Fundamental breach of contract, is a controversial concept within the common law of contract. The doctrine was, in particular, nurtured by Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls from 1962 to 1982, but it did not find favor with the House of Lords. Whereas breach of condition is a serious breach that "denies the plaintiff the main benefit of the contract", fundamental breach was supposed to be even worse, with the result that any exclusion clause limiting the defendant's liability would automatically ...
Apr 05, 2022•9 min•Season 19Ep. 30
At common law, criminal conversation, often abbreviated as crim. con., is a tort arising from adultery. "Conversation" is an old euphemism for sexual intercourse that is obsolete except as part of this term. It is similar to breach of promise, a tort involving a broken engagement against the betrothed, and alienation of affections, a tort action brought by a spouse against a third party, who interfered with the marriage relationship. These torts have been abolished in most jurisdictions. The tor...
Apr 04, 2022•10 min•Season 17Ep. 26
Variants for Form 1099. As of 2020, several versions of Form 1099 are used, depending on the nature of the income transaction: 1099-A: Acquisition or Abandonment of Secured Property. 1099-B: Proceeds from Broker and Barter Exchange Transactions. 1099-C: Cancellation of Debt. 1099-CAP: Changes in Corporate Control and Capital Structure. 1099-DIV: Dividends and Distributions. 1099-G: Government Payments. 1099-H: Health Insurance Advance Payments. 1099-INT: Interest Income. 1099-K: Merchant Card an...
Apr 01, 2022•12 min•Season 16Ep. 31
Property law in the United States is the area of law that governs the various forms of ownership in real property (land and buildings) and personal property, including intangible property such as intellectual property. Property refers to legally protected claims to resources, such as land and personal property. Property can be exchanged through contract law, and if property is violated, one could sue under tort law to protect it. United States property law is primarily an area for state law, alt...
Mar 31, 2022•7 min•Season 15Ep. 24
Homicide is an act of a person killing another person. A homicide requires only a volitional act that causes the death of another, 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, assassination, killing in war (either following the laws of war or as a war crime), euthanasia, and capital punishment, depending on...
Mar 30, 2022•14 min•Season 17Ep. 25
The doctrine of deviation is a particular aspect of contracts of carriage of goods by sea. A deviation is a departure from the "agreed route" or the "usual route", and it can amount to a serious breach of contract. The consequences of unjustified deviation can be very grave for the carrier, who is thereby prevented from relying upon exclusion clauses within the contract limiting his liability; nor will the carrier be able to rely on statutory protections, such as Art. IV of the Hague-Visby Rules...
Mar 29, 2022•9 min•Season 19Ep. 29
Malicious prosecution is a common law intentional tort. Like the tort of abuse of process, its elements include (1) intentionally (and maliciously) instituting and pursuing (or causing to be instituted or pursued) a legal action (civil or criminal) that is (2) brought without probable cause and (3) dismissed in favor of the victim of the malicious prosecution. In some jurisdictions, the term "malicious prosecution" denotes the wrongful initiation of criminal proceedings, while the term "maliciou...
Mar 28, 2022•11 min•Season 17Ep. 25
The Form 1040NR, U.S. Nonresident Alien Income Tax Return, and its shorter version Form 1040NR-EZ, U.S. Income Tax Return for Certain Nonresident Aliens With No Dependents, are used by nonresident aliens who have U.S. source income and therefore have to file a U.S. tax return. Joint returns are not permitted, so that husband and wife must each file a separate return. The Form 1040NR-EZ can be used under conditions similar to those for the 1040EZ form. The Form 1040X, Amended U.S. Individual Tax ...
Mar 25, 2022•12 min•Season 16Ep. 30
A condominium (or condo for short) is a building structure divided into several units that are each separately owned, surrounded by common areas that are jointly owned. Residential condominiums are frequently constructed as apartment buildings, but there are also "detached condominiums", which look like single-family homes, but in which the yards (gardens), corridors, building exteriors, and streets as well as any recreational facilities (like a pool or pools, bowling alley, tennis courts, golf ...
Mar 24, 2022•19 min•Season 15Ep. 23
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 ri...
Mar 23, 2022•13 min•Season 17Ep. 24
Cover is a term used in the law of contracts to describe a remedy available to a buyer who has received an anticipatory repudiation of a contract for the receipt of goods. Under the Uniform Commercial Code, the buyer is permitted (but not required) to find another source of the same type of goods. The buyer may then file a lawsuit against the breaching seller to recover the difference, if any, between the cost of the goods offered and the cost of the goods actually purchased. The possibility of ...
Mar 22, 2022•13 min•Season 19Ep. 28
Intrusion on seclusion is one of the four privacy torts created under U.S. common law. Intrusion on seclusion is commonly thought to be the bread-and-butter claim for an "invasion of privacy". Seclusion is defined as the state of being private and away from people. Elements. The elements of an intrusion on seclusion claim are: The defendant intentionally intruded upon the plaintiff's seclusion or private concerns. The intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person. The intrusion caus...
Mar 21, 2022•11 min•Season 17Ep. 24
Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax forms are forms used for taxpayers and tax-exempt organizations to report financial information to the Internal Revenue Service of the United States. They are used to report income, calculate taxes to be paid to the federal government, and disclose other information as required by the Internal Revenue Code (IRC). There are over 800 various forms and schedules. Other tax forms in the United States are filed with state and local governments. Individual forms. 104...
Mar 18, 2022•14 min•Season 16Ep. 29
A condominium (or condo for short) is a building structure divided into several units that are each separately owned, surrounded by common areas that are jointly owned. Residential condominiums are frequently constructed as apartment buildings, but there are also "detached condominiums", which look like single-family homes, but in which the yards (gardens), corridors, building exteriors, and streets as well as any recreational facilities (like a pool or pools, bowling alley, tennis courts, golf ...
Mar 17, 2022•19 min•Season 15Ep. 22
False imprisonment or unlawful 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. ...
Mar 16, 2022•15 min•Season 17Ep. 23
Types of breach. Contracts often use wording other than repudiatory breach to describe a type of breach of contract. These contractual terms include material breach , fundamental breach , substantial breach , serious breach . These alternative wordings have no fixed meaning in law but are interpreted within the context of the contract that they are used. For that reason, the meaning of the different terms varies from case to case. Possible interpretations of their meaning include "repudiatory br...
Mar 15, 2022•11 min•Season 19Ep. 27
Overview. There are two types of expectations of privacy: Subjective expectation of privacy: a certain individual's opinion that a certain location or situation is private; varies greatly from person to person. Objective, legitimate, reasonable expectation of privacy: an expectation of privacy generally recognized by society and perhaps protected by law. Places where individuals expect privacy include residences, hotel rooms, or public places that have been provided by businesses or the public s...
Mar 14, 2022•12 min•Season 17Ep. 23
Tax collection statistics. Collections before refunds by type of return, fiscal year 2010. Individual income tax (49.9%). Employment taxes (35.3%). Corporate income taxes (11.9%). Excise taxes (2.0%). Estate taxes (0.7%). Other (0.2%). For fiscal year 2009, the U.S. Congress appropriated spending of approximately $12.624 billions of "discretionary budget authority" to operate the Department of the Treasury, of which $11.522 billion was allocated to the IRS. The projected estimate of the budget f...
Mar 11, 2022•12 min•Season 16Ep. 28
A leasehold estate is an ownership of a temporary right to hold land or property in which a lessee or a tenant holds rights of real property by some form of title from a lessor or landlord. Although a tenant does hold rights to real property, a leasehold estate is typically considered personal property. Leasehold is a form of land tenure or property tenure where one party buys the right to occupy land or a building for a given length of time. As a lease is a legal estate, leasehold estate can be...
Mar 10, 2022•16 min•Season 15Ep. 21
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...
Mar 09, 2022•8 min•Season 17Ep. 22
Breach of contract is a legal cause of action and a type of civil wrong, in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other party's performance. Breach occurs when a party to a contract fails to fulfill its(s), whether partially or wholly, as described in the contract, or communicates an intent to fail the obligation or otherwise appears not to be able to perform its obligation unde...
Mar 08, 2022•12 min•Season 19Ep. 26
Expectation of privacy is a legal test which is crucial in defining the scope of the applicability of the privacy protections of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It is related to, but is not the same as, a right to privacy, a much broader concept which is found in many legal systems. Overall, expectations of privacy can be subjective or objective. Overview. There are two types of expectations of privacy: Subjective expectation of privacy: a certain individual's opinion tha...
Mar 07, 2022•12 min•Season 14Ep. 22
History of the IRS name. As early as the year 1918, the Bureau of Internal Revenue began using the name "Internal Revenue Service" on at least one tax form. In 1953, the name change to the "Internal Revenue Service" was formalized in Treasury Decision 6038. Current organization. The 1980s saw a reorganization of the IRS. A bipartisan commission was created with several mandates, among them to increase customer service and improve collections. Congress later enacted the Internal Revenue Service R...
Mar 04, 2022•12 min•Season 16Ep. 27
In property law, a concurrent estate or co-tenancy is any of various ways in which property is owned by more than one person at a time. If more than one person owns the same property, they are commonly referred to as co-owners. Legal terminology for co-owners of real estate is either co-tenants or joint tenants, with the latter phrase signifying a right of survivorship. Most common law jurisdictions recognize tenancies in common and joint tenancies. Many jurisdictions also recognize tenancies by...
Mar 03, 2022•18 min•Season 15Ep. 20
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 offense, although the term is used more generally to refer to any unlawful offensive physical contact with another person. Battery is defined at American common law as "any unlawful and or unwanted touching of the person or another by the aggressor, or by a substance put in motion by him". In more severe cases, and fo...
Mar 02, 2022•9 min•Season 17Ep. 21
A third-party beneficiary, in the law of contracts, is a person who may have the right to sue on a contract, despite not having originally been an active party to the contract. This right, known as a ius quaesitum tertio, arises when the third party (tertius or alteri) is the intended beneficiary of the contract, as opposed to a mere incidental beneficiary (penitus extraneus). It vests when the third party relies on or assents to the relationship, and gives the third party the right to sue eithe...
Mar 01, 2022•11 min•Season 19Ep. 25
In US law, false light is a tort concerning privacy that is similar to the tort of defamation. The privacy laws in the United States include a non-public person's right to protection from publicity which puts the person in a false light to the public. That right is balanced against the First Amendment right of free speech. False light differs from defamation primarily in being intended "to protect the plaintiff's mental or emotional well-being", rather than to protect a plaintiff's reputation as...
Feb 28, 2022•8 min•Season 14Ep. 21
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory tax law. It is part of the Department of the Treasury and led by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, who is appointed to a five-year term by the President of the United States. The duties of the IRS include providing tax assistance to taxpayers; pursuing and resolving ins...
Feb 25, 2022•14 min•Season 16Ep. 26
In property law and real estate, a future interest is a legal right to property ownership that does not include the right to present possession or enjoyment of the property. Future interests are created on the formation of a defeasible estate; that is, an estate with a condition or event triggering transfer of possessory ownership. A common example is the landlord-tenant relationship. The landlord may own a house, but has no general right to enter it while it is being rented. The conditions trig...
Feb 24, 2022•15 min•Season 15Ep. 19
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...
Feb 23, 2022•12 min•Season 17Ep. 20
