Law School

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, they can also be defined as bullying. The continuity or repetitiveness and the aspect of distressing, alarming or threatening may distinguish it from insult.

False 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. The following are examples of false imprisonment: The taking hostage of a bank's customers and employees by bank robbers. The detention of a customer by a business owner (for example, hotel operator, apartment owner, credit card company) for the failure to pay a bill. A robber in a home invasion ties hostages up and takes them to a separate room. Detention that is not false imprisonment. Even when a person is involuntarily detained, not all acts of detention amount to false imprisonment. 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. False imprisonment requires an intentional act, and an accidental detention will not support a claim of false imprisonment.

The posting rule (or mailbox rule in the United States, also known as the "postal rule" or "deposited acceptance rule") is an exception to the general rule of contract law in common law countries that acceptance of an offer takes place when communicated. Under the posting rule, that acceptance takes effect when a letter is posted (that is, dropped in a post box or handed to a postal worker). In plain English, the "meeting of the minds" necessary to contract formation occurs at the exact moment word of acceptance is sent via post by the person accepting it, rather than when that acceptance is received by the person who offered the contract. The rules of contracts by post (postal rules) include the following: 1.   An offer made by post/letter is not effective until received by the offeree. 2.   Acceptance is effective as soon as it is posted. 3.   For revocation to be effective, it must be received by the offeree before they post their letter of acceptance. One rationale given for the rule is that the offeror nominates the post office as his or her implied agent, and thus receipt of the acceptance by the post office is regarded as receipt by the offeror. The main effect of the posting rule is that the risk of acceptance being delivered late or lost in the post is placed upon the offeror. If the offeror is reluctant to accept this risk, he can always expressly require actual receipt as a condition before being legally bound by his offer.

In English common law, real property, real estate, realty, or immovable property is land which is the property of some person and all structures (also called improvements or fixtures) integrated with or affixed to the land, including crops, buildings, machinery, wells, dams, ponds, mines, canals, and roads, among other things. The term is historic, arising from the now-discontinued form of action, which distinguished between real property disputes and personal property disputes. Personal property was, and continues to be, all property that is not real property. In countries with personal ownership of real property, civil law protects the status of real property in real-estate markets, where estate agents work in the market of buying and selling real estate. Scottish civil law calls real property "heritable property", and in French-based law, it is called immobilier ("immovable property"). The conceptual difference was between immovable property, which would transfer title along with the land, and movable property, which a person would retain title to. In modern legal systems derived from English common law, classification of property as real or personal may vary somewhat according to jurisdiction or, even within jurisdictions, according to purpose, as in defining whether and how the property may be taxed. Bethell (1998) contains much information on the historical evolution of real property and property rights.

Trade secrets are a type of intellectual property that comprise 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. 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."

In law, a proximate cause is an event sufficiently related to an injury that the courts deem the event to be the cause of that injury. There are two types of causation in the law: cause-in-fact, and proximate (or legal) cause. Cause-in-fact is determined by the "but for" test: But for the action, the result would not have happened. (For example, but for running the red light, the collision would not have occurred.) The action is a necessary condition, but may not be a sufficient condition, for the resulting injury. A few circumstances exist where the but for test is ineffective (see But-for test). Since but-for causation is very easy to show (but for stopping to tie your shoe, you would not have missed the train and would not have been mugged), a second test is used to determine if an action is close enough to a harm in a "chain of events" to be legally valid. This test is called proximate cause. Proximate cause is a key principle of Insurance and is concerned with how the loss or damage actually occurred. There are several competing theories of proximate cause (see Other factors). For an act to be deemed to cause a harm, both tests must be met; proximate cause is a legal limitation on cause-in-fact. The formal Latin term for "but for" (cause-in-fact) causation, is sine qua non causation.

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, Organization 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."

Defamation (sometimes 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 treated as a crime rather than a civil wrong. 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. A person who defames another may be called a "defamer", "libeler", "slanderer" or rarely a "famacide". The term libel is derived from the Latin libellus (literally "small book", or "booklet").

Pro bono publico (English: "for the public good"; usually shortened to pro bono) is a Latin phrase for professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment. Unlike traditional volunteering, it uses the specific skills of professionals to provide services to those who are unable to afford them. Pro bono publico is also used in the United Kingdom to describe the central motivation of large organizations, such as the National Health Service and various NGOs which exist "for the public good" rather than for shareholder profit, but it equally or even more applies to the private sector where professionals like lawyers and bankers offer their specialist skills for the benefit of the community or NGOs. Legal counsel Pro bono legal counsel may assist an individual or group on a legal case by filing government applications or petitions. A judge may occasionally determine that the loser should compensate a winning pro bono counsel.

Offer and acceptance analysis is a traditional approach in contract law. The offer and acceptance formula, developed in the 19th century, identifies a moment of formation when the parties are of one mind. This classical approach to contract formation has been modified by developments in the law of estoppel, misleading conduct, misrepresentation, unjust enrichment, and power of acceptance. Treitel defines an offer as "an expression of willingness to contract on certain terms, made with the intention that it shall become binding as soon as it is accepted by the person to whom it is addressed", the "offeree". An offer is a statement of the terms on which the offeror is willing to be bound. It is the present contractual intent to be bound by a contract with definite and certain terms communicated to the offeree. The expression of an offer may take different forms and which form is acceptable varies by jurisdiction. Offers may be presented in a letter, newspaper advertisement, fax, email verbally or even conduct, as long as it communicates the basis on which the offeror is prepared to contract. Whether the two parties have reached agreement on the terms or whether a valid offer has been made is an issue which is determined by the applicable law. In certain jurisdictions, courts use criteria known as 'the objective test' which was explained in the leading English case of Smith v Hughes. In Smith v Hughes, the court emphasized that the important thing in determining whether there has been a valid offer is not the party's own (subjective) intentions, but how a reasonable person would view the situation. The objective test is largely superseded in the UK since the introduction of the Brussels Regime in combination with the Rome I Regulation. An offer can only be the basis of a binding contract if it contains the key terms of the contract. For example, as a minimum requirement for sale of goods contracts, a valid offer must include at least the following 4 terms: Delivery date, price, terms of payment that includes the date of payment and detailed description of the item on offer including a fair description of the condition or type of service. Unless the minimum requirements are met, an offer of sale is not classified by the courts as a legal offer but is instead seen as an advertisement. Under Dutch law an advertisement is in most cases an invitation to make an offer, rather than an offer.