Law School

The attractive nuisance doctrine applies to the law of torts in some jurisdictions. It states that a landowner may be held liable for injuries to children trespassing on the land if the injury is caused by an object on the land that is likely to attract children. The doctrine is designed to protect children who are unable to appreciate the risk posed by the object, by imposing a liability on the landowner. The doctrine has been applied to hold landowners liable for injuries caused by abandoned cars, piles of lumber or sand, trampolines, and swimming pools. However, it can be applied to virtually anything on the property. There is no set cutoff point that defines youth. The courts will evaluate each "child" on a case-by-case basis to see if the "child" qualifies as a youth. If it is determined that the child was able to understand and appreciate the hazard, the doctrine of attractive nuisance will not likely apply. Under the old common law, the plaintiff (either the child, or a parent suing on the child's behalf) had to show that it was the hazardous condition itself which lured the child onto the landowner's property. However, most jurisdictions have statutorily altered this condition, and now require only that the injury was foreseeable by the landowner. Comparative responsibility (known as comparative fault in some jurisdictions) is a doctrine of tort law that compares the fault of each party in a lawsuit for a single injury. Comparative responsibility may apply to intentional torts as well as negligence and encompasses the doctrine of comparative negligence. Comparative responsibility divides the fault among parties by percentages, and then accordingly divides the money awarded to the plaintiff. The plaintiff may only recover the percentage of the damages he is not at fault for. If a plaintiff is found to be 25% at fault, he can recover only 75% of his damages. There are several circumstances that make comparative responsibility intricate: when the plaintiff shares in fault for the damages, when a defendant who has a share of the fault cannot be included in the suit, when one of the defendants can not pay, and when there are charges of both negligence and intentional torts in the same action. In some common law jurisdictions, contributory negligence is a defense to a tort claim based on negligence. If it is available, the defense completely bars plaintiffs from any recovery if they contribute to their own injury through their own negligence. Because the contributory negligence doctrine can lead to harsh results, many common law jurisdictions have abolished it in favor of a "comparative fault" or "comparative negligence" approach. A comparative negligence approach reduces the plaintiff's damages award by the percentage of fault that the fact-finder assigns to the plaintiff for his or her own injury. For example, if a jury thinks that the plaintiff is 30% at fault for his own injury, the plaintiff's damages award will be reduced by 30%.

Alternative tax bases (AMT, states). An alternative minimum tax (AMT) is imposed at the federal level on a somewhat modified version of taxable income. The tax applies to individuals and corporations. The tax base is adjusted gross income reduced by a fixed deduction that varies by taxpayer filing status. Itemized deductions of individuals are limited to home mortgage interest, charitable contributions, and a portion of medical expenses. AMT is imposed at a rate of 26% or 28% for individuals and 20% for corporations, less the amount of regular tax. A credit against future regular income tax is allowed for such excess, with certain restrictions. Many states impose minimum income taxes on corporations or a tax computed on an alternative tax base. These include taxes based on the capital of corporations and alternative measures of income for individuals. Details vary widely by state. Differences between book and taxable income for businesses. In the United States, taxable income is computed under rules that differ materially from U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. Since only publicly traded companies are required to prepare financial statements, many non-public companies opt to keep their financial records under tax rules. Corporations that present financial statements using other than tax rules must include a detailed reconciliation of their financial statement income to their taxable income as part of their tax returns. Key areas of difference include depreciation and amortization, timing of recognition of income or deductions, assumptions for cost of goods sold, and certain items (such as meals and entertainment) the tax deduction for which is limited. Reporting under self-assessment system. Income taxes in the United States are self-assessed by taxpayers by filing required tax returns. Taxpayers, as well as certain non-tax-paying entities, like partnerships, must file annual tax returns at the federal and applicable state levels. These returns disclose a complete computation of taxable income under tax principles. Taxpayers compute all income, deductions, and credits themselves, and determine the amount of tax due after applying required prepayments and taxes withheld. Federal and state tax authorities provide preprinted forms that must be used to file tax returns. IRS Form 1040 series is required for individuals, Form 1120 series for corporations, Form 1065 for partnerships, and Form 990 series for tax exempt organizations. The state forms vary widely, and rarely correspond to federal forms. Tax returns vary from the two-page (Form 1040EZ) used by nearly 70% of individual filers to thousands of pages of forms and attachments for large entities. Groups of corporations may elect to file consolidated returns at the federal level and with a few states. Electronic filing of federal and many state returns is widely encouraged and in some cases required, and many vendors offer computer software for use by taxpayers and paid return preparers to prepare and electronically file returns.

A fixture, as a legal concept, means any physical property that is permanently attached (fixed) to real property (usually land). Property not affixed to real property is considered chattel property. Fixtures are treated as a part of real property, particularly in the case of a security interest. A classic example of a fixture is a building, which, in the absence of language to the contrary in a contract of sale, is considered part of the land itself and not a separate piece of property. Generally speaking, the test for deciding whether an article is a fixture or a chattel turns on the purpose of attachment. If the purpose was to enhance the land, the article is likely a fixture; if the article was affixed to enhance the use of the chattel itself, the article is likely a chattel. Chattel property is converted into a fixture by the process of attachment. For example, if a piece of lumber sits in a lumber yard, it is a chattel. If the same lumber is used to build a fence on the land, it becomes a fixture to that real property. In many cases, the determination of whether property is a fixture or a chattel turns on the degree to which the property is attached to the land. For example, this problem arises in the case of a trailer home. In this case, the characterization of the home as chattel or realty will depend on how permanently it is attached, such as whether the trailer has a foundation. The characterization of property as a fixture or as chattel is important. In most jurisdictions, the law respecting the registration of security against debt, or proof that money has been lent on the collateral of property, is different for chattels than it is for real property. For example, in the province of Ontario, Canada, mortgages against real property must be registered in the county or region's land titles office. However, mortgages against chattels must be registered in the province-wide registry set up under the Personal Property Security Act. In the case of a trailer home, whether it is a fixture or chattel has a bearing on whether a real property mortgage applies to the trailer. For example, most mortgages contain a clause that forbids the borrower from removing or demolishing fixtures on the property, which would lower the value of the security. However, there have been cases where lenders lend money based on the value of the trailer home on the property, where that trailer is later removed from the property. Similarly, a chattel mortgage granted to allow a person to purchase a trailer home could be lost if the trailer is later attached to real property. The law regarding fixtures can also cause many problems with property held under a lease. Fixtures put in place by the tenant belong to the landlord if the tenant is evicted from the property. This is the case even if the fixture could have legally been removed by the tenant while the lease was in good standing. For example, a chandelier hung by the tenant may become the property of the landlord. Although this example is trivial, there have been cases where heavy equipment incorporated into a plant has been deemed to have become fixtures even though it was sold as chattels. Because the value of fixtures often exceeds the value of the land they are affixed to, lawsuits to determine whether a particular item is a chattel or a fixture are common. In one case in Canada, a provincial government argued that a huge earth dam was a chattel, as it was only held in place by gravity and not by any type of affixation (the claim was rejected). In a sale of land, fixtures are treated as part of the land, and may not be removed or altered by the seller prior to the transfer of the land. Fixtures are known in civil law as essential parts.

An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. It is derived from the Latin obscēnus, obscaenus, "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. The word can be used to indicate strong moral repugnance and outrage, in expressions such as "obscene profits" and "the obscenity of war". As a legal term, it usually refers to graphic depictions of people engaged in sexual and excretory activity, and related utterances of profane speech. United States obscenity law. In the United States, issues of obscenity raise issues of limitations on the freedom of speech and of the press, which are otherwise protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Federal obscenity law in the U.S. is unusual in that there is no uniform national standard. Former Justice Potter Stewart of the Supreme Court of the United States, in attempting to classify what material constituted exactly "what is obscene," famously wrote, "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced ... but I know it when I see it...." In the United States, the 1973 ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States in Miller v California established a three-tiered test to determine what was obscene—and thus not protected, versus what was merely erotic and thus protected by the First Amendment. Delivering the opinion of the court, Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote: The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be: (a) whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. Non image-based obscenity cases in the U.S. While most recent (2016) obscenity cases in the United States have revolved around images and films, the first obscenity cases dealt with textual works. The classification of "obscene" and thus illegal for production and distribution has been judged on printed text-only stories starting with Dunlop v U.S. (1897), which upheld a conviction for mailing and delivery of a newspaper called the Chicago Dispatch, containing "obscene, lewd, lascivious, and indecent materials", which was later upheld in several cases. One of these was "A Book Named John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure" v Attorney General of Com. of Massachusetts, "(1966)" wherein the book "Fanny Hill", written by John Cleland in 1760, was judged to be obscene in a proceeding that put the book itself on trial rather than its publisher. Another was Kaplan v California, (1973) whereby the court most famously determined that "Obscene material in book form is not entitled to any First Amendment protection merely because it has no pictorial content." In 2005, the U.S. Department of Justice formed the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force in a push to prosecute obscenity cases. Red Rose Stories, a site dedicated to text-only fantasy stories, became one of many sites targeted by the FBI for shutdown. The government alleged that Red Rose Stories contained depictions of child rape. The publisher pleaded guilty. Extreme pornographer Max Hardcore served 30 months of a 46-month prison sentence for obscenity. Many U.S. states have had bans on the sale of sex toys, regulating them as obscene devices. Some states have seen their sex toy bans ruled unconstitutional in the courts. That ruling leaves only Mississippi, Alabama, and Virginia with current bans on the sale of obscene devices. Literature (non-fiction) communicating contraceptive information was prohibited by several states. The last such prohibition, in Connecticut, was overturned judicially in 1965.

In private international law, the public policy doctrine or ordre public ("public order") concerns the body of principles that underpin the operation of legal systems in each state. This addresses the social, moral and economic values that tie a society together: values that vary in different cultures and change over time. Law regulates behavior either to reinforce existing social expectations or to encourage constructive change, and laws are most likely to be effective when they are consistent with the most generally accepted societal norms and reflect the collective morality of the society. In performing this function, Cappalli has suggested that the critical values of any legal system include impartiality, neutrality, certainty, equality, openness, flexibility, and growth. This assumes that a state's courts function as dispute resolution systems, which avoid the violence that often otherwise accompanies private resolution of disputes. That is, citizens have to be encouraged to use the court system to resolve their disputes. The more certain and predictable the outcome of a court action, the less incentive there is to go to court where a loss is probable. But certainty must be subject to the needs of individual justice, hence the development of equity. A judge should always consider the underlying policies to determine whether a rule should be applied to a specific factual dispute. If laws are applied too strictly and mechanically, the law cannot keep pace with social innovation. Similarly, if there is an entirely new situation, a return to the policies forming the basic assumptions underpinning potentially relevant rules of law identifies the best guidelines for resolving the immediate dispute. Over time, these policies evolve, becoming more clearly defined and more deeply embedded in the legal system. Fundamental principles: Ignorance of the law is not an excuse. The fundamental policy in the operation of a legal system is that ignorantia juris non excusat (ignorance of the law is no excuse). It would completely undermine the enforcement of any law if the person potentially at fault was able to raise as a successful defense that he or she had not been aware of the particular law. For this reason, all the main legislatures publish their laws freely whether in hard copy or on the Internet, while others offer them for sale to the public at affordable prices. Because everyone is entitled to access the laws as they affect their personal lives, all adults are assumed responsible enough to research the law before they act. If they fail to do so, they can hardly complain if their acts prove unlawful, no matter how transient they may be within the jurisdiction. The only exception to this rule excuses those of reduced capacity, whether as infants or through mental illness (for example, see the principle of doli incapax which raises an irrebuttable presumption in criminal law that an infant is incapable of committing a crime).

In the USA, the rescue doctrine of the law of torts holds that if a tortfeasor creates a circumstance that places the tort victim in danger, the tortfeasor is liable not only for the harm caused to the victim, but also the harm caused to any person injured in an effort to rescue that victim. This doctrine was originally promulgated by Benjamin N Cardozo in the 1921 case, Wagner v International Railway Company. There, writing for the Court of Appeals of New York (which is the supreme court of that state), Cardozo stated: "Danger invites rescue. The cry of distress is the summons to relief…The emergency begets the man. The wrongdoer may not have foreseen the coming of a deliverer. He is accountable as if he had." The rescue doctrine was established nineteen years later, in the landmark case of Cote v Palmer. Essentially, the rescue doctrine means that the rescuer can recover damages from a defendant when the rescuer is injured rescuing someone. The defendant is usually negligent in causing the accident to occur. Other cases have occurred where the plaintiff is injured rescuing the defendant and is able to collect damages. In Wagner v International Railway, riders on the defendant's trains were allowed to walk between cars while the train was moving. In one incident, a rider fell through the cars. The plaintiff, trying to help the fallen rider, was injured himself/herself. The court found the defendant liable because of negligence to allow riders to walk between cars while the train was moving. The aforementioned example is a reference to the concept that Danger invites Rescue. Whoever caused the accident will be liable for any subsequent accident which develops as a result of the original accident. Essentially, in its pure form the Rescue Doctrine boils down to 4 main elements - all of which must be met in order to bring it to bear for the person asserting its privilege. 1. There must be peril or the appearance of peril to a third party, caused by the defendant. 2. That peril or appearance of peril must be imminent 3. A reasonable person would recognize the peril or appearance of peril and the plaintiff must also have actually recognized it. 4. The plaintiff must have exercised reasonable care in effecting the rescue. A duty to rescue is a concept in tort law that arises in a number of cases, describing a circumstance in which a party can be held liable for failing to come to the rescue of another party who could face potential injury or death without being rescued. In common law systems, it is rarely formalized in statutes which would bring the penalty of law down upon those who fail to rescue. This does not necessarily obviate a moral duty to rescue: though law is binding and carries government-authorized sanctions and awarded civil penalties, there are also separate ethical arguments for a duty to rescue even where law does not punish failure to rescue.

Income tax. Taxes based on income are imposed at the federal, most state, and some local levels within the United States. The tax systems within each jurisdiction may define taxable income separately. Many states refer to some extent to federal concepts for determining taxable income. History of the income tax. The first Income tax in the United States was implemented with the Revenue Act of 1861 by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. In 1895 the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. federal income tax on interest income, dividend income and rental income was unconstitutional in Pollock v Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., because it was a direct tax. The Pollock decision was overruled by the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1913, and by subsequent U.S. Supreme Court decisions including Graves v New York ex rel. O'Keefe, South Carolina v Baker, and Brushaber v Union Pacific Railroad Co. Basic concepts. The U.S. income tax system imposes a tax based on income on individuals, corporations, estates, and trusts. The tax is taxable income, as defined, times a specified tax rate. This tax may be reduced by credits, some of which may be refunded if they exceed the tax calculated. Taxable income may differ from income for other purposes (such as for financial reporting). The definition of taxable income for federal purposes is used by many, but far from all states. Income and deductions are recognized under tax rules, and there are variations within the rules among the states. Book and tax income may differ. Income is divided into "capital gains", which are taxed at a lower rate and only when the taxpayer chooses to "realize" them, and "ordinary income", which is taxed at higher rates and on an annual basis. Because of this distinction, capital is taxed much more lightly than labor. Under the U.S. system, individuals, corporations, estates, and trusts are subject to income tax. Partnerships are not taxed; rather, their partners are subject to income tax on their shares of income and deductions, and take their shares of credits. Some types of business entities may elect to be treated as corporations or as partnerships. Taxpayers are required to file tax returns and self assess tax. Tax may be withheld from payments of income (for example, withholding of tax from wages). To the extent taxes are not covered by withholdings, taxpayers must make estimated tax payments, generally quarterly. Tax returns are subject to review and adjustment by taxing authorities, though far fewer than all returns are reviewed. Taxable income is gross income less exemptions, deductions, and personal exemptions. Gross income includes "all income from whatever source". Certain income, however, is subject to tax exemption at the federal or state levels. This income is reduced by tax deductions including most business and some nonbusiness expenses. Individuals are also allowed a deduction for personal exemptions, a fixed dollar allowance. The allowance of some nonbusiness deductions is phased out at higher income levels. The U.S. federal and most state income tax systems tax the worldwide income of citizens and residents. A federal foreign tax credit is granted for foreign income taxes. Individuals residing abroad may also claim the foreign earned income exclusion. Individuals may be a citizen or resident of the United States but not a resident of a state. Many states grant a similar credit for taxes paid to other states. These credits are generally limited to the amount of tax on income from foreign (or other state) sources.

An equitable servitude is a term used in the law of real property to describe a nonpossessory interest in land that operates much like a covenant running with the land. In England and Wales the term is defunct and in Scotland it has very long been a sub-type of the Scottish legal version of servitudes, which are what English law calls easements. However covenants and equitable servitudes in most of the jurisdictions across North America, are slightly different. The usual distinction is based on the remedy the plaintiff seeks and precedent will allow for the scenario in question. Where the terms are unmerged, holders of a covenant seek money damages; holders of equitable servitudes seek injunctions. The term used to exist in England widely before Tulk v Moxhay and as byproduct of the Judicature Acts became one of the fullest mergers of equity and common law in England and Wales so as to agree initially on the term "equitable covenant", then coming to be united in the term covenant save that "equitable" bears a particular meaning in English property rights since at least 1925: it means not fully compliant with registration and written formalities. If it lacks legally routine formalities it is not a full legal covenant and therefore more tenuous, often only enforceable personally and against the original covenantor (in personam). Equitable servitude remains conceptually unaltered from its original core meaning however in many derived jurisdictions today. It describes wherever a party is in a non-criminal way forbidden from certain use (of land) in such a way as for breach to justify prohibitory or mandatory action to be ordered by the court. The term usually applies only to permanent restrictions, others may more commonly branded rules, terms of use, private byelaws or restrictions. An equitable servitude is a term used in the law of real property to describe a nonpossessory interest in land that operates much like a covenant running with the land. In England and Wales the term is defunct and in Scotland it has very long been a sub-type of the Scottish legal version of servitudes, which are what English law calls easements. However covenants and equitable servitudes in most of the jurisdictions across North America, are slightly different. The usual distinction is based on the remedy the plaintiff seeks and precedent will allow for the scenario in question. Where the terms are unmerged, holders of a covenant seek money damages; holders of equitable servitudes seek injunctions. The term used to exist in England widely before Tulk v Moxhay and as byproduct of the Judicature Acts became one of the fullest mergers of equity and common law in England and Wales so as to agree initially on the term "equitable covenant", then coming to be united in the term covenant save that "equitable" bears a particular meaning in English property rights since at least 1925: it means not fully compliant with registration and written formalities. If it lacks legally routine formalities it is not a full legal covenant and therefore more tenuous, often only enforceable personally and against the original covenantor (in personam). Equitable servitude remains conceptually unaltered from its original core meaning however in many derived jurisdictions today. It describes wherever a party is in a non-criminal way forbidden from certain use (of land) in such a way as for breach to justify prohibitory or mandatory action to be ordered by the court. The term usually applies only to permanent restrictions, others may more commonly branded rules, terms of use, private byelaws or restrictions.

Fornication is generally consensual sexual intercourse between two people not married to each other. When one or more of the partners having consensual sexual intercourse is married to another person, it is called adultery. Nonetheless, John Calvin viewed adultery to be any sexual act that is outside the divine model for sexual intercourse, which includes fornication. For many people, the term carries an overtone of moral or religious disapproval, but the significance of sexual acts to which the term is applied varies between religions, societies and cultures. In modern usage, the term is often replaced with more judgment-neutral terms like premarital sex, extramarital sex, or recreational sex. Across history, cultures, and laws. A survey undertaken by the American Sociological Review between 2000 and 2008 covering 31 developing countries found that "94 percent of Jews... reported having premarital sex, compared to 79 percent of Christians, 65 percent of Buddhists, 43 percent of Muslims and 19 percent of Hindus." In cultures where monogamy is mandated, bigamy is the act of entering into a marriage with one person while still legally married to another. A legal or de facto separation of the couple does not alter their marital status as married persons. In the case of a person in the process of divorcing their spouse, that person is taken to be legally married until such time as the divorce becomes final or absolute under the law of the relevant jurisdiction. Bigamy laws do not apply to couples in a de facto or cohabitation relationship, or that enter such relationships when one is legally married. If the prior marriage is for any reason void, the couple is not married, and hence each party is free to marry another without falling foul of the bigamy laws. Bigamy is a crime in most countries that recognize only monogamous marriages. When it occurs in this context often neither the first nor second spouse is aware of the other. In countries that have bigamy laws, with a few exceptions (such as Egypt and Iran), consent from a prior spouse makes no difference to the legality of the second marriage, which is usually considered void.

Conflict of laws in the United States is the field of procedural law dealing with choice of law rules when a legal action implicates the substantive laws of more than one jurisdiction and a court must determine which law is most appropriate to resolve the action. In the United States, the rules governing these matters have diverged from the traditional rules applied internationally. The outcome of this process may require a court in one jurisdiction to apply the law of a different jurisdiction. New approaches in the United States. Until the 20th century, traditional choice of law rules were based on the principle that legal rights vest automatically at legally significant and ascertainable times and places. For example, a dispute regarding property would be decided by the law of the place the property was located. Disputes in tort would be decided by the place where the injury occurred. During the first half of the 20th century, the traditional conflict of laws approach came under criticism from some members of the U.S. legal community who saw it as rigid and arbitrary; the traditional method sometimes forced application of the laws of a state with no connection to either party, except that a tort or contract claim arose between the parties in that state. This period of intellectual ferment (which coincided with the rise of the legal realism movement) gave birth to a number of innovative new approaches. Renvoi. Courts may look for a provision in the law of the choice of law state that permits the court to use the lex fori, for example law of the forum state. For example, suppose State X has a rule that says that if property located in State X is conveyed by a contract entered into in any other state, then the law of that other state will govern the validity of the contract. Suppose also that State Y has a rule that says that if a contract entered into in State Y conveys property located in any other state, then the law of that other state will govern the validity of the contract. Now suppose that party A conveys land located in State X to party B through a contract entered into in State Y. If a lawsuit arising from that transaction is brought in State X, the law of State X requires the courts of that state to apply the law of the state where the contract was made, which is state Y. However, the courts of State X might note that a court in State Y would apply the law of State X, because that is where the land is located, and the law of State Y follows the land. Most U.S. states frown upon renvoi in a choice of law situation. In this example, they would insist that the only law the courts of State X should look at is the law of contracts of State Y, not the "whole law" of State Y, which includes that state's law governing choice of law. The basic criticism of renvoi is that it can lead to an endless circle. In the above example, it could be argued that if the law of State Y points back to State X, then the law of State X would only once again require application of the law of State Y, and so forth and so on without end. Significant contacts test. The significant contacts test evaluates the contacts between the states and each party to the case, and determines which state has the most significant contacts with the litigation as a whole. This test has been criticized for failing to respect the sovereignty of the state in which the cause of action arose, and because courts can tip the balance in one way or another in deciding which contacts are significant.