The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) govern civil procedure in United States district courts. The FRCP are promulgated by the United States Supreme Court pursuant to the Rules Enabling Act, and then the United States Congress has seven months to veto the rules promulgated or they become part of the FRCP. The Court's modifications to the rules are usually based upon recommendations from the Judicial Conference of the United States, the federal judiciary's internal policy-making body. Altho...
Aug 09, 2022•15 min•Season 21Ep. 2
Product liability is the area of law in which manufacturers, distributors, suppliers, retailers, and others who make products available to the public are held responsible for the injuries those products cause. Although the word "product" has broad connotations, product liability as an area of law is traditionally limited to products in the form of tangible personal property. Product liability by country. The overwhelming majority of countries have strongly preferred to address product liability ...
Aug 08, 2022•16 min•Season 16Ep. 50
States with local income taxes in addition to state-level income tax. The following states have local income taxes. These are generally imposed at a flat rate and tend to apply to a limited set of income items. Alabama: Some counties, including Macon County, and municipalities, including Birmingham (employees on payroll only). California: San Francisco (payroll only). Colorado: Some municipalities, including Denver and Aurora (flat-fee Occupational Privilege tax for privilege of working or condu...
Aug 05, 2022•10 min•Season 17Ep. 42
Property rights have developed over ancient and modern history, from Abrahamic law to today's Universal Declaration of Human Rights article 17. Property rights can be understood as constructs in economics for determining how a resource or economic good is used and owned. Resources can be owned by (and hence be the property of) individuals, associations, collectives, or governments. Property rights can be viewed as an attribute of an economic good. This attribute has three broad components and is...
Aug 04, 2022•16 min•Season 17Ep. 42
Arson is the crime of willfully and deliberately setting fire to or charring property. Though the act typically involves buildings, the term can also refer to the intentional burning of other things, such as motor vehicles, watercraft, or forests. The crime is typically classified as a felony, with instances involving a greater degree of risk to human life or property carrying a stricter penalty. Arson which results in death can be further prosecuted as manslaughter or murder. A common motive fo...
Aug 03, 2022•11 min•Season 17Ep. 42
Civil procedure in the United States consists of rules that govern civil actions in the federal, state, and territorial court systems, and is distinct from the rules that govern criminal actions. Like much of American law, civil procedure is not reserved to the federal government in its Constitution. As a result, each state is free to operate its own system of civil procedure independent of her sister states and the federal court system. History. Early federal and state civil procedure in the Un...
Aug 02, 2022•18 min•Season 21Ep. 1
Tort law. In tort law, strict liability is the imposition of liability on a party without a finding of fault (such as negligence or tortious intent). The claimant need only prove that the tort occurred, and that the defendant was responsible. The law imputes strict liability to situations it considers to be inherently dangerous. It discourages reckless behavior and needless loss by forcing potential defendants to take every possible precaution. It has the beneficial effect of simplifying and the...
Aug 01, 2022•10 min•Season 16Ep. 49
In addition to federal income tax collected by the United States, most individual U.S. states collect a state income tax. Some local governments also impose an income tax, often based on state income tax calculations. Forty-two states and many localities in the United States impose an income tax on individuals. Eight states impose no state income tax, and a ninth, New Hampshire, imposes an individual income tax on dividends and interest income but not other forms of income. Forty-seven states an...
Jul 29, 2022•10 min•Season 17Ep. 41
A partition is a term used in the law of real property to describe an act, by a court order or otherwise, to divide up a concurrent estate into separate portions representing the proportionate interests of the owners of property. It is sometimes described as a forced sale. Under the common law, any owner of property who owns an undivided concurrent interest in land can seek such a division. In some cases, the parties agree to a specific division of the land; if they are unable to do so, the cour...
Jul 28, 2022•11 min•Season 17Ep. 41
Indecent exposure is the deliberate public exposure by a person of a portion of their body in a manner contrary to local standards of appropriate behavior. Laws and social attitudes regarding indecent exposure vary significantly in different countries. It ranges from outright prohibition of the exposure of any body parts other than the hands or face to prohibition of exposure of certain body parts, such as the genital area, buttocks or breasts. Decency is generally judged by the standards of the...
Jul 27, 2022•9 min•Season 17Ep. 41
The Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) is an intergovernmental organization in the area of private international law (also known as conflict of laws), that administers several international conventions, protocols and soft law instruments. The Hague Conference was first convened by Tobias Asser in 1893 in The Hague. In 1911, Asser received the Nobel Prize for Peace for his work in the field of private international law, and in particular for his achievements with respect to the ...
Jul 26, 2022•7 min
The attractive nuisance doctrine applies to the law of torts in some jurisdictions. It states that a landowner may be held liable for injuries to children trespassing on the land if the injury is caused by an object on the land that is likely to attract children. The doctrine is designed to protect children who are unable to appreciate the risk posed by the object, by imposing a liability on the landowner. The doctrine has been applied to hold landowners liable for injuries caused by abandoned c...
Jul 25, 2022•13 min•Season 16Ep. 48
Alternative tax bases (AMT, states). An alternative minimum tax (AMT) is imposed at the federal level on a somewhat modified version of taxable income. The tax applies to individuals and corporations. The tax base is adjusted gross income reduced by a fixed deduction that varies by taxpayer filing status. Itemized deductions of individuals are limited to home mortgage interest, charitable contributions, and a portion of medical expenses. AMT is imposed at a rate of 26% or 28% for individuals and...
Jul 22, 2022•15 min•Season 17Ep. 45
A fixture, as a legal concept, means any physical property that is permanently attached (fixed) to real property (usually land). Property not affixed to real property is considered chattel property. Fixtures are treated as a part of real property, particularly in the case of a security interest. A classic example of a fixture is a building, which, in the absence of language to the contrary in a contract of sale, is considered part of the land itself and not a separate piece of property. Generall...
Jul 21, 2022•12 min•Season 17Ep. 40
An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. It is derived from the Latin obscēnus, obscaenus, "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. The word can be used to indicate strong moral repugnance and outrage, in expressions such as "obscene profits" and "the obscenity of war". As a legal term, it usually refers to graphic depictions of people engaged in sexual and excretory activity, and related utterances of profane speech. Unite...
Jul 20, 2022•18 min•Season 17Ep. 40
In private international law, the public policy doctrine or ordre public ("public order") concerns the body of principles that underpin the operation of legal systems in each state. This addresses the social, moral and economic values that tie a society together: values that vary in different cultures and change over time. Law regulates behavior either to reinforce existing social expectations or to encourage constructive change, and laws are most likely to be effective when they are consistent ...
Jul 19, 2022•9 min•Season 20Ep. 6
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 International Railway Company. There, writing for the Court of Appeals of New York (which is the supreme court of tha...
Jul 18, 2022•12 min•Season 16Ep. 46
Income tax. Taxes based on income are imposed at the federal, most state, and some local levels within the United States. The tax systems within each jurisdiction may define taxable income separately. Many states refer to some extent to federal concepts for determining taxable income. History of the income tax. The first Income tax in the United States was implemented with the Revenue Act of 1861 by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. In 1895 the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. federal incom...
Jul 15, 2022•16 min•Season 17Ep. 44
An equitable servitude is a term used in the law of real property to describe a nonpossessory interest in land that operates much like a covenant running with the land. In England and Wales the term is defunct and in Scotland it has very long been a sub-type of the Scottish legal version of servitudes, which are what English law calls easements. However covenants and equitable servitudes in most of the jurisdictions across North America, are slightly different. The usual distinction is based on ...
Jul 14, 2022•12 min•Season 17Ep. 39
Fornication is generally consensual sexual intercourse between two people not married to each other. When one or more of the partners having consensual sexual intercourse is married to another person, it is called adultery. Nonetheless, John Calvin viewed adultery to be any sexual act that is outside the divine model for sexual intercourse, which includes fornication. For many people, the term carries an overtone of moral or religious disapproval, but the significance of sexual acts to which the...
Jul 13, 2022•9 min•Season 17Ep. 39
Conflict of laws in the United States is the field of procedural law dealing with choice of law rules when a legal action implicates the substantive laws of more than one jurisdiction and a court must determine which law is most appropriate to resolve the action. In the United States, the rules governing these matters have diverged from the traditional rules applied internationally. The outcome of this process may require a court in one jurisdiction to apply the law of a different jurisdiction. ...
Jul 12, 2022•11 min•Season 20Ep. 5
Restitutio ad integrum, or restitutio in integrum, is a Latin term that means "restoration to original condition". It is one of the primary guiding principles behind the awarding of damages in common law negligence claims. In European patent law, it also refers to a means of redress available to an applicant or patentee who has failed to meet a time limit despite exercising all due care. In ancient Roman law, it was a specific method of praetor intervention in an otherwise-valid legal action tha...
Jul 11, 2022•4 min•Season 16Ep. 45
The United States of America has separate federal, state, and local governments with taxes imposed at each of these levels. Taxes are levied on income, payroll, property, sales, capital gains, dividends, imports, estates and gifts, as well as various fees. In 2010, taxes collected by federal, state, and municipal governments amounted to 24.8% of GDP. In the OECD, only Chile and Mexico are taxed less as a share of their GDP. Taxes fall much more heavily on labor income than on capital income. Div...
Jul 08, 2022•7 min•Season 17Ep. 43
Easement by prescription: Easements by prescription, also called prescriptive easements, are implied easements granted after the dominant estate has used the property in a hostile, continuous and open manner for a statutorily prescribed number of years. Prescriptive easements differ from adverse possession by not requiring exclusivity. Once they become legally binding, easements by prescription hold the same legal weight as written or implied easements. But, before they become binding, they hold...
Jul 07, 2022•16 min•Season 15Ep. 35
Adultery (from Latin adulterium) is extramarital sex that is considered objectionable on social, religious, moral, or legal grounds. Although the sexual activities that constitute adultery vary, as well as the social, religious, and legal consequences, the concept exists in many cultures and is similar in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Adultery is viewed by many jurisdictions as offensive to public morals, undermining the marriage relationship. Historically, many cultures considered adultery a...
Jul 06, 2022•17 min•Season 17Ep. 38
Choice of law is a procedural stage in the litigation of a case involving the conflict of laws when it is necessary to reconcile the differences between the laws of different legal jurisdictions, such as sovereign states, federated states (as in the US), or provinces. The outcome of this process is potentially to require the courts of one jurisdiction to apply the law of a different jurisdiction in lawsuits arising from, say, family law, tort, or contract. The law which is applied is sometimes r...
Jul 05, 2022•13 min•Season 20Ep. 4
Res ipsa loquitur (Latin: "the thing speaks for itself") is a doctrine in the Anglo-American common law and Roman-Dutch law that says in a tort or civil 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, Anglo-American common law originally stated that the accident must satisfy the necessary elements of negligence: duty, breach of duty, causation, a...
Jul 04, 2022•11 min•Season 16Ep. 44
Undermining Reconstruction state governments. After the American Civil War, the United States government established Reconstruction era governments in the states of the former Confederacy that included black and carpetbagger representatives. The loss of political power by the formerly dominant white supremacists led to resentment, protest, and the formation of paramilitaries and parallel governments. Occasionally, tax resistance was used as a tactic to withdraw financial support and political le...
Jul 01, 2022•12 min•Season 16Ep. 42
An easement is a nonpossessory right to use and/or enter onto the real property of another without possessing it. It is "best typified in the right of way which one landowner, A, may enjoy over the land of another, B". An easement is a property right and type of incorporeal property in itself at common law in most jurisdictions. An easement is similar to real covenants and equitable servitudes. In the United States, the Restatement (Third) of Property takes steps to merge these concepts as servi...
Jul 01, 2022•12 min•Season 15Ep. 34
Sex and the law deals with the regulation by law of human sexual activity. Sex laws vary from one place or jurisdiction to another, and have varied over time, and unlawful sexual acts are also called sex crimes. Some laws regarding sexual activity are intended to protect one or all participants, while others are intended to proscribe behavior that has been defined as a crime. For example, a law may proscribe unprotected sex if one person knows that he or she has a sexual disease or to protect a ...
Jun 29, 2022•11 min•Season 17Ep. 37
