less likely). And just because they want to hire somebody 35 or under, isn't it ageism and therefore, discrimination by age, and therefore illegal in the US? I even talked to a lawyer that says, if we sue, that means these cases are flying all over the sky (and therefore it is like people quietly accept them). It also appears that the CEO or SVP are bold enough to even at the final offer approval stage, say rejected. We want a more junior person.

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) protects certain applicants and employees 40 years of age and older from discrimination on the basis of age in hiring, promotion, discharge, compensation, or terms, conditions or privileges of employment. U.S. Department of Labor. State child labor laws establish minimum ages for certain kinds of work (e.g. working on heavy machinery, or serving alcohol), and age limitations on obtaining commercial driver's licenses and commercial pilot's licenses can as a practical matter impose minimum ages for employment. Usually, this is a minimum age for certain jobs between age 12 and 21 depending upon the nature of the work. Apart from these limitations, discrimination based upon age in employment is not prohibited in the United States. So, for example, if an employer wants to hire 25 years olds rather than 35 year olds, simply because they are younger, this is permitted by law in most or all U.S. states.

Is it illegal to hire by age in the US?

Disclaimer: I do not aim to take a position on the ethics of this situation with this question. This question, and all details of the hypothetical case at hand, merely arose from a discussion I recently had, and the law surrounding it intrigued me. Facts of this hypothetical case Joanne is the mother of Jordan, who is fourteen years old. She is a single mother after she left her ex-boyfriend, because he abused her. She's a manager at her local supermarket. She is also a content creator on the platform OnlyFans, where she makes large sums of money posting explicit content of herself. Jordan was unaware, until a certain point, that her mother had an OnlyFans account. One day, at school, Jordan's peers reveal to him, in brutally humiliating fashion, that they have discovered his mother's OnlyFans account. Not only that, but an unknown source has leaked some of the content she uploads there. This leads to intense bullying. For a fortnight, Jordan is too embarrassed to speak about it to anyone. However, he eventually opens up to his mother about the bullying, and that it has been caused by her content on OnlyFans. He pleads with her to, at the least, engage in what he considers damage control, and delete the account, and that the extra money isn't a necessity. Despite this, Joanne refuses and continues to upload and sell content on OnlyFans. The onslaught of teasing and bullying against Jordan continues. After around a month, he musters the courage to discuss his plight with his teachers. Much to his disbelief and frustration, the teachers say that, while they have noticed ‘unusual' behaviour towards him, in class, for a while now, and while that behaviour may have indicia of bullying, they don't have enough evidence to take any action that would make a difference. In fact, they find the entire ordeal incredibly awkward themselves (though this they do not explicitly mention). Around a month and a half have elapsed since the first instance of bullying, and the bullying has not ceased. Jordan contemplates moving schools, but he convinces himself that it's futile, because, to him, everyone around his age in his town knows about his mother's OnlyFans account. Ultimately, after an acrimonious argument with his mother, in which he pleads one more time for her to delete her OnlyFans account, and she refuses, Jordan takes his own life. Questions of law In England and Wales, could Joanne be found guilty of gross-negligence manslaughter? Does any American state have a statute under which Joanne would be liable for her son's death? In any jurisdiction, could anyone but Joanne, in light of the aforementioned circumstances, face liability for Jordan's death? Thanks in advance for any responses, and I apologise in advance if you find either the hypothetical or the questions asinine.

Does any American state have a statute under which Joanne would be liable for her son's death? Probably not. None of the mother's conduct seems like a basis for a homicide prosecution. Suicide is only prosecuted, in states that allow it to be prosecuted at all, for conduct with a calculated purpose to cause a suicide, or encouragement of someone to commit suicide. These facts don't show that. There is no intent to cause suicide and there is no encouragement of the son to commit suicide by on the mother. A survey of selected laws on point by the Connecticut Legislative Research Service can be found here. The case law and related legal theory is reviewed and analyzed in this law review article with the following abstract: In 2017, a Massachusetts court convicted Michelle Carter of manslaughter for encouraging the suicide of Conrad Roy by text message, but imposed a sentence of only fifteen months. The conviction was unprecedented in imposing homicide liability for verbal encouragement of apparently voluntary suicide. Yet if Carter killed, her purpose that Roy die arguably merited liability for murder and a much longer sentence. This Article argues that our ambivalence about whether and how much to punish Carter reflects suicide's dual character as both a harm to be prevented and a choice to be respected. As such, the Carter case requires us to choose between competing conceptions of criminal law, one utilitarian and one libertarian. A utilitarian criminal law seeks to punish inciting suicide to reduce harm. A libertarian criminal law, on the other hand, justifies voluntary suicide as an exercise of liberty, and incitement of suicide as valuable speech. Utilitarian values are implicit in the foreseeability standards prevailing in the law of causation, but libertarian values are implicit in the reluctance of prosecutors to seek, and legislatures to define, homicide liability for assisting suicide. The prevalence of statutes punishing assisting—but not encouraging—suicide as a nonhomicide offense reflects a compromise between these values. These statutes are best interpreted as imposing accomplice liability for conduct left unpunished for two antithetical reasons: it is justified in so far as the suicide is autonomous and excused in so far as the suicide is involuntary. This explains why aiding suicide is punished, but less severely than homicide. Yet even these statutes would not punish Carter's conduct of encouragement alone. Her conviction although seemingly required by prevailing causation doctrine, is unprecedented. Guyora Binder and Luis Chiesa, The Puzzle of Inciting Suicide 56 American Criminal Law Review 65 (2019). In any jurisdiction, could anyone but Joanne, in light of the aforementioned circumstances, face liability for Jordan's death? Maybe the bullies could be prosecuted for homicide or some lesser charge like harassment intended to provoke a suicide or something like that. More facts would have to be developed on that point. Maybe teachers have civil liability for negligence, but not criminal liability for not intervening since they didn't intend to cause or encourage the suicide.

Was this a case of negligent homicide, and have any other offences been committed here?

The baby was born in the United States but has been living in Brazil for 6 years. The mother is a Brazilian citizen.

Can a woman living in Brazil collect child support from someone in the United States? Yes. There would need to be first, a legal establishment of paternity if that is not already in place, and then an application to a court for a child support order. The question of whether one should proceed in a U.S. court or a Brazilian court is a tactical one that would be evaluated based upon the circumstances by the lawyers involved in doing so. Generally, that would open the door to child custody proceedings as well in the same, or a parallel case.

Can a woman living in Brazil collect child support from someone in the United States?

I know that it is forbidden by FCC regulations to deliberately interfere with radio communications, but is it a crime?

Yes. 47 U.S. Code § 333 (part of the Communications Act of 1934 as amended) bans willful or malicious interference. § 501 imposes a general penalty for any violation of the Communications Act that doesn't have a different penalty defined elsewhere in the Act. A first offense is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a $10,000 fine and/or up to a year in jail. Subsequent offenses are felonies punishable by up to 2 years in prison. In practice, this might result in only a civil action by the FCC. But it is forbidden by Congress and can be punished by imprisonment.

Is deliberate radio interference a crime?

A drone intrusion prevention product being advertised at RSA Conference this year has piqued my interest, and I'm trying to determine whether it and other drone IPS systems are illegal. For background, a WIPS is a device which looks for unexpected WiFi access points nearby and purposefully sends de-authentication packets in order to prevent them from working. In August 2015 the FCC ruled that doing this to hotel guests was illegal, citing Section 333 of the Communications Act 1934. This appears to tally with the FCC's guidance. However, it has been pointed out to me that this precedent may not be applicable as the ruling was in relation to internet service being denied. One could potentially also argue that such actions are in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) under the same provisions which make denial-of-service (DoS) attacks illegal. UK law also has provisions under the Communications Act 2003 and the Computer Misuse Act 1990 (CMA), with similar advice given by OFCOM (1, 2, 3) as the FCC gives. Drone Intrusion Prevention Systems are a similar concept, designed as security devices which identify drones in the vicinity and inject commands into the control channel in order to disable them. The advertised use-case is to prevent an attacker from using a drone to spy on people's screens, or gain entry to a secured facility. The apparent functionality is that the system identifies a drone in the area, and an operator can choose to have the system disable or otherwise inhibit that drone's functionality. One could argue that injecting commands into the control stream would constitute a violation of both the CFAA and CMA since it causes a computerised system (the drone) to stop functioning or be taken over without the consent of the drone operator. A key thing to note in both cases is that the denial of service is not indiscriminate in terms of jamming the radio spectrum: devices operating on that band will continue to work unless specifically targeted. 47 U.S.C. § 333 states: No person shall willfully or maliciously interfere with or cause interference to any radio communications of any station licensed or authorized by or under this chapter or operated by the United States Government. It is clear to me that indiscriminately jamming a radio band is illegal under both the US and UK Communications Acts. What is not clear to me is whether interjecting additional commands is illegal, nor whether a drone user operating within the vicinity of such a device counts as "authorized" under this particular facet of law. From what I have read, the term appears to refer to communications which are not themselves in violation of the Communications Act, but I'm not certain whether this matters. Are these devices illegal under US/UK law? Is there any precedent in this matter?

For the USA, the FCC has a few words to say on the subject: “Generally, “jammers” — which are also commonly called signal blockers, GPS jammers, cell phone jammers, text blockers, etc. — are illegal radio frequency transmitters that are designed to block, jam, or otherwise interfere with authorized radio communications.” (https://transition.fcc.gov/eb/jammerenforcement/jamfaq.pdf) In addition, the FCC specifically calls out WiFi blocking devices using deauth attacks as you described, calling them “Willful or malicious interference” in a warning they issued in 2015 This is the closest thing to precedent I could find, related specifically to WiFi . That pretty much sums it up. If the device's primary purpose involves disabling radio communication, it is illegal. It does not matter to the FCC how targeted or filtered the attack may be, it is still unauthorized. At the core of the issue, you (a private citizen) are not allowed to maliciously or willfully interfere with someone operating their radio, no ifs, ands, or buts. Drone IPS system using such an attack would most likely be illegal. The FCC may change this interpretation in the future, but for now it is illegal.

Are Drone Intrusion Prevention Systems (Drone IPS) systems illegal?

I have a question, about 3 or 4 months ago, i was just outside chilling with some of my friends and then some girl came and slapped me, all i did was push her back in self defense. I just want to know if that is legal or not. I live in Germany, thank you.

If you pushed her back after she slapped you and it is not clear that a second slapping would occur (or she slapped you, because you pushed her) then it is not self-defence you (or she) did not prevent a present unlawful attack If it is clear that you are going to be slapped then pushing her away, in a reasonable manor, is self-defence you prevented a present unlawful attack What is considered reasonable will later be determined by a judge. § 32 - Self-defence StGB (2) ‘Self-defence' means any defensive action which is necessary to avert a present unlawful attack on oneself or another. Sources: § 32 - Self-defence StGB

I want to know if i have the right to push someone if they slapped me in self defense

We have an article about someone's activities that I believe was written carefully to avoid libel: http://pdacamp.com/Sam-Wolanyk-and-Tangod-Up-In-Blues/ Now the party in question is threatening to sue (but of course refuses to point to which sections he believes are libelous) Is there an easy resource to get legal advice on whether this falls under libel or not, or do we have to pay the $$ to lawyer up if we want to be safe?

Now the party in question is threatening to sue (but of course refuses to point to which sections he believes are libelous) ... do we have to pay the $$ to lawyer up if we want to be safe? If you get sued, you will definitely want a lawyer. If you don't get sued, well, in that case you're safe. So your first question is whether the supposedly aggrieved party will actually sue. Your second question is, if they sue, do they have a good case? That question will be useful in deciding whether to settle. If the threats are empty then you might want to hire a lawyer to call their bluff. Otherwise you may have to endure the continual empty threats. This is especially true if the libel case is weak. Your lawyer can write a letter that explains why there is no case. If they do sue, they will have to identify the specific libelous statements, so you will at that point be able to refute the claims. But you'll also want a lawyer at that point, so you won't have to be directly concerned with the details; your lawyer will take care of them. As suggested in a comment, do keep in mind that a true statement cannot be libelous, by definition. To the extent that you can prove that every statement in the piece is true then you don't have much to worry about. But even then you'll want a lawyer's advice, because even if you know yourself that everything is true, you don't know what it will take to prove that in court. (Another aspect of the element of falsity is that statements of opinion are generally not defamatory.) To learn for yourself about the elements of libel you can start with Wikipedia or a bit of internet searching. To get a thorough analysis of the facts of your case in light of the laws of the relevant jurisdictions, you will need to engage a lawyer. It might not cost as much as you fear.

Easy way to check if libel has been committed?

Due to an unfortunate event outside of his control, Juan temporarily goes insane. Due to his insanity, he commits an extremely heinous crime (say, for example, a school shooting.) Still a raving lunatic, he surrenders to the police. While awaiting trial, Juan receives medical treatment that causes him to stop being insane. Legally speaking, what happens? From what I understand, an insanity plea results in being committed to a mental institution indefinitely. However, Juan is no longer insane and doesn't require further treatment. N.B. This question was originally worded quite differently. My revision was primarily to remove unnecessary details; the core of the question remains the same.

canada The terminology in Canada not criminally responsible reason on account of mental disorder (NCRMD) (Criminal Code, s. 16). A finding of NCRMD is a special verdict that results in the accused being placed under the jurisdiction of the Review Board.1 Assuming for the sake of analysis that such an outcome is made out in the circumstances that you've described (much would depend on the expert evidence), such an outcome would not necessarily lead to indefinite detention. The options available are: absolute discharge; conditional discharge; or detention in custody in a hospital And even when in detention in a hospital, there is a regular review and the person is released when detention is no longer necessary for public safety. The burden is not on the detained to show that the chance of a repeat is essentially zero. That would be a great exaggeration of the barrier to release and incorrectly reverses the burden. Instead, the Review Board must find evidence that there is a significant continuing risk to the public, at the time of the hearing, in order to keep the person in custody. There is no burden on the accused or on anyone to rule out future occurrences with any certainty. Latimer and Lawrence explain: The Supreme Court of Canada further clarified in R. v. Winko that Section 672.54 does not create a presumption of dangerousness. In other words, while the protection of society is paramount, there must be clear evidence of a significant risk to the public before a court or Review Board can maintain control over an accused through the imposition of a conditional discharge or detention order. Some extracts from Winko: Restrictions on his or her liberty can only be justified if, at the time of the hearing, the evidence before the court or Review Board shows that the NCR accused actually constitutes such a threat there is never any legal burden on the NCR accused to show that he or she does not pose a significant threat to the safety of the public A past offence committed while the NCR accused suffered from a mental illness is not, by itself, evidence that the NCR accused continues to pose a significant risk to the safety of the public. 1. This is one major difference between NCRMD and the defence of automatism, which is a defence based on negation of the elements of the offence and would result in a standard acquittal if successful, with no jurisdiction for the Review Board to impose detention or conditions.

Murder due to temporary insanity

Would the judge in a criminal trial consider a prosecutor's statement that some evidence is representative of a defendant's guilt is a false statement by seeking the evidence to be inferred as conclusive without being thoroughly tested?

united-states The ethical standard for U.S. prosecutions, under Rule of Professional Conduct 3.8 (ethical rules have parallel numbering in every U.S. jurisdiction and there is little variation from jurisdiction to jurisdiction for this part of this ethical rule) is to refrain from prosecuting a charge that is not supported by probable cause. Probable cause is also the standard used by a grand jury, and in an adversarial pre-trial hearing, to screen charges before they go to trial. It is also the standard for issuing an arrest warrant. The higher threshold of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is the standard for convicting a defendant at a trial on the merits of the defendant's guilt or innocence, it is not the standard for bringing a criminal charge in the first place. The job of the prosecutor at trial is to convince the trier of fact (usually a jury, but sometimes a judge in a bench trial) that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If the case was thin on evidence when commenced, this may require law enforcement and the prosecutor's office to develop evidence after the criminal charges are brought. As a practical matter, a prosecutor wants to prosecute cases that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt at trial, and will usually try to do that. But a belief that a case can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt at trial is not an ethical requirement for prosecutors and is not a ground for imposing sanctions against a prosecutor. Of course, individual prosecuting attorneys' offices are free to establish their own standards that are more rigorous as an internal policy for bringing criminal cases.

In American criminal law, do prosecutors who seek to prosecute a defendant need to have evidence of the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?

Both of my parents signed an agreement with my high school to permit me to complete my high school graduation requirements in college. They both also signed a college enrollment form that specifically gave me permission as a minor and their dependent child to attend the college. My (high) school district is paying for the classes and a bus pass. My father has stated his intent to renege on the agreement. Since I am a minor, have not graduated from high school, and the grades from those 16 college classes and 2 labs were agreed to be accepted by the district as the graduation requirements for high school, isn't either withdrawing me from class, or preventing me from attending so that I fail, without enrolling me at another high school, or submitting a state mandated intent to homeschool form a violation of my state's compulsory attendance law that requires that all minors who have not yet graduated from high school attend school or show proof they are being homeschooled?

Washington has such laws. RCW 28A.225.010 states the exceptions to the compulsory attendance requirement, which includes: is attending private school or extension program, receiving home schooling, unable to attend including is in jail, religion, over 16 full-time employed and with parental consent. Also, also has GDE or has already satisfied graduation requirements. It isn't clear what graduation requirements have not been satisfied, I assume that you still must complete 1 credit of Calculus to satisfy the requirements. Therefore, you must take attend school, even if you don't take that class. If you don't attend classes at the high school, the high school is required by RCW 28A.225.020 to provide written notice to the parents. Steps are taken to assure compliance with state law, i.e. phone calls and conferences with the parents, etc. It would be the responsibility of the school district to monitor the college's scheme that allows you to take high school classes at college. The primary legal mandate is imposed on the parent: All parents in this state of any child eight years of age and under eighteen years of age shall cause such child to attend the public school of the district in which the child resides and such child shall have the responsibility to and therefore shall attend for the full time when such school may be in session As described, the hypothetical child is not exempt, therefore the parents must compel the child to attend school, until the child becomes exempt. There is vast leeway in how that requirement can be satisfied, but it must be somehow satisfied.

If a parent withdraws a minor student from school, or prevents them from attending, is that a criminal violation of a mandatory attendance law?

We are developing software that are sold to and used by other companies. In the software, certain types of personal data, like name, email and phone number, can be stored when a user registers. The data is stored on a server owned by our customer. Our customer owns all the data. Our software shows this data in certain places within our software itself, but does not share it with any other third parties, or store it on our own servers, or use it in any other way. What are our requirements when it comes to providing a privacy policy for our software, to be compliant with GDPR? Will our software only be considered a tool used by our customer in which they collect personal data, and hence not require us to have our own privacy policy accepted by the users in addition, or will we have to have a privacy policy explaining what personal data which our customer is able to collect through our software? All users of the software will be employees of our customer, if that makes a difference. They will therefore have their own privacy policy agreement with our customer (their employer) already.

Alice's business sells database management software. Organisations buy or licence the software, deploy it on hardware they control and use the software to help store and, process and analyse 'personal data' within the meaning of GDPR. Alice's business has no access whatsoever to the personal data being stored and processed by those organisations. In respect of that personal data, GDPR is not engaged by Alice's business. The business is neither a 'controller' nor 'processor' of that personal data. Who does the data protection law apply to? - European Commission Who does the UK GDPR apply to? - Information Commissioner's Office

GDPR and privacy policy compliance for software used internally by customer company

The South Korean branch of video game publisher Nexon made headlines online when it gave out a small bonus to its employees in the form of lootboxes. A monthly bonus coupon was given in August 2020 to employees. The employees would type a keyword in a chatbot to activate the coupon, which would add a random amount between 2000 and 100000 points to one's balance. Is giving out bonuses as lootboxes or any other way that relies on pure luck rather than my achievements in work legal in other jurisdictions? Would the legality be different if it were salaries and not bonuses that were given out this way?

germany Is it legal for companies to pay salaries or bonuses as lootboxes? The German Gewerbeordnung says: § 107 Berechnung und Zahlung des Arbeitsentgelts Das Arbeitsentgelt ist in Euro zu berechnen und auszuzahlen. Arbeitgeber und Arbeitnehmer können Sachbezüge als Teil des Arbeitsentgelts vereinbaren, wenn dies dem Interesse des Arbeitnehmers oder der Eigenart des Arbeitsverhältnisses entspricht. Der Arbeitgeber darf dem Arbeitnehmer keine Waren auf Kredit überlassen. Er darf ihm nach Vereinbarung Waren in Anrechnung auf das Arbeitsentgelt überlassen, wenn die Anrechnung zu den durchschnittlichen Selbstkosten erfolgt. Die geleisteten Gegenstände müssen mittlerer Art und Güte sein, soweit nicht ausdrücklich eine andere Vereinbarung getroffen worden ist. Der Wert der vereinbarten Sachbezüge oder die Anrechnung der überlassenen Waren auf das Arbeitsentgelt darf die Höhe des pfändbaren Teils des Arbeitsentgelts nicht übersteigen. Die Zahlung eines regelmäßigen Arbeitsentgelts kann nicht für die Fälle ausgeschlossen werden, in denen der Arbeitnehmer für seine Tätigkeit von Dritten ein Trinkgeld erhält. Trinkgeld ist ein Geldbetrag, den ein Dritter ohne rechtliche Verpflichtung dem Arbeitnehmer zusätzlich zu einer dem Arbeitgeber geschuldeten Leistung zahlt. Source Translation: § 107 Calculation and payment of remuneration Remuneration shall be calculated and paid in euros. Employer and employee may agree on benefits in kind as part of the remuneration if this is in the interest of the employee or in accordance with the nature of the employment relationship. The employer may not provide the employee with goods on credit. The employer may, by agreement, provide the employee with goods as a credit against the employee's remuneration, provided that the goods are provided at the average cost price. The goods provided must be of average type and quality unless expressly agreed otherwise. The value of the agreed benefits in kind or the crediting of the goods provided against the remuneration may not exceed the amount of the attachable part of the remuneration. The payment of regular remuneration may not be excluded in cases where the employee receives a tip from a third party for his work. A tip is an amount of money paid by a third party to the employee without a legal obligation in addition to a service owed to the employer. What does that mean? The base Salary can never be paid in anything but Euros. Makes sense, how would you determine whether 2 apples, an egg and a parttime timeshare of a camel each month are above or below the minimum wage? How would the employee pay their own costs from that, even it it were worth more? Taxes would be a nightmare. Good luck to the Ex-Wife and kid, getting half an apple and a stinky camel timeshare for a day as alimony. No, money is there for a reason. Benefits like bonuses or additional agreements on top of your basic salary can be goods of other kinds. Loot boxes for example. Please note that the employee has to explicitely agree on that. I will assume getting an additional lootbox on top for free is something an employee can agree on without a second thought. Getting parts of your salary normally paid in Euros or bonus normally paid in Euros as Lootboxes would be something the employee would have to explicitely agree to, otherwise it must be Euros. You cannot force an employee to accept anything but Euros. Note the sentence that the employer can give the employee goods instead of Euros not for their made up sale price, but for the cost of making them. So for no profit. You could pay someone partially in loot boxes, but since a loot box costs about 0,01€ to make (electricity, database maintenance, the developer who has to press the button once a month), that would be a lot of loot boxes to pay a part of the salary. And yes, even goods will be taxed. They are part of your income. So if you get a lootbox, be preprared to pay taxes on that. If you don't play the game, paying taxes on something you don't use might not be worth it after all. It is well known that companies have employee-only pricing schemes. For example you will find that employees of automobile manufacturers will drive their brands cars, because getting a good price on a car is a big deal. Some companies allow private use of company cars for the employees that work in the field. But it is very rare that employees get actual goods monthly as part of their salary in Germany. But there is no mention of luck anywhere in the law. Assuming the employee knows about the luck factor and explicitely agrees to have that as part of their remuneration, then everything is fine.

Is it legal for companies to pay salaries or bonuses as lootboxes?

I've recently read an article about a proposed bill that would criminalise attempted copyright infringement in the US. link - https://www.wired.com/2007/05/ippa07/ I was wondering if the UK had any legislation on this. Any help is much appreciated. Cheers!

Yes australia s7 of the Crimes Act 1914: Any person who attempts to commit any offence against this Act or any other Act, whether passed before or after the commencement of this Act, shall be guilty of an offence and shall be punishable as if the attempted offence had been committed. This covers offenses under the Copyright Act.

Is there such a thing as 'attempted copyright infringement' in the UK?

If someone living at an embassy abroad gave birth to a child on the embassy grounds, then what country and what place will be indicated on the birth certificate? To clarify the question, let's assume that we mean the US embassy in another country. But I'm also interested in how a similar situation will occur in the embassies of other countries. I saw a similar question but it is related to citizenship, but I only ask about birth certificate

The place of birth on the birth certificate is where the child was actually born. Indeed, usually it will be more specific than city and state or province and will also identify a hospital or residence or other place where the birth happened. So, for example, if a child is born to U.S. diplomats in Paris, France (in or out of the embassy grounds), the birth certificate will say that the child was born in Paris, France at Charles de Gaulle Hospital. But, that child will still be a U.S. citizen in all likelihood, because that child's mother, and/or married father or unmarried father who acknowledges paternity, is a U.S. citizen (in all likelihood) pursuant to 8 U.S.C. §§ 1401 and 1409. The child may or may not be a French dual citizen depending upon the citizenship law of France. In the case of a French diplomat who has a child born physically in Washington D.C. (inside or outside the French embassy) the birth certificate will likewise state that the child was born in Washington D.C. The French diplomat's child, however, will not be a U.S. citizen since Section 1 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution's first sentence (which is also found in 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a)) states: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. But a French diplomat's child is not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, so the French diplomat's child does not gain U.S. citizenship at birth (assuming for simplicity's sake that both of the child's parents are French citizens and are not U.S. citizens) despite the fact that the child was born in the United States.

What is the place of birth of a child born in the embassy?

The only time I was ever called for jury duty while waiting with potential Jurors I spoke to one who essentially said that she believed that a trial would only happen if the cops had definitive proof and as such anyone who made it to trail was surely guilty. I tried to point out that was antithetical to the very concept of innocent until proven guilty but she stayed committed to her view. As it would happen I, and all the others waiting with me, were dismissed without ever being called in as potential jurors and as such her sentiment didn't mean much that day. However I'm wondering if we had been needed, and the women in question didn't exclude her self by stating she believed anyone on trial was guilty during jury selection, what would the appropriate steps, if any, I as a fellow juror could have taken to indicate I felt the sentiment expressed by the women should be known and potentially rule her out as a juror? Assuming I could have said something during jury selection would my speaking out have resulted in my also likely being removed as potential juror?

Don't be prejudicial You have no idea if this person would be suitable to be on a jury based simply on this conversation. You need to wait until you are sharing the jury room and look at the way they actually behave. new-south-wales Once empanelled, the judge will give an opening address, the jury will be given a jury booklet and a DVD, and written directions. All of which explains their role and duties. All of this is intended to disabuse jurors of any misconceptions they may have about the process. One of the duties that the materials explain is reporting irregularities, including: that a juror is refusing to participate in the jury's functions and that a juror appears to lack the ability to be impartial. If this describes the behaviour you witness in the jury room, you must report it. What happens next is up to the judge.

How would a potential Juror report another as not suited to be in a jury?

The court originally derived its authority solely from the supreme sovereignty of the crown. But if the royal power is so supreme, then why are subjects allowed as a matter of apparently solemn entitlement, to make such detailed submissions as to how this power should be exercised? Doesn't the idea of supreme power come with it a degree of propriety, and often even a degree of pride in the to dispense such power as capriciously or arbitrarily as one likes? Doesn't the idea of lengthy detailed and formal submissions such as to a court in themselves, let alone in the current system wherein the court is apparently all but required to review and consider all of them in great rigour and detail, other than from privileged trusted advisors, imply a level of condescension toward the authority, effectively the total opposite of propriety, reverence and discretion? So what is the historical basis for this idea that all parties are entitled not only to make, but also to have rather quite vigorously considered, all of their submissions, which effectively amount to telling the court, and so by extension the king or queen, how they should be doing their job? What place is it for a lowly subject to tell a king how best to exercise his power when they are not even in the King's cabinet or privy council etc? Even this this question is framed rather in terms of the English/commonwealth/common law framework, perspectives on the current state and historical development of other legal systems are also most welcome.

This is just an instantiation of the ancient legal principle audi alteram partem (hear the other side). James Tully says (in Sustainable Democratic Constitutionalism and Climate Crisis (2020) 5:3 McGill LJ 545): Aeschylus introduced this legal norm in Eumenides, the third play in the Oresteia trilogy. The Roman lawyer Cicero brought it to prominence in Roman law and the Western tradition.

Where does the idea of entitlement to make submissions to a court originate?

I'm renting a room from a person, not a large organization; it's a monthly rental. He claims he just saw I had missed my monthly rent payment from April of last year. I don't have an easy way to check back more then a year ago to see if I made the payment. Now realistically I don't see this going to court one way or another; I have every intent to figure things out and if I really did miss a payment pay it now. However it makes me curious what is the legal obligation in such a case? Is my inability to definitively prove I gave him money a year ago make me responsible if he says he doesn't show the electronic payment on his end? Or is there some sort of statue of limitations on his being able to claim a missed payment? I live in Maryland.

If you want to be argumentative about it, the burden of proof is on the person making the accusation. This also means the burden of production is, too. Underlying the whole matter is a claim that you've engaged in breach of contract, namely failing to pay rent. Your legal obligation is to not engage in contract fraud nor breach of contract. You are to exercise due diligence in resolving any breach of contract. You may ask the lessor to provide evidence in support of the claim while admitting that you have difficulty looking that far back into the issue. The idea here is to work with the lessor rather than immediately taking an adversarial stance. Normal people become very disgruntled by those taking an immediate adversarial approach rather than seeking to work with the other person to resolve the dispute.

Landlord claims I missed a rent payment from over a year ago, I don't have easy way to confirm a payment from that far back. What are my obligations?

Does copyright law, in any jurisdiction, prevent the owner of a physical instance of a copyrighted work from destroying it? Are there other laws that allow the creator to prevent destruction of artworks by their owners?

You own it In general, if you own an object, you can do what you like with it if you otherwise comply with the law. It is possible that a particular object may be protected under heritage or similar law, but if it isn't, and you comply with environmental and safety law, you grind that thing into dust if you want to. Of course, if it did, you would never be able to delete a voicemail, email, or throw out used notepaper - they're all copyright.

Does copyright law prevent the destruction of works?

For about 6 months I've been playing my brother's copy of the original DOOM and DOOM 2. He purchased it on Steam, however there is no DRM lock-in on the actual IWAD gamefiles (all that's required to play the games). I became curious, at what point is it considered piracy. Lets begin with, I am playing it on his computer whenever he authorizes me to do so. Surely that can't be illegal. Later, I make a separate user account on Windows to play the same game (Steam has a feature of "Library sharing" on the same computer). Lets then say that I install Linux on his computer and play the same game, just from a different OS and user account. Is that still legal? Its still on his physical computer, and we cannot both play it at the same time due to there only being one computer. The instance of Linux is entirely there for me, not something he cares to use. Later I clone the Linux partition with all my files onto my own laptop, and play DOOM from there. At this point, we have 2 separate computers with the same exact original copy of one game. I'm guessing that isn't permitted by the EULA (not that anyone cares). My question is, where does the law draw the line? At what point does it become against the license policy? PS: I did actually end up buying the entire series, because I decided to record the MIDI music turning them into MP3's (and FLACs). I am located in Canada, and forgot to metion I am playing this via source port "GZDoom" licensed under GNU GPL3+ and MIT. Only the gamefiles (IWAD's) are subject to standard copyright.

At the point where you copy the game files, including the WADs, onto a new machine the original licensee (your brother) does not have access to, you are infringing copyright. Merely copying the files onto a Linux partition won't constitute infringement as it's the same commercial software on the same system, just with a different OS (IIRC correctly the Steam version of Doom uses DOSBOX, a DOS emulator, to run the original code on both Windows and Linux. The only difference between the Linux and Windows versions are the DOSBOX builds, and DOSBOX is open source software that permits this). To get it to actually run on Linux, you'd need to either get a source port or a copy of DOSBOX (both are free to download), but neither actions would change the legality of it.

Playing a game I didn't purchase (until now)

Does the legal usage of the word court as in a court of law derive from the idea of a royal court, as an expression of the idea that the original courts of law were ultimately simple vehicles for the exercise or discharge of royal authority on behalf of the royal sovereign? If not, then what is the origin of the use of the word court to denote the judicial institutions that we call courts of law?

Does the legal usage of the word court as in a court of law derive from the idea of a royal court, as an expression of the idea that the original courts of law were ultimately simple vehicles for the exercise or discharge of royal authority on behalf of the royal sovereign? Yes: The meaning of a judicial assembly is first attested in the 12th century, and derives from the earlier usage to designate a sovereign and his entourage, which met to adjudicate disputes....

What is the origin of the term “court” as a reference to the judicial institution?

Suppose an author sells an article to a magazine in the United States, but without a written contract and without any oral discussion of what rights were being sold. The magazine comes out containing the article, and everyone is happy. Now, many years later, the magazine wants to include the article in a new bound volume of the magazine's contents, without further permission from or payment to the author. Can the author object? In light of 17 USC sec. 204(a), I assume the burden of proof would be on the publisher to show a written agreement to transfer more than the right to publish the article once. And since there is no written agreement, the publisher would lose if the author took it to court. So, it seems like a simple answer. But in the law I'm always amazed to discover different angles and factors I hadn't thought of. Hence this post.

None Transfer of copyrights or exploitation rights always requires a written contract. Licensing does not require a written contract. HOWEVER.... An author sells an article to a magazine is a special situation: that is acceptance of the written terms of sale that were in place when the article was sold. That is a written contract, and typically they buy the article with very specific rights. And... things really can get murky for really old publications like Weird Tales

What's the default copyright transfer for a magazine article, in absence of a written contract?

There are actually two questions here. First, why are sections not in order? You have 28 USC §1 through §6, which talk about the Supreme Court, then you have §41 to §49 (appeals courts), then §81 to §144 (district courts) immediately afterwards. Why is this? Does Congress do this sort of thing to emphasize the separation between the types of definitions, or is it just the case that they're reserving numbers in case they need to add something (like §40 before §41)? Other examples of this: 17 USC §101 through §122, followed immediately by §201 to §205; 22 USC § 1 through §136, followed immediately by §141 to §183; 18 USC § 2381 through § 2391, followed immediately by § 2421 to § 2429. 51 USC § 10101 followed by § 20101, implying they skipped 10,100 sections (except they didn't). Second, why do certain portions of the US Code look like, well, these oddly listed names? Did Congress just run out of numbers or were they trying to squeeze an entirely new section in but couldn't quite make it? 16 USC §470x-6, § 470aaa, § 590z-11, §668ss 15 USC §77bbbb, 79z-6, 80b-21 22 USC §2799aa-2 42 USC §300mm-62, 1397mm, 2000aa-5, 2000bb-4, 2000gg-6 To me the US Code looks like, well, spaghetti code. And I know lawyers are the ones who look at it and I think they probably couldn't care less about how it looks as long as the law is there, but I'm just curious as to why they opted for the approach of sticking random letters on some of the numbers.

Many of the titles in the U.S. Code are not positive codifications. Instead they are consolidations, classifications, and editorial codifications made by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel. Title 42 (noted in phoog's answer) is not a positive codification. This means Congress did not choose its numbering scheme. Only the titles with an asterisk on this page have been enacted as positive law. Instead, the law codified into Title 42 are the various public statutes passed by Congress over the years that the Law Revision Counsel has included in Title 42. It is the public statutes that have the force of law. See e.g. Pub. L. 98-183, whose elements the Law Revision Counsel put in Chapter 20A of Title 42. The Law Revision Counsel says: Title 42, The Public Health and Welfare, is a non-positive law title. Title 42 is comprised of many individually enacted Federal statutes––such as the Public Health Service Act and the Social Security Act––that have been editorially compiled and organized into the title, but the title itself has not been enacted. Whether a provision of a public statute is included in the U.S. Code and where it will be included is determined by the Law Revision Counsel, although placement may be obvious when a statute amends an already codified statute. As for the cramped numbering (contrary to the comment of Weather Vane, which says that insertions would require renumbering of subsequent clauses), the Law Revision Counsel says: Chapters based on statutes that have been amended many times may have cumbersome numbering schemes with section numbers such as 16 U.S.C. 460zzz-7 and 42 U.S.C. 300ff-111. Where the U.S. Code skips over large portions of section numbers this could be an intentional decision to leave room for growth, especially in a title that has undergone positive codification process through Congress, or it could be the result of previous sections that have been removed after repeal. For more background, see the detailed guide from the Law Revision Counsel.

Why are some sections of the US Code formatted so weirdly?

It is reported that someone was copying the trades of a noted NFT trader. This noted NFT trader profited from this by making an inflated bids on one of his own NFTs, and when the copycat replicated the trades on other NFTs they were purchased for ~10 times the usual rate. The copycat (ThinkingETH) has since described the loss as stolen funds, and someone said: I unironically think @ThinkingETH might have good legal claims to get their ETH back from the bot 'trick' if they hire a skilled litigator. Legally the issues are a bit more nuanced than they might be normatively from the standpoint of cryptotwitter. Is there a case here? Is there some nuanced issues that could mean that the seller is responsible for the seller to have stolen from the buyer? Is there a civil case to be made that the funds should be returned? Any jurisdiction would be interesting, as it seems to matter little where these events occur.

This type of fraud is called shill bidding Unless the rules of the auction allow it, a vendor is not permitted to bid on their own item. Even when they are, such vendor bids may be disclosed. The relevant laws date from well before the rise of online auctions but they are just as applicable. There have been successful prosecutions to my knowledge, including jail time, in the USA and the UK. A quick Google search shows these are not unique. A victim of such a fraud can seek restitution through a civil claim.

How could someone whose trades are being copied be liable to the person who is doing the copying?

This question came to mind reviewing this SO answer. There is this similar question here, but it's 8 years old, and covers only the UK and north America. So, I would like to know if, in the European Union, or at least in France, whether bypassing/avoiding captcha is illegal or not.

It's not “bypassing the captcha” that is the problem, but accessing a server in a way that you are not allowed to. Say you are a human being, you visit a website, there's a captcha, and your eyesight is quite bad. The website is ok with humans using the site. So asking your nephew to enter the captcha is fine. Now you are running a bot network. The site doesn't want your bots. The captcha is there to stop them. The problem is not these bots getting around the captcha, it's them accessing the server. The captcha might make sure that the site counts as “protected” though, which might make accessing it without authorisation more serious.

Is avoiding captcha illegal?

To successfully bring a claim for maliicous falsehood in the UK, one has to show that one has suffered special damages, which are actual damages suffered as a direct consequence of a malicious, false statement. However, one does not have to do this if s3(1) of the Defamation Act 1952 applies. This is below: In an action for slander of title, slander of goods or other malicious falsehood, it shall not be necessary to allege or prove special damage— (a) if the words upon which the action is founded are calculated to cause pecuniary damage to the plaintiff and are published in writing or other permanent form; or (b) if the said words are calculated to cause pecuniary damage to the plaintiff in respect of any office, profession, calling, trade or business held or carried on by him at the time of the publication. But surely this section of the Act would always apply. The loss suffered as a result of a statement is always going to be economic (e.g., lost investment, sales, etc.) and the statement being malicious means that it was intended to cause damage when it was made. Thus, whis this section of the Act considered to be an exception to the general rule, when in fact it would seem to apply in all cases?

The section exempts the plaintiff from having to prove or even plead special damages when they instead plead and prove that the words were intended to cause pecuniary (even if not yet realized) damages This statutory exception has also been adopted in Canadian jurisdictions and they have turned to U.K. jurisprudence to understand its meaning (Almas et al. v. Spenceley, [1972] 2 O.R. 429 (C.A.)): The Court was referred to a number of cases under the law as it then stood whereby it was strictly required that special damages be set forth in the pleading and whereby no plea of general damages would be entertained. This was changed in England by the Defamation Act, 1952 (U.K.), c. 66, s. 3 (1), and here by a similar section, s. 19(a) of the Libel and Slander Act, 1958 (Ont.), c. 51 ... The Ontario Court of Appeal quoted from Clavet v. Tomkies et al., [1963] 3 All E.R. 610 (Lord Denning) (emphasis mine): All I would say is that, as I read s. 3 of the Defamation Act, 1952, it gives a benefit to a plaintiff in that it is not necessary to plead or prove special damage if the words are calculated to cause pecuniary damage. This means that special damages (actual and provable pecuniary losses up to the date of trial) need not be proven nor even pleaded if the words are calculated (meaning intended to) cause pecuniary damage (which might have not yet occurred, but might be proven as likely future damages at trial). Brown on Defamation confirms that generally: there must be an express allegation that the plaintiff has suffered some particular special damage as a result of the slander, unless there is some special statutory provision foregoing an allegation of special damages where the words are calculated to cause pecuniary damage with respect to an office, profession or trade. This is not redundant with the maliciousness element Malice need not be the intent to cause pecuniary loss. Malice can be made out by any improper motive, including spite, or an intention to cause pure reputational harm with no regard for pecuniary damages. In my view, this section has the greatest effect at the pleading stage. I agree that in many (although not all) malicious falsehood cases, proof of malice will double for proof of an intention to cause pecuniary damages.

When does s3(1) of the Defamation Act *not* apply in malicious falesehood cases?

I am a girl attending a boarding high school in the US. In June, some students who returned to the dorm early saw some male teachers exiting their rooms. They reportedly ran back to the school building without answering any questions when they saw the students. That night, multiple students shared that their drawers were seemingly searched and in some cases underwear and other things were missing. In the monthly school meeting the search became the main topic. Eventually a high-ranking teacher attempted to clarify what happened. He claimed that they had suspicion that someone was hiding illegal firearms in their room, but they could not narrow it down so they had to search all the rooms, both the boys' and the girls'. They declined to explain any further on the reasoning behind the suspicion and merely added they reported it to the police and received permission. The session was then dismissed much earlier than usual. The speaker was visibly shaking so I doubted that was the real reason. The distrust only grew when we contacted the local police and an officer told us that they never received such report from our school. The rhetoric has changed ever since. Here is a non-exhaustive list of excuses they came up to cover up the situation. Local police authorized search due to firearm suspicions - debunked, never alerted the police A majority of all students agreed to the search - debunked, no school-wide poll The student council unanimously agreed to the search - debunked, no such topic was discussed A majority of all parents agreed to the search - debunked, no such notice to parents A majority of parents in the school board agreed to the search - debunked, never happened The teachers were substituting dorm workers on vacation to fix dorm equipment - debunked, workers were present The list goes on and on and I find it pathetic that they are still not apologizing even though two months have passed and we are in vacation. I wonder, had at least one of the excuses listed above been true, would that have validated male teachers from intruding our private space? If our parents or our student representatives agree, can they really enter our rooms even though we were never asked nor notified about it?

A private school in the US is not bound by the 4th Amendment requirement for searches to be reasonable, just as parents do not need a search warrant to search your room. Instead, limitations would arise from contract law. This typically means that per the contract whereby you can go to that school, you agree to certain things (as do they). This may or may not include the power for a teacher to conduct a surprise inspection. It just depends on what is said in the contract regarding dorm room searches. Typically, adjudication of this type of matter is left to parental outrage rather than courts, unless there is a clear violation of the contract terms.

Can teachers search our dorms without our explicit consent if they have suspicion?

A retail chain my friend worked for wanted to boost sales of a membership that included benefits like free shipping and preferred pricing. They gave each employee a small bonus on 1 paycheck equal to the price of the membership and employees were told the bonus was to be used to buy a membership for themselves. Apparently, they believed it would help employees sell the membership if they experienced the benefits themselves. From the company's perspective, sales of the membership at POS were an important metric for the company; there were long-term company goals for membership sales. Presumably they gave employees money for the membership instead of the membership itself so they could transact more sales and claim to be closer to hitting their total sales goal. Was it legal for the company to make this additional payment while requiring it be used to buy their own service?

If the employee has the choice - bonus and membership, or no bonus - then I expect the offer to be legal. Since it is a real bonus and part of your salary you will have to pay income tax on it. What might be illegal, but not your concern, is if your company tells investors how well the company is doing, and how well the membership scheme is doing, when in reality 80% of members are employees paying effectively nothing.

Can a company demand employees use part of their paycheck to buy their services?

I have an Uncle in declining years that lives a state or two away. Is there any protocol for having local emergency services call my cell should my Uncle be taken to hospital, becomes unconscious, passes away? I have spoken with him, know his wishes, and call weekly, but circumstances may arise. How would I receive a call if he is not able to call me or communicate with emergency personal?

How would I receive a call if he is not able to call me or communicate with emergency personal? There is no ironclad method. The law does not specify how authorities should determine contact information for next of kin. As a practical matter some of the better methods (few people use all of them) are: Create an emergency contact business card and put it that person's wallet and/or purse. Put another such card in a prominent place in their home like taped to the wall next to their phone charger or under a magnet on the refrigerator or on a cork board in the house. Make sure that the person has their own ID and medical insurance card and a card containing any medical alert information (e.g. drug allergies and blood type and religious objections to any particular sort of treatment) there as well. A wallet biopsy is standard operating procedure for first responders when the identity of a person suffering an emergency is unknown. Enter your name as an in case of emergency (ICE) number on that person's cell phone. You can also set up their cell phone to authorize you to locate it with an app. More crudely, you can put a sticker that says emergency contact with your name and phone number physically on the outside of the person's phone. The mechanics of putting emergency information in a phone can be found at this insurance company website. If they have a medical alert or home security system or medic alter bracelet, have them put you as an emergency contact for that. Put a medical power of attorney naming you as an agent (if the person is willing to execute one) together with your contact information in the patient file of all of the person's medical providers such as a treating primary care physician, home health care person, etc. Keep the number for these providers on hand so that you can call them to ask if there is any news or appointments have been missed. Have the person list you as an emergency contact in places that keep records of one such as an employer, membership based gym, a college or educational institution where the person is taking some classes, and their nursing home or assisted living center (if any). Provide your contact information to (and get contact information from) neighbors, landlords, financial advisors, accountants, lawyers, and family members of the person who are likely to be contacted and ask that they let you know if something happens. Spend at least a little time with as many of them as possible in person, when you are in town, to the fullest extent possible. Become friends with them on social media and interact with them every once and a while in that context. Put them on your Christmas letter list. Share your excess tomatoes and strawberries with them. Send them little thank you notes and gifts when you learn that they did something nice for the person like helping them shovel snow or trimming the shrubs on their shared property line. Little courtesies create a moral impetus on their part to take the trivial effort of calling you to let you know that something is up when it happens. Have a local contact you can have look into the situation if you are unable to reach the person at the usual times, ideally someone with a spare key and security codes to the house and/or apartment building or gated community. If there is no one who can do that, local law enforcement can be asked to do a welfare check on the person. Have a copy of a will, power of attorney, or HIPPA release that allows a third party to corroborate your connection to the person and be in a position to tell someone local where the original will is located. It is also good to keep a log or journal of your contacts with the person so that you can demonstrate that when they go missing that it really is an unusual and concerning event and to demonstrate that you are in regular contact with the person. For example, I have a client who died this week while his emergency contact person was visiting family in another country. When she was unable to reach him, she checked with his doctor, learned that he had failed to show up for a medical appointment scheduled for earlier that day, and then had her son who was still in town use a spare key she had given him to check in on my client, where her son had the misfortune of discovering the deceased client.

How can I ensure I am contacted when a specific relative dies or is hospitalised?

I can use Chrome's inspector tools to modify my local copy of the html on websites I visit. After changing the prices on a page in this way, for some websites I believe I can actually proceed through a checkout process, and buy items at whatever new altered price I want. What kind of trouble can I get into for this - if any?

You can get arrested for theft and/or fraud. This is not some new way to steal items; changing price tags started approximately the day after price tags were invented. Some state laws handle it explicitly, some implicitly; for instance, Maryland defines deception in its theft statute to include (vi) remove or alter a label or price tag; theft is committed if, among other possibilities, (b) Unauthorized control over property - By deception.- A person may not obtain control over property by willfully or knowingly using deception, if the person: (1) intends to deprive the owner of the property; In other states, caselaw says that switching price tags is deception, and doing it for gain is fraud. See this California case in which switching price tags and buying the item is completed generic theft by false pretenses if the cashier didn't know you had switched the tags and relied on the new ones (in that case, the cashier knew so it was just attempted theft); see also this Nebraska case. Notably, the deception there is not tied to a statute saying switching physical price tags is deception; rather, it's deception because it involves knowingly making a false representation of a material fact (i.e. the true price of the goods) with intent to fool the store into thinking the real price is the lower one. As a general rule, many criminal laws handle new technology by looking at how you're using it. If what you're doing would be flagrantly illegal if not done on a computer, it will likely be illegal if you use a computer. Because you used the Internet, you might theoretically face further charges. If this is considered to be deception, you could in theory be on the hook for wire fraud. This is a federal felony offense. While small-scale offenses would more likely be prosecuted at the state level (and if you are federally prosecuted for one small fraud you'll probably face 0-6 months in jail instead of the 20-year maximum sentence for wire fraud), it is in fact a federal crime to commit wire fraud.

Can I use my browser to change the prices of things I buy online?

Suppose that a person A recently got a job in Vietnam from an international company based in Europe. FIt ism my understanding that the minimal sick leave days required in Vietnam is 30 days, but this company has it in the single digits. Is this company violating Vietnamese labor laws? If yes, what can A do about it?

Such a person is not necessarily covered by Vietnamese employment law. It is common for employees from one country to work in another - that does not automatically make them subject to the second country's employment law. Temporary overseas assignments (which can be days, weeks, months, or even years) generally do not change the jurisdiction of the employment contract providing the intention is that the employee will return at the employer's cost at the end. The particulars depend on the details of each nation's laws and any treaties between them as well as the terms of the employment contract and the actual situation.

Vietnamese branch of international company with too few sick leave days

I am a Math teacher in a private school in the US. A majority of students consider probability and statistics a very boring topic and tend to focus significantly less compared to other topics. So last semester I reworked the curriculum and started playing games with decks of playing cards. I encouraged students to calculate probabilities, expected values, etc then come up with strategies to improve their odds of winning. I saw a meaningful boost in both engagement and grades. I shared this teaching method in a message group. Some public school teachers liked the idea but had reservations about the legality of the content. They were worried about playing cards' connection to gambling, which could raise the eyebrows of school boards and other authorities. As far as I know minors playing card games is fine as long as there is no money or other things that have monetary value on the line. Of course school districts could decide to ban such content if they considered it undesirable, but is there any education-related legislation in any state that explicitly states that material that incites or resembles real-life gambling cannot be used in schools, blocking them from being introduced to the classroom in the first place?

england Quite the opposite; although playing cards are not specifically mentioned, gambling education is actively encouraged in schools: but through the support of charities and the voluntary sector - not by statute. The key players are: PSHE Association (standing forPersonal, Social, Health and Economic) who, in partnership with BeGambleAware have a host of educational material, including the: Gambling prevention education handbook GamCare alongside YGAM and Fast Forward (from Scotland) and in line with PSHE Association guidance launched the Gambling Education Framework, that: provides a set of evidence-based principles to deliver effective gambling education for anyone who works with young people (aged 7 to 24) in a paid or voluntary capacity across a variety of formal and informal settings, including schools in England. Although tagged united-states, I have answered according to the LawSE Help Centre: we expect and encourage answers dealing with other jurisdictions ... please tag your answer using the tag markdown: [tag: some-tag]

Does any state legislature explicitly prohibit the use of playing cards in school?

One of the peculiarities of Texas is that it's normal for people to drive 5-10 MPH over the speed limit while on the interstate. Provided they're not doing a speed trap, the police generally don't care. Another of Texas's peculiarities is that most drivers don't respect reduced speed limits for construction zones unless there's a speed trap or it's dangerous to go normal speeds. As a result, if you drive the speed limit, you can conceivably end up driving 15 mph slower than everybody else in construction zones. This is unsafe for you and everybody else on the surrounding road. Say that you're going the speed limit, and someone hits you because you're going 15 mph slower than the prevailing traffic conditions. Are you liable? You're following the speed limit, but by doing so you made yourself a danger to those around you.

The situation in Texas is complicated. Driving faster than the posted maximum speed limit is not in and of itself a crime; rather, per Texas Transportation Code 545.352(a), it is prima facie evidence that the speed is a violation of 545.351(a): An operator may not drive at a speed greater than is reasonable and prudent under the circumstances then existing. It is theoretically possible to defeat a speeding ticket by demonstrating that the speed was, in fact, reasonable and prudent. Texas also has a law regarding minimum speed, 545.363(a): An operator may not drive so slowly as to impede the normal and reasonable movement of traffic, except when reduced speed is necessary for safe operation or in compliance with law. Since the speed limit is not a hard limit, the compliance with law clause does not protect you. If you get rear-ended while driving slower than the flow of traffic, your best defense is probably 545.351(b)(2): An operator...shall control the speed of the vehicle as necessary to avoid colliding with another person or vehicle that is on or entering the highway in compliance with law and the duty of each person to use due care. The question in court becomes your claim that driving slowly constituted due care versus the other driver's claim that their speed was reasonable and prudent. It's likely that you'll win, but it's not the slam-dunk case that it would be in a state where posted speed limits were hard restrictions.

Theoretical vs. Actual Speed Limit

I visited Cologne last year. I was taking a selfie with my phone's inner camera in front of a monument. I was unaware that my phone's outer camera was facing police officers conducting checks. One of them noticed it and approached me. He saw the picture of me with the monument instead of them, apologized for his misunderstanding then went back to work. Is it an offense to photograph the police in Germany? I searched multiple websites but people gave very different answers and opinions, even on the same forum. I've never been charged for such offense anywhere in the EU but Germany is well known for its strict privacy laws and I do not wish to break any laws. If it is indeed illegal and I get fined for it, will my past record add extra burden every time I visit Germany such as extra checks or questioning? Or is it something I can brush off since I live in Schengen anyway?

No, but... It is not an offense to photograph people, especially if they are just caught at the edge or out of the center of the photography. However you do not have a right to photograph people either. In fact, under German law, you have to gain the consent of people that are the centerpiece of a photo for publication, or make the photo for a number of enumerated reasons. Among such is news reporting or documenting an ongoing crime - such material is made in the public interest. If you make a photo without consent or qualified reason, possession of the photo in general is no problem but you have no right to publish the photo. To prevent such publication, the photographed person may demand deletion or destruction of the photo - however, following the demand is not explicitly required. Such a demand however is equivalent to an explicit demand to not publish the picture. As such, it gets really tricky for the photographer. Publication without a release (or a no-release statement) or one of the few excusing reasons is a punishable offense, which can land you in prison for up to one year. This stems from Art. 2 GG, §22, §23 and §33 Kunsturhebergesetz. Hindering rescue services with your camera and creating photos of injured and vulnerable people is illegal under the same reasoning. Getting into the way of the police can constitute obstruction of emergency helpers atop of that. More on that specific part of German law can be learned in this question. Do note that such photography can also be a crime under §201a StGB, especially if your photography shows someone as vulnerable. Another possibility for the approaching police might have been, that the policeman was interested to find out if you might have photographed or filmed the incident that led to the arrest. In that case, he might have requested a copy for evidentiary reasons.

Is it illegal to take pictures of the police in public in Germany?

Jurisdiction: India Legislation: Central Motor Vehicles Act Sub-jurisdiction: Maharashtra Legislation: Mumbai Motor Vehicles Act Speed limits in India are according to the referenced article below. In many nations, there is actually a grace of +5km/hr, or similar value so that any inadvertent gain (e.g. slope of carriageway, downwind) does not result in a fine. Is there any similar grace/speed tolerance in India? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_India

What, if any, is the tolerance built into speed limits in India? None in statute (that I can find), but the police may have an informal policy1 to allow for other factors like inaccuracies in one's speedometer and misreading the needle due to parallax. 1The one I am aware of is 10% +2 where, say, anyone going over 35mph on a 30mph road gets a ticket etc

What, if any, is the tolerance built into speed limits in India?

I have a motorcycle in France that is insured. For clarification, I do ride on road and not on a circuit. Doing some maintenance, I changed the air filter to a racing one that says to increase air flow (and therefore performances). In the description of the filter is written Competition use on closed circuit only. and the filter has a different color to clearly indicate it's a racing one. For precision, there is a similar air filter said to be for performance that does not contain the Competition use on closed circuit only. line in the description nor the special color and with smaller indicated air flow. In case of an accident (responsible or not), can my all-risks insurance not apply because of this ?

Racing parts generally lack EWG certification and thus roadworthiness certificates A part needs to have an EWG registration number matching to the type of vehicle to be allowed to be used on a street-legal motorcycle. If a part has non street-legal parts, its whole registration usually is void. Driving a vehicle without a valid registration is illegal and generally not insured. Please check the regulator or the general information of insurance companies about what replacement parts have to comply with. Your insurance agency usually can help you too.

In France, can the insurance not apply if my motorcycle has racing parts?

ABC News reports: Trump on Friday afternoon had posted a message to his social media platform, Truth Social, saying, IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I'M COMING AFTER YOU! I am curious as to how the legal community will process the tweet. I'd like to understand if there is a bright line so as to determine if it has been crossed.

The only bright line regards the First Amendment. 18 USC 1512 articulates a line that is not to be crossed, but it is not clear where the line is as regards speech (subsection (a)(1) sets forth a bright line, viz kills or attempts to kill, irrelevant to the present question). Otherwise, the remaining categories fall into three subtypes: (b) Whoever knowingly uses intimidation, threatens, or corruptly persuades another person, or attempts to do so, or engages in misleading conduct toward another person, with intent to.. (c) Whoever corruptly— (d) Whoever intentionally harasses another person and thereby hinders, delays, prevents, or dissuades any person from— These laws address communications addressed to witnesses, w.r.t. testimony. Case law e.g. US v. DiSalvo, US v. Murray all indicates that the forbidden threat must be addressed to an individual who might be a witness, whereas the above statement is not addressed, it is merely uttered (there is no clearly-intended recipient of the utterance). Similarly, 18 USC 1503 forbids corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication, endeavor[ing] to influence, intimidate, or impede a judicial officer, but this requires there to be a threat made to a specific judicial officer.

Is there a bright line for witness, prosecutor & judge intimidation?

Generally speaking can one count on the words coming out of a British police officer in uniforms mouth as truthful? Under what circumstances is it permitted not to be? Is there any special circumstances or authorizations that are required for them to be permitted to lie? If so, what are these?

It seems to not be allowed for a UK police to lie. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 makes it illegal for the police to mislead a suspect in order to make them believe that the police have evidence which they do not or that the evidence they have is stronger than it is, or that there is a possibility of leniency (for example in return for ‘cooperation') where none exists. Realistically, there is no reason that a police officer might lie to a suspect during interview. Also see from innocenceproject.org: The law does not allow lying to suspects, under any circumstances.

Is it generally legally allowed for UK police to lie to people in the regular course of discharging their policing duties?

If the record of a UK civil hearing identifies a party as being in person, does that mean that the defendant was physically present or that the court had not been informed that the defendant had professional representation? There are actually three hearings involved. In (1), a court ruled in favour of the plaintiff in default, I believe the defendant did not attend. In (2), the ruling was vacated due to an administrative irregularity without either party's direct involvement. In (3), the plaintiff's application for the vacation to be vacated (I'm sure there's a better way of putting that...) was rejected, but despite this being primarily between the plaintiff and the court the defendant was identified as in person. I've had a fairly detailed explanation of what happened from the plaintiff, but I'm trying to work out what the defendant's position regarding the third hearing was.

I don't think the record keeping of the lower courts that grant the majority of default judgments is consistent enough to confidently say what in person means, especially without a copy of the document to read in its full context. However, it probably means that the defendant physically attended the courtroom and was not represented by a lawyer. Arguably a defendant who does not attend could still be considered an in person (unrepresented) litigant, but I would expect the court to describe this situation with a more explicit term like no appearance. Your question also appears to indicate that the defendant was not described as in person when default judgment was entered. This typically occurs in the defendant's absence, so the addition of the words in person to the record of the later hearing suggests that they did attend the later hearing.

In person in UK practice

In relation to real property, what is a strata lot?

A strata lot is a unit of real property resulting from the division of property into lots as per a strata plan under the Strata Property Act. This division may be stratified in that it can describe horizontal divisions of the property by reference to floors and/or ceilings of a building. This is a niche terminology only used in a few jurisdictions, like Australia, British Columbia, and Alberta. The owners of the strata lots make up a strata corporation with responsibility for the care and management of the common property, common facilities, and corporation assets. Many strata structures are like what are known as condominiums elsewhere (and even informally within B.C.), but stratas encompass more than just typical condominiums. A strata plan can be duplexes, townhouses, fractional vacation properties—even single family homes in bare land strata corporations.

What is a strata lot?

§7 (1) of the current german KWK-G (Law concerning co-generation plants) makes a huge difference for power fed into the grid, or not. Say an installation consumes 150-200 kW contiually, and operates a 100kW el CHP - so there's never any net backfeed into the net. This describes a typical sewage gas CHP at a wastewater plant. Is this cogeneration plant feeding into the net according to §7 (1)? The relevant wording is Der Zuschlag für KWK-Strom, der in ein Netz der allgemeinen Versorgung eingespeist wird, beträgt: ...

(1) Der Zuschlag für KWK-Strom, der in ein Netz der allgemeinen Versorgung eingespeist wird und auf den die §§ 61e bis 61g und 104 Absatz 4 des Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetzes in der am 31. Dezember 2022 geltenden Fassung nicht anzuwenden sind, beträgt... The german is - unlike Ohwilleke complains with the english translation - quite clear: Electric energy to qualify under this paragraph needs to: [be produced] by implication get put into a network for public consumption [in ein Netz der allgemeinen Versorgung eingespeist] needs to not be regulated under §§ 61e to 61g or 104 (4) EEG (law partaining renewable energy) §61 was repealed and removed in the 2023 version, a §104 does no longer exist either. Old versions of §61 EEG and §104 EEG are archived. The various §61a to g regulated which type of producer got which percentage and §104 regulated who gets money for produced energy. Among those regulations, which make the meaning of §7(1) KWKG very clear is §61e EEG (2022) (1) Der Anspruch nach § 61 Absatz 1 verringert sich auf null Prozent der EEG-Umlage für Strom aus Bestandsanlagen, wenn der Letztverbraucher die Stromerzeugungsanlage als Eigenerzeuger betreibt, (1) The entitlement pursuant to Section 61 subsection 1 is reduced to zero percent of the EEG surcharge for electricity from existing systems, if the end consumer operates the power generation system as a self-producer, Under the old law, you need to actually produce more than your own requirement to be entitled to a payout, as producing less was meaning you are only an Eigenerzeuger. Even under the new requirement, Einspeisung is a standing term in Germany: It is only Einspeisung if the electrical energy is actually put into the public energy network (Zufuhr von Strom in das öffentliche Versorgungsnetz).

When does a cogeneration plant feed power to the net, according to the german KWK-G 2015?

Within the boundaries of the United States there were at various times organized incorporated territories, that were not a part of any of the states and whose governments were organized by acts of Congress rather than by a state constitution drafted by statesmen within the state and enacted by the voters of the state, and that, unlike the states, had no voting representatives or senators in Congress. (Somewhat like the three territories of northern Canada today, I think?) Is the District of Columbia simply an instance of that phenomenon, or is there some essential difference?

Art. I Sec. 8 Cl. 17 states that The Congress shall have Power To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings which then happened in 1 Stat. 130 (1790). It is there referred to as a district of territory but more often simply as a district. Unlike territories, its existence for its actual purpose as seat of government is specifically enabled by the Constitution. Then via 2 Stat 103 (1801), DC was politically brought within the control of Congress, so that residents were no longer residents of Maryland or Virginia. In this act it is consistently termed a district.

Is the District of Columbia a territory?

The townhome is in Port Coquitlam, BC, Canada and the strata by-law states Secondary suites within Strata Lots are prohibited. Should any Owner of a Strata Lot be found to have constructed a secondary suite within his or her or any other Strata Lot located in the Strata Plan, the Strata Council shall be entitled to take any one or more of the following actions: (a) take all necessary steps to remove the secondary suite; (b) notwithstanding section 25 (1) of these Bylaws, levy a fine not to exceed $50.00 per day for each day the Owner is in contravention, such fine to be added to and form part of the month's assessment or levy to be collected by the Strata Council from the Owner of the Strata Lot and the Strata Council are hereby authorized to take all necessary steps to collect such amounts from any Owner; (c) evict the tenant in accordance with section 138 of the Strata Property Act; (d) seek a declaration from any Court of competent jurisdiction with regard to the enforcement with limitation and/or an injunction to prevent the continuation of the secondary suite within a Strata Lot; and upon receiving such declaration or injunction, costs shall be the responsibility of the Strata Lot Owner contravening the provisions of the Bylaw and shall be recoverable on a solicitor and own client basis by the Strata Corporation; and (e) should any portion of Bylaw 2 (2) be deemed unenforceable by any competent jurisdiction, then for purposes of interpretation and enforcement of the Bylaw, each sub-paragraph hereof shall be deemed a separate provision and severable, and the balance of the provisions contained herein shall remain in full force and effect. The unit already has a living room, bedroom, bathroom and Laundry which are legal and approved by the strata. If we were to rent it out, we are considering adding a kitchenette ie a Refrigerator, Small Induction top stove/Rice cooker/Electric Hot pot/Coffee maker and microwave i.e. Regular kitchen appliances other than a full size gas. Will this be flouting the by-law? Would adding the above setup for a small kitchenette make it a secondary suite? Could that be problematic in any way? **Strata does not define any rental restrictions in BC by the law. They have just the secondary suite restriction.

You will need look up the definition of a secondary suite and include that in your question for a better answer. Where I live this is called an ADU, for Auxiliary Dwelling Unit. The definition of an ADU specifies permanent facilities for sleeping, sanitation, and food preparation. Since you can add bedrooms and bathrooms to any house without creating an ADU, it really hinges on permanant facilities for food preparation. In other words, a kitchen. Since you could have a coffee pot or microwave in your master bedroom and it wouldn't be a kitchen, it is generally considered that small countertop appliances don't count. Since many people have an extra full sized refrigerator or freezer in their garage without it being a kitchen, it is reasonable that doesn't count either. Same thing with a sink in the utility room... So where does the line lay with a kitchenette? That will depend on the exact wording of the bylaws for your locality, as well as how whoever enforces these things interprets it. Could it be a problem? Perhaps... if you advertise it for rent with a kitchen and the local authority takes notice. FMI, what is a Strata lot?

Strata bylaw about secondary suite in Lower mainland area

The federal government has the power of administrative wage garnishment. This allows it to complete a levy by filling a form rather than filing a collection lawsuit and using courts. It is still an administrative procedure, there is still a form to issue. The California Franchise Tax Board bypasses this entirely. It is mechanistically able to levy my chase bank account for $3000 just by calling chase and never even mailing a physical judgement. Under procedural behavior, California has more power to levy bank accounts than the federal government does, it doesn't even need an administrative process to do it. This is probably unconstitutional as California can get levies out faster than the federal government and win the race to get funds first. Does this violate the Supremacy Clause?

Your premise that California's tax collection powers are greater than federal tax collection powers is basically wrong. Both California and the federal government carry out most of their due process functions within their respective tax collection agencies in an administrative process rather than in the courts. In the federal system, the courts are usually resorted to only when that taxpayer pays the taxes due and then seeks a refund, or when their is an appeal from the final layer of the IRS administrative law system which is the Article I court known as Tax Court (in which I have litigated more than once). The Supremacy Clause is only violated when a state law violates or contradicts a federal law, which is not what happens in this case. The federal government can and has set up a system for determining whether the federal or state tax collection rights have priority in the same asset, which mostly flows from the timing of the recording of a tax lien by the relevant bodies.

California being more powerful than the federal government

In the interest of cross vendor compatibility, the method by which different technologies interoperate is often standardized. This means that a non binding agreement is made between multiple parties to abide by rules set forth in a documented standard. Examples of this include The USB Device Working Group, Jedec, The C++ Standards Committee, and PCI-SIG. While presumably in the public's interest, these groups appear to be a fragrant violation of antitrust laws. Do they require a special license to operate? If so, what would such a license look like and what agency would issue it?

Standards-setting by industry groups is not inherently anti-competitive and these groups do not require a licence from the government to operate. They are a prototypical example of private ordering (see David J. Teece & Edward F. Sherry, Standards Setting and Antitrust (2003) 87 Minn. L.R. 1913, p. 1987). What can be anti-competitive is when a corporation advocates for an element to be included in a standard for reasons other than technical considerations. See e.g. the International Standards Organization's Competition Law Guidelines. An example violation is the behaviour of Rambus, Inc.: According to the FTC complaint, Rambus nonetheless participated in JEDEC's DRAM standard-setting activities for more than four years without disclosing to JEDEC or its members that it was actively working to develop, and possessed, a patent and several pending patent applications that involved specific technologies ultimately adopted in the standards. ... In its liability opinion dated July 31, 2006, the Commission found that, “Rambus engaged in exclusionary conduct that significantly contributed to its acquisition of monopoly power in four related markets.” In another example, Dell Computer Corporation was alleged to have voted to approve the VL-bus standard and certified that the standard did not infringe its intellectual property. After the standard became very successful, Dell asserted an earlier-issued patent against several computer manufacturers using the standard. The FTC entered a consent agreement with Dell: prohibiting Dell from enforcing its patent against those who wanted to use the VL-bus standard. The FTC's order also prohibited Dell from enforcing patent rights in the future when it intentionally failed to disclose those rights upon request of a standards-setting organization.

Are Technological Standards bodies required to be approved by the government?

I graduated from some private high school a long time ago. During my years there, I have experienced and witnessed a variety of dubious practices that violate students' rights. I always wanted to leave but never had the necessary resources nor support to execute my plan. Due to this I never associate myself with my school, not even in my resumés. Recently I received an honorable mention in an invention competition. I was so proud of myself until I searched the name of the competition on Google. On page 1 a familiar name popped up. It was my school's name. When I clicked on it, I saw my name in a school blog post. John Doe's remarkable feat in Blah Blah Invention Competition John Doe, Class of 2000 has won an honorable mention in ... I was so surprised that they heard the news in the first place, considering the fact that I cut off all contact with the school admin and peers after I became an adult. I didn't want my name on that page, especially given the fact that some alumni have started to come out about what they suffered in school in recent years. Can I prevent them from using the fact that I graduated their school on their website by citing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act(FERPA) or others? Or is this fair game per first amendment grounds and am I out of luck?

The privacy rule is spelled out here. Subpart D addresses disclosure of personally identifiable information from education records, saying when consent is required vs. not required (there being 16 conditions under which consent is not required). Mostly this refers to required by law exceptions, or for school-internal use, but also includes directory information. Information may be disclosed if the student (as an adult) or a parent (of a minor) has consented to disclosure. Under the legal definition of record, that simply means tangible information (not conversations). An education record is one that is directly related to a student; and maintained by an educational agency or institution or by a party acting for the agency or institution, possibly including the information that you cite – providing that the information is maintained and disclosed by the school. In addition, though, certain information can be freely disclosed, namely directory information which is: Directory information includes, but is not limited to, the student's name; address; telephone listing; electronic mail address; photograph; date and place of birth; major field of study; grade level; enrollment status (e.g., undergraduate or graduate, full-time or part-time); dates of attendance; participation in officially recognized activities and sports; weight and height of members of athletic teams; degrees, honors, and awards received; and the most recent educational agency or institution attended. The regulation explains that this is information that would not generally be considered harmful or an invasion of privacy if disclosed. Privacy standards have changed since the law was passed – but it is allowed by the existing law.

Can privacy regulations prevent my alma mater from sharing the fact that I graduated there?

Under the town and country planning act, flags have three possible designations. What is the designation of the Ukrainian flag, and what has been its most recent changes of status?

The flag of Ukraine is a Class H advertisement under Schedule 1 of the The Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007, secondary to the Town and Country Planning Act. Schedule 1 of the regulation lists under Class H Any country's national flag and it has included this since its inception in 2007.

What legal designation status does the Ukrainian flag possess, and what recent changes has it had to its status?

Where does it say that polygraph tests (lie detector tests) are inadmissible under law in England and Wales? I am mostly interested in their usage being disallowed for criminal (both Magistrates' Court and Crown Court) and civil matters. However, if they were allowed elsewhere, such as for employment tribunals, that would be useful knowledge.

canada See R. v. Béland, [1987] 2 S.C.R. 398: It is therefore my opinion that evidence of the results of a polygraph examination would clearly offend the rule against the admission of past or out‑of‑court statements by a witness. All of the considerations upon which the rule is based are as applicable to polygraph evidence as to other statements. The repetition of statements by another witness adds nothing to their weight and reliability. The ultimate decision as to the truth or falsity of the evidence of a witness must rest upon the exercise of the judgment of the trier of fact. This is as true of evidence of polygraph tests as of any other evidence. In the last analysis, the trier of fact must reach its conclusion on the basis of the evidence given by a human being in court. The evidence of the polygraph operator if heard by the trier of fact adds nothing to the earlier statement of the witness which is sought to be supported. ... It was also argued that the polygraph evidence was receivable as expert evidence. The polygraph operator, as an expert, was trained and qualified to give his opinion as to the veracity of the witness, based solely on his interpretation of the significance of the responses made by the witness to the questions put on the examination. ... Here, the sole issue upon which the polygraph evidence is adduced is the credibility of the accused, an issue well within the experience of judges and juries and one in which no expert evidence is required. It is a basic tenet of our legal system that judges and juries are capable of assessing credibility and reliability of evidence. Another answer says: The real problem with polygrapher's opinions however (like policeman's opinions), is that they simply aren't reliable enough. But lack of reliability was not part of the Supreme Court's legal reasoning for rejecting the use of polygraph evidence in court.

Which law rules polygraphs inadmissible in UK?

Tam lost his wireless airpods in the campus. He advertised online and near the campus, a reward of $50 to who returns the lost earphones. Sania found them and went to return it. But next day she saw the advertisement and claim the reward. Advise Tam.

Sania is entitled to a reward of 7,50€. germany In Germany, to reward honest finders, the finder of an item is entitled to 5% of a lost item's value of up to 500€ under § 971 BGB. Airpods cost about 150 €, so Sania is entitled to a Fider's reward of 7,50 €. Anything more would be at the discretion of Tam, accepting less is at Sania's discretion. Do note, that denial of the finder's reward at the moment that Sania hands over the item means, that they also deny their entitlement to the reward. In fact, it is upon Sania to demand the reward, and unless they do so, it is presumed that they do not want a finder's reward. However in making her entitlement to the reward known, Sania may not cross the line into coercion or blackmail (§§ 240, 253 StGB). Should Sania say, without explanation I demand a payment of 100 € for the airpods, that could be coercion, as she is not entitled to that. If she however says I am entitled to finder's reward of 7,50 €, and had expenses of 2.50 € to get the phone to you, therefore you owe me 10 € the picture is different - that is exactly the amount that the law says she would be owed. This is because atop the actual reward Sania can reclaim reasonable fees, such as the bus fare to get the phone to Tam under § 970 BGB. Under § 972 BGB, Sania does not have to relinquish the item till the reward and expenses have been paid but also does not become the owner of the item. The Fundbüro To evade a possible claim for Unterschlagung von Fundsachen (~conversion by not reporting a found item), the Fundbüro (Found item's office) exists when the owner can't be made out rapidly. Not only does it calculate the required finder's reward, but also handing it over to the office fulfills the requirement to report a found item that is worth more than 10 € under § 965 BGB. It is customary to store the lost items at the Fundbüro, but that is not required. To gain the item from the Fundbüro, Tam will have to pay any required handling fees to the office but also gets notice of how much he should pay to Sania as well as her contact details. Sania will get contact details of Tam in return, together with a notice that she has a claim to a reward of such value. Should Sania not have given her details, it is presumed that she did not want the finder's reward. If Sania retained the item, the Fundbüro will inform Tam of the estimated finder's reward and contact details for Sania, so Tam can reclaim the item.

whether entitled to reward or not

I am 100% aware of what a no confidence motion is. This is emphatically not what I am referring to. Impeachment is an unambiguous right of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to have, having been used for centuries even though nobody has been convicted in the last 200, starting in the Good Parliament of 1376 with the impeachment of Baron Latimer. The Commons can impeach and the Lords can convict anyone except the King of anything which is illegal under the laws. The King can pardon fines and imprisonment but cannot pardon the bar from office if the Lords applies such a thing as per the 1701 Act of Settlement. Nobody has ever been impeached before in Canada. Canada clearly has words in the Constitution to make its own similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and impeachment was attempted only 19 years before confederation in 1848. The accused survived a Commons vote, but nobody doubted the legal authority of the Commons was still valid. Assume that the speaker either goes along with it, or else is sacked by the Commons and a pro impeachment speaker put in their place, or the Commons resolves to amend the rules letting them bypass a speaker who is an opponent of impeachment. Then what?

Section 18 of the Constitution Act 1867 states: The privileges, immunities, and powers to be held, enjoyed, and exercised by the Senate and by the House of Commons, and by the members thereof respectively, shall be such as are from time to time defined by Act of the Parliament of Canada, but so that any Act of the Parliament of Canada defining such privileges, immunities, and powers shall not confer any privileges, immunities, or powers exceeding those at the passing of such Act held, enjoyed, and exercised by the Commons House of Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and by the members thereof. Note that the Parliament of Canada is responsible for defining the privileges of its houses, and there is no default fallback. The Parliament of Canada Act 1985 define the privileges in section 4 as The Senate and the House of Commons, respectively, and the members thereof hold, enjoy and exercise: (a) such and the like privileges, immunities and powers as, at the time of the passing of the Constitution Act, 1867, were held, enjoyed and exercised by the Commons House of Parliament of the United Kingdom and by the members thereof, in so far as is consistent with that Act; and (b) such privileges, immunities and powers as are defined by Act of the Parliament of Canada, not exceeding those, at the time of the passing of the Act, held, enjoyed and exercised by the Commons House of Parliament of the United Kingdom and by the members thereof. So in theory, the Canadian House of Commons could impeach someone right now, as an inherited power from the UK HoC, but if this was tried the Commons could fall foul of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the Senate would be under pressure not to try the individual impreached.

If for some reason the Canadian Parliament had the idea to impeach and convict someone, what would be the legal implications of that?

My high school life was subpar at the very least. I was constantly bullied and never received the necessary protection from school staff. This coupled with dwindling grades created a negative feedback loop. My health was degrading both mentally and physically so I consulted the school counselor. She was unwilling to provide any help let alone documents needed for a transfer. My custodial parent wasn't any more supportive either, so I gave up on the idea and kept going to school, barely meeting the requirements for graduation. It's been almost two decades since I graduated and left NYC, but bad memories still haunt me to this day. From time to time I wonder whether I might have been able to switch schools without the school's nor my custodial parent's consent, had I known better. Can students struggling like me submit transfer applications on their own to move to another school unsponsored? Does the availability of such choices vary by state?

The primary question is whether the target school can/must accept you. A private school is not compelled to accept you, a public school might be. Because of the law compelling you (as a minor) to go to school, some public school will have to accept you as a student. However, as a minor, your preference is low on the list of legal priorities. The primary controlling factor is the school district where you live, and their policy. They may demand that you attend the school in the area where you live, or it can be an urging of various strengths. It is conceivable that you can attend school in an entirely different district (we have some cross-district migration possibilities, but that is rare). If district policy allows for a student to go to a school outside their home zone, then the question of discretion comes up: it is highly unlikely that a district would allow a problem student to impose himself on a foreign school, so the school intended to receive the student probably has some say in the matter. Parental consent will be essential, so if the parent(s) oppose moving the student, the district is unlikely to allow the transfer. The student might also be consulted. In other words, no, student desire alone will not enable the student to transfer schools. The school that you are assigned to by default has even less direct say in the matter, but indirectly it could influence the recipient school's willingness to allow the transfer. For NYC, here is a preliminary page regarding transfers. Safety and accessibility concerns are easy, also moving within the city etc. but academic and social concerns are a possibility, one to be determined on a case by case basis.

Can students transfer to a new high school purely on their will?

On the 10th of July the EU Commission adopted a new adequacy decision, as a successor to the failed Safe Harbour and Privacy Shield agreements, to allow data transfers from the EU to the USA. The two areas this covers are legal redress if data is wrongly handled, and the question if the surveillance laws that allow the US government to collect data are necessary and proportionate. As a citizen of a EU member state I am happy that these questions are addressed. What I do wonder is if we (as in we, the EU) ask more from others than we are prepared to deliver ourselves, because of course every EU member state has their own surveillance laws and agencies, and constitutional protections only apply to their own nationals, and the GDPR applies only to EU residents. It does not seem like we offer any protection e.g. to the data of US nationals that is processed in the EU (I might be wrong here, but such laws are certainly not broadly discussed if they exist). I am also not sure if national laws are always particularly proportional - e.g. in my native Germany, the Bundesnachrichtendienst has a right by law to listen in to telecommunication world wide; while it says that complete surveillance is unlawful, the constraint is that they have to restrict themselves to not tap into more than 30% of global telecommunication networks at the same time. If your constraint exceeds your actual capabilities, then for practical purposes you do not have a constraint at all. So, would surveillance in the EU pass muster under the GDPR, or does the EU ask for protections for its citizens that it is not willing to grant to foreigners? I am not asking for a line-by-line discussion of specific laws, that would be impractical, but I am curious if if this has been discussed as a part of the process that resulted in the GDPR or the adequacy decisions, and if so, if the discussion had any influence on the proceedings.

These are only tangentially related to the GDPR A government entity processing data in accordance with a member state law is ipso facto in compliance with the GDPR. That's because lawful government data processing is a legitimate reason for processing data under the GDPR. If Germany, for example, passes a law saying German police can record every phone call in Germany, then that would be a lawful basis for processing under the GDPR. There may be constitutional or other legal limitations on such a law but as far as the GDPR is concerned, they're fine.

Are surveillance laws in EU member states necessary and proportionate?