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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 forms of autrefois acquit ('previously acquitted') or autrefois convict ('previously convicted'). These doctrines appear to have originated in ancient Roman law, in the broader principle non bis in idem ('not twice against the same').

Availability as a legal defense.

If a double-jeopardy issue is raised, evidence will be placed before the court, which will typically rule as a preliminary matter whether the plea is substantiated; if it is, the projected trial will be prevented from proceeding. In some countries certain exemptions are permitted. In Scotland a new trial can be initiated if, for example, the acquitted has made a credible admission of guilt. Part of English law for over 800 years, it was partially abolished in England, Wales and Northern Ireland by the Criminal Justice Act 2003 where, following demand for change, serious offenses may be re-tried following an acquittal if new and compelling evidence is found, and if the trial is found to be in the public's interest. In some countries, including Canada, Mexico, and the United States, the guarantee against being "twice put in jeopardy" is a constitutional right. In other countries, the protection is afforded by statute.

In common law countries, a defendant may enter a peremptory plea of autrefois acquit ('previously acquitted') or autrefois convict ('previously convicted'), with the same effect.

Double jeopardy is not a principle of international law. It does not apply between different countries, unless having been contractually agreed on between those countries as, for example, in the European Union (Art. 54 Schengen Convention), and in various extradition treaties between two countries.

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 require sleight of hand, speed, misdirection and other types of skills.

Pickpockets may be found in any crowded place around the world. However, Barcelona and Rome were recently singled out as being particularly dangerous pickpocket havens. Thieves have been known to operate in high traffic areas such as mass transit stations, even boarding subway trains so they can use the distractions of crowds and sudden stop-and-go movements from the train to steal from others. As soon as the thieves have what they want, they simply get off at the next stop leaving the victim unable to figure out who robbed them and when.

As entertainment.

Pickpocketing skills are employed by some magicians as a form of entertainment, either by taking an item from a spectator or by returning it without them knowing they had lost it. Borra, arguably the most famous stage pickpocket of all time, became the highest-paid European performer in circuses during the 1950s. For 60 years he was billed as "the King of Pickpockets" and encouraged his son, Charly, to follow in his cunning trade, his offspring being billed as "the Prince of Pickpockets". Henri Kassagi, a French-Tunisian illusionist, acted as technical advisor on Robert Bresson's 1959 film Pickpocket and appeared as instructor and accomplice to the main character. British entertainer James Freedman created the pickpocket sequences for the 2005 film Oliver Twist directed by Roman Polanski. American illusionist David Avadon featured pickpocketing as his trademark act for more than 30 years and promoted himself as "a daring pickpocket with dashing finesse" and "the country's premier exhibition pickpocket, one of the few masters in the world of this underground art." According to Thomas Blacke, an American illusionist who holds several world records, it has become more difficult nowadays to pickpocket both in the streets and on the stage because the general population wears less, or lighter, clothing. In 2015 an artist hired a pickpocket to distribute sculptures at Frieze Art Fair in New York.

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 affirmative defense in an answer. If a cause of action in a complaint does not state a cognizable claim or if it does not state all the required elements, then the challenged cause of action or possibly the entire complaint can be thrown out (informally speaking) at the demurrer stage as not legally sufficient. A demurrer is typically filed near the beginning of a case in response to the plaintiff filing a complaint or the defendant answering the complaint.

In common law, a demurrer was the pleading through which a defendant challenged the legal sufficiency of a complaint in criminal or civil cases. Today, however, the pleading has been discontinued in many jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom, the U.S. federal court system, and most U.S. states (though some states, including California, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, retain it). In criminal cases, a demurrer was considered a common law due process right, to be heard and decided before the defendant was required to plead "not guilty," or make any other pleading in response, without having to admit or deny any of the facts alleged.

A demurrer generally assumes the truth of all material facts alleged in the complaint, and the defendant cannot present evidence to the contrary, even if those facts appear to be obvious fabrications by the plaintiff or are likely to be easily disproved during litigation. That is, the point of the demurrer is to test whether a cause of action or affirmative defense as pleaded is legally insufficient, even if all facts pleaded are assumed to be true.

The sole exception to the no-evidence rule is that a court may take judicial notice of certain things. For example, the court can take judicial notice of commonly known facts not reasonably subject to challenge, such as the Gregorian calendar, or of public records, such as a published legislative report showing the intent of the legislature in enacting a particular statute.

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 conduct and the plaintiff's harm; and

fault or blameworthiness on the part of the defendant.

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 conduct and the plaintiff's harm; and

fault or blameworthiness on the part of the defendant.

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 person).

In many legal systems, accused criminals cannot be compelled to incriminate themselves—they may choose to speak to police or other authorities, but they cannot be punished for refusing to do so. There are 108 countries and jurisdictions that currently issue legal warnings to suspects, which include the right to remain silent and the right to legal counsel. These laws are not uniform across the world; however, members of the European Union have developed their laws around the EU's guide.

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 that intellectual property became commonplace in the majority of the world's legal systems.

The main purpose of intellectual property law is to encourage the creation of a wide variety of intellectual goods. To achieve this, the law gives people and businesses property rights to the information and intellectual goods they create, usually for a limited period of time. This gives economic incentive for their creation, because it allows people to benefit from the information and intellectual goods they create, and allows them to protect their ideas and prevent copying. These economic incentives are expected to stimulate innovation and contribute to the technological progress of countries, which depends on the extent of protection granted to innovators.

The intangible nature of intellectual property presents difficulties when compared with traditional property like land or goods. Unlike traditional property, intellectual property is "indivisible", since an unlimited number of people can "consume" an intellectual good without its being depleted. Additionally, investments in intellectual goods suffer from problems of appropriation: Landowners can surround their land with a robust fence and hire armed guards to protect it, but producers of information or literature can usually do little to stop their first buyer from replicating it and selling it at a lower price. Balancing rights so that they are strong enough to encourage the creation of intellectual goods but not so strong that they prevent the goods' wide use is the primary focus of modern intellectual property law.

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 Identification Rules, which requires any broadcast of paid material to include a disclosure.

The term payola is a combination of "pay" and "ola", which is a suffix of product names common in the early 20th century, such as Pianola, Victrola, Amberola, Crayola, Rock-Ola, Shinola, or brands such as the radio equipment manufacturer Motorola.

History.

Prior to the 1930s, there was little public scrutiny of the reasoning behind a song's popularity. The advertising agencies which sponsored NBC's radio/TV show Your Hit Parade refused to reveal the specific methods that were used to determine top hits. Only general and vague statements were offered; that determining top hits was based on "readings of radio requests, sheet music sales, dance hall favorites and jukebox tabulations". Early attempts to stop payola were met with silence by publishers.

Prosecution for payola in the 1950s was in part a reaction of the traditional music establishment against newcomers. The emergence of hit radio had become a threat to the wages of song-pluggers and publisher's revenue streams. By the mid-1940s, three-quarters of the records produced in the United States went into jukeboxes. Attempts were made to link all payola to rock-and-roll music. In the 1950s, independent record companies or music publishers frequently used payola to promote rock and roll on American radio. This practice promoted cultural diversity because disc jockeys (DJs) were less inclined to indulge their own personal and racial biases.

While the amount of money involved remains largely unpublished, Phil Lind of Chicago's W A I T disclosed in Congressional hearings that he had taken US$22,000 to play a record.

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 opportunities for collusive settlement discussions and reverse auctions by defendants anxious to resolve their new exposure at the most economic cost".

Defendant class action.

Although normally plaintiffs are the class, defendant class actions are also possible. For example, in 2005, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon was sued as part of the Catholic priest sex-abuse scandal. All parishioners of the Archdiocese's churches were cited as a defendant class. This was done to include their assets (local churches) in any settlement. Where both the plaintiffs and the defendants have been organized into court-approved classes, the action is called a bilateral class action.

Mass actions.

In a class action, the plaintiff seeks court approval to litigate on behalf of a group of similarly situated persons. Not every plaintiff looks for or could obtain such approval. As a procedural alternative, plaintiff's counsel may attempt to sign up every similarly situated person that counsel can find as a client. Plaintiff's counsel can then join the claims of all of these persons in one complaint, a so-called "mass action", hoping to have the same efficiencies and economic leverage as if a class had been certified.

Because mass actions operate outside the detailed procedures laid out for class actions, they can pose special difficulties for both plaintiffs, defendants, and the court. For example, settlement of class actions follows a predictable path of negotiation with class counsel and representatives, court scrutiny, and notice. There may not be a way to uniformly settle all of the many claims brought via a mass action. Some states permit plaintiff's counsel to settle for all the mass action plaintiffs according to a majority vote, for example. Other states, such as New Jersey, require each plaintiff to approve the settlement of that plaintiff's own individual claims.

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 richer areas subject to a greater expectation of cleanliness and quiet. The case Jones v Powell (1629) provides an early example, in which a person's professional papers were damaged by the vapors of a neighboring brewery. Although the outcome of this case is unclear, Whitelocke of the Court of the King's Bench is recorded as saying that since the water supply in area was already contaminated, the nuisance was not actionable as it is "better that they should be spoiled than that the commonwealth stand in need of good liquor".

In English law, a related category of tort liability was created in the case of Rylands v Fletcher (1868): strict liability was established for a dangerous escape of some hazard, including water, fire, or animals as long as the cause was not remote. In Cambridge Water Company Limited v Eastern Counties Leather plc (1994), chemicals from a factory seeped through a floor into the water table, contaminating East Anglia's water reservoirs. The Rylands rule remains in use in England and Wales. In Australian law, it has been merged into negligence.

Economic torts.

Economic torts typically involve commercial transactions, and include tortious interference with trade or contract, fraud, injurious falsehood, and negligent misrepresentation. Negligent misrepresentation torts are distinct from contractual cases involving misrepresentation in that there is no privity of contract; these torts are likely to involve pure economic loss which has been less-commonly recoverable in tort. One criterion for determining whether economic loss is recoverable is the "foreseeability" doctrine. The economic loss rule is highly confusing and inconsistently applied and began in 1965 from a California case involving strict liability for product defects; in 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court adopted the doctrine in East River SS Corporation v Transamerica Deleval, Incorporation. In 2010, the supreme court of the U.S. state of Washington replaced the economic loss doctrine with an "independent duty doctrine".

Economic antitrust torts have been somewhat submerged by modern competition law. However, in the United States, private parties are permitted in certain circumstances to sue for anticompetitive practices, including under federal or state statutes or on the basis of common law tortious interference, which may be based upon the Restatement (Second) of Torts §766.

Negligent misrepresentation as tort where no contractual privity exists was disallowed in England by Derry v Peek ; however, this position was overturned in Hedley Byrne v Heller in 1964 so that such actions were allowed if a "special relationship" existed between the plaintiff and defendant. United States courts and scholars "paid lip-service" to Derry; however, scholars such as William Prosser argued that it was misinterpreted by English courts. The case of Ultramares Corporation v Touche (1932) limited the liability of an auditor to known identified beneficiaries of the audit and this rule was widely applied in the United States until the 1960s. The Restatement (Second) of Torts expanded liability to "foreseeable" users rather than specifically identified "foreseen" users of the information, dramatically expanding liability and affecting professionals such as accountants, architects, attorneys, and surveyors. As of 1989, most U.S. jurisdictions follow either the Ultramares approach or the Restatement approach.

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 tax evasion, rather than risk spending the rest of his life in prison and ended up serving 22 months in prison. Milken was also ordered banned for life from the securities industry.

On September 7, 1988, Milken's employer, Drexel Burnham Lambert, was threatened with RICO charges under respondeat superior, the legal doctrine that corporations are responsible for their employees' crimes. Drexel avoided RICO charges by entering an Alford plea to lesser felonies of stock parking and stock manipulation. In a carefully worded plea, Drexel said it was "not in a position to dispute the allegations" made by the Government. If Drexel had been indicted under RICO statutes, it would have had to post a performance bond of up to $1 billion to avoid having its assets frozen. That would have taken precedence over all of the firm's other obligations, including the loans that provided 96 percent of its capital base. If the bond ever had to be paid, its shareholders would have been practically wiped out. Since banks will not extend credit to a firm indicted under RICO, an indictment would have likely put Drexel out of business. By at least one estimate, a RICO indictment would have destroyed the firm within a month. Years later, Drexel President and CEO Fred Joseph said that Drexel had no choice but to plead guilty because "a financial institution cannot survive a RICO indictment."

Major League Baseball.

In 2001, Major League Baseball team owners voted to eliminate two teams, presumably the Minnesota Twins and Montreal Expos. In 2002, the former minority owners of the Expos filed charges under the RICO Act against MLB commissioner Bud Selig and former Expos owner Jeffrey Loria, claiming that Selig and Loria deliberately conspired to devalue the team for personal benefit in preparation for a move. If found liable, Major League Baseball could have been responsible for up to $300 million in punitive damages. The case lasted two years, successfully stalling the Expos' move to Washington or contraction during that time. It was eventually sent to arbitration, where the arbiters ruled in favor of Major League Baseball, permitting the move to Washington to take place.

Los Angeles Police Department.

In April 2000, federal judge William J Rea in Los Angeles, ruling in one Rampart scandal case, said that the plaintiffs could pursue RICO claims against the LAPD, an unprecedented finding. In July 2001, US District Judge Gary A. Feess said that the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue the LAPD under RICO, because they were alleging personal injuries rather than economic or property damage.

Mohawk Industries.

On April 26, 2006, the Supreme Court heard Mohawk Industries, Inc. v Williams, (2006), which concerned what sort of corporations fell under the scope of RICO. Mohawk Industries had allegedly hired illegal aliens, in violation of RICO. The court was asked to decide whether Mohawk Industries, along with recruiting agencies, constituted an "enterprise" that could be prosecuted under RICO. However, in June of that year, the court dismissed the case and remanded it to the US Court of Appeals.

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 Fifth Amendment's command that no person "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself" and that no person "shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law."

The exclusionary rule is grounded in the Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights, and it is intended to protect citizens from illegal searches and seizures. The exclusionary rule is also designed to provide a remedy and disincentive for criminal prosecution from prosecutors and police who illegally gathered evidence in violation of the Fifth Amendment and its protection against self-incrimination. The exclusionary rule also protects against violations of the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees the right to counsel.

Most states also have their own exclusionary remedies for illegally obtained evidence under their state constitutions and/or statutes, some of which predate the federal constitutional guarantees against unlawful searches and seizures and compelled self-incrimination.

This rule is occasionally referred to as a legal technicality because it allows defendants a defense that does not address whether the crime was actually committed. In this respect, it is similar to the explicit rule in the Fifth Amendment protecting people from double jeopardy. In strict cases, when an illegal action is used by police/prosecution to gain any incriminating result, all evidence whose recovery stemmed from the illegal action—this evidence is known as "fruit of the poisonous tree"—can be thrown out from a jury (or be grounds for a mistrial if too much information has been irrevocably revealed).

The exclusionary rule applies to all persons within the United States regardless of whether they are citizens, immigrants (legal or illegal), or visitors.

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 another under the mistaken belief that the property belongs to him does not have the requisite intent to steal; nor does a person "intend to steal" property when he takes property intending to make temporary use of it and then return the property to the owner within a reasonable time. However, it is not a defense that the defendant did not know that the property belonged to the true owner, only that he knew that it did not belong to him.

Must have value.

Larceny protects the possession of goods – objects that have economic value. A good has economic value if it has a price; that is, the property can be sold in a market. Thus, if the property taken has no economic value, it is not subject to larceny statutes. Under contemporary larceny laws, it is normally sufficient to support a larceny charge if the item has any value to the owner, even if its market value would be negligible.

Under New York State law, written instruments, utility services, and items of unascertainable value have special rules, and for grand larceny in the fourth degree, a motor vehicle must have a value of $100 or greater. Otherwise, value is defined generally as:

the market value of the property at the time and place of the crime, or if such cannot be satisfactorily ascertained, the cost of replacement of the property within a reasonable time after the crime.

— N.Y. Penal Law § 155.20 (1).

Grand larceny.

Grand larceny is typically defined as larceny of a more significant amount of property. In the US, it is often defined as an amount valued at least $400. In New York, grand larceny refers to amounts of at least $1,000. Grand larceny is often classified as a felony with the concomitant possibility of a harsher sentence. In Virginia the threshold is only $5 if taken from a person, or $500 if not taken from the person. The same penalty applies for stealing checks as for cash or other valuables. Some states (such as North Carolina) use the term "felonious larceny" instead of grand larceny.

The classification of larceny as grand or petit larceny originated in an English statute passed in 1275. ("petit" is a French word for "small"). Both were felonies. However, the punishment for grand larceny was death while the punishment for petit larceny was forfeiture of property to the Crown and whipping. The classification was based on the value of the property taken. The offense was grand larceny if the value of the property taken was greater than twelve pence, approximately the value of a sheep in the thirteenth century.

Most jurisdictions have discarded the grand/petit terminology and use value to classify larcenies as felonies or misdemeanors. "Value" means the fair market value of the property at the time and place taken. Most jurisdictions also make certain larcenies felonies regardless of the value of the property taken. For example, North Carolina General Statutes Section 14 - 72 (b)(1) makes the crime of larceny a felony "without regard to value" if the larceny is (1) from the person (2) committed pursuant to certain types of breaking or entering (3) of any explosive or incendiary device or (4) of any firearm. The modern spelling is petit larceny for the misdemeanor level. Some states may also charge certain types of larceny as "robbery", "burglary", "theft", "shoplifting", "conversion", and other terms.

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.

Description.

In a typical class action, a plaintiff sues a defendant or a number of defendants on behalf of a group, or class, of absent parties. This differs from a traditional lawsuit, where one party sues another party, and all of the parties are present in court. Although standards differ between states and countries, class actions are most common where the allegations usually involve at least 40 people who the same defendant has injured in the same way. Instead of each damaged person bringing one's own lawsuit, the class action allows all the claims of all class members—whether they know they have been damaged or not—to be resolved in a single proceeding through the efforts of the representative plaintiffs and appointed class counsel.

History.

United States.

Class actions survived in the United States thanks to the influence of Supreme Court Associate Justice Joseph Story, who imported it into US law through summary discussions in his two equity treatises as well as his opinion in West v Randall (1820).  However, Story did not necessarily endorse class actions, because he "could not conceive of a modern function or a coherent theory for representative litigation." 

The oldest predecessor to the class-action rule in the United States was in the Federal Equity Rules, specifically Equity Rule 48, promulgated in 1842.

Where the parties on either side are very numerous, and cannot, without manifest inconvenience and oppressive delays in the suit, be all brought before it, the court in its discretion may dispense with making all of them parties, and may proceed in the suit, having sufficient parties before it to represent all the adverse interests of the plaintiffs and the defendants in the suit properly before it. But in such cases, the decree shall be without prejudice to the rights and claims of all the absent parties.

This allowed for representative suits in situations where there were too many individual parties (which now forms the first requirement for class-action litigation – numerosity). However, this rule did not allow such suits to bind similarly situated absent parties, which rendered the rule ineffective. Within ten years, the Supreme Court interpreted Rule 48 in such a way so that it could apply to absent parties under certain circumstances, but only by ignoring the plain meaning of the rule.  In the rules published in 1912, Equity Rule 48 was replaced with Equity Rule 38 as part of a major restructuring of the Equity Rules, and when federal courts merged their legal and equitable procedural systems in 1938, Equity Rule 38 became Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

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 and a criminal prosecution in countries where the civil and criminal legal systems are separate. Tort law may also be contrasted with contract law, which provides civil remedies after breach of a duty that arises from a contract. Obligations in both tort and criminal law are more fundamental and are imposed regardless of whether the parties have a contract.

While tort law in civil law jurisdictions largely derives from Roman law, common law jurisdictions derive their tort law from customary English tort law. In civil law jurisdictions based on civil codes, both contractual and tortious or delictual liability is typically outlined in a civil code based on Roman Law principles. Tort law is referred to as the law of delict in Scots and Roman Dutch law, and resembles tort law in common law jurisdictions in that rules regarding civil liability are established primarily by precedent and theory rather than an exhaustive code. However, like other civil law jurisdictions, the underlying principles are drawn from Roman law. A handful of jurisdictions have codified a mixture of common and civil law jurisprudence either due to their colonial past (for example Québec, St Lucia, Mauritius) or due to influence from multiple legal traditions when their civil codes were drafted (for example Mainland China, the Philippines, and Thailand). Furthermore, Israel essentially codifies common law provisions on tort.

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 the law under the close supervision of the committee's chairman, Senator John Little McClellan. It was enacted as Title 9 of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, and signed into law by US President Richard M Nixon. While its original use in the 1970s was to prosecute the Mafia as well as others who were actively engaged in organized crime, its later application has been more widespread.

Beginning in 1972, thirty-three states adopted state RICO laws to be able to prosecute similar conduct.

Summary.

Under RICO, a person who has committed "at least two acts of racketeering activity" drawn from a list of 35 crimes (27 federal crimes and eight state crimes) within a 10-year period can be charged with racketeering if such acts are related in one of four specific ways to an "enterprise." Those found guilty of racketeering can be fined up to $25,000 and sentenced to 20 years in prison per racketeering count. In addition, the racketeer must forfeit all ill-gotten gains and interest in any business gained through a pattern of "racketeering activity."

A US Attorney who decides to indict someone under RICO has the option of seeking a pre-trial restraining order or injunction to temporarily seize a defendant's assets and prevent the transfer of potentially forfeitable property and to require the defendant to put up a performance bond. That provision was placed in the law because the owners of Mafia-related shell corporations often absconded with the assets. An injunction or performance bond ensures that there is something to seize in the event of a guilty verdict.

In many cases, the threat of a RICO indictment can force defendants to plead guilty to lesser charges, in part because the seizure of assets would make it difficult to pay a defense attorney. Despite its harsh provisions, a RICO-related charge is considered easy to prove in court since it focuses on patterns of behavior, as opposed to criminal acts.

RICO also permits a private individual "damaged in his business or property" by a "racketeer" to file a civil suit. The plaintiff must prove the existence of an "enterprise." The defendants are not the enterprise; in other words, the defendants and the enterprise are not one and the same. There must be one of four specified relationships between the defendants and the enterprise: either the defendants invested the proceeds of the pattern of racketeering activity into the enterprise (18 U.S.C. § 1962(a)); or the defendants acquired or maintained an interest in, or control of, the enterprise through the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (b)); or the defendants conducted or participated in the affairs of the enterprise "through" the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (c)); or the defendants conspired to do one of the above (subsection (d)). In essence, the enterprise is either the 'prize', 'instrument', 'victim', or 'perpetrator' of the racketeers. A civil RICO action can be filed in state or federal court.

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 right to counsel in any civil proceeding, including a deportation hearing (even though deportability is often a collateral consequence of criminal conviction). However, as described below, there are certain civil proceedings where parties have a right to appointed counsel; such a right is pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment's due process or equal protection clause, a state constitution's due process or equal protection clause, or a federal/state statute. Subject to considerations such as conflicts of interest, scheduling, counsel's authorization to practice law in the jurisdiction, and counsel's willingness to represent the defendant (whether pro bono or for a fee), criminal defendants have a right to be represented by counsel of their choice. The remedy for erroneous deprivation of first choice counsel is automatic reversal. Appointment of counsel for indigent litigants. A criminal defendant unable to afford counsel has the right to appointed counsel at the government's expense. While the Supreme Court recognized this right gradually, it currently applies in all federal and state criminal proceedings where the defendant faces authorized imprisonment greater than one year (a "felony") or where the defendant is actually imprisoned, including imposition of a suspended incarceration sentence of any length. Criminal defendants in misdemeanor cases do not have a right to appointed counsel if they are not sentenced to actual imprisonment, even if that conviction is later used to enhance sentencing for another crime, or even if the revocation of probation may result in actual imprisonment (although for parole revocation, the court evaluates the right to counsel on a case-by-case-basis). Nor does the defendant have the right to appointed counsel to raise frivolous arguments on direct appeal, or to raise any arguments on habeas or other collateral appeal, even if facing execution. One federal court has held that a state court must appoint counsel upon imposition of probation, regardless of whether a separate suspended sentence of incarceration is also imposed and regardless of whether counsel is provided for any subsequent probation revocation proceeding, while others have held or suggested that if probation is imposed without counsel, then a person may not be subsequently jailed for violation of that probation.

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 related crimes. However, larceny remains an offense in parts of the United States, Jersey, and in New South Wales, Australia, involving the taking (caption) and carrying away (asportation) of personal property without the owner's consent.

By nation.

United Kingdom.

United States.

Larceny laws in the United States have their roots in common law, pursuant to which larceny involves the trespassory taking (caption) and carrying away (asportation, removal) of the tangible personal property of another with the intent to permanently deprive the owner of its possession. Larceny is now codified as a statutory crime in all U.S. jurisdictions.

Under many states' larceny statutes, including California, larceny can include the taking of "money, labor, or real or personal property."

England and Wales.

The common law offense of larceny was codified by the Larceny Act 1916. It was abolished on 1 January 1969, for all purposes not relating to offenses committed before that date. It has been replaced by the broader offense of theft under section 1(1) of the Theft Act 1968. This offense did incorporate some of the terminology and substance of larceny. Despite the offense being abolished in England, it has been retained in the Crown Dependency of Jersey.

 

Elements.

Possession versus custody.

Larceny is a crime against possession. Furthermore, it has two elements which must be met: the actual taking of the property, even if momentarily (actus reus), and the culpable intent to deprive another of their property (mens rea). Larceny involves the trespassory taking of property from possession of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the owner of that property.  To understand larceny, one must understand the distinction between custody and possession.

A person has possession of property when he has actual physical control over the property (actual possession) or he has the right to exercise considerable control over the disposition or use of the property (constructive possession).

A person has custody if he has actual physical control of the property, but the person who has constructive possession has substantially restricted the custodian's right to use the property.

Examples of custody would be a store customer examining the goods of a merchant, or an employee who has been given the property of his employer to be used in his employment. This is to be contrasted to, for example, a person who has obtained actual possession of the property by fraud.

Ancient Roman law (first 50 years of written University law, possibly borrowing from Greek law there is no copy of) was laxer about "simple possession"; it was assumed "borrowing" if there was no one to ask: unless or until other factors arose (such as refusal to return promptly when asked).

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 be any communication notifying the party to whom it is addressed of an alleged fault which resulted in damages, often expressed in the amount of money the receiving party should pay/reimburse.

To pursue a cause of action, a plaintiff pleads or alleges facts in a complaint, the pleading that initiates a lawsuit. A cause of action generally encompasses both the legal theory (the legal wrong the plaintiff claims to have suffered) and the remedy (the relief a court is asked to grant). Often the facts or circumstances that entitle a person to seek judicial relief may create multiple causes of action. Although it is fairly straightforward to file a Statement of Claim in most jurisdictions, if it is not done properly, then the filing party may lose her case due to simple technicalities. The need to balance procedural expediency and continuity (the technicalities of which one might fall foul) expressed as “procedure rules” (be they civil or criminal) must be balanced with the highest priority of all -- to achieve justice. The court and its officers are obliged to serve justice first.

There are a number of specific causes of action, including: contract-based actions; statutory causes of action; torts such as assault, battery, invasion of privacy, fraud, slander, negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress; and suits in equity such as unjust enrichment and quantum meruit.

The points a plaintiff must prove to win a given type of case are called the "elements" of that cause of action. For example, for a claim of negligence, the elements are: the (existence of a) duty, breach (of that duty), proximate cause (by that breach), and damages. If a complaint does not allege facts sufficient to support every element of a claim, the court, upon motion by the opposing party, may dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim for which relief can be granted.

The defendant to a cause of action must file an "Answer" to the complaint in which the claims can be admitted or denied (including denial on the basis of insufficient information in the complaint to form a response). The answer may also contain counterclaims in which the "Counterclaim Plaintiff" states its own causes of action. Finally, the answer may contain affirmative defenses. Most defenses must be raised at the first possible opportunity either in the answer or by motion or are deemed waived. A few defenses, in particular a court's lack of subject matter jurisdiction, need not be pleaded and may be raised at any time.

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 contract with a client by deliberately refusing to deliver necessary goods.

A tort of negligent interference occurs when one party's negligence damages the contractual or business relationship between others, causing economic harm, such as, by blocking a waterway or causing a blackout that prevents the utility company from being able to uphold its existing contracts with consumers.

Description.

Tortious interference with contract rights.

Tortious interference with contract rights can occur when one party persuades another to breach its contract with a third party (for example, using blackmail, threats, influence, etcetera) or where someone knowingly interferes with a contractor's ability to perform his contractual obligations, preventing the client from receiving the services or goods promised (for example, by refusing to deliver goods). The tortfeasor is the person who interferes with the contractual relationship between others. When a tortfeasor is aware of an existing contract and deliberately induces a breach by one of the contract holders, it is termed "tortious inducement of breach of contract."

Tortious interference with a business relationship.

Tortious interference with business relationships occurs where the tortfeasor intentionally acts to prevent someone from successfully establishing or maintaining business relationships with others. This tort may occur when one party knowingly takes an action that causes a second party not to enter into a business relationship with a third party that otherwise would probably have occurred. An example is when a tortfeasor offers to sell a property to someone below market value knowing they were in the final stages of a sale with a third party pending the upcoming settlement date to formalize the sale writing. Such conduct is termed "tortious interference with a business expectancy".

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, as opposed to multiple non-zero rates that vary depending on the amount subject to taxation.

A flat tax system is usually discussed in the context of an income tax, where progressivity is common, but it may also apply to taxes on consumption, property or transfers.

Major categories.

Flat tax proposals differ in how the subject of the tax is defined.

True flat-rate income tax.

A true flat-rate tax is a system of taxation where one tax rate is applied to all personal income with no deductions.

Marginal flat tax.

Where deductions are allowed, a 'flat tax' is a progressive tax with the special characteristic that, above the maximum deduction, the marginal rate on all further income is constant. Such a tax is said to be marginally flat above that point. The difference between a true flat tax and a marginally flat tax can be reconciled by recognizing that the latter simply excludes certain types of income from being defined as taxable income; hence, both kinds of tax are flat on taxable income.

Flat tax with limited deductions.

Modified flat taxes have been proposed which would allow deductions for a very few items, while still eliminating the vast majority of existing deductions. Charitable deductions and home mortgage interest are the most discussed examples of deductions that would be retained, as these deductions are popular with voters and are often used. Another common theme is a single, large, fixed deduction. This large fixed deduction would compensate for the elimination of various existing deductions and would simplify taxes, having the side-effect that many (mostly low income) households will not have to file tax returns.

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 juries, but "courts of equity" that tried civil cases seeking an injunction or another form of non-monetary relief did not. As a result, this practice continues in American civil laws, but in modern English law, only criminal proceedings and some inquiries are likely to be heard by a jury.

A distinctive feature of jury trials in the United States is that verdicts in criminal cases must usually be unanimous.

Every person accused of a crime punishable by incarceration for more than six months has a constitutionally protected right to a trial by jury, which arises in federal court from Article Three of the United States Constitution, which states in part, "The Trial of all Crimes...shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed." The right was expanded with the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which states in part, "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed." Both provisions were made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Most states' constitutions also grant the right of trial by jury in lesser criminal matters, though most have abrogated that right in offenses punishable by fine only. The Supreme Court has ruled that if imprisonment is for six months or less, trial by jury is not required, meaning a state may choose whether or not to permit trial by jury in such cases. Under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, if the defendant is entitled to a jury trial, he may waive his right to have a jury, but both the government (prosecution) and court must consent to the waiver. Several states require jury trials for all crimes, "petty" or not.

In the cases Apprendi v New Jersey, (2000), and Blakely v Washington, (2004), the Supreme Court of the United States held that a criminal defendant has a right to a jury trial not only on the question of guilt or innocence, but any fact used to increase the defendant's sentence beyond the maximum otherwise allowed by statutes or sentencing guidelines. This invalidated the procedure in many states and the federal courts that allowed sentencing enhancement based on "a preponderance of evidence", where enhancement could be based on the judge's findings alone. Depending upon the state, a jury must be unanimous for either a guilty or not guilty decision. A hung jury results in the defendant's release, however charges against the defendant are not dropped and can be reinstated if the state so chooses.

Jurors in some states are selected through voter registration and drivers' license lists. A form is sent to prospective jurors to pre-qualify them by asking the recipient to answer questions about citizenship, disabilities, ability to understand the English language, and whether they have any conditions that would excuse them from being a juror. If they are deemed qualified, a summons is issued.

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 the responsibility of the copyright holder. The ACTA trade agreement, signed in May 2011 by the United States, Japan, Switzerland, and the EU, and which has not entered into force, requires that its parties add criminal penalties, including incarceration and fines, for copyright and trademark infringement, and obligates the parties to actively police for infringement. There are limitations and exceptions to copyright, allowing limited use of copyrighted works, which does not constitute infringement. Examples of such doctrines are the fair use and fair dealing doctrine.

Trademark infringement.

Trademark infringement occurs when one party uses a trademark that is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark owned by another party, in relation to products or services which are identical or similar to the products or services of the other party. In many countries, a trademark receives protection without registration, but registering a trademark provides legal advantages for enforcement. Infringement can be addressed by civil litigation and, in several jurisdictions, under criminal law.

Trade secret misappropriation.

Trade secret misappropriation is different from violations of other intellectual property laws, since by definition trade secrets are secret, while patents and registered copyrights and trademarks are publicly available. In the United States, trade secrets are protected under state law, and states have nearly universally adopted the Uniform Trade Secrets Act. The United States also has federal law in the form of the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 (18 U.S.C. §§ 1831–1839), which makes the theft or misappropriation of a trade secret a federal crime. This law contains two provisions criminalizing two sorts of activity. The first, 18 U.S.C. § 1831(a), criminalizes the theft of trade secrets to benefit foreign powers. The second, 18 U.S.C. § 1832, criminalizes their theft for commercial or economic purposes. (The statutory penalties are different for the two offenses.) In Commonwealth common law jurisdictions, confidentiality and trade secrets are regarded as an equitable right rather than a property right but penalties for theft are roughly the same as in the United States.

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 action is commenced with the filing or service of a pleading called a complaint. Civil court rules in states that have incorporated the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure use the same term for the same pleading.

In Civil Law, a “complaint” is the first formal action taken to officially begin a lawsuit. This written document contains the allegations against the defense, the specific laws violated, the facts that led to the dispute, and any demands made by the plaintiff to restore justice.

In some jurisdictions, specific types of criminal cases may also be commenced by the filing of a complaint, also sometimes called a criminal complaint or felony complaint. Most criminal cases are prosecuted in the name of the governmental authority that promulgates criminal statutes and enforces the police power of the state with the goal of seeking criminal sanctions, such as the State (also sometimes called the People) or Crown (in Commonwealth realms). In the United States, the complaint is often associated with misdemeanor criminal charges presented by the prosecutor without the grand jury process. In most U.S. jurisdictions, the charging instrument presented to and authorized by a grand jury is referred to as an indictment.

United States.

Virtually every U.S. state has some forms available on the web for most common complaints for lawyers and self-representing litigants; if a petitioner cannot find an appropriate form in their state, they often can modify a form from another state to fit his or her request. Several United States federal courts publish general guidelines for the petitioners and Civil Rights complaint forms.

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 of fraud may be monetary gain or other benefits, for example by obtaining a passport, travel document, or driver's license, or mortgage fraud, where the perpetrator may attempt to qualify for a mortgage by way of false statements.

A hoax is a distinct concept that involves deliberate deception without the intention of gain or of materially damaging or depriving a victim.

As a civil wrong.

In common law jurisdictions, as a civil wrong, fraud is a tort. While the precise definitions and requirements of proof vary among jurisdictions, the requisite elements of fraud as a tort generally are the intentional misrepresentation or concealment of an important fact upon which the victim is meant to rely, and in fact does rely, to the harm of the victim. Proving fraud in a court of law is often said to be difficult as the intention to defraud is the key element in question. As such, proving fraud comes with a "greater evidentiary burden than other civil claims." This difficulty is exacerbated by the fact that some jurisdictions require the victim to prove fraud by clear and convincing evidence.

The remedies for fraud may include rescission (for example, reversal) of a fraudulently obtained agreement or transaction, the recovery of a monetary award to compensate for the harm caused, punitive damages to punish or deter the misconduct, and possibly others.

In cases of a fraudulently induced contract, fraud may serve as a defense in a civil action for breach of contract or specific performance of contract. Similarly, fraud may serve as a basis for a court to invoke its equitable jurisdiction.

As a criminal offense.

In common law jurisdictions, as a criminal offense, fraud takes many different forms, some general (for example, theft by false pretense) and some specific to particular categories of victims or misconduct (for example, bank fraud, insurance fraud, forgery). The elements of fraud as a crime similarly vary. The requisite elements of perhaps the most general form of criminal fraud, theft by false pretense, are the intentional deception of a victim by false representation or pretense with the intent of persuading the victim to part with property and with the victim parting with property in reliance on the representation or pretense and with the perpetrator intending to keep the property from the victim.

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. and which had considerable impact on turn-of-the-century reform movements in America and elsewhere. Every single state in the United States has some form of property tax on real estate and hence, in part, a tax on land value. However, Pennsylvania in particular has seen local attempts to rely more heavily on the taxation of land value.

History.

Physiocratic influence in the United States came by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson as Ambassadors to France. Jefferson also brought his friend Pierre du Pont to the United States to promote the idea. A statement in the 36th Federalist Paper reflects that influence, "A small land tax will answer the purpose of the States, and will be their most simple and most fit resource."

Henry George.

Henry George (September 2, 1839 – October 29, 1897) was perhaps the most famous advocate of land rents. As an American political economist, he advocated for a "Single Tax" on land that would eliminate the need for all other taxes. In 1879 he authored Progress and Poverty, which significantly influenced land taxation in the United States.

Legality.

There are two potential legal obstacles unique to land value taxation in the United States: uniformity clauses and Dillon's Rule. At the federal level, land value taxation is legal so long as it is apportioned among the states.

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 bias. Juries or lay judges have also been incorporated into the legal systems of many civil law countries for criminal cases. Only the United States makes routine use of jury trials in a wide variety of non-criminal cases. Other common law legal jurisdictions use jury trials only in a very select class of cases that make up a tiny share of the overall civil docket (like malicious prosecution and false imprisonment suits in England and Wales), but true civil jury trials are almost entirely absent elsewhere in the world. Some civil law jurisdictions, however, have arbitration panels where non-legally trained members decide cases in select subject-matter areas relevant to the arbitration panel members' areas of expertise.

The use of jury trials, which evolved within common law systems rather than civil law systems, has had a profound impact on the nature of American civil procedure and criminal procedure rules, even if a bench trial is actually contemplated in a particular case. In general, the availability of a jury trial if properly demanded has given rise to a system in which fact finding is concentrated in a single trial rather than multiple hearings, and appellate review of trial court decisions is greatly limited. Jury trials are of far less importance (or of no importance) in countries that do not have a common law system.

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 that intellectual property became commonplace in the majority of the world's legal systems.

The main purpose of intellectual property law is to encourage the creation of a wide variety of intellectual goods. To achieve this, the law gives people and businesses property rights to the information and intellectual goods they create, usually for a limited period of time. This gives economic incentive for their creation, because it allows people to benefit from the information and intellectual goods they create, and allows them to protect their ideas and prevent copying. These economic incentives are expected to stimulate innovation and contribute to the technological progress of countries, which depends on the extent of protection granted to innovators.

The intangible nature of intellectual property presents difficulties when compared with traditional property like land or goods. Unlike traditional property, intellectual property is "indivisible", since an unlimited number of people can "consume" an intellectual good without its being depleted. Additionally, investments in intellectual goods suffer from problems of appropriation: Landowners can surround their land with a robust fence and hire armed guards to protect it, but producers of information or literature can usually do little to stop their first buyer from replicating it and selling it at a lower price. Balancing rights so that they are strong enough to encourage the creation of intellectual goods but not so strong that they prevent the goods' wide use is the primary focus of modern intellectual property law.

Rights.

Intellectual property rights include patents, copyright, industrial design rights, trademarks, plant variety rights, trade dress, geographical indications, and in some jurisdictions trade secrets. There are also more specialized or derived varieties of sui generis exclusive rights, such as circuit design rights (called mask work rights in the US), supplementary protection certificates for pharmaceutical products (after expiry of a patent protecting them), and database rights (in European law). The term "industrial property" is sometimes used to refer to a large subset of intellectual property rights including patents, trademarks, industrial designs, utility models, service marks, trade names, and geographical indications.

Patents.

A patent is a form of right granted by the government to an inventor or their successor-in-title, giving the owner the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, offering to sell, and importing an invention for a limited period of time, in exchange for the public disclosure of the invention. An invention is a solution to a specific technological problem, which may be a product or a process and generally has to fulfill three main requirements: it has to be new, not obvious and there needs to be an industrial applicability.  To enrich the body of knowledge and stimulate innovation, it is an obligation for patent owners to disclose valuable information about their inventions to the public.

Copyright.

A copyright gives the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time. Copyright may apply to a wide range of creative, intellectual, or artistic forms, or "works". Copyright does not cover ideas and information themselves, only the form or manner in which they are expressed.

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 pleading in the courts of that state.

Examples.

Pleading in early American law was done through common law writs (for example demurrer). Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure a complaint is the first pleading in American law filed by a plaintiff which initiates a lawsuit. A complaint sets forth the relevant allegations of fact that give rise to one or more legal causes of action along with a prayer for relief and sometimes a statement of damages claimed (an ad quod damnum clause). In some situations, a complaint is called a petition, in which case the party filing it is called the petitioner and the other party is the respondent. In equity, sometimes called chancery, the initial pleading may be called either a petition or a bill of complaint in chancery.

In England and Wales, the first pleading is a Claim Form, issued under either Part 7 or Part 8 of the Civil Procedure Rules, which sets out the nature of the action and the relief sought, and may give brief particulars of the claim. The Claimant also has the option, under Practice Direction 7A.61 to serve Particulars of Claim (a document setting out the allegations which found the cause of action) within 14 days of issue of the Claim Form.

When used in civil proceedings in England and Wales, the term "complaint" refers to the mechanism by which civil proceedings are instituted in the magistrates' court  and may be either written or oral.

A demurrer is a pleading (usually filed by a defendant) which objects to the legal sufficiency of the opponent's pleading (usually a complaint) and demands that the court rule immediately about whether the pleading is legally adequate before the party must plead on the merits in response. Since demurrer procedure required an immediate ruling like a motion, many common law jurisdictions therefore went to a narrower understanding of pleadings as framing the issues in a case but not being motions in and of themselves, and replaced the demurrer with the motion to dismiss for failure to state a cause of action or the application to strike out particulars of claim.

An answer is a pleading filed by a defendant which admits or denies the specific allegations set forth in a complaint and constitutes a general appearance by a defendant. In England and Wales, the equivalent pleading is called a Defense.

A defendant may also file a cross-complaint against another defendant named by the plaintiff, and may also file a third-party complaint bring other parties into a case by the process of impleader.

A defendant may file a counter-claim to raise a cause of action to defend, reduce or set off the claim of the plaintiff.

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 constitute a tort but rather provides the insured a contractual remedy unique to insurance law.

If an insurance company violates the implied covenant, the insured person (or "policyholder") may sue the company on a tort claim in addition to a standard breach of contract claim. The contract-tort distinction is significant because as a matter of public policy, punitive or exemplary damages are unavailable for contract claims, but are available for tort claims. In addition, consequential damages for breach of contract are traditionally subject to certain constraints not applicable to compensatory damages in tort actions. The result is that a plaintiff in an insurance bad faith case may be able to recover an amount larger than the original face value of the policy, if the insurance company's conduct was particularly egregious.

Historical background.

Most laws regulating the insurance industry in the United States are state-specific. In 1869, the Supreme Court of the United States held, in Paul v Virginia (1869), that the United States Congress did not have the authority to regulate insurance under its power to regulate commerce.

In the 1930s and 1940s, a number of U.S. Supreme Court decisions broadened the interpretation of the Commerce Clause in various ways, which led the U.S. Supreme Court to hold that federal jurisdiction over interstate commerce did extend to insurance in United States v South-Eastern Underwriters Association (1944). In March 1945, the United States Congress expressly reaffirmed its support for state-based insurance regulation by passing the McCarran–Ferguson Act which held that no law that Congress passed should be construed to invalidate, impair or supersede any law enacted by a state regarding insurance. As a result, nearly all regulation of insurance continues to take place at the state level.

Such regulation generally comes in two forms. First, each state has an "insurance code" or some similarly named statute which attempts to provide comprehensive regulation of the insurance industry and of insurance policies, a specialized type of contract. State insurance codes generally mandate specific procedural requirements for starting, financing, operating, and winding down insurance companies, and often require insurers to be overcapitalized (relative to other companies in the larger financial services sector) to ensure that they have enough funds to pay claims if the state is hit by multiple natural and man-made disasters at the same time. There is usually a department of insurance or division of insurance responsible for implementing the state insurance code and enforcing its provisions in administrative proceedings against insurers.

Second, judicial interpretation of insurance contracts in disputes between policyholders and insurers takes place in the context of the aforementioned insurance-specific statutes as well as general contract law; the latter still exists only in the form of judge-made case law in most states. A few states like California and Georgia have gone farther and attempted to codify all of their contract law (not just insurance law) into statutory law.

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 Center estimated in 2016 that fully eliminating the SALT deduction would increase federal revenue by nearly $1.3 trillion over 10 years.

Definition.

For United States Federal Income Tax purposes, state and local taxes are defined in section 170(a) of the Internal Revenue Code as taxes paid to states and localities in the forms of: (1) real property taxes; (2) personal property taxes; (3) income, war profits, and excess profits taxes; and (4) general sales taxes. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 capped the use of this itemized deduction at $10,000 ($5,000 for married persons who file separately).

Effects.

Tax savings from the SALT deduction flow disproportionately to those with high incomes. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, in 2014 88% of the benefit of the SALT deduction accrued to those with incomes above $100,000 and only 1% accrued to those making less than $50,000.

The SALT deduction primarily benefits those in high-tax states, which tend to be those with consistent Democratic legislative majorities. In 2016, the ten counties with the largest SALT deductions per filer (on average) were in New York, California, Connecticut and New Jersey. These ten counties are in the New York metropolitan area and San Francisco Bay Area, which have high concentrations of wealth and expensive real estate. Since the deduction was capped at $10,000 in 2017, many homeowners have been unable to deduct thousands of dollars that they previously could, beyond what they pay in property taxes, to state, county and local governments in these places.

In 2017, only taxpayers in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey (the states with the first, second, third, and ninth highest GDP per capita) on average sent more than $1,000 each to the federal government above what the state received per capita. Capping the SALT deduction tends to increase this balance of payments deficit.

Economic modeling by the economists Gilbert E. Metcalf and Martin Feldstein suggests that eliminating the SALT deduction would have "little if any impact on state and local spending". The economist Edward Gramlich has likewise concluded that eliminating the deduction would have little effect on state and local spending; he also finds that eliminating the deduction would likely not induce many high-income taxpayers to leave low-income communities.

A use tax is a type of tax levied in the United States by numerous state governments. It is essentially the same as a sales tax but is applied not where a product or service was sold but where a merchant bought a product or service and then converted it for its own use, without having paid tax when it was initially purchased. Use taxes are functionally equivalent to sales taxes. They are typically levied upon the use, storage, enjoyment, or other consumption in the state of tangible personal property that has not been subjected to a sales tax.

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 is held solely before a judge, it is called a bench trial.

Hearings before administrative bodies may have many of the features of a trial before a court, but are typically not referred to as trials. An appeal (appellate proceeding) is also generally not deemed a trial, because such proceedings are usually restricted to review of the evidence presented before the trial court, and do not permit the introduction of new evidence.

Types by dispute.

Trials can also be divided by the type of dispute at issue.

Criminal.

A criminal trial is designed to resolve accusations brought (usually by a government) against a person accused of a crime. In common law systems, most criminal defendants are entitled to a trial held before a jury. Because the state is attempting to use its power to deprive the accused of life, liberty, or property, the rights of the accused afforded to criminal defendants are typically broad. The rules of criminal procedure provide rules for criminal trials.

Civil.

A civil trial is generally held to settle lawsuits or civil claims—non-criminal disputes. In some countries, the government can both sue and be sued in a civil capacity. The rules of civil procedure provide rules for civil trials.

Administrative.

Although administrative hearings are not ordinarily considered trials, they retain many elements found in more "formal" trial settings. When the dispute goes to a judicial setting, it is called an administrative trial, to revise the administrative hearing, depending on the jurisdiction. The types of disputes handled in these hearings are governed by administrative law and auxiliarily by the civil trial law.

Labor.

Labor law (also known as employment law) is the body of laws, administrative rulings, and precedents which address the legal rights of, and restrictions on, working people and their organizations. As such, it mediates many aspects of the relationship between trade unions, employers and employees. In Canada, employment laws related to unionized workplaces are differentiated from those relating to particular individuals. In most countries however, no such distinction is made. However, there are two broad categories of labor law. First, collective labor law relates to the tripartite relationship between employee, employer and union. Second, individual labor law concerns employees' rights at work and through the contract for work. The labor movement has been instrumental in the enacting of laws protecting labor rights in the 19th and 20th centuries. Labour rights have been integral to social and economic development since the industrial revolution.

In criminal law, the right to a speedy trial is a human right under which it is asserted that a government prosecutor may not delay the trial of a criminal suspect arbitrarily and indefinitely. Otherwise, the power to impose such delays would effectively allow prosecutors to send anyone to jail for an arbitrary length of time without trial.

Although it is important for the protection of speedy trial rights for there to be a court in which a defendant may complain about the unreasonable delay of the trial, it is also important that nations implement structures that avoid the delay.

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 on the outcome of a future sports contest or even an entire sports season.

The term "gaming" in this context typically refers to instances in which the activity has been specifically permitted by law. The two words are not mutually exclusive; for example, a "gaming" company offers (legal) "gambling" activities to the public and may be regulated by one of many gaming control boards, for example, the Nevada Gaming Control Board. However, this distinction is not universally observed in the English-speaking world. For instance, in the United Kingdom, the regulator of gambling activities is called the Gambling Commission (not the Gaming Commission). The word gaming is used more frequently since the rise of computer and video games to describe activities that do not necessarily involve wagering, especially online gaming, with the new usage still not having displaced the old usage as the primary definition in common dictionaries. "Gaming" has also been used to circumvent laws against "gambling". The media and others have used one term or the other to frame conversations around the subjects, resulting in a shift of perceptions among their audiences.

Gambling is also a major international commercial activity, with the legal gambling market totaling an estimated $335 billion in 2009. In other forms, gambling can be conducted with materials that have a value, but are not real money. For example, players of marbles games might wager marbles, and likewise games of Pogs or Magic: The Gathering can be played with the collectible game pieces (respectively, small discs and trading cards) as stakes, resulting in a meta-game regarding the value of a player's collection of pieces.

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 Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed."

The "where the said Crimes shall have been committed" language refers to the locus delicti, and a single crime may often give rise to several constitutionally permissible venues. "he locus delicti must be determined from the nature of the crime alleged and the location of the act or acts constituting it." Thus, venue may be constitutionally permissible even if an individual defendant was never personally present in the relevant state. For example, conspiracy may be prosecuted wherever the agreement occurred or wherever any overt act was committed.

For the purposes of constitutional venue, the boundaries of the states are questions of law to be determined by the judge, but the location of the crime is a question of fact to be determined by the jury.

The venue provision of Article 3 (regulating the location of the trial) is distinct from the Vicinage Clause of the Sixth Amendment (regulating the geography from which the jury pool is selected). The unit of the former is the state; the unit of the later is the state and judicial district. Unlike judicial districts under the Vicinage Clause, consistent with Article III, Congress may "provide a place of trial where none was provided when the offense was committed, or change the place of trial after the commission of the offense."

A change of venue is the legal term for moving a trial to a new location. In high-profile matters, a change of venue may occur to move a jury trial away from a location where a fair and impartial jury may not be possible due to widespread publicity about a crime and its defendants to another community in order to obtain jurors who can be more objective in their duties. This change may be to different towns, and across the other sides of states or, in some extremely high-profile federal cases, to other states.

Forum non conveniens (Latin for "an inconvenient forum") (FNC) is a mostly common law legal doctrine through which a court acknowledges that another forum or court where the case might have been brought is a more appropriate venue for a legal case, and transfers the case to such a forum. A change of venue might be ordered, for example, to transfer a case to a jurisdiction within which an accident or incident underlying the litigation occurred and where all the witnesses reside.

As a doctrine of the conflict of laws, forum non conveniens applies between courts in different countries and between courts in different jurisdictions in the same country. Forum non conveniens is not applicable between counties or federal districts within a state.

A concern often raised in applications of the doctrine is forum shopping, or picking a court merely to gain an advantage in the proceeding. This concern is balanced against the public policy of deferring to a plaintiff's choice of venue in claims where there may be more than one appropriate jurisdiction. The underlying principles, such as basing respect given to foreign courts on reciprocal respect or comity, also apply in civil law systems in the form of the legal doctrine of lis alibi pendens.

Forum non conveniens is not exclusive to common law nations: the maritime courts of the Republic of Panama, although not a common law jurisdiction, also have such power under more restrained conditions.

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 must be obeyed. But no power short of the general law ought to restrain his free discretion.

A contractual undertaking not to trade is void and unenforceable against the promisor as contrary to the public policy of promoting trade, unless the restraint of trade is reasonable to protect the interest of the purchaser of a business. Restraints of trade can also appear in post-termination restrictive covenants in employment contracts.

United States.

In the US, the first significant discussion occurred in the Sixth Circuit's opinion by Chief Judge (later US President and still later Supreme Court Chief Justice) William Howard Taft in United States v Addyston Pipe & Steel Company Judge Taft explained the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 as a statutory codification of the English common-law doctrine of restraint of trade, as explicated in such cases as Mitchel v Reynolds. The court distinguished between naked restraints of trade and those ancillary to the legitimate main purpose of a lawful contract and reasonably necessary to effectuation of that purpose. An example of the latter would be a non-competition clause associated with the lease or sale of a bakeshop, as in the Mitchel case. Such a contract should be tested by a "rule of reason," meaning that it should be deemed legitimate if "necessary and ancillary." An example of the naked type of restraint would be the price-fixing and bid-allocation agreements involved in the Addyston case. Taft said that "we do not think there is any question of reasonableness open to the courts to such a contract." The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment. During the following century, the Addyston Pipe opinion of Judge Taft has remained foundational in antitrust analysis.

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 commerce, unless granted that authority by Congress. Some retailers, like Amazon.com, had voluntarily started collecting sales tax on purchases even from states where they do not have a physical presence. Many states also have a line item on their tax returns allowing the payment of state sales tax when state income tax is filed by an individual or corporation.

In May 2013, the Senate passed the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would allow states to collect sales taxes for purchases made online. The legislation would give States the tools to collect sales taxes on cross-State sales transactions. The bill received support from retailers including Walmart and Amazon.com, who have claimed that it is unfair not to require online merchants to collect sales taxes. Groups like the National Retail Federation and the Retail Industry Leaders Association have said that requiring online vendors to collect sales taxes will help make brick and mortar retailers more competitive. However, U.S. House Speaker John Boehner stated that it would be difficult to implement such a system due to varying tax codes in different states. The National Taxpayers Union (NTU) spoke out against the bill, along with The Heritage Foundation, which indicated that it would harm Internet commerce and small businesses. Online retailer eBay believes it will hurt some of its sellers and lobbied Congress to exempt businesses that have less than $10 million in out-of-state sales or fewer than 50 employees. The Act failed to pass in either the 112th or 113th Congress.

In October 2017, the state of South Dakota petitioned the Supreme Court to abrogate the Quill decision, citing the ease that online retailers can now determine the location and appropriate sales tax for purchases compared to the state of the Internet in 1992. Several online retailers, including Wayfair, Overstock.com and Newegg, submitted petitions in opposition to South Dakota, stating that the impact will be difficult on small and medium-sized retailers that would not have ease of access to these tools. In January 2018, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case South Dakota v Wayfair Incorporated in its 2018 term. Oral arguments were heard by the Supreme Court on April 17, 2018. During oral arguments South Dakota's attorney general, Marty Jackley, and the U.S. Solicitor General's representative, Malcolm L Stewart, both posited that if the Court overturns the Quill decision that the ruling must be retroactive and not merely prospective. Several Justices were concerned about the burden that back taxes and ongoing sales and use tax compliance would place on small businesses.

On June 21, 2018 the Supreme Court held that states may charge tax on purchases made from out-of-state sellers, even if the seller does not have a physical presence in the taxing state. The court's 5–4 majority decision overturned Quill, ruling that the physical presence rule decided by Quill was 'unsound and incorrect' in the current age of Internet services.

Value added tax.

There is no value added tax in the United States. There have been proposals to replace some Federal taxes with a value added tax.

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 law, criminal procedure puts the burden of proof on the prosecution – that is, it is up to the prosecution to prove that the defendant is guilty beyond any reasonable doubt, as opposed to having the defense prove that they are innocent, and any doubt is resolved in favor of the defendant. This provision, known as the presumption of innocence, is required, for example, in the 46 countries that are members of the Council of Europe, under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and it is included in other human rights documents. However, in practice it operates somewhat differently in different countries. Such basic rights also include the right for the defendant to know what offense he or she has been arrested for or is being charged with, and the right to appear before a judicial official within a certain time of being arrested. Many jurisdictions also allow the defendant the right to legal counsel and provide any defendant who cannot afford their own lawyer with a lawyer paid for at the public expense.

A fair trial is a trial which is "conducted fairly, justly, and with procedural regularity by an impartial judge". Various rights associated with a fair trial are explicitly proclaimed in Article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights, as well as numerous other constitutions and declarations throughout the world. There is no binding international law that defines what is not a fair trial; for example, the right to a jury trial and other important procedures vary from nation to nation.

Fair trial rights.

The right to a fair trial has been defined in numerous regional and international human rights instruments. It is one of the most extensive human rights and all international human rights instruments enshrine it in more than one article. The right to a fair trial is one of the most litigated human rights and substantial case law that has been established on the interpretation of this human right. Despite variations in wording and placement of the various fair trial rights, international human rights instruments define the right to a fair trial in broadly the same terms. The aim of the right is to ensure the proper administration of justice. As a minimum the right to fair trial includes the following fair trial rights in civil and criminal proceedings:

the right to be heard by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal,

the right to a public hearing,

the right to be heard within a reasonable time,

the right to counsel, and,

the right to interpretation.

States may limit the right to a fair trial or derogate from the fair trial rights only under circumstances specified in the human rights instruments.

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 of fraud may be monetary gain or other benefits, for example by obtaining a passport, travel document, or driver's license, or mortgage fraud, where the perpetrator may attempt to qualify for a mortgage by way of false statements.

A hoax is a distinct concept that involves deliberate deception without the intention of gain or of materially damaging or depriving a victim.

As a civil wrong.

In common law jurisdictions, as a civil wrong, fraud is a tort. While the precise definitions and requirements of proof vary among jurisdictions, the requisite elements of fraud as a tort generally are the intentional misrepresentation or concealment of an important fact upon which the victim is meant to rely, and in fact does rely, to the harm of the victim. Proving fraud in a court of law is often said to be difficult as the intention to defraud is the key element in question. As such, proving fraud comes with a "greater evidentiary burden than other civil claims." This difficulty is exacerbated by the fact that some jurisdictions require the victim to prove fraud by clear and convincing evidence.

The remedies for fraud may include rescission (for example, reversal) of a fraudulently obtained agreement or transaction, the recovery of a monetary award to compensate for the harm caused, punitive damages to punish or deter the misconduct, and possibly others.

In cases of a fraudulently induced contract, fraud may serve as a defense in a civil action for breach of contract or specific performance of contract. Similarly, fraud may serve as a basis for a court to invoke its equitable jurisdiction.

In personam is a Latin phrase meaning "against a particular person". In a lawsuit in which the case is against a specific individual, that person must be served with a summons and complaint (E&W known as Particulars of Claim (CPR 1999) to give the court jurisdiction to try the case, and the judgment applies to that person and is called an "in personam judgment".

In personam is distinguished from in rem, which applies to property or "all the world" instead of a specific person. This technical distinction is important to determine where to file a lawsuit and how to serve a defendant. In personam means that a judgment can be enforceable against the person wherever he or she is. On the other hand, if the lawsuit is to determine title to property (in rem) then the action must be filed where the property exists and is only enforceable there.

In rem jurisdiction ("power about or against 'the thing'") is a legal term describing the power a court may exercise over property (either real or personal) or a "status" against a person over whom the court does not have in personam jurisdiction. Jurisdiction in rem assumes the property or status is the primary object of the action, rather than personal liabilities not necessarily associated with the property.

A quasi in rem legal action (Latin, "as if against a thing") is a legal action based on property rights of a person absent from the jurisdiction. In the American legal system the state can assert power over an individual simply based on the fact that this individual has property (bank account, debt, share of stock, land) in the state. Quasi in rem jurisdiction does not have much function in the United States any longer. However, in very specific cases, quasi in rem jurisdiction can still be effective.

A quasi in rem action is commonly used when jurisdiction over the defendant is unobtainable due to their absence from the state. Any judgment will affect only the property seized, as in personam jurisdiction is unobtainable.

Of note, in a quasi in rem case the court may lack personal jurisdiction over the defendant, but it has jurisdiction over the defendant's property. The property could be seized to obtain a claim against the defendant. A judgment based on quasi in rem jurisdiction generally affects rights to the property only between the persons involved and does not "bind the entire world" as does a judgment based on "jurisdiction in rem".

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 constitute a tort but rather provides the insured a contractual remedy unique to insurance law.

If an insurance company violates the implied covenant, the insured person (or "policyholder") may sue the company on a tort claim in addition to a standard breach of contract claim. The contract-tort distinction is significant because as a matter of public policy, punitive or exemplary damages are unavailable for contract claims, but are available for tort claims. In addition, consequential damages for breach of contract are traditionally subject to certain constraints not applicable to compensatory damages in tort actions. The result is that a plaintiff in an insurance bad faith case may be able to recover an amount larger than the original face value of the policy, if the insurance company's conduct was particularly egregious.

Historical background.

Most laws regulating the insurance industry in the United States are state-specific. In 1869, the Supreme Court of the United States held, in Paul v Virginia (1869), that the United States Congress did not have the authority to regulate insurance under its power to regulate commerce.

In the 1930s and 1940s, a number of U.S. Supreme Court decisions broadened the interpretation of the Commerce Clause in various ways, which led the U.S. Supreme Court held that federal jurisdiction over interstate commerce did extend to insurance in United States v South-Eastern Underwriters Ass'n (1944). In March 1945, the United States Congress expressly reaffirmed its support for state-based insurance regulation by passing the McCarran–Ferguson Act which held that no law that Congress passed should be construed to invalidate, impair or supersede any law enacted by a state regarding insurance. As a result, nearly all regulation of insurance continues to take place at the state level.

Such regulation generally comes in two forms. First, each state has an "insurance code" or some similarly named statute which attempts to provide comprehensive regulation of the insurance industry and of insurance policies, a specialized type of contract. State insurance codes generally mandate specific procedural requirements for starting, financing, operating, and winding down insurance companies, and often require insurers to be overcapitalized (relative to other companies in the larger financial services sector) to ensure that they have enough funds to pay claims if the state is hit by multiple natural and man-made disasters at the same time. There is usually a department of insurance or division of insurance responsible for implementing the state insurance code and enforcing its provisions in administrative proceedings against insurers.

Second, judicial interpretation of insurance contracts in disputes between policyholders and insurers takes place in the context of the aforementioned insurance-specific statutes as well as general contract law; the latter still exists only in the form of judge-made case law in most states. A few states like California and Georgia have gone farther and attempted to codify all of their contract law (not just insurance law) into statutory law.

Missouri imposes a sales tax upon all sales of tangible personal property, as well as some "taxable services"; it also charges a use tax for the "privilege of storing, using or consuming within this state any article of tangible personal property." The state rate, including conservation and other taxes, is 4.225%, and counties, municipalities, and other political subdivisions charge their own taxes. Those additional local taxes combined with "community improvement district," "transportation development district," and "museum district" taxes can result in merchandise sales taxes in excess of 10%. The state sales tax rate on certain foods is 1.225%.

Missouri provides several exemptions from sales tax, such as purchases by charitable organizations or some common carriers (as opposed to "contract carriers"). Missouri also excludes some purchases from taxation on the grounds that such sales are not sales at retail; these include sales to political subdivisions. The Supreme Court of Missouri in August, 2009, ruled that when a sale is excluded from taxation – as opposed to exempt from taxation – the seller must self-acquire sales tax on its purchase of the goods and remit the tax on such purchases it made. This decision was reversed by two similar – but not identical – statutes added during the 2010 general assembly's regular session.

Although the purchaser is obligated to pay the tax, the seller is obligated to remit the tax, and when the seller fails to remit, the obligation to pay falls on them. As compensation for collecting and remitting taxes, and as an incentive to timely remit taxes, sellers may keep two percent of all taxes collected each period. There are two exceptions to the general rule that the seller must pay the sales tax when he or she fails to collect it.

First, no sales tax is due upon the purchase of a motor vehicle that must be titled. Instead, the purchaser pays the tax directly to the Department of Revenue within one month of purchase. As long as the vehicle is taken out of state within that first month of purchase and titled elsewhere, no tax is due in Missouri. Second, if the purchaser presents an exemption certificate to the buyer at the time of sale, then the purchaser may be assessed taxes on the purchases if the certificate was issued in bad faith.

In conflict of laws, the term lex loci (Latin for "the law of the place") is a shorthand version of the choice of law rules that determine the lex causae (the laws chosen to decide a case).

General principles.

When a case comes before a court, if the main features of the case (particularly the parties and the causes of action) are local, the court will then apply the lex fori, the prevailing municipal law, to decide the case. However, if there are "foreign" elements to the case, the court may then be obliged, under conflict of laws, to consider whether it has jurisdiction to hear the case (see forum shopping). The court must then characterise the issues to allocate the factual basis of the case to its relevant legal classes. The court may then be required to apply the choice of law rules to decide the lex causae, the law to be applied to each cause of action.

Blackacre, Whiteacre, Greenacre, Brownacre, and variations are the placeholder names used for fictitious estates in land.

The names are used by professors of law in common law jurisdictions, particularly in the area of real property and occasionally in contracts, to discuss the rights of various parties to a piece of land. A typical law school or bar exam question on real property might say:

Adam, owner of a fee simple in Blackacre, conveyed the property "to Bill for life, remainder to Charles, provided that if any person should consume alcohol on the property before the first born son of Charles turns twenty-one, then the property shall go to Dwight in fee simple." Assume that neither Bill, Charles, nor Dwight is an heir of Adam, and that Adam's only heir is his son, Edward. Discuss the ownership interests in Blackacre of Adam, Bill, Charles, Dwight and Edward.

Where more than one estate is needed to demonstrate a point – perhaps relating to a dispute over boundaries, easements or riparian rights – a second estate will usually be called Whiteacre, a third, Greenacre, and a fourth, Brownacre.

A security deposit is a sum of money held in trust either as an initial part-payment in a purchasing process (often used to prevent the seller's selling an item to someone else during an agreed period of time while the buyer verifies the suitability of the item, or arranges finance), also known as an earnest payment, or else, in the course of a rental agreement to ensure the property owner against default by the tenant and for the cost of repair in relation to any damage explicitly specified in the lease and that did in fact occur.

In certain taxation regimes a deposit need not be declared as a part of the gross income of the receiving party (person or corporation) until either the depositing party or an arbitrator agrees the funds may be used for the intended purpose.

A security deposit is a sum of money held in trust either as an initial part-payment in a purchasing process (often used to prevent the seller's selling an item to someone else during an agreed period of time while the buyer verifies the suitability of the item, or arranges finance), also known as an earnest payment, or else, in the course of a rental agreement to ensure the property owner against default by the tenant and for the cost of repair in relation to any damage explicitly specified in the lease and that did in fact occur.

In certain taxation regimes a deposit need not be declared as a part of the gross income of the receiving party (person or corporation) until either the depositing party or an arbitrator agrees the funds may be used for the intended purpose.

In criminal law, property is obtained by false pretenses when the acquisition results from intentional misrepresentation of a past or existing fact.

Elements.

The elements of false pretenses are:

a false representation,

of a material past or existing fact,

 which the person making the representation knows is false,

made for the purpose of causing,

and which does cause,

the victim to pass title, and

to his property.

False pretenses is a statutory offense in most jurisdictions; subject matter covered by statute varies accordingly, and is not necessarily limited to tangible personal property - some statutes include intangible personal property and services. For example, the North Carolina false pretense statute applies to obtaining "any money, goods, property, services, choses in action, or any other thing of value ..." Under common law, false pretense is defined as a representation of a present or past fact, which the thief knows to be false, and which he intends will and does cause the victim to pass the title of his property. That is, false pretense is the acquisition of title from a victim by fraud or misrepresentation of a material past or present fact.

a false representation - there must be a description or portrayal of something that is false. If a person makes a statement about something that he mistakenly believes to be untrue there is no false representation. For example, if a person represents that the ring is a diamond solitaire when he believes that is in fact made of cubic zirconium he is not guilty of false pretenses if it turns out that the ring was in fact a diamond. The representation must be false at the time the title passes. Thus if the representation was false when made but is true at the time title to the property passes there is no crime. For example, representing to a seller that you have funds available in your bank account to pay for the goods when in fact your account has a zero balance is not false pretenses if at the time the transaction takes place adequate funds are present in the account. The representation may be oral or written. The misrepresentation has to be affirmative. A failure to disclose a fact does not fit this misrepresentation in common law, unless there is a fiduciary duty between the thief and victim. Moreover, opinion and puffing are not considered misrepresentation as they color the facts but do not misrepresent them.

of a material past or existing fact - the representation must relate to a material past or existing fact. A representation concerning a future state of facts is not sufficient. Nor is merely an expression of opinion.

which the person making the representation knows is false - A mistaken representation about some past or existing state of facts is not sufficient for false pretense.

made for the purpose of causing and which does cause - It is essential that the victim of the false pretenses must actually be deceived by the misrepresentation: the victim must transfer title to the property in reliance on the representation; and the victim being deceived must be a major (if not the only) reason for the victim's transferring title to the defendant. Simply making a false promise or statement is not sufficient. It is not a defense to a false pretenses charge that a reasonable person would not have been deceived by the false representation. No matter how gullible the victim, if he or she was in fact deceived the offense has been committed. On the other hand, the offense requires the victim to believe the representation to be true. If the person to whom the representation has been made has doubts or serious misgivings about the truth of the representation but nonetheless goes through with the transaction he has not been deceived - he has basically assumed the risk of a false representation.

Personal jurisdiction is a court's jurisdiction over the parties, as determined by the facts in evidence, which bind the parties to a lawsuit, as opposed to subject-matter jurisdiction, which is jurisdiction over the law involved in the suit. Without personal jurisdiction over a party, a court’s rulings or decrees cannot be enforced upon that party, except by comity; for example, to the extent that the sovereign which has jurisdiction over the party allows the court to enforce them upon that party. A court that has personal jurisdiction has both the authority to rule on the law and facts of a suit and the power to enforce its decision upon a party to the suit. In some cases, territorial jurisdiction may also constrain a court's reach, such as preventing hearing of a case concerning events occurring on foreign territory between two citizens of the home jurisdiction. A similar principle is that of standing or locus standi, which is the ability of a party to demonstrate to the court sufficient connection to and harm from the law or action challenged to support that party's participation in the case.

International principles.

Since there is no world government which all countries recognize to arbitrate disputes over jurisdiction, sovereign powers can find themselves in conflict over which is the more appropriate venue to hear a case, or which country's laws should apply. These conflicts are sometimes resolved de facto by physical factors, such as which country has physical possession of a defendant or property, or sometimes by use of physical police or military force to seize people or property. A country with loose rule of law – for example an absolute monarchy with no independent judiciary – may arbitrarily choose to assert jurisdiction over a case without citing any particular justification. Such assertion can cause problems, such as encouraging other countries to take arbitrary actions over foreign citizens and property, or even provoking skirmishes or armed conflict.

In practice, many countries operate by one or another principles, either in written law or in practice, which communicate when the country will and will not assert jurisdiction:

treaty jurisdiction — An international treaty explicitly decides the issue.

territorial principle — A country asserts jurisdiction over people, property, and events taking place on its own territory.

nationality principle — A country asserts jurisdiction over the conduct of its citizens, anywhere in the world.

passive personality principle — A country asserts jurisdiction over acts committed against its citizens, anywhere in the world.

protective principle — A country asserts jurisdiction over issues that affect its interests, such as conspiracies to overthrow its government, or resources critical to its economy (such as access to an international waterway)

universal jurisdiction — A country asserts jurisdiction over certain acts committed by anyone, anywhere in the world. Usually reserved for exceptionally serious crimes, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Economic torts, which are also called business torts, are torts that provide the common law rules on liability which arise out of business transactions such as interference with economic or business relationships and are likely to involve pure economic loss.

Nature of economic torts[edit]

Economic torts are tortious interference actions designed to protect trade or business. The area includes the doctrine of restraint of trade and, particularly in the United Kingdom, has largely been submerged in the twentieth century by statutory interventions on collective labour law and modern competition law, and certain laws governing intellectual property, particularly unfair competition law. The "absence of any unifying principle drawing together the different heads of economic tort liability has often been remarked upon."

The principal torts are:

passing off,

injurious falsehood and trade libel (see also Food libel laws),

conspiracy,

inducement of breach of contract,

tortious interference (such as interference with economic relations or unlawful interference with trade),

negligent misrepresentation, and,

watching and besetting.

These torts represent the common law's historical attempt to balance the need to protect claimants against those who inflict economic harm and the wider need to allow effective, even aggressive, competition (including competition between employers and their workers).

Two cases demonstrate economic torts' affinity to competition and labour law. In Mogul Steamship Co Ltd the plaintiffs argued they had been driven from the Chinese tea market by a 'shipping conference', that had acted together to underprice them. But this cartel was ruled lawful and "nothing more than a war of competition waged in the interest of their own trade." Nowadays, this would be considered a criminal cartel.

In English labour law the most notable case is Taff Vale Railway v Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants. The House of Lords thought that unions should be liable in tort for helping workers to go on strike for better pay and conditions. But it riled workers so much that it led to the creation of the British Labour Party and the Trade Disputes Act 1906. Further torts used against unions include conspiracy, interference with a commercial contract or intimidation.

By jurisdiction.

Sales tax rates and what is taxed vary by jurisdiction. The following table compares taxes on selected classes of goods in the states. Significant other differences apply. Following the table is abbreviated coverage of selected sales tax rates by state.

Summary

Notes:

These states tax food but give an income tax credit to compensate poor households: Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wyoming.

Uniform local taxes are included in the base rate in California & Utah (1.25%), and Virginia (1.0%).

Nemo dat quod non habet, literally meaning "no one can give what they do not have", is a legal rule, sometimes called the nemo dat rule, that states that the purchase of a possession from someone who has no ownership right to it also denies the purchaser any ownership title. It is equivalent to the civil (continental) Nemo plus iuris ad alium transferre potest quam ipse habet rule, which means "one cannot transfer to another more rights than they have". The rule usually stays valid even if the purchaser does not know that the seller has no right to claim ownership of the object of the transaction (a bona fide purchaser); however, in many cases, more than one innocent party is involved, making judgment difficult for courts and leading to numerous exceptions to the general rule that aim to give a degree of protection to bona fide purchasers and original owners. The possession of the good of title will be with the original owner.

United States.

In American law, a bona fide purchaser who unknowingly purchases and subsequently sells stolen goods will, at common law, be held liable in trover for the full market value of those goods as of the date of conversion. Since the true owner retains legal title, the seller is liable even in a chain of successive bona fide purchasers (for example, the true owner can successfully sue the fifth bona fide purchaser in trover). However, the problem of successive bona fide purchasers can be remedied: If the jurisdiction recognises an implied warranty that the seller has title to the property (such as under Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC)), then the bona fide purchaser can sue the seller for breach of that implied warranty. Courts of equity traditionally also recognise various other exceptions, likely giving rise to the idea embodied in the modern UCC.

This rule is exemplified in circumstances like the Holocaust reconciliation movement, where property, such as works of art, stolen or confiscated by the Nazis was returned to the families of the original owners. Anyone who purchased the art or thought they had ownership was denied any rights over the litigious property due to the nemo dat rule.

As mentioned earlier, the nemo dat rule has numerous exceptions. Legal tender, for example, does not adhere to the rule in certain circumstances. For example, if a rogue buys goods from a bona fide merchant, then that merchant will not have to return the bills to the true owner because holding the rule to be otherwise would disrupt the economy and prevent the free flow of goods. The same may be true of other "negotiable" instruments like cheques. If Alice, a thief, steals a cheque from Bob and sells it to innocent Charlie, then Charlie is entitled to deal with the cheque, and Bob cannot claim it back from Charlie (though the name appearing on the cheque may affect the validity of such a transfer).

Another matter is the transfer of other legal rights normally granted by ownership. In 2011, a US District judge ruled that a woman who had purchased a stolen laptop could sue a device tracking company for invasion of privacy stemming from recording software installed on the laptop to facilitate its recovery after being stolen. This ruling demonstrated that bona fide purchasers are entitled to some rights by virtue of possession alone, or that nemo dat is superseded by the bona fide purchaser's right to privacy.

Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offense; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, although making unfounded threats in order to obtain an unfair business advantage is also a form of extortion.

Extortion is sometimes called the "protection racket" because the racketeers often phrase their demands as payment for "protection" from (real or hypothetical) threats from unspecified other parties; though often, and almost always, such "protection" is simply abstinence of harm from the same party, and such is implied in the "protection" offer. Extortion is commonly practiced by organized crime. In some jurisdictions, actually obtaining the benefit is not required to commit the offense, and making a threat of violence which refers to a requirement of a payment of money or property to halt future violence is sufficient to commit the offense. Exaction refers not only to extortion or the demanding and obtaining of something through force, but additionally, in its formal definition, means the infliction of something such as pain and suffering or making somebody endure something unpleasant.

The term extortion is often used metaphorically to refer to usury or to price-gouging, though neither is legally considered extortion. It is also often used loosely to refer to everyday situations where one person feels indebted against their will, to another, in order to receive an essential service or avoid legal consequences. Neither extortion or blackmail requires a threat of a criminal act, such as violence, merely a threat used to elicit actions, money, or property from the object of the extortion. Such threats include the filing of reports (true or not) of criminal behavior to the police, revelation of damaging facts (such as pictures of the object of the extortion in a compromising position), etcetera.

In law extortion can refer to political corruption, such as selling one's office or influence peddling, but in general vocabulary the word usually first brings to mind blackmail or protection rackets. The logical connection between the corruption sense of the word and the other senses is that to demand bribes in one's official capacity is blackmail or racketeering in essence (that is, "you need access to this resource, the government restricts access to it through my office, and I will charge you unfairly and unlawfully for such access"). Extortion is also known as shakedown, and occasionally exaction.

Amount in controversy (sometimes called jurisdictional amount) is a term used in civil procedure to denote the amount at stake in a lawsuit, in particular in connection with a requirement that persons seeking to bring a lawsuit in a particular court must be suing for a certain minimum amount (or below a certain maximum amount) before that court may hear the case.

United States.

In federal courts.

Diversity jurisdiction.

In United States federal courts, the term currently applies only to cases brought under diversity jurisdiction, meaning that the court is able to hear the case only because it is between citizens of different states. In such cases, the US Congress has decreed in 28 USC § 1332(a) that the court may hear such suits only where "the matter in controversy exceeds the sum or value of $75,000." This amount represents a significant increase from earlier years.

Congress first established the amount in controversy requirement when it created diversity jurisdiction in the Judiciary Act of 1789, pursuant to its powers under Article 3 of the US Constitution, the amount being $500. It was raised to $2,000 in 1887, to $3,000 in 1911, to $10,000 in 1958, to $50,000 in 1988, and finally to the current $75,000 in 1996.

The use of the word "exceeds" in Section 1332 implies that the amount in controversy must be more than $75,000; a case removed from state court to federal court must be remanded back to state court if the amount in controversy is exactly $75,000.00.

Federal question jurisdiction.

Congress did not create a consistent federal question jurisdiction, which allows federal courts to hear any case alleging a violation of the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States, until 1875, when Congress created the statute which is now found at 28 USC § 1331: "The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States." At that time, such cases had the same amount of controversy requirement as the diversity cases. Congress eliminated this requirement in actions against the United States in 1976 and in all federal question cases in 1980.

Aggregation of claims.

Where a single plaintiff has multiple unrelated claims against a single defendant, that plaintiff can aggregate those claims – that is, add the amounts together – to satisfy the amount in controversy requirement. In cases involving more than one defendant, a plaintiff may aggregate the amount claimed against multiple defendants “only if the defendants are jointly liable.” Middle Tennessee News Company Incorporated v Charnel of Cincinnati, Incorporated (2001). However, “if the defendants are severely liable, the plaintiff must satisfy the amount in controversy required against each individual defendant.” The 5–4 decision in Exxon Mobil Corporation v Allapattah Services Incorporated, (2005), held that a federal court has supplemental jurisdiction over claims of other plaintiffs who do not meet the jurisdictional amount for a diversity action, when at least one plaintiff in the action does satisfy the jurisdictional amount.

Nuisance is a common law tort. It means that which causes offense, annoyance, trouble or injury. A nuisance can be either public (also "common") or private. A public nuisance was defined by English scholar Sir James Fitzjames Stephen as,

"an act not warranted by law, or an omission to discharge a legal duty, which act or omission obstructs or causes inconvenience or damage to the public in the exercise of rights common to all Her Majesty's subjects".

Private nuisance is the interference with the rights of specific people. Nuisance is one of the oldest causes of action known to the common law, with cases framed in nuisance going back almost to the beginning of recorded case law. Nuisance signifies that the "right of quiet enjoyment" is being disrupted to such a degree that a tort is being committed.

Definition

Under the common law, persons in possession of real property (land owners, lease holders etc.) are entitled to the quiet enjoyment of their lands. However this doesn't include visitors or those who aren't considered to have an interest in the land. If a neighbor interferes with that quiet enjoyment, either by creating smells, sounds, pollution or any other hazard that extends past the boundaries of the property, the affected party may make a claim in nuisance.

Legally, the term nuisance is traditionally used in three ways:

1. to describe an activity or condition that is harmful or annoying to others (for example, indecent conduct, a rubbish heap or a smoking chimney).

2. to describe the harm caused by the before-mentioned activity or condition (for example, loud noises or objectionable odors).

3. to describe a legal liability that arises from the combination of the two. However, the "interference" was not the result of a neighbor stealing land or trespassing on the land. Instead, it arose from activities taking place on another person's land that affected the enjoyment of that land.

Sales taxes in the United States are taxes placed on the sale or lease of goods and services in the United States. Sales tax is governed at the state level and no national general sales tax exists. 45 states, the District of Columbia, the territories of Puerto Rico, and Guam impose general sales taxes that apply to the sale or lease of most goods and some services, and states also may levy selective sales taxes on the sale or lease of particular goods or services. States may grant local governments the authority to impose additional general or selective sales taxes.

As of 2017, 5 states (Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon) do not levy a statewide sales tax. California has the highest base sales tax rate, 7.25%. Including county and city sales taxes, the highest total sales tax is in Arab, Alabama, 13.50%.

Sales tax is calculated by multiplying the purchase price by the applicable tax rate. The seller collects it at the time of the sale. Use tax is self-assessed by a buyer who has not paid sales tax on a taxable purchase. Unlike the value added tax, a sales tax is imposed only at the retail level. In cases where items are sold at retail more than once, such as used cars, the sales tax can be charged on the same item indefinitely.

The definitions of retail sales and taxable items vary among the states. Nearly all jurisdictions provide numerous categories of goods and services that are exempt from sales tax, or taxed at reduced rates. The purchase of goods for further manufacture or for resale is uniformly exempt from sales tax. Most jurisdictions exempt food sold in grocery stores, prescription medications, and many agricultural supplies.

Sales taxes, including those imposed by local governments, are generally administered at the state level. States imposing sales tax either impose the tax on retail sellers, such as with Transaction Privilege Tax in Arizona, or impose it on retail buyers and require sellers to collect it. In either case, the seller files returns and remits the tax to the state. In states where the tax is on the seller, it is customary for the seller to demand reimbursement from the buyer. Procedural rules vary widely. Sellers generally must collect tax from in-state purchasers unless the purchaser provides an exemption certificate. Most states allow or require electronic remittance.