A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil action brought by a plaintiff (a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions) requests a legal remedy or equitable remedy from a court. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint. If the plaintiff is successfu...
Dec 13, 2022•18 min
The defense 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. English law. Generally, in addition to the right of self-defense at common law, section 3 of the Criminal Law Act 1967 states that, A person may use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances in the prevention of crime or in arresting offenders or suspects. Insofar as an...
Dec 12, 2022•13 min
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself. A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fair use doctrine in t...
Dec 09, 2022•13 min
Mandatory sentencing requires that offenders serve a predefined term for certain crimes, commonly serious and violent offenses. Judges are bound by law; these sentences are produced through the legislature, not the judicial system. They are instituted to expedite the sentencing process and limit the possibility of irregularity of outcomes due to judicial discretion. Mandatory sentences are typically given to people who are convicted of certain serious and or violent crimes, and require a prison ...
Dec 08, 2022•12 min
Tax evasion is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to reduce the taxpayer's tax liability, and it includes dishonest tax reporting, declaring less income, profits or gains than the amounts actually earned, overstating deductions, using bribes against authorities in countries with high corruption rates and hiding money in se...
Dec 07, 2022•13 min
In United States law, a motion is a procedural device to bring a limited, contested issue before a court for decision. It is a request to the judge (or judges) to make a decision about the case. Motions may be made at any point in administrative, criminal or civil proceedings, although that right is regulated by court rules which vary from place to place. The party requesting the motion may be called the moving party, or may simply be the movant. The party opposing the motion is the nonmoving pa...
Dec 06, 2022•15 min
The right of self-defense (also called, when it applies to the defense of another, alter ego defense, defense of others, defense of a third person) is the right for people to use reasonable or defensive force, for the purpose of defending one's own life (self-defense) or the lives of others, including – in certain circumstances – the use of deadly force. If a defendant uses defensive force because of a threat of deadly or grievous harm by the other person, or a reasonable perception of such harm...
Dec 05, 2022•11 min
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself. A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fair use doctrine in t...
Dec 02, 2022•13 min
In law, a sentence is the punishment for a crime ordered by a trial court after conviction in a criminal procedure, normally at the conclusion of a trial. A sentence may consist of imprisonment, a fine, or other sanctions. Sentences for multiple crimes may be a concurrent sentence, where sentences of imprisonment are all served together at the same time, or a consecutive sentence, in which the period of imprisonment is the sum of all sentences served one after the other. Additional sentences inc...
Dec 01, 2022•7 min
Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. There are various motivations to smuggle. These include the participation in illegal trade, such as in the drug trade, illegal weapons trade, prostitution, human trafficking, kidnapping, exotic wildlife trade, art theft, heists, chop shops, illegal immigration or illegal ...
Nov 30, 2022•19 min
Interpleader is a civil procedure device that allows a plaintiff or a defendant to initiate a lawsuit in order to compel two or more other parties to litigate a dispute. An interpleader action originates when the plaintiff holds property on behalf of another, but does not know to whom the property should be transferred. It is often used to resolve disputes arising under insurance contracts. Terminology and overview. In an interpleader action, the party initiating the litigation, normally the pla...
Nov 29, 2022•19 min
A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. In most jurisdictions, such periods exist for both criminal law and civil law such as contract law and property law, though often under different names and with varying details. When the time which is specified in a statute of limitations runs out, a claim might no longer be filed or, if it is ...
Nov 28, 2022•14 min
"Author's rights" is a term frequently used in connection with laws about intellectual property. The term is considered as a direct translation of the French term droit d’auteur (also German Urheberrecht). It was first (1777) promoted in France by Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, who had close relations with Benjamin Franklin. It is generally used in relation to the copyright laws of civil law countries and in European Union law. Authors' rights are internationally protected by the Berne C...
Nov 25, 2022•13 min
In law, a verdict is the formal finding of fact made by a jury on matters or questions submitted to the jury by a judge. In a bench trial, the judge's decision near the end of the trial is simply referred to as a finding. In England and Wales, a coroner's findings used to be called verdicts but are, since 2009, called conclusions. Etymology. The term "verdict", from the Latin veredictum, literally means "to say the truth" and is derived from Middle English verdit, from Anglo-Norman: a compound o...
Nov 24, 2022•10 min
Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take anything of value by force, threat of force, or by use of fear. According to common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear; that is, it is a larceny or theft accomplished by an assault. Precise definitions of the offense may vary between jurisdictions. Robbery is differentiated from other forms of theft (such as burglary, shoplifti...
Nov 23, 2022•14 min
In law, a joinder is the joining of two or more legal issues together. Procedurally, a joinder allows multiple issues to be heard in one hearing or trial and occurs if the issues or parties involved overlap sufficiently to make the process more efficient or fairer. That helps courts avoid hearing the same facts multiple times or seeing the same parties return to court separately for each of their legal disputes. The term is also used in the realm of contracts to describe the joining of new parti...
Nov 22, 2022•18 min
Assumption of risk is a defense, specifically an affirmative defense, in the law of torts, which bars or reduces a plaintiff's right to recovery against a negligent tortfeasor if the defendant can demonstrate that the plaintiff voluntarily and knowingly assumed the risks at issue inherent to the dangerous activity in which the plaintiff was participating at the time of their injury. Primary versus secondary. "Primary" assumption of risk occurs when the plaintiff knows about a particular risk and...
Nov 21, 2022•16 min
Objections to overly broad intellectual property laws. Some critics of intellectual property, such as those in the free culture movement, point at intellectual monopolies as harming health (in the case of pharmaceutical patents), preventing progress, and benefiting concentrated interests to the detriment of the masses, and argue that the public interest is harmed by ever-expansive monopolies in the form of copyright extensions, software patents, and business method patents. More recently scienti...
Nov 18, 2022•11 min
Bail is a set of pre-trial restrictions that are imposed on a suspect to ensure that they will not hamper the judicial process. Bail is the conditional release of a defendant with the promise to appear in court when required. In some countries, especially the United States, bail usually implies a bail bond, a deposit of money or some form of property to the court by the suspect in return for the release from pre-trial detention. If the suspect does not return to court, the bail is forfeited and ...
Nov 17, 2022•10 min
Possession of stolen goods is a crime in which an individual has bought, been given, or acquired stolen goods. In many jurisdictions, if an individual has accepted possession of goods (or property) and knew they were stolen, then the individual may be charged with a misdemeanor or felony, depending on the value of the stolen goods, and the goods are returned to the original owner. If the individual did not know the goods were stolen, then the goods are returned to the owner and the individual is...
Nov 16, 2022•11 min
In law, an answer was originally a solemn assertion in opposition to someone or something, and thus generally any counter-statement or defense, a reply to a question or response, or objection, or a correct solution of a problem. In the common law, an answer is the first pleading by a defendant, usually filed and served upon the plaintiff within a certain strict time limit after a civil complaint or criminal information or indictment has been served upon the defendant. It may have been preceded b...
Nov 15, 2022•13 min
Consent occurs when one person voluntarily agrees to the proposal or desires of another. It is a term of common speech, with specific definitions as used in such fields as the law, medicine, research, and sexual relationships. Consent as understood in specific contexts may differ from its everyday meaning. For example, a person with a mental disorder, a low mental age, or under the legal age of sexual consent may willingly engage in a sexual act that still fails to meet the legal threshold for c...
Nov 14, 2022•13 min
Financial incentive. These exclusive rights allow owners of intellectual property to benefit from the property they have created, providing a financial incentive for the creation of an investment in intellectual property, and, in case of patents, pay associated research and development costs. In the United States Article 1 Section 8 Clause 8 of the Constitution, commonly called the Patent and Copyright Clause, reads; "The Congress shall have power 'To promote the progress of science and useful a...
Nov 11, 2022•14 min
In jurisprudence, double jeopardy is a procedural defense (primarily in common law jurisdictions) that prevents an accused person from being tried again on the same (or similar) charges following an acquittal or conviction and in rare cases prosecutorial and or judge misconduct in the same jurisdiction. Double jeopardy is a common concept in criminal law. In civil law, a similar concept is that of res judicata. Variation in common law countries is the peremptory plea, which may take the specific...
Nov 10, 2022•18 min
Pickpocketing is a form of larceny that involves the stealing of money or other valuables from the person or a victim's pocket without them noticing the theft at the time. It may involve considerable dexterity and a knack for misdirection. A thief who works in this manner is known as a pickpocket. As an occupation. Pickpockets and other thieves, especially those working in teams, sometimes apply distraction, such as asking a question or bumping into the victim. These distractions sometimes requi...
Nov 09, 2022•11 min
A demurrer is a pleading in a lawsuit that objects to or challenges a pleading filed by an opposing party. The word demur means "to object"; a demurrer is the document that makes the objection. Lawyers informally define a demurrer as a defendant saying "So what?" to the pleading. Typically, the defendant in a case will demur to the complaint, but it is also possible for the plaintiff to demur to an answer. The demurrer challenges the legal sufficiency of a cause of action in a complaint or of an...
Nov 08, 2022•10 min
Elements of delict The elements of a delict as follows: The elements of harm and conduct are fact-based inquiries, while causation is part-factual and part-normative, and wrongfulness and fault are entirely normative: that is, value-based, in that they articulate a wider societal policy perspective. Delict is "inherently a flexible set of principles that embody social policy." harm sustained by the plaintiff; conduct on the part of the defendant which is wrongful; a causal connection between the...
Nov 07, 2022•16 min
In criminal law, self-incrimination is the act of exposing oneself generally, by making a statement, "to an accusation or charge of crime; to involve oneself or another in a criminal prosecution or the danger thereof". (Self-incrimination can occur either directly or indirectly: directly, by means of interrogation where information of a self-incriminatory nature is disclosed; or indirectly, when information of a self-incriminatory nature is disclosed voluntarily without pressure from another per...
Nov 04, 2022•9 min
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...
Nov 04, 2022•12 min
Payola, in the music industry, is the illegal practice of paying a commercial radio station to play a song without the station disclosing the payment. Under US law, a radio station must disclose songs they were paid to play on the air as sponsored airtime. The number of times the songs are played can influence the perceived popularity of a song, and payola may be used to influence these meters. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) treats payola as a violation of the Sponsorship Identifica...
Nov 02, 2022•11 min
