Law School

In law, conveyancing is the transfer of legal title to (of) real property from one person to another, or the granting of an encumbrance such as a mortgage or a lien. A typical conveyancing transaction has two major phases: the exchange of contracts (when equitable interests are created) and completion (also called settlement, when legal title passes and equitable rights merge with the legal title).

The sale of land is governed by the laws and practices of the jurisdiction in which the land is located. It is a legal requirement in all jurisdictions that contracts for the sale of land be in writing. An exchange of contracts involves two copies of a contract of sale being signed, one copy of which is retained by each party. When the parties are together, both would usually sign both copies, one copy of which being retained by each party, sometimes with a formal handing over of a copy from one party to the other. However, it is usually sufficient that only the copy retained by each party be signed by the other party only — hence contracts are "exchanged". This rule enables contracts to be "exchanged" by mail. Both copies of the contract of sale become binding only after each party is in possession of a copy of the contract signed by the other party—for example, the exchange is said to be "complete". An exchange by electronic means is generally insufficient for an exchange, unless the laws of the jurisdiction expressly validate such signatures.

It is the responsibility of the buyer of real property to ensure that he or she obtains a good and marketable title to the land—for example, that the seller is the owner, has the right to sell the property, and there is no factor which would impede a mortgage or re-sale. Some jurisdictions have legislated some protections for the buyer, besides the ability for the buyer to do searches relating to the property.

A system of conveyancing is usually designed to ensure that the buyer secures title to the land together with all the rights that run with the land, and is notified of any restrictions in advance of purchase. Many jurisdictions have adopted a system of land registration to facilitate conveyancing and encourage reliance on public records and assure purchasers of land that they are taking good title.

Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th century BC.

The definition of manslaughter differs among legal jurisdictions.

Types.

Voluntary.

In voluntary manslaughter, the offender had intent to kill or seriously harm, but acted "in the moment" under circumstances that could cause a reasonable person to become emotionally or mentally disturbed. Examples could include a defender killing a home invader without being placed in a life or death situation. There are mitigating circumstances that reduce culpability, such as when the defendant kills only with an intent to cause serious bodily harm. Voluntary manslaughter in some jurisdictions is a lesser included offense of murder. The traditional mitigating factor was provocation; however, others have been added in various jurisdictions.

The most common type of voluntary manslaughter occurs when a defendant is provoked to commit homicide. This is sometimes described as a crime of passion. In most cases, the provocation must induce rage or anger in the defendant, although some cases have held that fright, terror, or desperation will suffice.

Assisted suicide.

Assisted suicide is suicide committed with the aid of another person, sometimes a physician.

In some places, including parts of the United States, assisted suicide is punishable as manslaughter. In other countries such as Switzerland and Canada, and in some U.S. states, as long as legal safeguards are observed, assisted suicide is legal.

Involuntary.

Involuntary manslaughter, also known as second-degree manslaughter, is the killing of a human being without intent of doing so, either expressed or implied. It is distinguished from voluntary manslaughter by the absence of intention. It is normally divided into two categories, constructive manslaughter and criminally negligent manslaughter, both of which involve criminal liability.

In legal theory, particularly in law and economics, efficient breach is a voluntary breach of contract and payment of damages by a party who concludes that they would incur greater economic loss by performing under the contract.

Development of the theory.

The theory of efficient breach seeks to explain the common law's preference for expectation damages for breach of contract, as distinguished from specific performance, reliance damages, or punitive damages. According to Black's Law Dictionary, efficient breach theory is "the view that a party should be allowed to breach a contract and pay damages, if doing so would be more economically efficient than performing under the contract." Expectation damages, according to the theory, give parties an incentive to breach when and only when performance is inefficient.

Judicial laws that govern contractual agreements and the damages to be incurred upon the breach of an agreements have existed since the 15th century. The motivating factor for establishing the standards of efficient breach was to ensure that the agreement fell under the enforceable fixing of the damages by the execution. this, therefore, stated that there should be a prior forecast or prediction of the provable injury resulting to the breach, otherwise, the breach will be unenforceable and then and breaching party will be limited to unconventional damage measures liquidated. The common law courts then continued to revisit the provisions of liquidated damage provision from the "breacher" compensating for injury and losses only, to a consideration of cost and damages incurred during the process of breaching the contract, as well as the benefits that breaching the contract may have already experienced from the contract. As such, the non-breacher of the contract is in the same position as if the contract had undertaken its full performance, thus, establishing and maintaining efficiency value of the rule

The first statement of the theory of efficient breach appears to have been made in 1970 in a law review article by Robert L. Birmingham in "Breach of Contract, Damage Measures, and Economic Efficiency". The theory was named seven years later by Charles Goetz and Robert Scott. Efficient breach theory is commonly associated with Richard Posner and the Law and Economics school of thought. Posner explains his views in his majority opinion in Lake River Corp. v Carborundum Co. (1985).

Simple versions of the efficient breach theory employed arguments from welfare economics, operating on the premise that legal rules should be designed to give parties an incentive to act in ways that maximize aggregate welfare or achieve Pareto efficiency. More sophisticated versions of the theory maintain that parties themselves prefer remedies that incentivize efficient breach, as efficient breach maximizes the gains of trade from transacting. As Richard Posner and Andrew Rosenfeld put the point, "the more efficiently the exchange is structured, the larger is the potential profit of the contract for the parties to divide between them."

The tort of seduction was a civil wrong or tort in common law legal systems, and still exists in some jurisdictions.

Originally, it allowed an unmarried woman's father - or other person employing her services - to sue for the loss of these services, when she became pregnant and could no longer perform them. Over time, the tort was altered, so that instead, it would be used by an unmarried woman to sue on the grounds of seduction to obtain damages from her seducer, if her consent to sex was based upon his misrepresentation.

Breach of promise was a similar, but not identical, tort that was used frequently in similar situations in the past, but has now been abolished in most jurisdictions.

Legal basis.

Initially, the tort of seduction was a remedy for a father's property interest in his daughter's chastity. However, the damages to which the father would be entitled were based on the father's loss of the working services of a daughter, much as a master could sue if a third-party caused injury to his servant that rendered the servant unable to work, because she was "seduced and debauched" and became pregnant as a result of nonmarital sexual activity. The tort of seduction was one of the most common civil actions toward the end of the 19th century, and fathers were often successful before juries.

In the 20th century, the action was criticized as maintaining "property interests in humans", and the tort was recast to recognize personal injury to the woman, rather than solely deprivation of a father's property right. Most jurisdictions granted the victim (the wronged woman) the right to sue in her own name. (Fathers could still sue as well, on the ground that they had a moral interest in their daughters' chastity). The suing woman was "usually but not always a virgin".

United States.

In the United States, the tort of seduction has been abolished in "most states". Fears of fraudulent suits, combined with a turn away from the view of property interests in persons, led to the enactment of "heart balm" statutes, abolishing causes of action for seduction, breach of promise, alienation of affection, criminal conversation, etc. in most states in the 20th century.

The history of taxation in the United States begins with the colonial protest against British taxation policy in the 1760s, leading to the American Revolution. The independent nation collected taxes on imports ("tariffs"), whiskey, and (for a while) on glass windows. States and localities collected poll taxes on voters and property taxes on land and commercial buildings. In addition, there were the state and federal excise taxes. State and federal inheritance taxes began after 1900, while the states (but not the federal government) began collecting sales taxes in the 1930s. The United States imposed income taxes briefly during the Civil War and the 1890s. In 1913, the 16th Amendment was ratified, however, the United States Constitution Article 1, Section 9 defines a direct tax. The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution did not create a new tax.

Colonial taxation.

Taxes were low at the local, colonial, and imperial levels throughout the colonial era. The issue that led to the Revolution was whether parliament had the right to impose taxes on the Americans when they were not represented in parliament.

Stamp Act.

The Stamp Act of 1765 was the fourth Stamp Act to be passed by the Parliament of Great Britain and required all legal documents, permits, commercial contracts, newspapers, wills, pamphlets, and playing cards in the American colonies to carry a tax stamp. It was enacted on November 1, 1765, at the end of the Seven Years' War between the French and the British, a war that started with the young officer George Washington attacking a French outpost. The stamp tax had the scope of defraying the cost of maintaining the military presence protecting the colonies. Americans rose in strong protest, arguing in terms of "No Taxation without Representation". Boycotts forced Britain to repeal the stamp tax, while convincing many British leaders it was essential to tax the colonists on something to demonstrate the sovereignty of Parliament.

Townshend Revenue Act.

The Townshend Revenue Act were two tax laws passed by Parliament in 1767; they were proposed by Charles Townshend, Chancellor of the Exchequer. They placed a tax on common products imported into the American Colonies, such as lead, paper, paint, glass, and tea. In contrast to the Stamp Act of 1765, the laws were not a direct tax that people paid daily, but a tax on imports that was collected from the ship's captain when he unloaded the cargo. The Townshend Acts also created three new admiralty courts to try Americans who ignored the laws.

Sugar Act 1764.

The tax on sugar, cloth, and coffee. These were non-British exports.

Boston Tea Party.

The Boston Tea Party was an act of protest by the American colonists against Great Britain for the Tea Act in which they dumped many chests of tea into Boston Harbor. The cuts to taxation on tea undermined American smugglers, who destroyed the tea in retaliation for its exemption from taxes. Britain reacted harshly, and the conflict escalated to war in 1775.

Capitation tax.

An assessment levied by the government upon a person at a fixed rate regardless of income or worth.

Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more generally) buildings or housing in general.

Real estate is different from personal property, which is not permanently attached to the land, such as vehicles, boats, jewelry, furniture, tools and the rolling stock of a farm.

Residential real estate.

Residential real estate may contain either a single family or multifamily structure that is available for occupation or for non-business purposes.

Residences can be classified by and how they are connected to neighboring residences and land. Different types of housing tenure can be used for the same physical type. For example, connected residences might be owned by a single entity and leased out, or owned separately with an agreement covering the relationship between units and common areas and concerns.

Major categories.

Attached / multi-unit dwellings

Apartment (American English) or Flat (British English) – An individual unit in a multi-unit building. The boundaries of the apartment are generally defined by a perimeter of locked or lockable doors. Often seen in multi-story apartment buildings.

Multi-family house – Often seen in multi-story detached buildings, where each floor is a separate apartment or unit.

Terraced house (a. k. a. townhouse or rowhouse) – A number of single or multi-unit buildings in a continuous row with shared walls and no intervening space.

Condominium (American English) – A building or complex, similar to apartments, owned by individuals. Common grounds and common areas within the complex are owned and shared jointly. In North America, there are townhouse or rowhouse style condominiums as well. The British equivalent is a block of flats.

Cooperative (a. k. a. co-op) – A type of multiple ownership in which the residents of a multi-unit housing complex own shares in the cooperative corporation that owns the property, giving each resident the right to occupy a specific apartment or unit.

Tenement is a type of building shared by multiple dwellings, typically with flats or apartments on each floor and with shared entrance stairway access found in Britain.

Intimidation (also called cowing) is intentional behavior that would cause a person of reasonable apprehension to fear injury or harm. It is not necessary to prove that the behavior caused the victim to experience terror or panic.

Threat, criminal threatening (or threatening behavior) is the crime of intentionally or knowingly putting another person in fear of bodily injury. "Threat of harm generally involves a perception of injury...physical or mental damage...act or instance of injury, or a material and detriment or loss to a person." "A terroristic threat is a crime generally involving a threat to commit violence communicated with the intent to terrorize other."

Intimidation is a criminal offense in several U.S. states.

In criminal law, kidnapping is the unlawful confinement of a person against their will, often including transportation/asportation. The asportation and abduction element is typically but not necessarily conducted by means of force or fear: the perpetrator may use a weapon to force the victim into a vehicle, but it is still kidnapping if the victim is enticed to enter the vehicle willingly (for example in the belief that it is a taxicab).

Kidnapping may be done to demand for ransom in exchange for releasing the victim, or for other illegal purposes. Kidnapping can be accompanied by bodily injury which elevates the crime to aggravated kidnapping.

Kidnapping of a child is known as child abduction, which is sometimes a separate legal category.

Fundamental breach of contract, is a controversial concept within the common law of contract. The doctrine was, in particular, nurtured by Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls from 1962 to 1982, but it did not find favor with the House of Lords.

Whereas breach of condition is a serious breach that "denies the plaintiff the main benefit of the contract", fundamental breach was supposed to be even worse, with the result that any exclusion clause limiting the defendant's liability would automatically become void and ineffective. Also, whereas breach of condition gives the plaintiff the option to repudiate, fundamental breach automatically discharges the entire contract.

Although the concept caused some excitement in the 1950s and 1960s, the concept was regarded as flawed by the Law Lords, whose decision in the Suisse Atlantique substantially curtailed the doctrine, which has now been effectively "laid to rest" in England and Canada. The relevant concept in English Law is repudiatory breach of contract.

Background – the law of deviation.

The origins of the idea of fundamental breach may be traced to early cases on the doctrine of deviation. In Davis v Garrett  Tindal C J stated that a carrier's deviation from the agreed voyage route amounted also to a deviation from the terms of the contract, including its exceptions or limitation clauses provided by such a contract. This view was adopted in the leading cases of Leduc v Ward (1888)  and Glynn v Margetson (1893).

In Leduc v Ward, a vessel bound from Fiume (modern day Rijeka) to Dunkirk headed instead towards Glasgow, sinking in a storm in the Clyde estuary. The court held that even though the shipper may have known of the planned deviation, the parol evidence rule meant that the route described in the bill of lading was conclusive, and that the deviation was actionable, preventing the carrier from invoking the protection of the "perils of the sea" exemption.

Similarly, in Glynn v Margetson, a vessel carrying Seville oranges from Malaga to Liverpool deviated from the agreed route, by heading first to Burriana (near Valencia). This deviation caused delay and deterioration of the perishable cargo. The carrier relied on a 'liberty clause' in the bill of lading which purported to allow the vessel 'liberty to visit any port in any order'. In the House of Lords, Lord Herschell LC declared the liberty clause to be an exemption clause in disguise, adding "the main object of this bill of lading is the carriage of oranges from Malaga to Liverpool". He thus established the "main purpose rule", holding that no exclusion clause would be allowed to cut into the main purpose of any contract.

Tate & Lyle v Hain Steamship Company was a further deviation case following this approach.

At common law, criminal conversation, often abbreviated as crim. con., is a tort arising from adultery. "Conversation" is an old euphemism for sexual intercourse that is obsolete except as part of this term.

It is similar to breach of promise, a tort involving a broken engagement against the betrothed, and alienation of affections, a tort action brought by a spouse against a third party, who interfered with the marriage relationship. These torts have been abolished in most jurisdictions. The tort of criminal conversation was abolished in England and Wales in 1857; in Northern Ireland in 1939; in Australia in 1975; and in the Republic of Ireland in 1981. Prior to its abolition, a husband could sue any man who had intercourse with his wife, regardless of whether she consented – unless the couple was already separated, in which case the husband could only sue if the separation was caused by the person he was suing.

Criminal conversation still exists in parts of the United States, but the application has changed. At least 29 states have abolished the tort by statute and another four have abolished it judicially. The tort of criminal conversation seeks damages for the act of sexual intercourse outside marriage, between the spouse and a third party. Each act of adultery can give rise to a separate claim for criminal conversation.

Malicious prosecution is a common law intentional tort. While like the tort of abuse of process, its elements include (1) intentionally (and maliciously) instituting and pursuing (or causing to be instituted or pursued) a legal action (civil or criminal) that is (2) brought without probable cause and (3) dismissed in favor of the victim of the malicious prosecution. In some jurisdictions, the term "malicious prosecution" denotes the wrongful initiation of criminal proceedings, while the term "malicious use of process" denotes the wrongful initiation of civil proceedings.

Criminal prosecuting attorneys and judges are protected from tort liability for malicious prosecution by doctrines of prosecutorial immunity and judicial immunity. Moreover, the mere filing of a complaint cannot constitute an abuse of process. The parties who have abused or misused the process have gone beyond merely filing a lawsuit. The taking of an appeal, even a frivolous one, is not enough to constitute an abuse of process. The mere filing or maintenance of a lawsuit, even for an improper purpose, is not a proper basis for an abuse of process action.

Declining to expand the tort of malicious prosecution, a unanimous California Supreme Court in the case of Sheldon Appel Co. v Albert & Oliker, (1989) observed: "While the filing of frivolous lawsuits is certainly improper and cannot in any way be condoned, in our view the better means of addressing the problem of unjustified litigation is through the adoption of measures facilitating the speedy resolution of the initial lawsuit and authorizing the imposition of sanctions for frivolous or delaying conduct within that first action itself, rather than through an expansion of the opportunities for initiating one or more additional rounds of malicious prosecution litigation after the first action has been concluded." 

Variants for Form 1099.

As of 2020, several versions of Form 1099 are used, depending on the nature of the income transaction:

1099-A: Acquisition or Abandonment of Secured Property.

1099-B: Proceeds from Broker and Barter Exchange Transactions.

1099-C: Cancellation of Debt.

1099-CAP: Changes in Corporate Control and Capital Structure.

1099-DIV: Dividends and Distributions.

1099-G: Government Payments.

1099-H: Health Insurance Advance Payments.

1099-INT: Interest Income.

1099-K: Merchant Card and Third Party Network Payments.

1099-LTC: Long-Term Care Benefits.

1099-MISC: Miscellaneous Income.

1099-NEC: Nonemployee Compensation.

1099-OID: Original Issue Discount.

1099-PATR: Taxable Distributions Received From Cooperatives.

1099-Q: Payment from Qualified Education Programs.

1099-R: Distributions From Pensions, Annuities, Retirement or Profit-Sharing Plans, IRAs, Insurance Contracts, etcetera.

1099-S: Proceeds from Real Estate Transactions.

1099-SA: Distributions From an HSA, Archer MSA, or Medicare Advantage MSA.

1042-S: Foreign Person's U.S. Source Income.

SSA-1099: Social Security Benefit Statement.

SSA-1042S: Social Security Benefit Statement to Nonresident Aliens.

RRB-1099: Payments by the Railroad Retirement Board.

RRB-1099 R: Pension and Annuity Income by the Railroad Retirement Board.

RRB-1042S: Payments by the Railroad Retirement Board to Nonresident Aliens.

5498 Series.

Form 5498: IRA Contribution Information.

Form 5498-ESA: Coverdell ESA Contribution Information.

Form 5498-SA: HSA, Archer MSA, or Medicare Advantage MSA Information.

Property law in the United States is the area of law that governs the various forms of ownership in real property (land and buildings) and personal property, including intangible property such as intellectual property. Property refers to legally protected claims to resources, such as land and personal property. Property can be exchanged through contract law, and if property is violated, one could sue under tort law to protect it.

United States property law is primarily an area for state law, although there are also federal laws (for example, on patents and copyright) and some local laws involvement (on areas such as zoning and tenancy). Property law in the states generally originate from the common law and have been modified by statutes. The Restatements on Property gives an overview of certain areas of property law in the United States.

Theory of property rights.

Definition of property rights.

There are two main views on the right to property in the United States, the traditional view and the bundle of rights view. The traditionalists believe that there is a core, inherent meaning in the concept of property, while the bundle of rights view states that the property owner only has bundle of permissible uses over the property. The two views exist on a spectrum and the difference may be a matter of focus and emphasis.

William Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, wrote that the essential core of property is the right to exclude. That is, the owner of property must be able to exclude others from the thing in question, even though the right to exclude is subject to limitations. By implication, the owner can use the thing, unless another restriction, such as zoning law, prevents it. Other traditionalists argue that three main rights define property: the right to exclusion, use and transfer.

An alternative view of property, favored by legal realists, is that property simply denotes a bundle of rights defined by law and social policy. Which rights are included in the bundle known as property rights, and which bundles are preferred to which others, is simply a matter of policy. Therefore, a government can prevent the building of a factory on a piece of law, through zoning law or criminal law, without damaging the concept of property. The "bundle of rights" view was prominent in academia in the 20th century and remains influential today in American law.

Homicide is an act of a person killing another person. A homicide requires only a volitional act that causes the death of another, and thus a homicide may result from accidental, reckless, or negligent acts even if there is no intent to cause harm. Homicides can be divided into many overlapping legal categories, including murder, manslaughter, justifiable homicide, assassination, killing in war (either following the laws of war or as a war crime), euthanasia, and capital punishment, depending on the circumstances of the death. These different types of homicides are often treated very differently in human societies; some are considered crimes, while others are permitted or even ordered by the legal system.

Criminality.

Criminal homicide takes many forms including accidental killing or murder. Criminal homicide is divided into two broad categories, murder and manslaughter, based upon the state of mind and intent of the person who commits the homicide.

A report issued by the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime in July 2019 documented that nearly 464,000 people around the world were killed in homicides in 2017, a number significantly in excess of the 89,000 killed in armed conflicts during the same period.

Murder.

Murder is the most serious crime that can be charged following a homicide. In many jurisdictions, murder may be punished by life in prison or even capital punishment. Although categories of murder can vary by jurisdiction, murder charges fall under two broad categories:

First degree murder: The premeditated, unlawful, intentional killing of another person.

Second degree murder: The intentional, unlawful killing of another person, but without any premeditation.

In some jurisdictions, a homicide that occurs during the commission of a dangerous crime may constitute murder, regardless of the actor's intent to commit homicide. In the United States, this is known as the felony murder rule. In simple terms, under the felony murder rule a person who commits a felony may be guilty of murder if someone dies as a result of the commission of the crime, including the victim of the felony, a bystander or a co-felon, regardless their intent—or lack thereof—to kill, and even when the death results from the actions of a co-defendant or third party who is reacting to the crime.

Manslaughter.

Manslaughter is a form of homicide in which the person who commits the homicide either does not intend to kill the victim, or kills the victim as the result of circumstances that would cause a reasonable person to become emotionally or mentally disturbed to the point of potentially losing control of their actions. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th century BC. The penalty for manslaughter is normally less than the penalty for murder. The two broad categories of manslaughter are:

The doctrine of deviation is a particular aspect of contracts of carriage of goods by sea. A deviation is a departure from the "agreed route" or the "usual route", and it can amount to a serious breach of contract.

The consequences of unjustified deviation can be very grave for the carrier, who is thereby prevented from relying upon exclusion clauses within the contract limiting his liability; nor will the carrier be able to rely on statutory protections, such as Art. IV of the Hague-Visby Rules.

The scope of deviation.

The "agreed route" is identified from the contract of carriage, as evidenced by the bill of lading. The ports of origin and destination (for example "Piraeus to Liverpool"') define the route. The "usual route" is not necessarily the shortest route, but is a version of the agreed route, taking into account safety issues, distances, seasonal conditions and war zones. For instance, the route "Auckland to London" could be via Suez, Panama, the Cape of Good Hope, or Cape Horn, but the usual route will be identified by reference to current practice or to any previous dealings of the parties.

Although a deviation is primarily a departure from the agreed route or the usual route, the concept of deviation extends beyond this. Deviation may include any unjustified delay such as remaining at authorized ports longer than necessary or acting beyond the agreed scope of the voyage. For example, if a ship makes an authorized call at a port, but stays on to trade or break bulk, this action may amount to a deviation.

The concept of deviation has been extended (sub nom “quasi deviation”) to cover wrongful transshipment, careless stowage, and stowage in the wrong part of the ship (such as on deck, rather than below decks). The consequences of quasi-deviation are the same as for ordinary deviation.

Article IV Rule 4 of the Hague-Visby Rules provides: "Any deviation in saving or attempting to save life or property at sea or any reasonable deviation shall not be deemed to be an infringement or breach of these Rules or of the contract of carriage, and the carrier shall not be liable for any loss or damage resulting therefrom". The Hague-Visby Rules do not define deviation but rely on existing common law definitions. Nor do the Rules define “any reasonable deviation”, but in decided cases the phrase has been taken to include deviation…..

1.    to avoid foul weather,

2.    to join a convoy,

3.    to avoid capture or detention,

4.    to take stricken passengers or crew for medical attention,

5.    to effect necessary repairs, (though this may be evidence of unseaworthiness),

6.    mutiny of the crew.

If a justified deviation is followed by an unjustified deviation, the doctrine of deviation will apply from the unjustified deviation.

Malicious prosecution is a common law intentional tort. Like the tort of abuse of process, its elements include (1) intentionally (and maliciously) instituting and pursuing (or causing to be instituted or pursued) a legal action (civil or criminal) that is (2) brought without probable cause and (3) dismissed in favor of the victim of the malicious prosecution. In some jurisdictions, the term "malicious prosecution" denotes the wrongful initiation of criminal proceedings, while the term "malicious use of process" denotes the wrongful initiation of civil proceedings.

Criminal prosecuting attorneys and judges are protected from tort liability for malicious prosecution by doctrines of prosecutorial immunity and judicial immunity. Moreover, the mere filing of a complaint cannot constitute an abuse of process. The parties who have abused or misused the process have gone beyond merely filing a lawsuit. The taking of an appeal, even a frivolous one, is not enough to constitute an abuse of process. The mere filing or maintenance of a lawsuit, even for an improper purpose, is not a proper basis for an abuse of process action.

Declining to expand the tort of malicious prosecution, a unanimous California Supreme Court in the case of Sheldon Appel Co. v Albert & Oliker, (1989) observed: "While the filing of frivolous lawsuits is certainly improper and cannot in any way be condoned, in our view the better means of addressing the problem of unjustified litigation is through the adoption of measures facilitating the speedy resolution of the initial lawsuit and authorizing the imposition of sanctions for frivolous or delaying conduct within that first action itself, rather than through an expansion of the opportunities for initiating one or more additional rounds of malicious prosecution litigation after the first action has been concluded."

Alienation of affections is a common law tort, abolished in many jurisdictions. Where it still exists, an action is brought by a spouse against a third party alleged to be responsible for damaging the marriage, most often resulting in divorce. The defendant in an alienation of affections suit is typically an adulterous spouse's lover, although family members, counselors, and therapists or clergy members who have advised a spouse to seek divorce have also been sued for alienation of affections.

The tort of alienation of affections often overlaps with another "heart balm" tort: criminal conversation. Alienation of affections has most in common with the tort of tortious interference, where a third party can be held liable for interfering with the contractual relationship between two parties.

The Form 1040NR, U.S. Nonresident Alien Income Tax Return, and its shorter version Form 1040NR-EZ, U.S. Income Tax Return for Certain Nonresident Aliens With No Dependents, are used by nonresident aliens who have U.S. source income and therefore have to file a U.S. tax return. Joint returns are not permitted, so that husband and wife must each file a separate return. The Form 1040NR-EZ can be used under conditions similar to those for the 1040EZ form.

The Form 1040X, Amended U.S. Individual Tax Return, is used to make corrections to Form 1040, Form 1040A, and Form 1040EZ tax returns that have been previously filed. Generally for a tax refund, this form must be filed within 3 years after the date that the original version was filed, or within 2 years after the date that the tax was paid, whichever is later. Forms 1040X are processed manually and therefore take longer than regular returns. For years prior to 2010, Form 1040X had three columns: for the amounts from the original version, for the net increase or decrease for each line being changed, and for the corrected amounts. For 2010, the form was condensed with a single column for the corrected amounts. Due to confusion amongst taxpayers on how to complete the single-column form, the IRS revised the Form 1040X again for 2011 by returning to the original three-column format.

Self-employed individuals and others who do not have enough income taxes withheld, might need to file Form 1040-ES, Estimated Tax for Individuals, each quarter to make estimated installments of annual tax liability (pay-as-you-go tax).

A condominium (or condo for short) is a building structure divided into several units that are each separately owned, surrounded by common areas that are jointly owned.

Residential condominiums are frequently constructed as apartment buildings, but there are also "detached condominiums", which look like single-family homes, but in which the yards (gardens), corridors, building exteriors, and streets as well as any recreational facilities (like a pool or pools, bowling alley, tennis courts, golf course, etc.), are jointly owned and maintained by a community association.

Unlike apartments which are leased by their tenants, condominium units are owned outright. Additionally, the owners of the individual units also collectively own the common areas of the property, such as corridors/hallways, walkways, laundry rooms, etcetera, as well as common utilities and amenities, such as the HVAC system, elevators, and so on. Many shopping malls are industrial condominiums in which the individual retail and office spaces are owned by the businesses that occupy them while the common areas of the mall are collectively owned by all the business entities that own the individual spaces.

The common areas, amenities, and utilities are managed collectively by the owners through their association, such as a homeowner association.

Scholars have traced the earliest known use of the condominium form of tenure to a document from first-century Babylon. The word condominium originated in Latin.

Condominium is an invented Latin word formed by adding the prefix con- ‘together’ to the word dominium ‘dominion, ownership’. Its meaning is therefore ‘joint dominion’ or ‘co-ownership’.

Condominia (the Latin plural of condominium) originally referred to territories over which two or more sovereign powers shared joint sovereignty. This technique was frequently used to settle border disputes when multiple claimants could not agree on how to partition the disputed territory. For example, from 1818 to 1846, Oregon Country was a condominium over which both the United States and Great Britain shared joint sovereignty until the Oregon Treaty resolved the issue by splitting the territory along the 49th parallel and each country gaining sole sovereignty of one side.

Harassment covers a wide range of behaviors of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behavior that demeans, humiliates or embarrasses a person, and it is characteristically identified by its unlikelihood in terms of social and moral reasonableness. In the legal sense, these are behaviors that appear to be disturbing, upsetting or threatening. They evolve from discriminatory grounds, and have an effect of nullifying a person's rights or impairing a person from benefiting from their rights. When these behaviors become repetitive, it is defined as bullying. The continuity or repetitiveness and the aspect of distressing, alarming or threatening may distinguish it from insult.

Types.

Electronic.

Electronic harassment is the combined use of medical implants, electromagnetic waves (from directed-energy weapons) and psychological warfare to disrupt a target. For example; several psychologists have proposed evidence of auditory hallucinations, delusional disorders, or other mental disorders in online communities to discredit targeted enemies. Attitudes of dismissal regarding claims of electronic harassment frequently prevent any proper identification of other forms of harassment to which the victim is subject.

Landlord.

Landlord harassment is the willing creation, by a landlord or his agents, of conditions that are uncomfortable for one or more tenants in order to induce willing abandonment of a rental contract. Such a strategy is often sought because it avoids costly legal expenses and potential problems with eviction. This kind of activity is common in regions where rent control laws exist, but which do not allow the direct extension of rent-controlled prices from one tenancy to the subsequent tenancy, thus allowing landlords to set higher prices. Landlord harassment carries specific legal penalties in some jurisdictions, but enforcement can be very difficult or even impossible in many circumstances. However, when a crime is committed in the process and motives similar to those described above are subsequently proven in court, then those motives may be considered an aggravating factor in many jurisdictions, thus subjecting the offender(s) to a stiffer sentence.

Online.

Harassment directs multiple repeating obscenities and derogatory comments at specific individuals focusing, for example, on the targets' race, religion, gender, nationality, disability, or sexual orientation. This often occurs in chat rooms, through newsgroups, and by sending hate emails to interested parties. This may also include stealing photos of the victim and their families, doctoring these photos in offensive ways, and then posting them on social media with the aim of causing emotional distress (see cyberbullying, cyberstalking, hate crime, online predator, Online Gender-Based Violence, and stalking).

Police.

Unfair treatment conducted by law officials, including but not limited to excessive force, profiling, threats, coercion, and racial, ethnic, religious, gender/sexual, age, or other forms of discrimination.

Cover is a term used in the law of contracts to describe a remedy available to a buyer who has received an anticipatory repudiation of a contract for the receipt of goods. Under the Uniform Commercial Code, the buyer is permitted (but not required) to find another source of the same type of goods. The buyer may then file a lawsuit against the breaching seller to recover the difference, if any, between the cost of the goods offered and the cost of the goods actually purchased.

The possibility of cover will prevent a party from being able to sue for specific performance, which is an equitable remedy that requires the buyer to have no adequate remedy at law. If the buyer is able to buy elsewhere and sue for the difference, that provides an adequate remedy. This prohibition does not apply, however, to the sale of unique goods such as original works of art, collectibles, real estate, and exclusive rights.

Judge Richard Posner has suggested that the availability of cover allows for efficient breach - that is, that it encourages the most efficient allocation of resources by allowing a seller to breach a contract to sell goods to one buyer when another, more lucrative opportunity comes along. The seller may thus be able to realize a sufficiently increased profit to make more money even after repaying the difference to the original buyer. Therefore, no value is lost in the transaction because the original buyer is in the same position he would have been in but for the breach, and the seller is in a better position.

An exclusion clause is a term in a contract that seeks to restrict the rights of the parties to the contract.

Traditionally, the district courts have sought to limit the operation of exclusion clauses. In addition to numerous common law rules limiting their operation, in England and Wales Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999. The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 applies to all contracts, but the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, unlike the common law rules, do differentiate between contracts between businesses and contracts between business and consumer, so the law seems to explicitly recognize the greater possibility of exploitation of the consumer by businesses.

Types of exclusion clause.

There are various methods by which a party may seek to exclude or mitigate liability by use of a contractual term:

True exclusion clause: The clause recognizes a potential breach of contract, and then excuses liability for the breach. Alternatively, the clause is constructed in such a way it only includes reasonable care to perform duties on one of the parties.

Limitation clause: The clause places a limit on the amount that can be claimed for a breach of contract, regardless of the actual loss.

Time limitation: The clause states that an action for a claim must be commenced within a certain period of time or the cause of action becomes extinguished.

Intrusion on seclusion is one of the four privacy torts created under U.S. common law. Intrusion on seclusion is commonly thought to be the bread-and-butter claim for an "invasion of privacy". Seclusion is defined as the state of being private and away from people.

Elements.

The elements of an intrusion on seclusion claim are:

The defendant intentionally intruded upon the plaintiff's seclusion or private concerns.

The intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person.

The intrusion caused the plaintiff anguish and suffering.

There is no requirement that the defendant disclosed any facts about the plaintiff, as in a public disclosure claim. Liability attaches to the intrusion itself.

Intent.

Someone "commits an intentional intrusion only if he believes, or is substantially certain, that he lacks the necessary legal or personal permission to commit the intrusive act."

For example, the Veterans Administration did not intrude on a patient's seclusion when it believed that it had the patient's consent to disclose his medical records.

The intent element is subjective, based on what the defendant actually knew or believed about whether it had consent or legal permission, whereas the offensiveness element is judged under an objective standard, based on whether a reasonable person would consider the intrusion to be highly offensive.

Seclusion.

In order to intrude on someone's seclusion, the person must have a "legitimate expectation of privacy" in the physical place or personal affairs intruded upon.

To be successful, a plaintiff "must show the defendant penetrated some zone of physical or sensory privacy" or "obtained unwanted access to data" in which the plaintiff had "an objectively reasonable expectation of seclusion or solitude in the place, conversation or data source."

For example, a delicatessen employee told co-workers that she had a staph infection. The co-workers then informed their manager, who contacted the employee's doctor to determine if she actually had a staph infection, because employees in Arkansas with a communicable disease are forbidden from working in the food preparation industry.

The employee with the staph infection sued her employer, the deli, for intruding on her private affairs. The court held that the deli manager had not intruded upon the worker's private affairs because the worker had made her staph infection public by telling her two co-workers about it.

The court said:

"When Fletcher learned that she had a staph infection, she informed two coworkers of her condition. Fletcher's revelation of private information to coworkers eliminated Fletcher's expectation of privacy by making what was formerly private a topic of office conversation."

Offensiveness.

In determining whether an intrusion is objectively "highly offensive," a court is supposed to examine "all the circumstances of an intrusion, including the motives or justification of the intruder."

Websites' Data Collection.

A website may commit a "highly offensive" act by collecting information from website visitors using "duplicitous tactics." A website that violates its own privacy policy does not automatically commit a highly offensive act. But the Third Circuit Court of Appeals has held that Viacom's data collection on the Nickelodeon website was highly offensive because the privacy policy may have deceptively caused parents to allow their young children to use Nick.com, thinking it was not collecting their personal information.

Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax forms are forms used for taxpayers and tax-exempt organizations to report financial information to the Internal Revenue Service of the United States. They are used to report income, calculate taxes to be paid to the federal government, and disclose other information as required by the Internal Revenue Code (IRC). There are over 800 various forms and schedules. Other tax forms in the United States are filed with state and local governments.

Individual forms.

1040.

As of the 2018 tax year, Form 1040, U.S. Individual Income Tax Return, is the only form used for personal (individual) federal income tax returns filed with the IRS. In prior years, it had been one of three forms (1040 , 1040A  and 1040EZ - see below for explanations of each) used for such returns. The first Form 1040 was published for use for the tax years 1913, 1914, and 1915. For 1916, Form 1040 was converted to an annual form (for example, updated each year with the new tax year printed on the form). Initially, the IRS mailed tax booklets (Form 1040, instructions, and most common attachments) to all households. As alternative delivery methods (CPA/Attorneys, internet forms) increased in popularity, the IRS sent fewer packets via mail. In 2009 this practice was discontinued.

Income tax returns for individual calendar year taxpayers are due by April 15 of the next year, except when April 15 falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or a legal holiday. In those circumstances, the returns are due on the next business day. An automatic extension until Oct. 15 to file Form 1040 can be obtained by filing Form 4868.

Form 1040 is two abbreviated pages, not including attachments. Prior to the 2018 tax year, it had been two full pages, again not counting attachments, but following the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the IRS dramatically shortened both pages. The current first page collects information about the taxpayer(s) and any dependents, and includes the signature line. The current second page includes information on income items and adjustments to income, and additionally calculates the allowable deductions and credits, tax due given the income figure, and applies funds already withheld from wages or estimated payments made towards the tax liability. Prior to 2018, information on income items and adjustments to income had been entered on the first page. The Presidential election campaign fund checkoff, which allows taxpayers to designate that the federal government give $3 of the tax it receives to the Presidential election campaign fund, is near the top of the first page on both pre- and post-2018 versions of Form 1040.

Form 1040 has 20 attachments (up from 14 before 2018), called "schedules", which may need to be filed depending on the taxpayer:

A condominium (or condo for short) is a building structure divided into several units that are each separately owned, surrounded by common areas that are jointly owned.

Residential condominiums are frequently constructed as apartment buildings, but there are also "detached condominiums", which look like single-family homes, but in which the yards (gardens), corridors, building exteriors, and streets as well as any recreational facilities (like a pool or pools, bowling alley, tennis courts, golf course, etc.), are jointly owned and maintained by a community association.

Unlike apartments which are leased by their tenants, condominium units are owned outright. Additionally, the owners of the individual units also collectively own the common areas of the property, such as corridors/hallways, walkways, laundry rooms, etc., as well as common utilities and amenities, such as the HVAC system, elevators, and so on. Many shopping malls are industrial condominiums in which the individual retail and office spaces are owned by the businesses that occupy them while the common areas of the mall are collectively owned by all the business entities that own the individual spaces.

The common areas, amenities, and utilities are managed collectively by the owners through their association, such as a homeowner association.

Scholars have traced the earliest known use of the condominium form of tenure to a document from first-century Babylon. The word condominium originated in Latin.

Etymology

Condominium is an invented Latin word formed by adding the prefix con- ‘together’ to the word dominium ‘dominion, ownership’. Its meaning is therefore ‘joint dominion’ or ‘co-ownership’.

Condominia (the Latin plural of condominium) originally referred to territories over which two or more sovereign powers shared joint sovereignty. This technique was frequently used to settle border disputes when multiple claimants could not agree on how to partition the disputed territory. For example, from 1818 to 1846, Oregon Country was a condominium over which both the United States and Great Britain shared joint sovereignty until the Oregon Treaty resolved the issue by splitting the territory along the 49th parallel and each country gaining sole sovereignty of one side.

False imprisonment or unlawful imprisonment occurs when a person intentionally restricts another person’s movement within any area without legal authority, justification, or the restrained person's permission. Actual physical restraint is not necessary for false imprisonment to occur. A false imprisonment claim may be made based upon private acts, or upon wrongful governmental detention. For detention by the police, proof of false imprisonment provides a basis to obtain a writ of habeas corpus.

Under common law, false imprisonment is both a crime and a tort.

Imprisonment.

Within the context of false imprisonment, an imprisonment occurs when a person is restrained from moving from a location or bounded area, as a result of a wrongful intentional act, such as the use of force, threat, coercion, or abuse of authority.

Detention that is not false imprisonment.

Not all acts of involuntary detention amount to false imprisonment. An accidental detention will not support a claim of false imprisonment since false imprisonment requires an intentional act. The law may privilege a person to detain somebody else against their will. A legally authorized detention does not constitute false imprisonment. For example, if a parent or legal guardian of a child denies the child's request to leave their house, and prevents them from doing so, this would not ordinarily constitute false imprisonment.

By country.

United States.

Under United States law, police officers have the right to detain individuals based on probable cause that a crime has been committed and the individual was involved, or based on reasonable suspicion that the individual has been, is, or is about to be engaged in a criminal activity.

Elements.

To prevail under a false imprisonment claim, a plaintiff must prove:

1. Willful detention in a bounded area

2. Without consent; and

3. Without authority of lawful arrest. (Restatement of the Law, Second, Torts)

Types of breach.

Contracts often use wording other than repudiatory breach to describe a type of breach of contract. These contractual terms include material breach, fundamental breach, substantial breach, serious breach. These alternative wordings have no fixed meaning in law but are interpreted within the context of the contract that they are used. For that reason, the meaning of the different terms varies from case to case. Possible interpretations of their meaning include "repudiatory breach", and "serious breach, but not as serious as a repudiatory breach".

Trivial breach.

A trivial breach is one that does not meet the standard for designation as a material, serious or substantial breach.

An Arizona Supreme Court decision in a 1990 commercial retail lease case noted that "the overwhelming majority of  jurisdictions... hold the landlord's right to terminate is not unlimited. We believe a court's decision to permit termination must be tempered by notions of equity and common sense. We thus hold a forfeiture for a trivial or immaterial breach of a commercial lease should not be enforced."

In Rice (t/a The Garden Guardian) v Great Yarmouth Borough Council (2000), the UK Court of Appeal decided that a clause which provided that the contract could be terminated "if the contractor commits a breach of any of its obligations under the contract" should not be given its literal meaning: it was considered "contrary to business common sense" to allow any breach at all, however trivial, to create grounds for termination.

Overview.

There are two types of expectations of privacy:

Subjective expectation of privacy: a certain individual's opinion that a certain location or situation is private; varies greatly from person to person.

Objective, legitimate, reasonable expectation of privacy: an expectation of privacy generally recognized by society and perhaps protected by law.

Places where individuals expect privacy include residences, hotel rooms, or public places that have been provided by businesses or the public sector to ensure privacy, including public restrooms, private portions of jailhouses, or phone booths. This expectation extends against both physical and digital intrusions, and even cell tower geolocation data is protected.

In general, one cannot have a reasonable expectation of privacy for things put into a public space. There are no privacy rights in garbage left for collection in a public place. Other examples include: pen registers that record the numbers dialed from particular telephones; conversations with others, though there could be a Sixth Amendment violation if the police send an individual to question a defendant who has already been formally charged; a person's physical characteristics, such as voice and handwriting; what is observed pursuant to aerial surveillance that is conducted in public navigable airspace not using equipment that unreasonably enhances the surveying government official's vision; anything in open fields (for example, a barn); smells that can be detected by the use of a drug-sniffing dog during a routine traffic stop, even if the government official did not have probable cause or reasonable suspicion to suspect that drugs were present in the defendant's vehicle; and paint scrapings on the outside of a vehicle.

While a person may have a subjective expectation of privacy in his/her car, it is not always an objective one, unlike a person's home. Expectation of home privacy extends to thermal imaging.

The expectation of privacy concept also applies civilly whereas the unreasonable violation of which may result in mental distress rather than incarceration. Civil privacy expects against: (1) intrusion upon seclusion or solitude, or into private affairs; (2) public disclosure of embarrassing private facts; (3) publicity which places a person in a false light in the public eye; and (4) appropriation of name or likeness.

Tax collection statistics.

Collections before refunds by type of return, fiscal year 2010.

  Individual income tax (49.9%).

  Employment taxes (35.3%).

  Corporate income taxes (11.9%).

  Excise taxes (2.0%).

  Estate taxes (0.7%).

  Other (0.2%).

For fiscal year 2009, the U.S. Congress appropriated spending of approximately $12.624 billions of "discretionary budget authority" to operate the Department of the Treasury, of which $11.522 billion was allocated to the IRS. The projected estimate of the budget for the IRS for fiscal year 2011 was $12.633 billion. By contrast, during Fiscal Year (FY) 2006, the IRS collected more than $2.2 trillion in tax (net of refunds), about 44 percent of which was attributable to the individual income tax. This is partially due to the nature of the individual income tax category, containing taxes collected from working class, small business, self-employed, and capital gains. The top 5% of income earners pay 38.284% of the federal tax collected.

As of 2007, the agency estimates that the United States Treasury is owed $354 billion more than the amount the IRS collects. This is known as the tax gap.

The gross tax gap is the amount of true tax liability that is not paid voluntarily and timely. For years 2008-2010, the estimated gross tax gap was $458 billion. The net tax gap is the gross tax gap less tax that will be subsequently collected, either paid voluntarily or as the result of IRS administrative and enforcement activities; it is the portion of the gross tax gap that will not be paid. It is estimated that $52 billion of the gross tax gap was eventually collected resulting in a net tax gap of $406 billion.

In 2011, 234 million tax returns were filed allowing the IRS to collect $2.4 trillion out of which $384 billion were attributed to mistake or fraud.

A leasehold estate is an ownership of a temporary right to hold land or property in which a lessee or a tenant holds rights of real property by some form of title from a lessor or landlord. Although a tenant does hold rights to real property, a leasehold estate is typically considered personal property.

Leasehold is a form of land tenure or property tenure where one party buys the right to occupy land or a building for a given length of time. As a lease is a legal estate, leasehold estate can be bought and sold on the open market. A leasehold thus differs from a freehold or fee simple where the ownership of a property is purchased outright and thereafter held for an indeterminate length of time, and also differs from a tenancy where a property is let (rented) on a periodic basis such as weekly or monthly.

Terminology and types of leasehold vary from country to country. Sometimes, but not always, a residential tenancy under a lease agreement is colloquially known as renting. The leaseholder has the right to remain in occupation for a fixed period, generally measured in months or years. Terms of the agreement are contained in a lease, which has elements of contract and property law intertwined.

In criminal law, criminal negligence is a surrogate mens rea (Latin for "guilty mind") required to constitute a conventional as opposed to strict liability offense. It is not, strictly speaking, a mens rea because it refers to an objective standard of behavior expected of the defendant and does not refer to their mental state.

Concept.

To constitute a crime, there must be an actus reus (Latin for "guilty act") accompanied by the mens rea. Negligence shows the least level of culpability, intention being the most serious, and recklessness being of intermediate seriousness, overlapping with gross negligence. The distinction between recklessness and criminal negligence lies in the presence or absence of foresight as to the prohibited consequences. Recklessness is usually described as a "malfeasance" where the defendant knowingly exposes another to the risk of injury. The fault lies in being willing to run the risk. But criminal negligence is a "misfeasance" or "nonfeasance" (see omission), where the fault lies in the failure to foresee and so allow otherwise avoidable dangers to manifest. In some cases this failure can rise to the level of willful blindness, where the individual intentionally avoids adverting to the reality of a situation. (In the United States, there may sometimes be a slightly different interpretation for willful blindness.) The degree of culpability is determined by applying a reasonable-person standard. Criminal negligence becomes "gross" when the failure to foresee involves a "wanton disregard for human life" (see the definitions of corporate manslaughter and in many common law jurisdictions of gross negligence manslaughter).

The test of any mens rea element is always based on an assessment of whether the accused had foresight of the prohibited consequences and desired to cause those consequences to occur. The three types of test are:

1. subjective where the court attempts to establish what the accused was actually thinking at the time the actus reus was caused;

2. objective where the court imputes mens rea elements on the basis that a reasonable person with the same general knowledge and abilities as the accused would have had those elements; or

3. hybrid, for example, the test is both subjective and objective.

The most culpable mens rea elements will have both foresight and desire on a subjective basis. Negligence arises when, on a subjective test, an accused has not actually foreseen the potentially adverse consequences to the planned actions, and has gone ahead, exposing a particular individual or unknown victim to the risk of suffering injury or loss. The accused is a social danger because they have endangered the safety of others in circumstances where the reasonable person would have foreseen the injury and taken preventive measures. Hence, the test is hybrid.

Breach of contract is a legal cause of action and a type of civil wrong, in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other party's performance. Breach occurs when a party to a contract fails to fulfill its(s), whether partially or wholly, as described in the contract, or communicates an intent to fail the obligation or otherwise appears not to be able to perform its obligation under the contract. Where there is breach of contract, the resulting damages will have to be paid by the party breaching the contract to the aggrieved party.

If a contract is rescinded, parties are legally allowed to undo the work unless doing so would directly charge the other party at that exact time.

It is important to bear in mind that contract law is not the same from country to country. Each country has its own independent, free standing law of contract. Therefore, it makes sense to examine the laws of the country to which the contract is governed before deciding how the law of contract (of that country) applies to any particular contractual relationship.

What constitutes a breach of contract.

To determine whether or not a contract has been breached, a judge needs to examine the contract. To do so, they must examine: the existence of a contract, the requirements of the contract, and if any modifications were made to the contract. Only then can the judge make a ruling on the existence and classifications of a breach. Additionally, for the contract to be breached and the judge to deem it worthy of a breach, the plaintiff must prove that there was a breach in the first place and that the plaintiff held up its side of the contract by completing everything required. Additionally, the plaintiff must notify the defendant of the breach prior to filing the lawsuit.

Expectation of privacy is a legal test which is crucial in defining the scope of the applicability of the privacy protections of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It is related to, but is not the same as, a right to privacy, a much broader concept which is found in many legal systems. Overall, expectations of privacy can be subjective or objective.

Overview.

There are two types of expectations of privacy:

Subjective expectation of privacy: a certain individual's opinion that a certain location or situation is private; varies greatly from person to person.

Objective, legitimate, reasonable expectation of privacy: an expectation of privacy generally recognized by society and perhaps protected by law.

Places where individuals expect privacy include residences, hotel rooms, or public places that have been provided by businesses or the public sector to ensure privacy, including public restrooms, private portions of jailhouses, or phone booths. This expectation extends against both physical and digital intrusions, and even cell tower geolocation data is protected.

In general, one cannot have a reasonable expectation of privacy for things put into a public space. There are no privacy rights in garbage left for collection in a public place. Other examples include: pen registers that record the numbers dialed from particular telephones; conversations with others, though there could be a Sixth Amendment violation if the police send an individual to question a defendant who has already been formally charged; a person's physical characteristics, such as voice and handwriting; what is observed pursuant to aerial surveillance that is conducted in public navigable airspace not using equipment that unreasonably enhances the surveying government official's vision; anything in open fields (for example, a barn); smells that can be detected by the use of a drug-sniffing dog during a routine traffic stop, even if the government official did not have probable cause or reasonable suspicion to suspect that drugs were present in the defendant's vehicle; and paint scrapings on the outside of a vehicle.

While a person may have a subjective expectation of privacy in his/her car, it is not always an objective one, unlike a person's home. Expectation of home privacy extends to thermal imaging.

The expectation of privacy concept also applies civilly whereas the unreasonable violation of which may result in mental distress rather than incarceration. Civil privacy expects against: (1) intrusion upon seclusion or solitude, or into private affairs; (2) public disclosure of embarrassing private facts; (3) publicity which places a person in a false light in the public eye; and (4) appropriation of name or likeness.

History of the IRS name.

As early as the year 1918, the Bureau of Internal Revenue began using the name "Internal Revenue Service" on at least one tax form. In 1953, the name change to the "Internal Revenue Service" was formalized in Treasury Decision 6038.

Current organization.

The 1980s saw a reorganization of the IRS. A bipartisan commission was created with several mandates, among them to increase customer service and improve collections. Congress later enacted the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998.

Because of that Act, the IRS now functions under four major operating divisions: Large Business and International (LB&I), Small Business/Self-Employed (SB/SE), Wage and Investment (W&I), and Tax Exempt & Government Entities (TE/GE). Effective October 1, 2010, the name of the Large and Mid-Size Business division was changed to the Large Business & International (LB&I) division. While there is some evidence that customer service has improved, lost tax revenues in 2001 were over $323 billion.

The IRS is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and does most of its computer programming in Maryland. It currently operates five submission processing centers which process returns sent by mail and returns filed electronically via E-file. Different types of returns are processed at the various centers with some centers processing individual returns and others processing business returns.

Originally, there were ten submission processing centers across the country. In the early 2000s, the IRS closed five centers: Andover, MA; Holtsville, NY; Philadelphia, PA; Atlanta, GA; and Memphis, TN. This currently leaves five centers processing returns: Austin, TX; Covington, KY; Fresno, CA; Kansas City, MO; and Ogden, UT. In October 2016 the IRS announced that three more centers will close over a six-year period: Covington, KY in 2019; Fresno, CA in 2021; and Austin, TX in 2024. This will leave Kansas City, MO and Ogden, UT as the final two submission processing centers after 2024.

The IRS also operates three computer centers around the country (in Detroit, Michigan; Martinsburg, West Virginia; and Memphis, Tennessee).

Deputy Commissioners.

The Commissioner of Internal Revenue is assisted by two deputy commissioners.

The Deputy Commissioner for Operations Support reports directly to the Commissioner and oversees the IRS's integrated support functions, facilitating economy of scale efficiencies and better business practices. The Deputy Commissioner for Operations Support provides executive leadership for customer service, processing, tax law enforcement and financial management operations and is responsible for overseeing IRS operations and providing executive leadership on policies, programs and activities. The Deputy assists and acts on behalf of the IRS Commissioner in directing, coordinating and controlling the policies, programs and activities of the IRS; in establishing tax administration policy, and developing strategic issues and objectives for IRS strategic management.

The Deputy Commissioner for Services and Enforcement reports directly to the Commissioner and oversees the four primary operating divisions responsible for the major customer segments and other taxpayer-facing functions. The Deputy Commissioner for Services and Enforcement serves as the IRS Commissioner's essential assistant acting on behalf of the commissioner in establishing and enforcing tax administration policy and upholding IRS's mission to provide America's taxpayers top-quality service by helping them understand and meet their tax responsibilities.

In property law, a concurrent estate or co-tenancy is any of various ways in which property is owned by more than one person at a time. If more than one person owns the same property, they are commonly referred to as co-owners. Legal terminology for co-owners of real estate is either co-tenants or joint tenants, with the latter phrase signifying a right of survivorship. Most common law jurisdictions recognize tenancies in common and joint tenancies.

Many jurisdictions also recognize tenancies by the entirety, which is effectively a joint tenancy between married persons. Many jurisdictions refer to a joint tenancy as a joint tenancy with right of survivorship, but they are the same, as every joint tenancy includes a right of survivorship. In contrast, a tenancy in common does not include a right of survivorship.

The type of co-ownership does not affect the right of co-owners to sell their fractional interest in the property to others during their lifetimes, but it does affect their power to will the property upon death to their devisees in the case of joint tenants. However, any joint tenant can change this by severing the joint tenancy. This occurs whenever a joint tenant transfers his or her fractional interest in the property.

Laws can vary from place to place, and the following general discussion will not be applicable in its entirety to all jurisdictions.

Rights and duties of co-owners (general).

Under the common law, Co-owners share a number of rights by default:

1.    Each owner has an unrestricted right of access to the property. When one co-owner wrongfully excludes another from using the shared property, the excluded co-owner can bring a cause of action for ouster. As a remedy, the court may grant the wronged co-owner the fair rental value of the property for the time that they were ousted.

2.    Each owner has a right to an accounting of profits made from the property. If the property generates any income (for example rent, farming, etc. . . .) each owner is entitled to a pro-rata share of that income.

3.    Each owner has a right of contribution for the costs of owning the property. Co-owners can be forced to contribute to the payment of expenses such as property taxes, necessary maintenance and repairs, or mortgages for the entire property.

Battery is a criminal offense involving unlawful physical contact, distinct from assault which is the act of creating apprehension of such contact.

Battery is a specific common law offense, although the term is used more generally to refer to any unlawful offensive physical contact with another person. Battery is defined at American common law as "any unlawful and or unwanted touching of the person or another by the aggressor, or by a substance put in motion by him". In more severe cases, and for all types in some jurisdictions, it is chiefly defined by statutory wording. Assessment of the severity of a battery is determined by local law.

Generally.

Specific rules regarding battery vary among different jurisdictions, but some elements remain constant across jurisdictions. Battery generally requires that:

1. an offensive touch or contact is made upon the victim, instigated by the actor; and

2. the actor intends or knows that their action will cause the offensive touching.

Under the US Model Penal Code and in some jurisdictions, there is battery when the actor acts recklessly without specific intent of causing an offensive contact. Battery is typically classified as either simple or aggravated. Although battery typically occurs in the context of physical altercations, it may also occur under other circumstances, such as in medical cases where a doctor performs a non-consented medical procedure.

Specific countries.

United States.

In the United States, criminal battery, or simple battery, is the use of force against another, resulting in harmful or offensive contact, including sexual contact. At common law, simple battery is a misdemeanor. The prosecutor must prove all three elements beyond a reasonable doubt:

1. an unlawful application of force.

2. to the person of another.

3. resulting in either bodily injury or an offensive touching.

The common-law elements serve as a basic template, but individual jurisdictions may alter them, and they may vary slightly from state to state.

Under modern statutory schemes, battery is often divided into grades that determine the severity of punishment. For example:

Simple battery may include any form of non-consensual harmful or insulting contact, regardless of the injury caused. Criminal battery requires intent to inflict an injury on another.

Sexual battery may be defined as non-consensual touching of the intimate parts of another. At least in Florida, "Sexual battery means oral, anal, or vaginal penetration by, or union with, the sexual organ of another or the anal or vaginal penetration of another by any other object": See section 794.011.

Family-violence battery may be limited in its scope between persons within a certain degree of relationship: statutes for this offense have been enacted in response to increasing awareness of the problem of domestic violence.

Aggravated battery generally is seen as a serious offense of felony grade. Aggravated battery charges may occur when a battery causes serious bodily injury or permanent disfigurement. As successor to the common law crime of mayhem, this is sometimes subsumed in the definition of aggravated assault. In Florida, Aggravated Battery is the intentional infliction of great bodily harm and is a second degree felony, whereas battery that unintentionally causes great bodily harm is considered a third degree felony.

A third-party beneficiary, in the law of contracts, is a person who may have the right to sue on a contract, despite not having originally been an active party to the contract. This right, known as a ius quaesitum tertio, arises when the third party (tertius or alteri) is the intended beneficiary of the contract, as opposed to a mere incidental beneficiary (penitus extraneus). It vests when the third party relies on or assents to the relationship, and gives the third party the right to sue either the promisor (promittens, or performing party) or the promisee (stipulans, or anchor party) of the contract, depending on the circumstances under which the relationship was created.

A contract made in favor of a third party is known as a "third-party beneficiary contract." Under traditional common law, the ius quaesitum tertio principle was not recognized, instead relying on the doctrine of privity of contract, which restricts rights, obligations, and liabilities arising from a contract to the contracting parties (said to be privy to the contract). However, the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 introduced a number of allowances and exceptions for ius quaesitum tertio in English law. Other common-law countries are also making reforms in this area, though the United States is unique in abandoning privity early in the mid-19th century.

In US law, false light is a tort concerning privacy that is similar to the tort of defamation. The privacy laws in the United States include a non-public person's right to protection from publicity which puts the person in a false light to the public. That right is balanced against the First Amendment right of free speech.

False light differs from defamation primarily in being intended "to protect the plaintiff's mental or emotional well-being", rather than to protect a plaintiff's reputation as is the case with the tort of defamation and in being about the impression created rather than being about veracity. If a publication of information is false, then a tort of defamation might have occurred. If that communication is not technically false but is still misleading, then a tort of false light might have occurred.

False light privacy claims often arise under the same facts as defamation cases, and therefore not all states recognize false light actions. There is a subtle difference in the way court's view the legal theories—false light cases are about damage to a person's personal feelings or dignity, whereas defamation is about damage to a person's reputation.

The specific elements of the tort of false light vary considerably, even among those jurisdictions which do recognize this tort. Generally, these elements consist of the following:

1. A publication by the defendant about the plaintiff;

2. made with actual malice (very similar to that type required by New York Times v Sullivan in "Defamation" cases);

3. which places the Plaintiff in a false light;

4. and that would be highly offensive (for example, embarrassing to reasonable persons).

Some U.S. state courts have ruled that false light lawsuits brought under their states' laws must be rewritten as defamation lawsuits; these courts generally base their opinion on the premises that a) any publication or statement giving rise to a false-light claim will also give rise to a defamation claim, such that the set of statements creating false light is necessarily, although not by definition, entirely within the set of statements constituting defamation; and b) the standard of what would be "highly offensive" or "embarrassing" to a reasonable person is much more difficult to apply than is the state's standard for defamation, such that the potential penalties for violating the former standard would have an unconstitutional or otherwise unacceptable chilling effect on the media. However, "most states do allow false light claims to be brought, even where a defamation claim would suffice." Some of the states do not recognize the false light claim due to the similarity between false light and defamation, as well as the possible impact on free speech. The states that do recognize it will not allow a plaintiff to maintain suit for both false light and defamation.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory tax law. It is part of the Department of the Treasury and led by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, who is appointed to a five-year term by the President of the United States. The duties of the IRS include providing tax assistance to taxpayers; pursuing and resolving instances of erroneous or fraudulent tax filings; and overseeing various benefits programs, including the Affordable Care Act.

The IRS originates from the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, a federal office created in 1862 to assess the nation's first income tax to fund the American Civil War. The temporary measure provided over a fifth of the Union's war expenses before being allowed to expire a decade later. In 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified authorizing Congress to impose a tax on income, and the Bureau of Internal Revenue was established. In 1953, the agency was renamed the Internal Revenue Service, and in subsequent decades underwent numerous reforms and reorganizations, most significantly in the 1990s.

Since its establishment, the IRS has been responsible for collecting most of the revenue needed to fund the federal government, albeit while facing periodic controversy and opposition over its methods, constitutionality, and the principle of taxation generally. In recent years the agency has struggled with budget cuts and reduced morale. As of 2018, it saw a 15 percent reduction in its workforce, including a decline of more than 25 percent of its enforcement staff. Nevertheless, during the 2017 fiscal year, the agency processed more than 245 million tax returns.

History.

American Civil War (1861–65).

In July 1862, during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln and Congress passed the Revenue Act of 1862, creating the office of Commissioner of Internal Revenue and enacting a temporary income tax to pay war expenses.

The Revenue Act of 1862 was passed as an emergency and temporary war-time tax. It copied a relatively new British system of income taxation, instead of trade and property taxation. The first income tax was passed in 1862:

The initial rate was 3% on income over $800, which exempted most wage-earners.

In 1862 the rate was 3% on income between $600 and $10,000, and 5% on income over $10,000.

By the end of the war, 10% of Union households had paid some form of income tax, and the Union raised 21% of its war revenue through income taxes.

In property law and real estate, a future interest is a legal right to property ownership that does not include the right to present possession or enjoyment of the property. Future interests are created on the formation of a defeasible estate; that is, an estate with a condition or event triggering transfer of possessory ownership. A common example is the landlord-tenant relationship. The landlord may own a house, but has no general right to enter it while it is being rented. The conditions triggering the transfer of possession, first to the tenant then back to the landlord, are usually detailed in a lease.

As a slightly more complicated example, suppose O is the owner of Blackacre. Consider what happens when O transfers the property, "to A for life, then to B". Person A acquires possession of Blackacre. Person B does not receive any right to possess Blackacre immediately; however, once person A dies, possession will fall to person B (or his estate, if he died before person A). Person B has a future interest in the property. In this example, the event triggering the transfer is person A's death.

Because they convey ownership rights, future interests can usually be sold, gifted, willed, or otherwise disposed of by the beneficiary (but see Vesting below). Because the rights vest in the future, any such disposition will occur before the beneficiary actually takes possession of the property.

There are five kinds of future interests recognized at common law: three in the transferor and two in the transferee.

Vesting.

Vesting means granting a person an immediate right to present or future enjoyment of property. In plain English, one has a right to a vested asset that cannot be taken away by any third party, even though one may not yet possess the asset. When the right, interest or title to the present or future possession of a legal estate can be transferred by its holder to any other party, it is termed a vested interest with respect to that holder.

A vested interest may be one of three types:

A future interest is absolutely (or indefeasibly) vested if its beneficiary must (legally) eventually take possessory ownership.

A future interest is vested subject to divestment if something could occur that would divest the remainder of an interest. For example, "From O to A for life, then to B, but if A stops growing corn, then to C": B would have a vested remainder subject to divestment because he could be divested of his interest by an act of A before the interest becomes possessory.

A future interest is vested subject to open if it belongs to a class of beneficiaries, where that class can expand. A common example is a grant from O "to A's children", where A is a man: the class of A's children can't be closed until approximately thirty eight weeks after A dies, so any children alive at the time of the grant are vested subject to open. This interest is also sometimes referred to as being vested subject to partial divestment.

A person may divest themselves of, or alienate, only those interests that are guaranteed to vest. This rule aligns with the policy that a person should not be allowed to sell a thing that he or she does not own outright. Interests that are not guaranteed to vest are subject to the rule against perpetuities.

An assault is the act of inflicting physical harm or unwanted physical contact upon a person or, in some specific legal definitions, a threat or attempt to commit such an action. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in criminal prosecution, civil liability, or both. Generally, the common law definition is the same in criminal and tort law.

Traditionally, common law legal systems had separate definitions for assault and battery. When this distinction is observed, battery refers to the actual bodily contact, whereas assault refers to a credible threat or attempt to cause battery. Some jurisdictions combined the two offenses into assault and battery, which then became widely referred to as "assault". The result is that in many of these jurisdictions, assault has taken on a definition that is more in line with the traditional definition of battery. The legal systems of civil law and Scots law have never distinguished assault from battery.

Legal systems generally acknowledge that assaults can vary greatly in severity. In the United States, an assault can be charged as either a misdemeanor or a felony. In England and Wales and Australia, it can be charged as either common assault, assault occasioning actual bodily harm (ABH) or grievous bodily harm (GBH). Canada also has a three-tier system: assault, assault causing bodily harm and aggravated assault. Separate charges typically exist for sexual assaults, affray and assaulting a police officer. Assault may overlap with an attempted crime; for example an assault may be charged as an attempted murder if it was done with intent to kill.

In contract law and administrative law, delegation (Latin intercessio) is the act of giving another person the responsibility of carrying out the performance agreed to in a contract. Three parties are concerned with this act - the party who had incurred the obligation to perform under the contract is called the delegator; the party who assumes the responsibility of performing this duty is called the delegate; and the party to whom this performance is owed is called the oblige. Contract law. Delegable contracts. A delegation will be null and void if it poses any threat to the commercially reasonable expectations of the obligee. For example, a task requiring specialized skills or based on the unique characteristics of the promisee can not be delegated. If a specific celebrity was hired to make a speech, they could not delegate the task to another person, even if the other person would give the same speech, word for word. However, a delegation of performance that does not pose such a threat will be held to be valid. In such a case, the obligee will be under an affirmative duty to cooperate with the delegatee to the extent necessary for the fulfillment of the delegator's obligations Breach of a delegated contract. If the delegatee fails to perform satisfactorily, the oblige may elect to treat this failure as a breach of the original contract by the delegator or may assert himself as a third party beneficiary of the contract between the delegator and the delegatee, and can claim all remedies due to a third party beneficiary. If the delegation is without consideration, the delegator remains liable for nonperformance, while the delegatee will not be liable to anyone for anything. Unlike an assignment, a delegation is virtually always for consideration, and never donative - few people are going to accept the charitable offer to perform a task contracted to someone else. Novation, in contract law and business law, is the act of – 1. replacing an obligation to perform with another obligation; or 2. adding an obligation to perform; or 3. replacing a party to an agreement with a new party. In international law, novation is the acquisition of territory by a sovereign state through "the gradual transformation of a right in territorio alieno  into full sovereignty without any formal and unequivocal instrument to that effect intervening".

Internationally.

Article 17 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states

1. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honor and reputation.

2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

United States.

The origins of U.S. defamation law pre-date the American Revolution; one famous 1734 case involving John Peter Zenger sowed the seed for the later establishment of truth as an absolute defense against libel charges. The outcome of the case is one of jury nullification, and not a case where the defense acquitted itself as a matter of law, as before the Zenger case defamation law had not provided the defense of truth.

Though the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was designed to protect freedom of the press, for most of the history of the United States, the Supreme Court neglected to apply the First Amendment to libel cases involving media defendants. This left libel laws, based upon the traditional common law of defamation inherited from the English legal system, mixed across the states. The 1964 case New York Times Co. v Sullivan dramatically altered the nature of libel law in the United States by elevating the fault element for public officials to actual malice – that is, public figures could win a libel suit only if they could demonstrate the publisher's "knowledge that the information was false" or that the information was published "with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not".

Later the Supreme Court held that statements that are so ridiculous to be clearly not true are protected from libel claims, as are statements of opinion relating to matters of public concern that do not contain a provably false factual connotation. Subsequent state and federal cases have addressed defamation law and the Internet.

Defamation law in the United States is much less plaintiff-friendly than its counterparts in European and the Commonwealth countries. A comprehensive discussion of what is and is not libel or slander under United States law is difficult, as the definition differs between different states and is further affected by federal law. Some states codify what constitutes slander and libel together, merging the concepts into a single defamation law.

Civil defamation.

Although laws vary by state, in the United States a defamation action typically requires that a plaintiff claiming defamation prove that the defendant:

1. made a false and defamatory statement concerning the plaintiff;

2. shared the statement with a third party (that is, somebody other than the person defamed by the statement);

3. if the defamatory matter is of public concern, acted in a manner which amounted at least to negligence on the part of the defendant; and

4. caused damages to the plaintiff.

American writers and publishers are protected from foreign libel judgments not compliant with the US First Amendment, or libel tourism, by the SPEECH Act, which was passed by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2010. It is based on the New York State 2008 Libel Terrorism Protection Act (also known as "Rachel's Law", after Rachel Ehrenfeld who initiated the state and federal laws). Both the New York state law and the federal law were passed unanimously.

Defenses to defamation that may defeat a lawsuit, including possible dismissal before trial, include the statement being one of opinion rather than fact or being "fair comment and criticism". Truth is always a defense.

Some aliens on temporary work assignment.

When a person temporarily works outside their country of origin, the person may be covered under two different countries' social security programs for the same work. In order to relieve a person of double-taxation, certain countries and the United States have entered into tax treaties, known as totalization agreements.

Aliens whose employer sends them to the United States on a temporary work assignment may be exempt from paying FICA tax on their earnings from working in the United States if there is a totalization agreement between the United States and the worker's home country. Countries who have such a tax treaty with the United States include Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary,  Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and United Kingdom.

In order to claim an exemption from paying FICA tax, the alien worker must be on a temporary assignment of no more than five years and the alien worker must have a certificate from the country stating that the worker will continue to be covered by the country's social security system while the worker is in the United States.

Some family employees.

When a parent employs a child under age 18 (or under age 21 for domestic service), payments to the child are exempt from FICA tax. The exemption also applies when a child is employed by a partnership in which each partner is a parent of the child. The exemption does not apply when the child is employed by a corporation or a partnership with partners who are not the child's parent.

Foreign governments and some international organizations.

Foreign governments are exempt from FICA tax on payments to their employees. International organizations are also exempt if the organization is listed in the International Organizations Immunities Act.

If an employee is a U.S. citizen, then the employee must typically pay self-employment tax on earnings from work performed in the United States.

Services performed by certain individuals hired to be relieved from unemployment.

If a state or local government pays individuals for services performed to be relieved from unemployment, the payments to the individuals are exempt from FICA tax. The services must not be performed by individuals under other types of programs. Payments are not exempt from FICA tax if the program's primary purpose is to increase an individual's chances of employment by providing training and work experience.

Services performed by inmates.

Payments to inmates of a prison for services performed for the state or local government that operates the prison are exempt from FICA tax, regardless of the location where the services are performed. Services performed as part of a work-release program are exempt from FICA tax if and only if the individuals are not considered employees under common law, such as when the individual has control over what work is done and how the work is done.

Services performed by patients.

Payments to patients of an institution for services performed for the state of local government that operates the institution are exempt from FICA tax. Services performed by patients as part of an institution's rehabilitative program or therapeutic program are exempt from FICA tax.

In English common law, fee tail or entail is a form of trust established by deed or settlement which restricts the sale or inheritance of an estate in real property and prevents the property from being sold, devised by will, or otherwise alienated by the tenant-in-possession, and instead causes it to pass automatically by operation of law to an heir determined by the settlement deed. The term fee tail is from Medieval Latin feodum talliatum, which means "cut short fee" and is in contrast to "fee simple" where no such restriction exists and where the possessor has an absolute title (although subject to the allodial title of the monarch) in the property which he can bequeath or otherwise dispose of as he wishes. Equivalent legal concepts exist or formerly existed in many other European countries and elsewhere.

Purpose.

The fee tail allowed a patriarch to perpetuate his blood-line, family-name, honor and armorials in the persons of a series of powerful and wealthy male descendants. By keeping his estate intact in the hands of one heir alone, in an ideally indefinite and pre-ordained chain of succession, his own wealth, power and family honor would not be dissipated amongst several male lines, as became the case for example in Napoleonic France by operation of the Napoleonic Code which gave each child the legal right to inherit an equal share of the patrimony, where a formerly great landowning family could be reduced in a few generations to a series of small-holders or peasant farmers. It therefore approaches the true corporation which is a legal body or person which does not die and continues in existence and can hold wealth indefinitely. Indeed, as a form of trust, whilst the individual trustees may die, replacements are appointed and the trust itself continues, ideally indefinitely. In England almost seamless successions were made from patriarch to patriarch, the smoothness of which were often enhanced by baptizing the eldest son and heir with his father's Christian name for several generations, for example the FitzWarin family, all named Fulk. Such indefinite inalienable land-holdings were soon seen as restrictive on the optimum productive ability of land, which was often converted to deer-parks or pleasure grounds by the wealthy tenant-in-possession, which was damaging to the nation as a whole, and thus laws against perpetuities were enacted, which restricted entails to a maximum number of lives.

In common law and statutory law, a life estate (or life tenancy) is the ownership of immovable property for the duration of a person's life. In legal terms, it is an estate in real property that ends at death when ownership of the property may revert to the original owner, or it may pass to another person. The owner of a life estate is called a "life tenant".

In the combined jurisdiction of England and Wales since 1925 a freehold estate intended to be 'held' as a life interest takes effect only as an interest enjoyed in equity, specifically as an interest in possession trust. The other type of land ownership is leasehold and although most long leases are for a period of between 99 and 999 years 'leases for life' will be interpreted in often unpredictable ways as either as a license or a lease.

Principles.

The ownership of a life estate is of limited duration because it ends at the death of a person. Its owner is the life tenant (typically also the 'measuring life') and it carries with it the right to enjoy certain benefits of ownership of the property, chiefly income derived from rent or other uses of the property and the right of occupation, during his or her possession. Because a life estate ceases to exist at the death of the measuring person's life, the life tenant, a temporary owner, may short-term let but cannot sell, give or bequeath the property indefinitely (including assuming it could pass to heirs (intestate)) or creating a purported document leaving it to devisees (testate)

In criminal law, the term offense against the person or crime against the person usually refers to a crime which is committed by direct physical harm or force being applied to another person.

They are usually analyzed by division into the following categories:

Fatal offenses.

Sexual offences.

Non-fatal non-sexual offences.

They can be further analyzed by division into:

Assaults.

Injuries.

And it is then possible to consider degrees and aggravations, and distinguish between intentional actions (for example, assault) and criminal negligence (for example, criminal endangerment).

Offenses against the person are usually taken to comprise:

 Fatal offenses.

Murder.

Manslaughter.

Non-fatal non-sexual offences.

Assault, or common assault.

Battery, or common battery.

Wounding or wounding with intent.

Poisoning.

Assault occasioning actual bodily harm (and derivative offences).

Inflicting grievous bodily harm or causing grievous bodily harm with intent (and derivative offenses).

These crimes are usually grouped together in common law countries as a legacy of the Offenses against the Person Act 1861.

Although most sexual offences will also be offences against the person, for various reasons (including sentencing and registration of offenders) sexual crimes are usually categorised separately. Similarly, although many homicides also involve an offense against the person, they are usually categorized under the more serious category.

An assignment is a legal term used in the context of the law of contract and of property. In both instances, assignment is the process whereby a person, the assignor, transfers rights or benefits to another, the assignee. An assignment may not transfer a duty, burden or detriment without the express agreement of the assignee. The right or benefit being assigned may be a gift (such as a waiver) or it may be paid for with a contractual consideration such as money.

The rights may be vested or contingent, and may include an equitable interest. Mortgages and loans are relatively straightforward and amenable to assignment. An assignor may assign rights, such as a mortgage note issued by a third party borrower, and this would require the latter to make repayments to the assignee.

A related concept of assignment is novation wherein, by agreement with all parties, one contracting party is replaced by a new party. While novation requires the consent of all parties, assignment needs no consent from other non-assigning parties. However, in the case of assignment, the consent of the non-assigning party may be required by a contractual provision.

Procedure.

The assignment does not necessarily have to be in writing; however, the assignment agreement must show an intent to transfer rights. The effect of a valid assignment is to extinguish privity (in other words, contractual relationship, including right to sue) between the assignor and the third-party obligor and create privity between the obligor and the assignee.

Liabilities and duties.

Unless the contractual agreement states otherwise, the assignee typically does not receive more rights than the assignor, and the assignor may remain liable to the original counterparty for the performance of the contract. The assignor often delegates duties in addition to rights to the assignee, but the assignor may remain ultimately responsible.

However, in the United States, there are various laws that limit the liability of the assignee, often to facilitate credit, as assignees are typically lenders. Notable examples include a provision in the Truth in Lending Act and provisions in the Consumer Leasing Act and the Home Ownership Equity Protection Act.

In other cases, the contract may be a negotiable instrument in which the person receiving the instrument may become a holder in due course, which is similar to an assignee except those issues, such as lack of performance, by the assignor may not be a valid defense for the obligor. As a response, the United States Federal Trade Commission promulgated Rule 433, formally known as the "Trade Regulation Rule Concerning Preservation of Consumers' Claims and Defenses", which "effectively abolished the doctrine in consumer credit transactions". In 2012, the commission reaffirmed the regulation.

Assignment of contract rights

After the assignment of contractual rights, the assignee will receive all benefits that have accrued from the assignor. For example, if A contracts to sell his car for $100 to B, A may assign the benefits (the right to be paid $100) to C. In this case, Party C is not a third-party beneficiary, because the contract was not made for C's benefit. Assignment takes place after the contract was formed; they may not precede them.

Defenses.

Even if a statement is defamatory, there are circumstances in which such statements are permissible in law.

Truth.

Proving adverse public character statements to be true is often the best defense against a prosecution for libel or defamation. Statements of opinion that cannot be proven true or false will likely need to apply some other kind of defense.

Another important aspect of defamation is the difference between fact and opinion. Statements made as "facts" are frequently actionable defamation. Statements of opinion or pure opinion are not actionable. Some jurisdictions decline to recognize any legal distinction between fact and opinion. To win damages in a libel case, the plaintiff must show that the statements were "statements of fact or mixed statements of opinion and fact." Conversely, a typical defense to defamation is that the statements are opinion, relying on opinion privilege. One of the major tests to distinguish whether a statement is fact or opinion is whether the statement can be proved true or false in a court of law. If the statement can be proved true or false, then, on that basis, the case will be heard by a jury to determine whether it is true or false. If the statement cannot be proved true or false, the court may dismiss the libel case without it ever going to a jury to find facts in the case.

Under English common law, proving the truth of the allegation was originally a valid defense only in civil libel cases. Criminal libel was construed as an offense against the public at large based on the tendency of the libel to provoke breach of peace, rather than being a crime based upon the actual defamation per se; its veracity was therefore considered irrelevant. Section 6 of the Libel Act 1843 allowed the proven truth of the allegation to be used as a valid defense in criminal libel cases, but only if the defendant also demonstrated that publication was for the "Public Benefit".

In some systems, however, notably the Philippines, truth alone is not a defense.

It is also necessary in these cases to show that there is a well-founded public interest in the specific information being widely known, and this may be the case even for public figures. Public interest is generally not "what the public is interested in", but rather "what is in the interest of the public".

Noonan v Staples is sometimes cited as precedent that truth is not always a defense to libel in the U.S., but the case is actually not valid precedent on that issue because Staples did not argue First Amendment protection, which is one theory for truth as complete defense, for its statements. The court assumed in this case that the Massachusetts law was constitutional under the First Amendment without it being argued by the parties.

In a 2012 ruling involving Philippine libel law, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights commented, "Penal defamation laws should include defense of truth."

The Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) is a United States federal payroll (or employment) contribution directed towards both employees and employers to fund Social Security and Medicare—federal programs that provide benefits for retirees, people with disabilities, and children of deceased workers.

Calculation.

Overview.

Share of federal revenue from different tax sources. Individual income taxes (blue), payroll taxes/FICA (green), corporate income taxes (red).

The Federal Insurance Contributions Act is a tax mechanism codified in Title 26, Subtitle C, Chapter 21 of the United States Code.

Social security benefits include old-age, survivors, and disability insurance (OASDI); Medicare provides hospital insurance benefits for the elderly. The amount that one pays in payroll taxes throughout one's working career is associated indirectly with the social security benefits annuity that one receives as a retiree. Consequently, Kevin Hassett wrote that FICA is not a tax because its collection is directly tied to benefits that one is entitled to collect later in life. However, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Flemming v Nestor (1960) that the Social Security system is neither a pension nor an insurance program and that no one has an accrued property right to benefits from the system regardless of how much that person may have contributed. FICA therefore behaves as a tax for all practical purposes, earmarked for particular uses by Congress but fully subject to Congressional authority, including redirection.

The FICA tax applies to earned income only and is not imposed on investment income such as rental income, interest, or dividends. The Hospital Insurance (HI) portion of FICA, which funds Medicare Part A hospital benefits, applies to all earned income, which the OASDI portion of the tax is imposed on earned income only up to cap annually set by Congress ($137,700 in 2020). In 2004, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities stated that three-quarters of taxpayers pay more in payroll taxes than they do in income taxes. FICA is subject to neither the standard deduction nor any personal exemption and so is generally considered to be a regressive tax.

In English law, a fee simple or fee simple absolute is an estate in land, a form of freehold ownership. A "fee" is a vested, inheritable, present possessory interest in land. A "fee simple" refers to a subcategory of such interests that features an absence of any temporal condition limiting its durational period under common law, whereas the highest possible form of ownership interest that can be held in real property is a "fee simple absolute," which is a subset characterized by an absence of limitations regarding the land's use (such as qualifiers or conditions that disallow certain uses of the land or subject the vested interest to termination). Allodial title is reserved to governments under a civil law structure. The rights of the fee-simple owner are limited by government powers of taxation, compulsory purchase, police power, and escheat, and may also be limited further by certain encumbrances or conditions in the deed, such as, for example, a condition that required the land to be used as a public park, with a reversion interest in the grantor if the condition fails; this is a fee simple conditional.

History.

The word "fee" is derived from fief, meaning a feudal landholding. Feudal land tenures existed in several varieties, most of which involved the tenant having to supply some service to his overlord, such as knight-service (military service). If the tenant's overlord was the king, grand serjeanty, then this might require providing many different services, such as providing horses in time of war or acting as the king's ceremonial butler. These fiefs gave rise to a complex relationship between landlord and tenant, involving duties on both sides. For example, in return for receiving his tenant's fealty or homage, the overlord had a duty to protect his tenant. When feudal land tenure was abolished all fiefs became "simple", without conditions attached to the tenancy.

In criminal law, incitement is the encouragement of another person to commit a crime. Depending on the jurisdiction, some or all types of incitement may be illegal. Where illegal, it is known as an inchoate offense, where harm is intended but may or may not have actually occurred.

International law.

The Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights requires that any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law. That few journalists have been prosecuted for incitement to genocide and war crimes despite their recruitment by governments as propagandists is explained by the relatively privileged social status of journalists and privileged institutional position of news organizations in liberal societies, which assign a high value to a free press.

Solicitation is the act of offering, or attempting to purchase, goods and/or services. Legal status may be specific to the time or place where it occurs. The crime of "solicitation to commit a crime" occurs when a person encourages, "solicits, requests, commands, importunes or otherwise attempts to cause" another person to attempt or commit a crime, with the purpose of thereby facilitating the attempt or commission of that crime.

United States.

In the United States, solicitation is the name of a crime, an inchoate offense that consists of a person offering money or inducing another to commit a crime with the specific intent that the person solicited commit the crime. For example, under federal law, for a solicitation conviction to occur the prosecution must prove both that defendant had the intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a felony crime of violence, and that the defendant commanded, induced, or otherwise endeavored to persuade the other person to commit the felony.

Differences in laws.

In the United States, the term "solicitation" implies some part of commercial element, consideration, or payment. In some other common law countries, the situation is different:

where the substantive offense is not committed, the charges are drawn from incitement, conspiracy, and attempt;

where the substantive offense is committed, the charges are drawn from conspiracy, counseling and procuring (see accessories), and the substantive offenses as joint principals (see common purpose).

Differences from other crimes.

Solicitation has in the U.S. these unique elements:

1. the encouragement of, bribing, requesting, or commanding a person.

2. to commit a substantive crime.

3. with the intent that the person solicited to commit the crime.

The doctrine of privity of contract is a common law principle which provides that a contract cannot confer rights or impose obligations upon any person who is not a party to the contract. 

The premise is that only parties to contracts should be able to sue to enforce their rights or claim damages as such. However, the doctrine has proven problematic because of its implications for contracts made for the benefit of third parties who are unable to enforce the obligations of the contracting parties. In England and Wales, the doctrine has been substantially weakened by the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999, which created a statutory exception to privity (enforceable third-party rights). 

Third party rights. 

Privity of contract occurs only between the parties to the contract, most commonly contract of sale of goods or services. Horizontal privity arises when the benefits from a contract are to be given to a third party. Vertical privity involves a contract between two parties, with an independent contract between one of the parties and another individual or corporation. 

If a third party gets a benefit under a contract, it does not have the right to go against the parties to the contract beyond its entitlement to a benefit. An example of this occurs when a manufacturer sells a product to a distributor and the distributor sells the product to a retailer. The retailer then sells the product to a consumer. There is no privity of contract between the manufacturer and the consumer. 

This, however, does not mean that the parties do not have another form of action: for instance, in Donoghue v Stevenson – a friend of Ms. Donoghue bought her a bottle of ginger beer, which contained the partially decomposed remains of a snail. Since the contract was between her friend and the shop owner, Mrs. Donoghue could not sue under the contract, but it was established that the manufacturer was in breach of a duty of care owed to her. Accordingly, she was awarded damages in the tort of negligence for having suffered gastroenteritis and "nervous shock". 

Defamation (also known as calumny, vilification, libel, slander, or traducement) is the oral or written communication of a false statement about another that unjustly harms their reputation and usually constitutes a tort or crime. In several countries, including South Korea, a true statement can also be considered defamation.

Under common law, to constitute defamation, a claim must generally be false and must have been made to someone other than the person defamed. Some common law jurisdictions also distinguish between spoken defamation, called slander, and defamation in other media such as printed words or images, called libel. In the United States, false light laws protect against statements which are not technically false but are misleading.

In some jurisdictions, defamation is also treated as a crime. The United Nations Human Rights Committee ruled in 2012 that the libel law of one country, the Philippines, was inconsistent with Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as well as urging that "State parties  should consider the decriminalization of libel". In Saudi Arabia, defamation of the state, or a past or present ruler, is punishable under terrorism legislation.

Overview.

As of 2017, at least 130 UNESCO member states retained criminal defamation laws. In 2017, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Office of the Representative on Freedom of the Media issued a report on criminal defamation and anti-blasphemy laws among its member states, which found that defamation is criminalized in nearly three-quarters (42) of the 57 OSCE participating states. Many of the laws pertaining to defamation include specific provisions for harsher punishment for speech or publications critical of heads of state, public officials, state bodies and the state itself. The OSCE report also noted that blasphemy and religious insult laws exist in around one third of OSCE participating states; many of these combine blasphemy and religious insult with elements of hate speech legislation.

In Africa, at least four member states decriminalized defamation between 2012 and 2017. The ruling by the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights in Lohé Issa Konaté v the Republic of Burkina Faso set a precedent in the region against imprisonment as a legitimate penalty for defamation, characterizing it as a violation of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the treaty of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Countries in every region have moved to advance the criminalization of defamation by extending legislation to online content. Cybercrime and anti-terrorism laws passed throughout the world have led to bloggers appearing before courts, with some serving time in prison. The United Nations, OSCE, Organisation of American States (OAS) and African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Special Rapporteurs for Freedom of Expression stated in a joint declaration in March 2017 that "general prohibitions on the dissemination of information based on vague and ambiguous ideas, including 'false news' or 'non-objective information', are incompatible with international standards for restrictions on freedom of expression...and should be abolished."

Modern interpretation of the power to tax incomes.

The modern interpretation of the Sixteenth Amendment taxation power can be found in Commissioner v Glenshaw Glass Company (1955). In that case, a taxpayer had received an award of punitive damages from a competitor for antitrust violations and sought to avoid paying taxes on that award. The Court observed that Congress, in imposing the income tax, had defined gross income, under the Internal Revenue Code of 1939, to include:

gains, profits, and income derived from salaries, wages or compensation for personal service ... of whatever kind and in whatever form paid, or from professions, vocations, trades, businesses, commerce, or sales, or dealings in property, whether real or personal, growing out of the ownership or use of or interest in such property; also from interest, rent, dividends, securities, or the transaction of any business carried on for gain or profit, or gains or profits and income derived from any source whatever.

(Note: The Glenshaw Glass case was an interpretation of the definition of "gross income" in section 22 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939. The successor to section 22 of the 1939 Code is section 61 of the current Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended.)

The Court held that "this language was used by Congress to exert in this field the full measure of its taxing power", and that "the Court has given a liberal construction to this broad phraseology in recognition of the intention of Congress to tax all gains except those specifically exempted."

The Court then enunciated what is now understood by Congress and the Courts to be the definition of taxable income, "instances of undeniable accessions to wealth, clearly realized, and over which the taxpayers have complete dominion." The defendant in that case suggested that a 1954 rewording of the tax code had limited the income that could be taxed, a position which the Court rejected, stating:

The definition of gross income has been simplified, but no effect upon its present broad scope was intended. Certainly punitive damages cannot reasonably be classified as gifts, nor do they come under any other exemption provision in the Code. We would do violence to the plain meaning of the statute and restrict a clear legislative attempt to bring the taxing power to bear upon all receipts constitutionally taxable were we to say that the payments in question here are not gross income.

Tax statutes passed after the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913 are sometimes referred to as the "modern" tax statutes. Hundreds of Congressional acts have been passed since 1913, as well as several codifications (for example, topical reorganizations) of the statutes (see Codification).