Class action cases present significant ethical challenges. Defendants can hold reverse auctions and any of several parties can engage in collusive settlement discussions. Subclasses may have interests that diverge greatly from the class but may be treated the same. Proposed settlements could offer some groups (such as former customers) much greater benefits than others. In one paper presented at an ABA conference on class actions in 2007, authors commented that "competing cases can also provide ...
Nov 01, 2022•11 min
Nuisance. "Nuisance" is traditionally used to describe an activity which is harmful or annoying to others such as indecent conduct or a rubbish heap. Nuisances either affect private individuals (private nuisance) or the general public (public nuisance). The claimant can sue for most acts that interfere with their use and enjoyment of their land. In English law, whether activity was an illegal nuisance depended upon the area and whether the activity was "for the benefit of the commonwealth", with...
Oct 31, 2022•16 min
Michael Milken. On 29 March 1989 American financier Michael Milken was indicted on 98 counts of racketeering and fraud relating to an investigation into an allegation of insider trading and other offenses. Milken was accused of using a wide-ranging network of contacts to manipulate stock and bond prices. It was one of the first occasions that a RICO indictment was brought against an individual with no ties to organized crime. Milken pleaded guilty to six lesser felonies of securities fraud and t...
Oct 28, 2022•11 min
In the United States, the exclusionary rule is a legal rule, based on constitutional law, that prevents evidence collected or analyzed in violation of the defendant's constitutional rights from being used in a court of law. This may be considered an example of a prophylactic rule formulated by the judiciary in order to protect a constitutional right. The exclusionary rule may also, in some circumstances at least, be considered to follow directly from the constitutional language, such as the Fift...
Oct 27, 2022•15 min
Intent to steal (animus furandi). The offender must have taken the property with the intent to steal it. Traditionally intent to steal is defined as the intent to deprive the owner of the possession of the property permanently. "Permanently" means indefinitely, that is, with no plan to return the property to the rightful owner. However, intent to steal includes other states of mind such as the intent to recklessly deprive the owner of the property permanently. A person who takes property of anot...
Oct 26, 2022•11 min•Season 17Ep. 53
A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class action originated in the United States and is still predominantly a US phenomenon, but Canada, as well as several European countries with civil law, have made changes in recent years to allow consumer organizations to bring claims on behalf of consumers. Descr...
Oct 25, 2022•14 min
A tort is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits a tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishable by the state. While criminal law aims to punish individuals who commit crimes, tort law aims to compensate individuals who suffer harm as a result of the actions of others. Some wrongful acts, such as assault and battery, can result in both a civil lawsuit a...
Oct 24, 2022•16 min
The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization. RICO was enacted by section 901(a) of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 (enacted October 15, 1970) and is codified at 18 U.S.C. chapter 96 as 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961–1968. G Robert Blakey, an adviser to the United States Senate Government Operations Committee, drafted ...
Oct 21, 2022•14 min
United States. The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right…to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense. The assistance of counsel clause includes, as relevant here, five distinct rights: the right to counsel of choice, the right to appointed counsel, the right to conflict-free counsel, the effective assistance of counsel, and the right to represent oneself pro se. A defendant does not have a Sixth Amendment...
Oct 20, 2022•9 min
Larceny is a crime involving the unlawful taking or theft of the personal property of another person or business. It was an offense under the common law of England and became an offense in jurisdictions which incorporated the common law of England into their own law (also statutory law), where in many cases it remains in force. The crime of larceny has been abolished in England, Wales, Ireland, and Northern Ireland, broken up into the specific crimes of burglary, robbery, fraud, theft, and relat...
Oct 19, 2022•11 min•Season 17Ep. 52
A cause of action or right of action, in law, is a set of facts sufficient to justify suing to obtain money or property, or to justify the enforcement of a legal right against another party. The term also refers to the legal theory upon which a plaintiff brings suit (such as breach of contract, battery, or false imprisonment). The legal document which carries a claim is often called a 'statement of claim' in English law, or a 'complaint' in U.S. federal practice and in many U.S. states. It can b...
Oct 18, 2022•12 min•Season 17Ep. 52
Tortious interference, also known as intentional interference with contractual relations, in the common law of torts, occurs when one person intentionally damages someone else's contractual or business relationships with a third party, causing economic harm. As an example, someone could use blackmail to induce a contractor into breaking a contract; they could threaten a supplier to prevent them from supplying goods or services to another party; or they could obstruct someone's ability to honor a...
Oct 17, 2022•10 min
A flat tax (short for flat-rate tax) is a tax with a single rate on the taxable amount, after accounting for any deductions or exemptions from the tax base. It is not necessarily a fully proportional tax. Implementations are often progressive due to exemptions, or regressive in case of a maximum taxable amount. There are various tax systems that are labeled "flat tax" even though they are significantly different. The defining characteristic is the existence of only one tax rate other than zero, ...
Oct 14, 2022•16 min
United States. The availability of a trial by jury in American jurisdictions varies. Because the United States legal system separated from that of the English one at the time of the American Revolution, the types of proceedings that use juries depends on whether such cases were tried by jury under English common law at that time rather than the methods used in English courts now. For example, at the time, English "courts of law" tried cases of torts or private law for monetary damages using juri...
Oct 13, 2022•15 min•Season 18Ep. 4
Copyright infringement. Copyright infringement is reproducing, distributing, displaying or performing a work, or to make derivative works, without permission from the copyright holder, which is typically a publisher or other business representing or assigned by the work's creator. It is often called "piracy". While copyright is created the instant a work is fixed, generally the copyright holder can only get money damages if the owner registers the copyright. Enforcement of copyright is generally...
Oct 12, 2022•18 min•Season 17Ep. 51
In legal terminology, a complaint is any formal legal document that sets out the facts and legal reasons that the filing party or parties (the plaintiffs) believes are sufficient to support a claim against the party or parties against whom the claim is brought (the defendants) that entitles the plaintiffs to a remedy (either money damages or injunctive relief). For example, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) that govern civil litigation in United States courts provide that a civil actio...
Oct 11, 2022•9 min•Season 17Ep. 51
In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (for example, a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compensation) or criminal law (for example, a fraud perpetrator may be prosecuted and imprisoned by governmental authorities), or it may cause no loss of money, property, or legal right but still be an element of another civil or criminal wrong. The purpose o...
Oct 10, 2022•17 min
Land value taxation (for example, property tax applied only to the unimproved value of land) has a long history in the United States dating back from Physiocratic influence on Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. It is most famously associated with Henry George and his book Progress and Poverty (1879), which argued that because the supply of land is fixed and its location value is created by communities and public works, the economic rent of land is the most logical source of public revenue. ...
Oct 07, 2022•11 min
A jury trial, or trial by jury, is a lawful proceeding in which a jury makes a decision or findings of fact. It is distinguished from a bench trial in which a judge or panel of judges makes all decisions. Jury trials are used in a significant share of serious criminal cases in many but not all common law judicial systems. The majority of common law jurisdictions in Asia (such as Singapore, Pakistan, India, and Malaysia) have abolished jury trials on the grounds that juries are susceptible to bia...
Oct 06, 2022•14 min•Season 18Ep. 3
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets. The modern concept of intellectual property developed in England in the 17th and 18th centuries. The term "intellectual property" began to be used in the 19th century, though it was not until the late 20th century tha...
Oct 05, 2022•15 min•Season 17Ep. 50
In law as practiced in countries that follow the English models, a pleading is a formal written statement of a party's claims or defenses to another party's claims in a civil action. The parties' pleadings in a case define the issues to be adjudicated in the action. The Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) govern pleading in England and Wales. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure govern pleading in United States federal courts. Each state in the United States has its own statutes and rules that govern pleadi...
Oct 04, 2022•10 min•Season 17Ep. 50
Insurance bad faith is a tort unique to the law of the United States (but with parallels elsewhere, particularly Canada) that an insurance company commits by violating the "implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing" which automatically exists by operation of law in every insurance contract. In common law countries such as Australia and the UK, the issue is usually framed in the context of a failure of the duty of utmost good faith originating in English insurance law, which does not consti...
Oct 03, 2022•15 min
The United States federal state and local tax (SALT) deduction is an itemized deduction that allows taxpayers to deduct certain taxes paid to state and local governments from their adjusted gross income. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 put a $10,000 cap on the SALT deduction for the years 2018–2025. The SALT deduction reduces the cost of state and local taxes to taxpayers. It disproportionately benefits wealthy and high-earning taxpayers in areas with high state and local taxes. The Tax Policy...
Sep 30, 2022•23 min
In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, which may occur before a judge, jury, or other designated trier of fact, aims to achieve a resolution to their dispute. Types by finder of fact. Where the trial is held before a group of members of the community, it is called a jury trial. Where the trial i...
Sep 29, 2022•10 min•Season 18Ep. 2
Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on an event with an uncertain outcome with the intent of winning something else of value. Gambling thus requires three elements to be present: consideration (an amount wagered), risk (chance), and a prize. The outcome of the wager is often immediate, such as a single roll of dice, a spin of a roulette wheel, or a horse crossing the finish line, but longer time frames are also common, allowing wagers o...
Sep 28, 2022•20 min•Season 17Ep. 49
Criminal venue. The perceived abuse of English criminal venue law was one of the enumerated grievances in the United States Declaration of Independence, which accused George III of the United Kingdom of "transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses." Article Three of the United States Constitution provides: "Trial of all Crimes . . . shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Pl...
Sep 27, 2022•12 min•Season 17Ep. 49
Restraints of trade is a common law doctrine relating to the enforceability of contractual restrictions on freedom to conduct business. It is a precursor of modern competition law. In an old leading case of Mitchel v Reynolds (1711) Lord Smith LC said, It is the privilege of a trader in a free country, in all matters not contrary to law, to regulate his own mode of carrying it on according to his own discretion and choice. If the law has regulated or restrained his mode of doing this, the law mu...
Sep 26, 2022•18 min
Internet transactions. Through the Internet's history, purchases made over the Internet within the United States have generally been exempt from sales tax, as courts have followed the Supreme Court ruling from Quill Corporation v North Dakota (1992) that a state may only collect sales tax from a business selling products over the Internet if that entity has a physical location in the state. This decision was based on the Dormant Commerce Clause that prevents states from interfering in interstate...
Sep 23, 2022•22 min
Criminal procedure is the adjudication process of the criminal law. While criminal procedure differs dramatically by jurisdiction, the process generally begins with a formal criminal charge with the person on trial either being free on bail or incarcerated, and results in the conviction or acquittal of the defendant. Criminal procedure can be either in the form of inquisitorial or adversarial criminal procedure. Basic rights. Currently, in many countries with a democratic system and the rule of ...
Sep 22, 2022•16 min•Season 18Ep. 1
In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (for example, a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compensation) or criminal law (for example, a fraud perpetrator may be prosecuted and imprisoned by governmental authorities), or it may cause no loss of money, property, or legal right but still be an element of another civil or criminal wrong. The purpose o...
Sep 21, 2022•16 min•Season 17Ep. 48
