In law, a proximate cause is an event sufficiently related to an injury that the courts deem the event to be the cause of that injury. There are two types of causation in the law: cause-in-fact, and proximate (or legal) cause. Cause-in-fact is determined by the "but for" test: But for the action, the result would not have happened. (For example, but for running the red light, the collision would not have occurred.) The action is a necessary condition, but may not be a sufficient condition, for t...
Sep 08, 2020•13 min•Season 1Ep. 17
Overview. As of 2017, at least 130 UNESCO member states retained criminal defamation laws. In 2017, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Office of the Representative on Freedom of the Media issued a report on criminal defamation and anti-blasphemy laws among its member states, which found that defamation is criminalized in nearly three-quarters (42) of the 57 OSCE participating states. Many of the laws pertaining to defamation include specific provisions for harsher pun...
Sep 07, 2020•23 min•Season 3Ep. 16
Defamation (sometimes known as calumny, vilification, libel, slander or traducement) is the oral or written communication of a false statement about another that unjustly harms their reputation and usually constitutes a tort or crime. In several countries, including South Korea, a true statement can also be considered defamation. Under common law, to constitute defamation, a claim must generally be false and must have been made to someone other than the person defamed. Some common law jurisdicti...
Sep 07, 2020•22 min•Season 3Ep. 16
Pro bono publico (English: "for the public good"; usually shortened to pro bono) is a Latin phrase for professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment. Unlike traditional volunteering, it uses the specific skills of professionals to provide services to those who are unable to afford them. Pro bono publico is also used in the United Kingdom to describe the central motivation of large organizations, such as the National Health Service and various NGOs which exist "for the public good"...
Sep 05, 2020•8 min•Season 4Ep. 11
Offer and acceptance analysis is a traditional approach in contract law. The offer and acceptance formula, developed in the 19th century, identifies a moment of formation when the parties are of one mind. This classical approach to contract formation has been modified by developments in the law of estoppel, misleading conduct, misrepresentation, unjust enrichment, and power of acceptance. Treitel defines an offer as "an expression of willingness to contract on certain terms, made with the intent...
Sep 04, 2020•17 min•Season 6Ep. 4
Property law is the area of law that governs the various forms of ownership in real property (land) and personal property. Property refers to legally protected claims to resources, such as land and personal property, including intellectual property. Property can be exchanged through contract law, and if property is violated, one could sue under tort law to protect it. The concept, idea or philosophy of property underlies all property law. In some jurisdictions, historically all property was owne...
Sep 03, 2020•16 min•Season 5Ep. 1
Trade dress is the characteristics of the visual appearance of a product or its packaging (or even the design of a building) that signify the source of the product to consumers. Trade dress is a form of intellectual property. United States. Trade dress protection is intended to protect consumers from packaging or appearance of products that are designed to imitate other products; to prevent a consumer from buying one product under the belief that it is another. For example, the shape, color, and...
Sep 02, 2020•16 min•Season 3Ep. 15
In tort law, the standard of care is the only degree of prudence and caution required of an individual who is under a duty of care. The requirements of the standard are closely dependent on circumstances. Whether the standard of care has been breached is determined by the trier of fact, and is usually phrased in terms of the reasonable person. It was famously described in Vaughn v Menlove (1837) as whether the individual "proceed with such reasonable caution as a prudent man would have exercised...
Sep 01, 2020•13 min•Season 1Ep. 16
In tort law, a duty of care is a legal obligation which is imposed on an individual requiring adherence to a standard of reasonable care while performing any acts that could foreseeably harm others. It is the first element that must be established to proceed with an action in negligence. The claimant must be able to show a duty of care imposed by law which the defendant has breached. In turn, breaching a duty may subject an individual to liability. The duty of care may be imposed by operation of...
Sep 01, 2020•17 min•Season 1Ep. 15
In criminal law, criminal negligence is a surrogate mens rea (Latin for "guilty mind") required to constitute a conventional as opposed to strict liability offense. It is not, strictly speaking, a mens rea because it refers to an objective standard of behavior expected of the defendant and does not refer to their mental state. Concept. To constitute a crime, there must be an actus reus (Latin for "guilty act") accompanied by the mens rea. Negligence shows the least level of culpability, intentio...
Aug 31, 2020•9 min•Season 3Ep. 15
Res judicata (RJ), also known as claim preclusion, is the Latin term for "a matter decided" and refers to either of two concepts in both civil law and common law legal systems: a case in which there has been a final judgment and is no longer subject to appeal; and the legal doctrine meant to bar (or preclude) relitigation of a claim between the same parties. In the case of res judicata, the matter cannot be raised again, either in the same court or in a different court. A court will use res judi...
Aug 28, 2020•11 min•Season 4Ep. 10
International protection of related rights. Apart from the Rome convention, a number of other treaties address the protection of related rights: Convention for the Protection of Producers of Phonograms Against Unauthorized Duplication of Their Phonograms (Geneva Phonograms Convention, 1971). Convention Relating to the Distribution of Program–Carrying Signals Transmitted by Satellite (Brussels Convention, 1974). Treaty on Intellectual Property in Respect of Integrated Circuits (IPIC Treaty, 1989)...
Aug 27, 2020•14 min•Season 3Ep. 14
In copyright law, related rights (or neighboring rights) are the rights of a creative work not connected with the work's actual author. It is used in opposition to the term "authors' rights". Neighboring rights is a more literal translation of the original French droits voisins. Both authors' rights and related rights are copyrights in the sense of English or U.S. law. Related rights vary much more widely in scope between different countries than authors' rights. The rights of performers, phonog...
Aug 26, 2020•13 min•Season 3Ep. 13
Battery is a criminal offense involving unlawful physical contact, distinct from assault which is the act of creating apprehension of such contact. Battery is a specific common law misdemeanor, although the term is used more generally to refer to any unlawful offensive physical contact with another person, and may be a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on the circumshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offence_(law)tances. Battery was defined at common law as "any unlawful and or unwanted touching of ...
Aug 25, 2020•10 min•Season 1Ep. 14
Moral rights are rights of creators of copyrighted works generally recognized in civil law jurisdictions and, to a lesser extent, in some common law jurisdictions. Moral rights apply only to literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works, and also to films (where the director enjoys moral rights). The most important exceptions to be aware of are computer programs and employees. In most situations employees do not enjoy moral rights. The moral rights include the right of attribution, the right to...
Aug 22, 2020•13 min•Season 3Ep. 12
Application and prosecution. A patent is requested by filing a written application at the relevant patent office. The person or company filing the application is referred to as "the applicant". The applicant may be the inventor or its assignee. The application contains a description of how to make and use the invention that must provide sufficient detail for a person skilled in the art (for example, the relevant area of technology) to make and use the invention. In some countries there are requi...
Aug 21, 2020•16 min•Season 3Ep. 11
A patent is a form of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of years in exchange for publishing an enabling public disclosure of the invention. In most countries, patent rights fall under private law and the patent holder must sue someone infringing the patent in order to enforce his or her rights. In some industries patents are an essential form of competitive advantage; in others they are ir...
Aug 20, 2020•17 min•Season 3Ep. 10
Unratified amendments. Unratified amendments. Collectively, members of the House and Senate typically propose around 150 amendments during each two-year term of Congress. Most however, never get out of the Congressional committees in which they were proposed, and only a fraction of those that do receive enough support to win Congressional approval to actually go through the constitutional ratification process. Six amendments approved by Congress and proposed to the states for consideration have ...
Aug 19, 2020•25 min•Season 3Ep. 9
An assault is the act of inflicting physical harm or unwanted physical contact upon a person or, in some specific legal definitions, a threat or attempt to commit such an action. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in criminal prosecution, civil liability, or both. Generally, the common law definition is the same in criminal and tort law. Traditionally, common law legal systems had separate definitions for assault and battery. When this distinction is observed, battery refer...
Aug 18, 2020•32 min•Season 3Ep. 13
Gross negligence is the "lack of slight diligence or care" or "a conscious, voluntary act or omission in reckless disregard of a legal duty and of the consequences to another party." In some jurisdictions a person injured as a result of gross negligence may be able to recover punitive damages from the person who caused the injury or loss. Negligence is the opposite of diligence, or being careful. The standard of ordinary negligence is what conduct deviates from the proverbial "reasonable person"...
Aug 17, 2020•5 min•Season 1Ep. 14
Negligence (negligentia in Latin) is a failure to exercise appropriate and or ethical rules of care expected to be exercised amongst specified circumstances. The area of tort law known as negligence involves harm caused by failing to act as a form of carelessness possibly with extenuating circumstances. The core concept of negligence is that people should exercise reasonable care in their actions, by taking account of the potential harm that they might foreseeably cause to other people or proper...
Aug 17, 2020•23 min•Season 1Ep. 13
In re: Don McGahn (also: Committee on the Judiciary, United States House of Representatives v. Donald F. McGahn II; U.S. House Judiciary Committee v. Donald F. McGahn) is a U.S. constitutional case lawsuit (1:19-cv-02379) filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia by the House Judiciary Committee to compel the testimony of former White House Counsel Donald F. McGahn, Jr. under subpoena. McGahn was put under subpoena to testify regarding his knowledge of the Russia inv...
Aug 16, 2020•12 min•Season 4Ep. 9
Amending the Constitution. The procedure for amending the Constitution is outlined in Article Five. The process is overseen by the archivist of the United States. Between 1949 and 1985 it was overseen by the administrator of General Services, and before that by the secretary of state. Under Article Five, a proposal for an amendment must be adopted either by Congress or by a national convention, but as of 2020 all amendments have gone through Congress. The proposal must receive two-thirds of the ...
Aug 14, 2020•20 min•Season 4Ep. 8
Layout designs (topographies) of integrated circuits are a field in the protection of intellectual property. In United States intellectual property law, a "mask work" is a two or three-dimensional layout or topography of an integrated circuit (IC or "chip"), i.e. the arrangement on a chip of semiconductor devices such as transistors and passive electronic components such as resistors and interconnections. The layout is called a mask work because, in photolithographic processes, the multiple etch...
Aug 12, 2020•10 min•Season 3Ep. 9
In criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime at some time in the future. Criminal law in some countries or for some conspiracies may require that at least one overt act be undertaken in furtherance of that agreement, to constitute an offense. There is no limit on the number participating in the conspiracy and, in most countries, no requirement that any steps have been taken to put the plan into effect (compare attempts which require proximity to the...
Aug 12, 2020•21 min•Season 3Ep. 12
The defence of property is a common method of justification used by defendants who argue that they should not be held liable for any loss and injury that they have caused because they were acting to protect their property. Shopkeeper's privilege is a law recognized in some parts of the United States under which a shopkeeper is allowed to detain a suspected shoplifter on store property for a reasonable period of time, so long as the shopkeeper has cause to believe that the person detained in fact...
Aug 10, 2020•9 min•Season 1Ep. 12
In many countries, in order to obtain damages for breach of contract or to obtain specific performance or other equitable relief, the aggrieved injured party may file a civil (non-criminal) lawsuit in court. In England and Wales, a contract may be enforced by use of a claim, or in urgent cases by applying for an interim injunction to prevent a breach. Likewise, in the United States, an aggrieved party may apply for injunctive relief to prevent a threatened breach of contract, where such breach w...
Aug 10, 2020•19 min•Season 4Ep. 7
Attempted murder is a crime of attempt in various jurisdictions. Canada. Section 239 of the Criminal Code makes attempted murder punishable by a maximum of life imprisonment. If a gun is used, the minimum sentence is four, five or seven years, dependent on prior convictions and relation to organized crime. United Kingdom. England and Wales. In English criminal law, attempted murder is the crime of simultaneously preparing to commit an unlawful killing and having a specific intention to cause the...
Aug 07, 2020•6 min•Season 3Ep. 11
An attempt to commit a crime occurs if a criminal has an intent to commit a crime and takes a substantial step toward completing the crime, but for reasons not intended by the criminal, the final resulting crime does not occur. Attempt to commit a particular crime is a crime, usually considered to be of the same or lesser gravity as the particular crime attempted. Attempt is a type of inchoate crime, a crime that is not fully developed. The crime of attempt has two elements, intent, and some con...
Aug 07, 2020•14 min•Season 3Ep. 10
Contractual terms are classified differently depending upon the context or jurisdiction. Terms establish conditions precedent. English, but not necessarily non-English, common law distinguishes between important conditions and warranties, with a breach of a condition by one party allowing the other to repudiate and be discharged while a warranty allows for remedies and damages but not complete discharge. Whether or not a term is a condition is determined in part by the parties' intent. In a less...
Aug 06, 2020•18 min•Season 4Ep. 6
