In criminal law, kidnapping is the unlawful transportation, asportation and confinement of a person against their will. Thus, it is a composite crime. It can also be defined as false imprisonment by means of abduction, both of which are separate crimes that when committed simultaneously upon the same person merge as the single crime of kidnapping. The asportation/abduction element is typically but not necessarily conducted by means of force or fear. That is, the perpetrator may use a weapon to f...
Oct 12, 2020•19 min•Season 2Ep. 23
In jurisprudence, duress or coercion refers to a situation whereby a person performs an act as a result of violence, threat, or other pressure against the person. Black's Law Dictionary (6th ed.) defines duress as "any unlawful threat or coercion used... to induce another to act in a manner otherwise would not ". Duress is pressure exerted upon a person to coerce that person to perform an act they ordinarily would not perform. The notion of duress must be distinguished both from undue influence ...
Oct 09, 2020•16 min•Season 6Ep. 10
The discovery doctrine, also called doctrine of discovery, is a concept of public international law expounded by the United States Supreme Court in a series of decisions, most notably Johnson v M'Intosh in 1823. Chief Justice John Marshall explained and applied the way that colonial powers laid claim to lands belonging to foreign sovereign nations during the Age of Discovery. Under it, title to lands lay with the government whose subjects travelled to and occupied a territory whose inhabitants w...
Oct 08, 2020•14 min•Season 5Ep. 6
The public domain consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. As examples, the works of William Shakespeare, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Georges Méliès, are in the public domain either by virtue of their having been created before copyright existed, or by their copyright term having expired. Some works are not covered by copyright, and are therefore in the public...
Oct 07, 2020•21 min•Season 3Ep. 20
In the law of torts, malpractice, also known as professional negligence, is an "instance of negligence or incompetence on the part of a professional". Professionals who may become the subject of malpractice actions include: medical professionals: a medical malpractice claim may be brought against a doctor or other healthcare provider who fails to exercise the degree of care and skill that a similarly situated professional of the same medical specialty would provide under the circumstances. lawye...
Oct 06, 2020•12 min•Season 1Ep. 22
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. This state of mind may, depending upon the jurisdiction, distinguish murder from other forms of unlawful homicide, such as manslaughter. Manslaughter is killing committed in the absence of malice, brought about by reasonable provocation, or diminished capacity. Involuntary manslaughter, where it is recognized, is a killing that lacks al...
Oct 05, 2020•33 min•Season 3Ep. 22
The capacity of natural and juridical persons (legal persons), in general, determines whether they may make binding amendments to their rights, duties, and obligations, such as getting married or merging, entering into contracts, making gifts, or writing a valid will. Capacity is an aspect of status, and both are defined by a person's personal law: for natural persons, the law of domicile or lex domicilii in common law jurisdictions, and either the law of nationality or lex patriae, or of habitu...
Oct 02, 2020•15 min•Season 6Ep. 9
Hostile possession. The disseisor must have entered or used the land without permission from the true owner. The disseisor's motivations may be interpreted by the court in several ways, depending upon state law and precedent: Objective view – the land was used without true owner's permission and in a manner inconsistent with true owner's rights. Bad faith or intentional trespass view – the land was used with the adverse possessor's subjective intent to disregard or violate the actual property ow...
Oct 01, 2020•19 min•Season 5Ep. 5
Fair use in particular areas. Computer code. The Oracle America, Inc. v Google, Inc. case revolves around the use of application programming interfaces (APIs) used to define functionality of the Java programming language, created by Sun Microsystems and now owned by Oracle Corporation. Google used the APIs' definition and their structure, sequence and organization (SSO) in creating the Android operating system to support the mobile device market. Oracle had sued Google in 2010 over both patent a...
Sep 30, 2020•22 min•Season 3Ep. 19
The tort of negligent infliction of emotional distress (NIED) is a controversial cause of action, which is available in nearly all U.S. states but is severely constrained and limited in the majority of them. The underlying concept is that one has a legal duty to use reasonable care to avoid causing emotional distress to another individual. If one fails in this duty and unreasonably causes emotional distress to another person, that actor will be liable for monetary damages to the injured individu...
Sep 29, 2020•18 min•Season 1Ep. 21
Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th century BC. The definition of manslaughter differs among legal jurisdictions. Voluntary manslaughter. In voluntary manslaughter, the offender had intent to kill or seriously harm, but acted "in the moment" under circumstances that could cause a reasonable per...
Sep 28, 2020•19 min•Season 1Ep. 21
An implied-in-fact contract is a form of an implied contract formed by non-verbal conduct, rather than by explicit words. The United States Supreme Court has defined it as "an agreement 'implied in fact” as "founded upon a meeting of minds, which, although not embodied in an express contract, is inferred, as a fact, from conduct of the parties showing, in the light of the surrounding circumstances, their tacit understanding." Although the parties may not have exchanged words of agreement, their ...
Sep 25, 2020•8 min•Season 6Ep. 8
Adverse possession, sometimes colloquially described as "squatter's rights", is a legal principle under which a person who does not have legal title to a piece of property — usually land (real property) — acquires legal ownership based on continuous possession or occupation of the property without the permission of its legal owner. In general, a property owner has the right to recover possession of their property from unauthorized possessors through legal action such as ejectment. However, in th...
Sep 24, 2020•16 min•Season 5Ep. 4
Fair use is a doctrine in the law of the United States that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to balance the interests of copyright holders with the public interest in the wider distribution and use of creative works by allowing as a defense to copyright infringement claims certain limited uses that might otherwise be considered infringement. Like "fair dealing...
Sep 23, 2020•21 min•Season 3Ep. 18
Regulations by country. In some countries, there exists a legal requirement for citizens to assist people in distress, unless doing so would put themselves or others in harm's way. Citizens are often required to, at minimum, call the local emergency number, unless doing so would be harmful, in which case the authorities should be contacted when the harmful situation has been removed. As of 2012, there were such laws in several countries, including Albania, Andorra, Argentina, Austria, Belgium, B...
Sep 22, 2020•8 min•Season 1Ep. 20
A duty to rescue is a concept in tort law that arises in a number of cases, describing a circumstance in which a party can be held liable for failing to come to the rescue of another party who could face potential injury or death without being rescued. In common law systems, it is rarely formalized in statutes which would bring the penalty of law down upon those who fail to rescue. This does not necessarily obviate a moral duty to rescue: though law is binding and carries government-authorized s...
Sep 22, 2020•11 min•Season 1Ep. 20
In the USA, the rescue doctrine of the law of torts holds that if a tortfeasor creates a circumstance that places the tort victim in danger, the tortfeasor is liable not only for the harm caused to the victim, but also the harm caused to any person injured in an effort to rescue that victim. This doctrine was originally promulgated by Benjamin N. Cardozo in the 1921 case, Wagner v Int'l Ry. Co. There, writing for the Court of Appeals of New York (which is the supreme court of that state), Cardoz...
Sep 22, 2020•9 min•Season 1Ep. 19
A hot prowl burglary, cat burglary, or home invasion is a sub-type of burglary (or in some jurisdictions, a separately defined crime) in which an offender unlawfully breaks and enters into a building or residence while the occupants are inside. The overarching intent of a hot prowl burglary can be theft, robbery, assault, sexual assault, murder, kidnapping, or another crime, either by stealth or direct force. Hot prowl burglaries are considered especially dangerous by law enforcement because of ...
Sep 21, 2020•8 min•Season 1Ep. 20
Homicide is the act of one human killing another. A homicide requires only a volitional act by another person that results in death, and thus a homicide may result from accidental, reckless, or negligent acts even if there is no intent to cause harm. Homicides can be divided into many overlapping legal categories, including murder, manslaughter, justifiable homicide, killing in war (either following the laws of war or as a war crime), euthanasia, and capital punishment, depending on the circumst...
Sep 21, 2020•13 min•Season 1Ep. 19
A firm offer is an offer that will remain open for a certain period or until a certain time or occurrence of a certain event, during which it is incapable of being revoked. As a general rule, all offers are revocable at any time prior to acceptance, even those offers that purport to be irrevocable on their face. In the United States, an exception is the merchant firm offer rule set out in Uniform Commercial Code - § 2-205, which states that an offer is firm and irrevocable if it is an offer to b...
Sep 18, 2020•12 min•Season 6Ep. 7
Consideration is a concept of English common law and is a necessity for simple contracts but not for special contracts (contracts by deed). The concept has been adopted by other common law jurisdictions. The court in Currie v Misa declared consideration to be a “Right, Interest, Profit, Benefit, or Forbearance, Detriment, Loss, Responsibility”. Thus, consideration is a promise of something of value given by a promisor in exchange for something of value given by a promise; and typically the thing...
Sep 18, 2020•10 min•Season 6Ep. 6
Personal property is property that is movable. In common law systems, personal property may also be called chattels or personalty. In civil law systems, personal property is often called movable property or movables – any property that can be moved from one location to another. Personal property can be understood in comparison to real estate, immovable property or real property (such as land and buildings). Movable property on land (larger livestock, for example) was not automatically sold with ...
Sep 17, 2020•12 min•Season 5Ep. 3
Usage. A trademark identifies the brand owner of a particular product or service. Trademarks can be used by others under licensing agreements; for example, Bullyland obtained a license to produce Smurf figurines; the Lego Group purchased a license from Lucasfilm in order to be allowed to launch Lego Star Wars; TT Toys Toys is a manufacturer of licensed ride-on replica cars for children. The unauthorized usage of trademarks by producing and trading counterfeit consumer goods is known as brand pir...
Sep 16, 2020•13 min•Season 3Ep. 17
A trademark is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression which identifies products or services of a particular source from those of others, although trademarks used to identify services are usually called service marks. The trademark owner can be an individual, business organization, or any legal entity. A trademark may be located on a package, a label, a voucher, or on the product itself. For the sake of corporate identity, trademarks are often dis...
Sep 16, 2020•13 min•Season 3Ep. 17
Res ipsa loquitur (Latin: "the thing speaks for itself") is a doctrine in the Anglo-American common law that says in a tort lawsuit a court can infer negligence from the very nature of an accident or injury in the absence of direct evidence on how any defendant behaved. Although modern formulations differ by jurisdiction, common law originally stated that the accident must satisfy the necessary elements of negligence: duty, breach of duty, causation, and injury. In res ipsa loquitur, the element...
Sep 15, 2020•15 min•Season 1Ep. 18
Harassment covers a wide range of behaviors of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behavior that demeans, humiliates, or embarrasses a person, and it is characteristically identified by its unlikelihood in terms of social and moral reasonableness. In the legal sense, these are behaviors that appear to be disturbing, upsetting, or threatening. They evolve from discriminatory grounds, and have an effect of nullifying a person's rights or impairing a person from benefiting from their ...
Sep 14, 2020•10 min•Season 3Ep. 18
False imprisonment occurs when a person intentionally restricts another person’s movement within any area without legal authority, justification, or the restrained person's permission. Actual physical restraint is not necessary for false imprisonment to occur. A false imprisonment claim may be made based upon private acts, or upon wrongful governmental detention. For detention by the police, proof of false imprisonment provides a basis to obtain a writ of habeas corpus. Under common law, false i...
Sep 14, 2020•10 min•Season 3Ep. 17
The posting rule (or mailbox rule in the United States, also known as the "postal rule" or "deposited acceptance rule") is an exception to the general rule of contract law in common law countries that acceptance of an offer takes place when communicated. Under the posting rule, that acceptance takes effect when a letter is posted (that is, dropped in a post box or handed to a postal worker). In plain English, the "meeting of the minds" necessary to contract formation occurs at the exact moment w...
Sep 11, 2020•11 min•Season 6Ep. 5
In English common law, real property, real estate, realty, or immovable property is land which is the property of some person and all structures (also called improvements or fixtures) integrated with or affixed to the land, including crops, buildings, machinery, wells, dams, ponds, mines, canals, and roads, among other things. The term is historic, arising from the now-discontinued form of action, which distinguished between real property disputes and personal property disputes. Personal propert...
Sep 10, 2020•15 min•Season 5Ep. 2
Trade secrets are a type of intellectual property that comprise formulas, practices, processes, designs, instruments, patterns, or compilations of information that have inherent economic value because they are not generally known or readily ascertainable by others, and which the owner takes reasonable measures to keep secret. In some jurisdictions, such secrets are referred to as confidential information. Definition. The precise language by which a trade secret is defined varies by jurisdiction,...
Sep 09, 2020•21 min•Season 3Ep. 16
