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In the law of tort, property, and criminal law a trespasser is a person who commits the act of trespassing on a property, that is, without the permission of the owner. Being present on land as a trespasser thereto creates liability in the trespasser, so long as the trespass is intentional. At the same time, the status of a visitor as a trespasser (as opposed to an invitee or a licensee) defines the legal rights of the visitor if they are injured due to the negligence of the property owner. Trespassing as a tort. The tort of trespass to land requires an intentional physical invasion of the plaintiff's real property by the defendant or a refusal to leave when ordered to leave. Intent required. For example, a person walking in a public park who trips and rolls down a hill will not be liable for trespass just because the bottom of the hill is on private land. A licensee can mean the holder of a license or, in U.S. tort law, a licensee is a person who is on the property of another, despite the fact that the property is not open to the general public, because the owner of the property has allowed the licensee to enter. The status of a visitor as a licensee (as opposed to a trespasser or an invitee) defines the legal rights of the visitor if they are injured due to the negligence of the property possessor (not necessarily the owner). Where licensees are present, activities conducted on the land by or at the behest of the owner of the land must be conducted with the care that a prudent person would show. A duty to warn arises if there is a harmful condition on the land that is hidden from the licensee, so long as the landowner knows of this condition. The licensee falls between the anticipated or discovered trespasser and the invitee on the sliding scale of tort liability assessed to landowners. Whereas the anticipated trespasser needs to be protected from known man made conditions capable of causing death or serious injury, the licensee must be warned of all known dangers. However, unlike an invitee, a licensee has no standing to sue for dangerous conditions that "should have been" discovered by the property owner but were not actually known to the owner. In the law of torts, an invitee is a person who is invited to land by the possessor of the land as a member of the public or one who enters the land of another for the purpose of business dealings with the possessor of the land. The status of a visitor as an invitee (as opposed to a trespasser or a licensee) defines the legal rights of the visitor if they are injured due to the negligence of the property owner. There are generally two types of invitees for example, Business Invitee and Public Invitee. Business Invitee is a person who enters business property to do business with the land occupier. Public Invitee is a person who enters land in the possession of another for the purpose for which the property is held open to the public, even if no business purpose is involved. Even if "invited" onto somebody's premises, a social guest is classified as a licensee. The property owner has a duty to make the property safe for the invitee, which includes conducting a reasonable inspection of the premises to uncover hidden dangers. The property owner also has a duty to warn the invitee of hazardous conditions that cannot be fixed. Furthermore, property owners assume a duty to rescue an invitee who falls into peril while visiting the property. If an independent contractor hired by the landowner injures an invitee (intentionally or through negligence), the owner can be held vicariously liable. This represents the broadest duty of care owed to any class of visitors to the property.

A tax protester is someone who refuses to pay a tax claiming that the tax laws are unconstitutional or otherwise invalid. Tax protesters are different from tax resisters, who refuse to pay taxes as a protest against a government or its policies, or a moral opposition to taxation in general, not out of a belief that the tax law itself is invalid. The United States has a large and organized culture of people who espouse such theories. Tax protesters also exist in other countries. Legal commentator Daniel B Evans has defined tax protesters as people who "refuse to pay taxes or file tax returns out of a mistaken belief that the federal income tax is unconstitutional, invalid, voluntary, or otherwise does not apply to them under one of a number of bizarre arguments" (divided into several classes: constitutional, conspiracy, administrative, statutory, and arguments based on 16th Amendment and the "861" section of the tax code; see the Tax protester arguments article for an overview). Law Professor Allen D Madison has described tax protesters as "those who refuse to pay income tax on the basis of some nonsensical legal argument that he or she does not owe tax." An illegal tax-protest scheme has been defined as "any scheme, without basis in law or fact, designed to express dissatisfaction with the tax laws by interfering with their administration or attempting to illegally avoid or reduce tax liabilities." The United States Tax Court has stated that "tax protester" is a designation "often given to persons who make frivolous antitax arguments". Tax protesters raise a number of different kinds of arguments. In the United States, these typically include constitutional arguments, such as claims that the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution was not properly ratified or that it is unconstitutional generally, or that being forced to file an income tax return violates the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Others are statutory arguments suggesting that the income tax is constitutional but the statutes enacting the income tax are ineffective, or that Federal Reserve Notes or other relevant currencies do not constitute cash or income. Yet another collection of arguments centers on general conspiracies involving numerous government agencies. Some tax protesters refuse to file a tax return or file returns with no income or tax data supplied.

n 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.

The right to privacy is an element of various legal traditions that intends to restrain governmental and private actions that threaten the privacy of individuals. Over 150 national constitutions mention the right to privacy. 10 December 1948 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) originally written to guarantee individual rights of everyone everywhere. The words Right to Privacy is not written in the document however, many interpret this by reading Article 12, which states: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. Since the global surveillance disclosures of 2013, initiated by ex-NSA employee Edward Snowden, the right to privacy has been a subject of international debate. Government agencies, such as the NSA, CIA, R&AW and GCHQ, have engaged in mass, global surveillance. Some current debates around the right to privacy include whether privacy can co-exist with the current capabilities of intelligence agencies to access and analyze many details of an individual's life; whether or not the right to privacy is forfeited as part of the social contract to bolster defense against supposed terrorist threats; and whether threats of terrorism are a valid excuse to spy on the general population. Private sector actors can also threaten the right to privacy – particularly technology companies, such as Amazon, Apple, Meta, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo that use and collect personal data. These concerns have been strengthened by scandals, including the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, which focused on the psychographic company Cambridge Analytica which used personal data from Facebook to influence large groups of people. History. The concept of a human "right to privacy" begins when the Latin word "ius" expanded from meaning "what is fair" to include "a right – an entitlement a person possesses to control or claim something," by the Decretum Gratiani in Bologna, Italy in the 12th Century. In the United States, an article in the 15 December 1890 issue of the Harvard Law Review, written by attorney Samuel D Warren and future U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Louis Brandeis, entitled "The Right to Privacy", is often cited as the first explicit finding of a U.S. right to privacy. Warren and Brandeis wrote that privacy is the "right to be let alone", and focused on protecting individuals. This approach was a response to recent technological developments of the time, such as photography and sensationalist journalism, also known as "yellow journalism". Privacy rights are inherently intertwined with information technology. In his widely cited dissenting opinion in Olmstead v United States (1928), Brandeis relied on thoughts he developed in his 1890 article The Right to Privacy. In that dissent, he urged that personal privacy matters were more relevant to constitutional law, going so far as to say that "the government was identified as a potential privacy invader." He writes, "Discovery and invention have made it possible for the Government, by means far more effective than stretching upon the rack, to obtain disclosure in court of what is whispered in the closet." At that time, telephones were often community assets, with shared party lines and potentially eavesdropping switchboard operators. By the time of Katz, in 1967, telephones had become personal devices with lines not shared across homes and switching was electro-mechanical. In the 1970s, new computing and recording technologies raised more concerns about privacy, resulting in the Fair Information Practice Principles. In recent years there have been few attempts to clearly and precisely define the "right to privacy".

United States. Equitable estoppel. Equitable estoppel is the American counterpart to estoppel by representation. Its elements are summarized as: Facts misrepresented or concealed, Knowledge of true facts, Fraudulent intent, Inducement and reliance, Injury to complainant, and, Clear, concise, unequivocal proof of actus (not by implication). For example, in Aspex Eyewear v Clariti Eyewear, eyeglass frame maker Aspex sued competitor Clariti for patent infringement. Aspex waited three years, without responding to a request that it list the infringed patent claims, before asserting its patent in litigation. During this period, Clariti expanded its marketing and sales of the products. The Federal Circuit found that Aspex misled Clariti to believe it would not enforce its patent, and thus estopped Aspex from proceeding with the suit. Another example of equitable estoppel is the case of Sakharam Ganesh Pandit, an Indian emigrant and lawyer who was granted American citizenship in 1914 due to his designation as "white". Subsequently, Pandit bought property, was admitted to the California bar, married a white woman, and renounced his rights to property and inheritance in British India. Following the Supreme Court case United States v Thind, which found that Indians were considered non-white, and in which Pandit represented the applicant, Bhagat Singh Thind, the US government moved to strip Pandit of his "illegally procured" citizenship. Pandit successfully challenged the denaturalization, arguing that under equitable estoppel, he would be unjustly harmed by losing his citizenship, as it would cause him to become stateless, lose his profession as a lawyer, and make his marriage illegal. In U.S. v Pandit, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld Pandit's citizenship, ending denaturalization processes against him and other Indian-Americans. Promissory estoppel. In many jurisdictions of the United States, promissory estoppel is an alternative to consideration as a basis for enforcing a promise. It is also sometimes called detrimental reliance. The American Law Institute in 1932 included the principle of estoppel into § 90 of the Restatement of Contracts, stating: A promise which the promisor should reasonably expect to induce action or forbearance of a definite and substantial character on the part of the promisee and which does induce such action or forbearance is binding if injustice can be avoided only by enforcement of the promise. — Restatement (Second) removed the requirement that the detriment be "substantial". However: Equitable estoppel is distinct from promissory estoppel. Promissory estoppel involves a clear and definite promise, while equitable estoppel involves only representations and inducements. The representations at issue in promissory estoppel go to future intent, while equitable estoppel involves statement of past or present fact. It is also said that equitable estoppel lies in tort, while promissory estoppel lies in contract. The major distinction between equitable estoppel and promissory estoppel is that the former is available only as a defense, while promissory estoppel can be used as the basis of a cause of action for damages. — 28 American Jurisprudence 2d Estoppel and Waiver § 34

In tort law, a duty of care is a legal obligation which is imposed on an individual, requiring adherence to a standard of reasonable care while performing any acts that could foreseeably harm others. It is the first element that must be established to proceed with an action in negligence. The claimant must be able to show a duty of care imposed by law which the defendant has breached. In turn, breaching a duty may subject an individual to liability. The duty of care may be imposed by operation of law between individuals who have no current direct relationship (familial or contractual or otherwise) but eventually become related in some manner, as defined by common law (meaning case law). Duty of care may be considered a formalization of the social contract, the implicit responsibilities held by individuals towards others within society. It is not a requirement that a duty of care be defined by law, though it will often develop through the jurisprudence of common law. Development of the general duty of care. At common law, duties were formerly limited to those with whom one was in privity one way or another, as exemplified by cases like Winterbottom v Wright (1842). In the early 20th century, judges began to recognize that the cold realities of the Second Industrial Revolution (in which end users were frequently several parties removed from the original manufacturer) implied that enforcing the privity requirement against hapless consumers had harsh results in many product liability cases. The idea of a general duty of care that runs to all who could be foreseeably affected by one's conduct (accompanied by the demolishing of the privity barrier) first appeared in the judgment of William Brett (later Lord Esher), Master of the Rolls, in Heaven v Pender (1883). Although Brett's formulation was rejected by the rest of the court, similar formulations later appeared in the landmark U.S. case of MacPherson v Buick Motor Co. (1916) and, in the UK, in Donoghue v Stevenson (1932). Both MacPherson and Donoghue were product liability cases, and both expressly acknowledged and cited Brett's analysis as their inspiration. Scope. Although the duty of care is easiest to understand in contexts like simple blunt trauma, it is important to understand that the duty can be still found in situations where plaintiffs and defendants may be separated by vast distances of space and time. For instance, an engineer or construction company involved in erecting a building may be reasonably responsible to tenants inhabiting the building many years in the future. This point is illustrated by the decision of the South Carolina Supreme Court in Terlinde v Neely (1980), later cited by the Supreme Court of Canada in Winnipeg Condominium Corporation Number 36 v Bird Construction Company. The plaintiffs, being a member of the class for which the home was constructed, are entitled to a duty of care in construction commensurate with industry standards. In the light of the fact that the home was constructed as speculative, the home builder cannot reasonably argue he envisioned anything but a class of purchasers. By placing this product into the stream of commerce, the builder owes a duty of care to those who will use his product, so as to render him accountable for negligent workmanship.

The United States Tax Court (in case citations, T.C.) is a federal trial court of record established by Congress under Article I of the U.S. Constitution, section 8 of which provides (in part) that the Congress has the power to "constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court". The Tax Court specializes in adjudicating disputes over federal income tax, generally prior to the time at which formal tax assessments are made by the Internal Revenue Service. Though taxpayers may choose to litigate tax matters in a variety of legal settings, outside of bankruptcy, the Tax Court is the only forum in which taxpayers may do so without having first paid the disputed tax in full. Parties who contest the imposition of a tax may also bring an action in any United States District Court, or in the United States Court of Federal Claims; however these venues require that the tax be paid first, and that the party then file a lawsuit to recover the contested amount paid (the "full payment rule" of Flora v United States). The main emblem of the tax court represents a fasces. History. The first incarnation of the Tax Court was the "U.S. Board of Tax Appeals", established by Congress in the Revenue Act of 1924 (also known as the Mellon tax bill) in order to address the increasing complexity of tax-related litigation. Those serving on the Board were simply designated as "members." The members of the Board were empowered to select, on a biennial basis, one of their members as "chairman." In July 1924, Coolidge announced the appointment of the first twelve appointees, of which seven members were appointed from private life and the other five from the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Additional members were appointed in the fall, and the Board when fully constituted originally had 16 members, with Charles D. Hamel serving as the first Chairman. The Board was initially established as an "independent agency in the executive branch of the government." It was housed in the Internal Revenue Service Building in the Federal Triangle. The first session of the Board of Tax Appeals spanned July 16, 1924 to May 31, 1925. In 1929, the United States Supreme Court indicated that the Board of Tax Appeals was not a "court," but was instead "an executive or administrative board, upon the decision of which the parties are given an opportunity to base a petition for review to the courts after the administrative inquiry of the Board has been had and decided." In 1942, Congress passed the Revenue Act of 1942, renaming the Board as the "Tax Court of the United States". With this change, the Members became Judges and the Chairman became the Presiding Judge. By 1956, overcrowding and the desire to separate judicial and executive powers led to initial attempts to relocate the court. In 1962, Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon appealed to the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) to incorporate funds for the design of a new building in its upcoming budget. The GSA allocated $450,000, and commissioned renowned architect Victor A Lundy, who produced a design that was approved in 1966. However, funding constraints brought on by the Vietnam War delayed the start of construction until 1972. The Tax Court was again renamed to its current formal designation in the Tax Reform Act of 1969, changing it from an historically administrative court to a full judicial court. The completed United States Tax Court Building was dedicated on November 22, 1974, the fiftieth anniversary of the Revenue Act that created the court.

Equitable conversion is a doctrine of the law of real property under which a purchaser of real property becomes the equitable owner of title to the property at the time he/she signs a contract binding him/her to purchase the land at a later date. The seller retains legal title of the property prior to the date of conveyance, but this land interest is considered personal property (a right to the payment of money, rather than a right to the property). The risk of loss is then transferred to the buyer – if a house on the property burns down after the contract has been signed, but before the deed is conveyed, the buyer will nevertheless have to pay the agreed-upon purchase price for the land unless the seller in possession or deemed in possession has failed to protect it. Such issues can and should be avoided by parties by stipulating in the contract who will bear the loss in such occurrences. The above rule varies by jurisdiction, but is the general rule. An action to quiet title is a lawsuit brought in a court having jurisdiction over property disputes, in order to establish a party's title to real property, or personal property having a title, of against anyone and everyone, and thus "quiet" any challenges or claims to the title. This legal action is "brought to remove a cloud on the title" so that plaintiff and those in privity with them may forever be free of claims against the property. The action to quiet title resembles other forms of "preventive adjudication," such as the declaratory judgment. This genre of lawsuit is also sometimes called either a try title, trespass to try title, or ejectment action "to recover possession of land wrongfully occupied by a defendant." However, there are slight differences. In an ejectment action, it is typically done to remove a tenant or lessee in an eviction action, or an eviction after a foreclosure. Nonetheless, in some states, all terms are used synonymously. Escheat is a common law doctrine that transfers the real property of a person who has died without heirs to the crown or state. It serves to ensure that property is not left in "limbo" without recognized ownership. It originally applied to a number of situations where a legal interest in land was destroyed by operation of law, so that the ownership of the land reverted to the immediately superior feudal lord.

Negligent homicide is a criminal charge brought against a person who, through criminal negligence, allows another person to die. Examples include the crash of Aeroperu Flight 603 near Lima, Peru. The accident was caused by a piece of duct tape that was left over the static ports (on the bottom side of the fuselage) after cleaning the aircraft, which led to the crash. An employee had left the tape on and was charged with negligent homicide. Other times, an intentional killing may be negotiated down to the lesser charge as a compromised resolution of a murder case, as might occur in the context of the intentional shooting of an unarmed man after a traffic altercation. Voluntary manslaughter is the killing of a human being in which the offender acted during the heat of passion, under circumstances that would cause a reasonable person to become emotionally or mentally disturbed to the point that they cannot reasonably control their emotions. Voluntary manslaughter is one of two main types of manslaughter, the other being involuntary manslaughter. Vehicular homicide is a crime that involves the death of a person other than the driver as a result of either criminally negligent or murderous operation of a motor vehicle. In cases of criminal negligence, the defendant is commonly charged with unintentional vehicular manslaughter. Vehicular homicide is similar to the offense, in some countries, of "dangerous driving causing death". The victim may be either a person not in the car with the offending motorist (such as a pedestrian, cyclist, or another motorist), or a passenger in the vehicle with the offender.

Estoppel is a judicial device in common law legal systems whereby a court may prevent or "estop" a person from making assertions or from going back on his or her word; the person being sanctioned is "estopped". Estoppel may prevent someone from bringing a particular claim. Legal doctrines of estoppel are based in both common law and equity. It is also a concept in international law. Types of estoppel. There are many different types of estoppel which can arise, but the common thread between them is that a person is restrained from asserting a particular position in law where it would be inequitable to do so. By way of illustration: If a landlord promises the tenant that he will not exercise his right to terminate a lease, and relying upon that promise the tenant spends money improving the premises, the doctrine of promissory estoppel may prevent the landlord from exercising a right to terminate, even though his promise might not otherwise have been legally binding as a contract. The landlord is precluded from asserting a specific right. If a person brings legal proceedings in one country claiming that a second person negligently injured them and the courts of that country determine that there was no negligence, then under the doctrine of issue estoppel the first person will not normally be able to argue before the courts of another country that the second person was negligent (whether in respect of the same claim or a related claim). The first person is precluded from asserting a specific claim. Estoppel is an equitable doctrine. Accordingly, any person wishing to assert an estoppel must normally come to the court with "clean hands". The doctrine of estoppel (which may prevent a party from asserting a right) is often confused with the doctrine of waiver (which relates to relinquishing a right once it has arisen). It also substantially overlaps with, but is distinct from, the equitable doctrine of laches.