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A legal remedy, also referred to as judicial relief or a judicial remedy, is the means with which a court of law, usually in the exercise of civil law jurisdiction, enforces a right, imposes a penalty, or makes another court order to impose its will in order to compensate for the harm of a wrongful act inflicted upon an individual. In common law jurisdictions and mixed civil-common law jurisdictions, the law of remedies distinguishes between a legal remedy (for example a specific amount of monetary damages) and an equitable remedy (for example injunctive relief or specific performance). Another type of remedy available in these systems is declaratory relief, where a court determines the rights of the parties to action without awarding damages or ordering equitable relief. The type of legal remedies to be applied in specific cases depend on the nature of the wrongful act and its liability. In international human rights law, there is a right to an effective remedy. In the legal system of the United States, there exists a traditional form of judicial remedies that serve to combat juror biases caused by news coverage. The First Amendment of the United States forbids the government from censoring and restraining the freedom of expression, which allows the ever-expanding news media to influence the legal process. The entangled relationship between mass media and the legal system presents challenges to the Sixth Amendment that guarantees the rights of criminal defendants to receive fair trials. Trial-level remedies are in place to avoid pretrial publicity from affecting the fairness of a trial. To minimize the impacts of pretrial publicity, there are six kinds of judicial remedies at the disposal of judges: voir dire, change of venue, change of veniremen, continuance, admonition, sequestration. In English and American jurisprudence, there is a legal maxim (albeit one sometimes honored in the breach) that for every right, there is a remedy; where there is no remedy, there is no right. That is, lawmakers claim to provide appropriate remedies to protect rights. This legal maxim was first enunciated by William Blackstone: "It is a settled and invariable principle in the laws of England, that every right when with-held must have a remedy, and every injury its proper redress." In addition to the United Kingdom and the United States, legal remedy is a concept widely practiced in the legal system of a variety of countries, though approached differently.

Explanations for the 20th century increase in secessionism. According to University of California, Santa Barbara, political scientist Bridget L Coggins, there are four potential explanations in the academic literature for the drastic increase in state birth during the 20th century: Ethnonational mobilization – Ethnic minorities have been increasingly mobilized to pursue states of their own. Institutional empowerment – The growing inability of empires and ethnic federations to maintain colonies and member states. Relative strength – Increasingly powerful secessionist movements are more likely to achieve statehood. Negotiated consent – Home states and the international community increasingly consent to secessionist demands. Other scholars have linked secession to resource discoveries and extraction. David B. Carter, H. E. Goemans and Ryan Griffiths find that border changes among states tend to conform to borders for previous administrative units. Several scholars have argued that changes in the international system have made it easier to survive and prosper as a small state. Tanisha Fazal and Ryan Griffiths link increased numbers of secessions to an international system that is more favorable for new states. For example, new states can obtain assistance from international organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and the United Nations. Alberto Alesina and Enrico Spolaore argue that greater levels of free trade and peace have reduced the benefits of being part of a larger state, thus motivating nations within larger states to seek secession. Woodrow Wilson's proclamations on self-determination in 1918 created a surge in secessionist demands. Rights to secession. Most sovereign states do not recognize the right to self-determination through secession in their constitutions. Many expressly forbid it. However, there are several existing models of self-determination through greater autonomy and through secession. In liberal constitutional democracies the principle of majority rule has dictated whether a minority can secede. In the United States Abraham Lincoln acknowledged that secession might be possible through amending the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court in Texas v White held secession could occur "through revolution, or through consent of the States". The British Parliament in 1933 held that Western Australia could secede from the Commonwealth of Australia only upon vote of a majority of the country as a whole; the previous two-thirds majority vote for secession via referendum in Western Australia was insufficient. The Chinese Communist Party followed the Soviet Union in including the right of secession in its 1931 constitution in order to entice ethnic nationalities and Tibet into joining. However, the Party eliminated the right to secession in later years, and had anti-secession clause written into the Constitution before and after the founding of the People's Republic of China. The 1947 Constitution of the Union of Burma contained an express state right to secede from the union under a number of procedural conditions. It was eliminated in the 1974 constitution of the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma (officially the "Union of Myanmar"). Burma still allows "local autonomy under central leadership". As of 1996, the constitutions of Austria, Ethiopia, France, and Saint Kitts and Nevis have express or implied rights to secession. Switzerland allows for the secession from current and the creation of new cantons. In the case of proposed Quebec separation from Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada in 1998 ruled that only both a clear majority of the province and a constitutional amendment confirmed by all participants in the Canadian federation could allow secession.

In the common law tradition, testamentary capacity is the legal term of art used to describe a person's legal and mental ability to make or alter a valid will. This concept has also been called sound mind and memory or disposing mind and memory. Presumption of capacity. Adults are presumed to have the ability to make a will. Litigation about testamentary capacity typically revolves around charges that the testator, by virtue of senility, dementia, insanity, or other unsoundness of mind, lacked the mental capacity to make a will. In essence, the doctrine requires those who would challenge a validly executed will to demonstrate that the testator did not know the consequence of their conduct when they executed the will. Certain people, such as minors, are usually deemed to be conclusively incapable of making a will by the common law; however, minors who serve in the military are conceded the right to make a will by statute in many jurisdictions. In South Africa, however, one acquires testamentary capacity at the age of 16 years. Requirements. The requirements for testamentary capacity are minimal. Some courts have held that a person who lacks the capacity to make a contract can nevertheless make a valid will. While the wording of statutes or judicial rulings will vary from one jurisdiction to another, the test generally requires that the testator was aware of: The extent and value of their property. The persons who are the natural beneficiaries The disposition they are making How these elements relate to form an orderly plan of distribution of property. The legal test implies that a typical claimant in a will contest is a disgruntled heir who believes they should have received a larger share than they did under the will. Once the challenging party meets the burden of proof that the testator did not possess the capacity, the burden subsequently shifts to the party propounding the will to show by clear and convincing evidence that the testator did have the requisite capacity. Proof of testamentary capacity. Those who contest a will for lack of testamentary capacity must typically show that the decedent suffered from mental unsoundness that left them unable to remember family members or caused them to hold insane delusions about them. Dead Man's Statutes sometimes restrict evidence which can be admitted concerning transactions with the decedent. Lawyers for people whose testamentary capacity might be called into question often arrange for a will execution to be videotaped. On video, they ask the testator about his property and about his family, and go over the contents of the testator's will. The testamentary capacity matter is most frequently raised posthumously, when an aggrieved heir contests the will entered into probate. For this reason, in the absence of the ability to interview the testator directly, a forensic psychiatrist or forensic psychologist may evaluate a testator’s capacity by reviewing videotape of the drafting of the will, emails or letters, medical records, and other records. Along with resolving an examinee's testamentary capacity, a forensic specialist may observe for signs of undue influence, particularly susceptibility to undue influence. Even when a testator is found to have lacked testamentary capacity due to senility, loss of memory due to the aging process, infirmity or insanity, courts will sometimes rule that the testator had a "temporary period of lucidity" or a "lucid moment" at the time of the execution of the testamentary instrument. Such finding will validate a will that would otherwise be denied probate. A way to forestall a will contest would be to have a self-proving will, in which an affidavit of the witnesses to the will specifically swear or affirm that the will was prepared under the supervision of an attorney.

A private attorney general is an informal term originating in common law jurisdictions for a private attorney who brings a lawsuit claiming it to be in the public interest, for example, benefiting the general public and not just the plaintiff, on behalf of a citizen or group of citizens. The attorney may, at the equitable discretion of the court, be entitled to recover attorney's fees if they prevail. The rationale behind this principle is to provide extra incentive to private attorneys to pursue suits that may be of benefit to society at large. Private attorney general suits are commonly, though not always, brought as class actions in jurisdictions that permit the certification of class action lawsuits. Origin. Historically in English common law, a writ of qui tam was a writ through which private individuals who assist a prosecution can receive for themselves all or part of the damages or financial penalties recovered by the government as a result of the prosecution. Its name is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase qui tam pro domino rege quam pro se ipso in hac parte sequitur, meaning " who sues in this matter for the king as well as for himself." While the writ fell into disuse in England and Wales following the Common Informers Act 1951, it remains current in the United States under the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. § 3729, which allows a private individual, or "whistleblower" (or relator), with knowledge of past or present fraud committed against the federal government to bring suit on its behalf. This allowance and, in some cases, reliance on private individual litigation to enforce the law has also been referred to as a "bounty" system due to the private citizen's potential financial gain if the suit is successful. There are also qui tam provisions in 18 U.S.C. § 962 regarding arming vessels against friendly nations; 25 U.S.C. § 201 regarding violating Indian protection laws; 46 U.S.C. § 80103 regarding the removal of undersea treasure from the Florida coast to foreign nations; and 35 U.S.C. § 292 regarding false marking. However, in February 2011, the qui tam provision regarding false marking was held to be unconstitutional by a U.S. District Court, and, in September of that year, the enactment of the Leahy–Smith America Invents Act effectively removed qui tam remedies from § 292. Contemporary private attorney general lawsuits are an outgrowth of the rationale underlying the writ of qui tam that enabling private citizens to enforce the law will strengthen enforcement and contribute to the rule of law.

Within the U.S., trade secrets generally encompass a company's proprietary information that is not generally known to its competitors, and which provides the company with a competitive advantage. Although trade secrets law evolved under state common law, prior to 1974, the question of whether patent law preempted state trade secrets law had been unanswered. In 1974, the United States Supreme Court issued the landmark decision, Kewanee Oil Company v Bicron Corporation, which resolved the question in favor of allowing the states to freely develop their own trade secret laws. State law. In 1979, several U.S. states adopted the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA), which was further amended in 1985, with approximately 47 states having adopted some variation of it as the basis for trade secret law. Another significant development is the Economic Espionage Act (EEA) of 1996 (18 U.S.C. §§ 1831–1839), which makes the theft or misappropriation of a trade secret a federal crime. This law contains two provisions criminalizing two sorts of activity. 18 U.S.C. § 1831(a), criminalizes the theft of trade secrets to benefit foreign powers. 18 U.S.C. § 1832, criminalizes their theft for commercial or economic purposes. The statutory penalties are different for the two offenses. The EEA was extended in 2016 to allow companies to file civil suits in federal court. Federal law. On May 11, 2016, President Obama signed the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA), 18 U.S.C. §§ 1839, which for the first time created a federal cause of action for misappropriation of trade secrets. The DTSA provides for both a private right of action for damages and injunction and a civil action for injunction brought by the Attorney General. The statute followed state laws on liability in significant part, defining trade secrets in the same way as the Uniform Trade Secrets Act as, "all forms and types of financial, business, scientific, technical, economic, or engineering information, including patterns, plans, compilations, program devices, formulas, designs, prototypes, methods, techniques, processes, procedures, programs, or codes, whether tangible or intangible, and whether or how stored, compiled, or memorialized physically, electronically, graphically, photographically, or in writing if (A) the owner thereof has taken reasonable measures to keep such information secret; and (B) the information derives independent economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known to, and not being readily ascertainable through proper means by, another person who can obtain economic value from the disclosure or use of the information." However, the law contains several important differences from prior law. Because it is a federal law, trade secret cases can be prosecuted in federal courts with concomitant procedural advantages. It provides for the unusual remedy of preliminary seizure of "property necessary to prevent the propagation or dissemination of the trade secret," 18 U.S.C. §1836. It provides for remedies to include royalties in appropriate cases and exemplary damages up to two times the actual damages in cases of "willful and malicious" appropriation, 18 U.S.C. §1836(b)(3). The DTSA also clarifies that a United States resident (including a company) can be liable for misappropriation that takes place outside the United States, and any person can be liable as long as an act in furtherance of the misappropriation takes place in the United States, 18 U.S.C. §1837. The DTSA provides the courts with broad injunctive powers. 18 U.S.C. §1836(b)(3). The DTSA does not preempt or supplant state laws, but provides an additional cause of action. Because states vary significantly in their approach to the "inevitable disclosure" doctrine, its use has limited, if any, application under the DTSA, 18 U.S.C.§1836(b)(3)(A).

Some jurisdictions may commit certain types of dangerous sex offenders to state-run detention facilities following the completion of their sentence if that person has a "mental abnormality" or personality disorder that makes the person likely to engage in sexual offenses if not confined in a secure facility. In the United States, twenty states, the federal government, and the District of Columbia have a version of these commitment laws, which are referred to as "Sexually Violent Predator" (SVP) or "Sexually Dangerous Persons" laws. Generally speaking, SVP laws have three elements: (1) That the person has been convicted of a sexually violent offense (a term that is defined applicable statutes) (2) That the person suffers from a mental abnormality and or personality disorder, which causes him or her serious difficulty controlling his or her sexually violent behavior. (3) That this mental abnormality and or personality disorder makes the person likely to engage in predatory acts of sexual violence if not confined in a secure facility. A "mental abnormality" is a legal term that is not identical to a mental disorder, though experts generally refer to diagnoses contained in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as evidence of a mental abnormality. In most cases, commitment as an SVP is indefinite; however, once a person is committed, the confining agency is constitutionally required to conduct periodic reviews of that person's mental condition. If the committed person's condition changes so he or she no longer meets commitment criteria, he or she must be released. In some circumstances, committed persons can be released to court-monitored conditional releases to less restrictive alternative placements (LRAs).

Secession is the withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a political entity, but also from any organization, union or military alliance. Some of the most famous and significant secessions have been: the Southern States seceding from the Union - which is one of the causes for the American Civil War, the former Soviet republics leaving the Soviet Union after its dissolution, Texas leaving Mexico during the Texas Revolution, Biafra leaving Nigeria and returning after losing the Nigerian Civil War, and Ireland leaving the United Kingdom. Threats of secession can be a strategy for achieving more limited goals. It is, therefore, a process, which commences once a group proclaims the act of secession (for example declaration of independence). A secession attempt might be violent or peaceful, but the goal is the creation of a new state or entity independent from the group or territory it seceded from. Secession theory. There is no consensus regarding the definition of political secession, and a lot of new political theory on the subject. The political philosophers of the rights and moral justification for secession began to develop as recently as the 1980s.American philosopher Allen Buchanan offered the first systematic account of the subject in the 1990s and contributed to the normative classification of the literature on secession. In his 1991 book Secession: The Morality of Political Divorce From Fort Sumter to Lithuania and Quebec, Buchanan outlined limited rights to secession under certain circumstances, mostly related to oppression by people of other ethnic or racial groups, and especially those previously conquered by other people. In his collection of essays from secession scholars, Secession, State, and Liberty, professor David Gordon challenges Buchanan, making a case that the moral status of the seceding state is unrelated to the issue of secession itself. According to the 2017 book Secession and Security by George Mason political scientist Ahsan Butt, states respond violently to secessionist movements if the potential state would pose a greater threat than a violent secessionist movement would. States perceive future war as likely with a potentially new state if the ethnic group driving the secessionist struggle has deep identity division with the central state, and if the regional neighborhood is violent and unstable.

A will contest, in the law of property, is a formal objection raised against the validity of a will, based on the contention that the will does not reflect the actual intent of the testator (the party who made the will) or that the will is otherwise invalid. Will contests generally focus on the assertion that the testator lacked testamentary capacity, was operating under an insane delusion, or was subject to undue influence or fraud. A will may be challenged in its entirety or in part. Courts and legislation generally feel a strong obligation to uphold the final wishes of a testator, and, without compelling evidence to the contrary, "the law presumes that a will is valid and accurately reflects the wishes of the person who wrote it". A will may include an in terrorem clause, with language along the lines of "any person who contests this will shall forfeit his legacy", which operates to disinherit any person who challenges the validity of the will. Such no-contest clauses are permitted under the Uniform Probate Code, which most American states follow at least in part. However, since the clause is within the will itself, a successful challenge to the will renders the clause meaningless. Many states consider such clauses void as a matter of public policy or valid only if a will is contested without probable cause. This article mainly discusses American law and cases. Will contests are more common in the United States than in other countries. This prevalence of will contests in the U.S. is partly because the law gives people a large degree of freedom in disposing of their property and also because "a number of incentives for suing exist in American law outside of the merits of the litigation itself". Most other legal traditions enforce some type of forced heirship, requiring that a testator leave at least some assets to their family, particularly the spouse and children. Standing to contest will. Typically, standing in the United States to contest the validity of a will is limited to two classes of persons: Those who are named on the face of the will (any beneficiary); Those who would inherit from the testator if the will was invalid. For example, Monica makes a will leaving $5,000 each to her husband, Chandler; her brother, Ross; her neighbor, Joey and her best friend, Rachel. Chandler tells Monica that he will divorce her if she does not disown Ross, which would humiliate her. Later, Ross tells Monica (untruthfully) that Chandler is having an affair with Phoebe, which Monica believes. Distraught, Monica rewrites her will, disowning both Chandler and Ross. The attorney who drafts the will accidentally writes the gift to Rachel as $500 instead of $5,000 and also accidentally leaves Joey out entirely. Under such facts: Chandler can contest the will as the product of fraud in the inducement, because if the will is invalid, he will inherit Monica's property, as the surviving spouse. Ross can contest the will as the product of Chandler's undue influence, as Ross will inherit Monica's property if Chandler's behavior disqualifies Chandler from inheriting (however, many jurisdictions do not consider a threat of divorce to be undue influence). Rachel has standing to contest the will, as she is named in the document, but she will not be permitted to submit any evidence as to the mistake because it is not an ambiguous term. Instead, she will have to sue Monica's lawyer for legal malpractice to recover the difference. Finally, neither Joey nor Phoebe is someone who stands to inherit from Monica, nor is either named in the will, and so both are barred from contesting the will altogether.

Quasi-tort is a legal term that is sometimes used to describe unusual tort actions, on the basis of a legal doctrine that some legal duty exists which cannot be classified strictly as negligence in a personal duty resulting in a tort nor as a contractual duty resulting in a breach of contract, but rather some other kind of duty recognizable by the law. It has been used, for example, to describe a tort for strict liability arising out of product liability, although this is typically simply called a 'tort'. Although it is not to be found in most legal dictionaries, it has been used by some scholars such as Sri Lankan Lakshman Marasinghe. Lakshman proposes that the doctrine provides legal relief that falls outside tort or contract, but with some of the characteristics of tort or contract, as can be found in restitution (including unjust enrichment), equity (including unconscionable conduct), beneficiaries under a trust of the benefit of a promise, people protected by the valid assignment of promise, fiduciary duty, and contracts of insurance. In conflict of laws, the choice of law rules for tort are intended to select the lex causae by which to determine the nature and scope of the judicial remedy to claim damages for loss or damage suffered. History. The first attempts to establish a coherent choice of law rule for tort cases involving a foreign law element varied between favouring the lex fori (for example the law of the court) and the lex loci delicti commissi (for example the law of the place where the tort was committed). The public policy of territorial sovereignty was always the principal consideration. Hence, the forum courts claimed their right to apply their laws to determine whether any lawsuit initiated in their jurisdiction allowed a remedy. Equally, it is the commission of a tort that vests a right of action in a claimant and therefore, it should always be for the law of the place where that right was created to determine the extent of any remedy flowing from it. In the end, a compromise emerged where the lex loci delicti was the first point of reference but courts retained a discretion to substitute the lex fori if the foreign law was deemed unfair and other practical considerations pointed to the application of forum law. In the U.S., see the New York decision in Babcock v Jackson, (1963) for a discussion of the issues. This led to a debate in which state interests, rather than strict territorial connections, were suggested as the basis of a new test. In 1971, the American Law Institute produced the Second Conflicts Restatements and section 6 provides that the applicable law should be the one with the "most significant relationship" to the tort. In other common law states, a parallel movement occurred and resulted in the adoption of a proper law test. In substance, both forms are similar in their approach.

Trade secrets are a type of intellectual property that includes formulas, practices, processes, designs, instruments, patterns, or compilations of information that have inherent economic value because they are not generally known or readily ascertainable by others, and which the owner takes reasonable measures to keep secret. Intellectual property law gives the owner of a trade secret the right to restrict others from disclosing it. In some jurisdictions, such secrets are referred to as confidential information. Definition. The precise language by which a trade secret is defined varies by jurisdiction, as do the particular types of information that are subject to trade secret protection. Three factors are common to all such definitions: A trade secret is information that: is not generally known to the public; confers economic benefit on its holder because the information is not publicly known; and where the holder makes reasonable efforts to maintain its secrecy. In international law, these three factors define a trade secret under article 39 of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, commonly referred to as the TRIPS Agreement. Similarly, in the United States Economic Espionage Act of 1996, "A trade secret, as defined under 18 U.S.C. § 1839(3)(A),(B) (1996), has three parts: (1) information; (2) reasonable measures taken to protect the information; and (3) which derives independent economic value from not being publicly known." Value. Trade secrets are an important, but invisible component of a company's intellectual property (IP). Their contribution to a company's value, measured in terms of its market capitalization, can be major. Being invisible, that contribution is hard to measure. Still, research shows that changes in trade secrets laws affect business spending on R&D and patents. This research provides indirect evidence of the value of trade secrecy.