texts: Does a doctor have to release medical records from the last 5 years?

texts:
My mother stopped seeing a doctor about a year ago. She has been without a PCP. She just procured a new one and was asked to get her medical records. Her old doctors office told me today that those records will include 2 years worth of documents ( from today ) so essentially i years worth of documents. She was with that doctor for 5 years.

Is it not the law that doctors have to keep records for 7 years? Is it also not the law that they need release those documents? What can I do to pursue this and make sure she is able to get the full breadth of medical history


texts: If one leaves the US to commit an act illegal in the US but legal in the country they travel to are they guilty of a crime?

texts:
Before anyone asks this is part legal curiosity, part proving for 'loopholes' that I could have villains in a story exploit, I don't need 100% accuracy so much as general guidelines, and any unique situation or known 'loophole' is also interesting.

I'm curious about how the US handles travel to other countries to activities crimes that are illegal within the US but legal in the country they travel to.  At first I thought that this would be legal, but I know sex tourism at the least is restricted, They actually make us take a training at work about how sex trafficking is bad in case we couldn't figure that one out on our own.

A quick scan online tells me that the sex tourism thing is specific federal law.  Outside of sex tourism of individuals under the age of 18 are there other situations where one can be punished for traveling to another country to commit a crime?  If so are these specific laws that address only a few unique situations, or is there some general law that addresses many crimes committed by traveling to another country?

I can think of a number of theoretical odd situations as fodder for story telling, I'll likely ask a few of them in more detail in later questions depending on the answer in this one.  If someone wants to touch briefly on a few odd situations below in their answer I would be interested, but if any of these situations is too complex I'll ask them as a later follow up question.

how does dual citizenship work in situations where it would be illegal for a US citizen to travel to country X to do activity Y, but the individual in question is not only a US citizen but also a citizen of X?
How much does 'premeditation' apply to these rules?  For instance my quick scanning of sex tourism law refers to an individual traveling to a country "with the intent to ...", does that mean if someone travels to a country and only then decides to do an activity it would be legal (ignoring the difficulty of proving it wasn't premeditated)?
Is a non-US citizen within the US (for instance with a visa, or even an illegal alien who lives in the US) still subject to these sort of laws if they leave the US with the intent of doing something illegal within the US and then return?

Edit:  ...also Id love at least one other instance of an activity that would be a crime if someone travels elsewhere to do it.  I'm thinking of potential loophole abuse questions I could ask, but I really don't want to ask them in context of the sex tourism law.  Rather or not it's just a theoretical question to explore legal oddities I really don't like even hypothesizing the sort of situation that leads to someone trying to violate that particular law.


texts: Does FERPA cover verbal disclosures as well as written?

texts:
When I read FERPA, I don't see any clarification as to whether they are talking about written sharing of educational records, or whether they are also talking about verbal disclosures.

For example, here is their definition of disclosure:

Disclosure means to permit access to or the release, transfer, or other communication of personally identifiable information (PII) by any means (34 CFR §99.3). Disclosure can be Authorized, such as when a parent or an eligible student gives written consent to share education records with an authorized party (e.g., a researcher). Disclosure can also be Unauthorized or inadvertent (accidental). An unauthorized disclosure can happen due to a data breach or a loss, and an accidental disclosure can occur when data released in public aggregate reports are unintentionally presented in a manner that allows individual students to be identified.

"By any means" suggests that things that have not been disclosed in writing would also be included, but I'm not sure if I'm interpreting that correctly.  For example, what about a student's counseling sessions with the school social worker?  Does the parent need to be informed, and provide consent, for a university researcher sitting in on, and participating in, these sessions?  What about verbal background information about the student's diagnoses shared by the school social worker with the professor?  Is the answer different if the university and the high school have signed a memorandum of understanding?  Is the answer different if information obtained through presence in the counseling sessions is used for the professor's research activities?  The student is 15.

I'm aware that one can file a FERPA complaint in case of a violation.  If there were a serious FERPA violation, is there also in theory some way of filing for legal damages in such a situation?  This is New York, where human rights law does not apply to students in public schools.


texts: charged with assault, charter right sec 10(b) violated

texts:
This is in Canada.

Police laid an assault charge against me after my wife called 911 during our quarrel, she was in baby blue.

While in the police station, the officer prepare some paperwork for me to sign, and told me i can speak to a duty consel over the phone, he also asked me if i need other language service as English is not my first language. Then i said yes, i wanted to talk to someone that speaks my mother language. I also explained the reason as because there might be alot of terminologies which i could not understand. There were 2 officers, and both officers agreed.

Then i was returned to the room, and few minutes later, the officer opened the door and told me the duty consel was on the phone now, but he speaks English. It seemed i had no other choice even though i requested a mother language cousel service. Then i talked with the gentleman( he told me once his name over the phone, but i did hear clearly and did not remember)over the phone, as i worried, a big amount of the conversation i did not understand, like the gentleman said i must sign some forms, i repeated this several times trying to understand what are them, such as the name of the forms, the purpose of the forms, and so forth, because i was nervous about signing anything.

I clearly requested a specific language for the right to consel service, but was provided with an English service, does this mean my Charter right has been violated. On top of this, the whole process (from the begining when the police arrived my home) was questionable as what we said were ignored, they were just writing or taking things according to their own available resources, traditions, procedures, experiences, and many other irrelevant stuffs.

I did a lot of research on the web, but can anyone let me know was my charter right being violated? how to reach and request the Crown dismiss/drop the case?

I do not have a lawyer (can not afford), then where to reach out.

what I am thinking about are:
1, to mentioned that during the court, such as to the duty consel at the court；
2, to drop a letter about this to the Crown office;
3, to contact the Ministry of the Attornet General by email


texts: Does an employer own the data on a cell phone provided to its employee? If so, is there a cause of action against an employee who provides a copy of the cell phone to a third party without authorization?


texts: Is there an EU regulation mandating companies' IT equipment to be changed every three months?

texts:
I had visited with my university a Greek IT company that specializes in refurbishing used computers and peripherals. The executive that toured us had mentioned that there is an EU regulation that requires companies to change their "computerization equipment" (both software and hardware) every three (or maybe it was six) months.

As a CS student, it seemed very strange to me that the EU is mandating such a short lifespan for devices that typically last for more than a year, so I pressed for more details, saying that a PC with a 4th-Gen Intel CPU (which she was talking about that time) is still very usable, and that Greek accounting laws state that the IT equipment's useful life for the purpose of depreciation is five years (perfectly reasonable). Her reply was that they can't do anything since that was an EU regulation, and that the Greek laws exemplify that the Greek state is a technological laggard.

This whole story seemed very fish to me. Is there actually such regulation?


texts: Can I refile a case I withdrew without prejudice many years ago?

texts: My son was born with catastrophic injuries due to the delivery and what happened afterward I filed a suit for malpractice and withdrew without prejudice so that I could beat the deadline for the statute of limitations. This has been over 20 years ago is there a time limit when you can refile something like this?


texts:
What is the most cited Legal review article about contract law on a federal level in the past ten years?

"cited" in this sentence, refers to citations of the article in other published works (not obscure references in a blog post).


texts: Requesting customer service account notes

texts:
In another question, here, I had called into my phone company's customer service number in regards to trying to resolve an issue. Part of that back-and-forth discussion ended with me requesting the account notes they had for me on file. I was told by the representative, who claimed to have 7 years of experience in customer service management, that it was illegal for them to give out proprietary account notes like those.

I was intrigued because about 2 months prior I was gathering information to write a formal letter to their correspondence team. In a single night, I made a similar request for account notes and was told they couldn't provide them. Within an hour, I got in touch again with the same request and the lady had provided me with what seemed to be a direct copy/paste of the account notes for more than half of the days that involved my issue. Sometimes you have to ask twice, I suppose.

Question:

What would make providing those account notes illegal when it would seem like the company would be the one "owns" them?

My limited research seemed to suggest that it might involve the Law of Proprietary Information. However, wouldn't that require someone else (third party?) to be the actual owner of those notes, thus limiting the public availability.


texts: Can direct payments around the court harm a divorce case?

texts:
During a divorce proceeding the court ordered the father to pay 1xxx a month in child support through the court/state supervision arrangement.

The mother is living away from the father with the child. However, the father is refusing to pay via the court and has not paid anything yet. It's been over a month.

The father sent the mother some cash via Western Union and texted the mother to go get the money. The amount is about 1/3 of the total monthly amount ordered.

The mother is in dire need of the money and is nearly homeless with bills to pay with that money.

Enforcing a payment via the court takes a long time.

Will it harm the case if the mother retrieves the money? assuming she notifies the court or her attorney? Or should she refuse the money?

Refusing the money means that she won't have food/electricity/gas money as the money needs are that dire.


texts: Can Michigan's attorney general take legal action against Trump for not wearing a mask?

texts: I read from a CNBC news article how Michigan’s attorney general said Trump has a “legal responsibility,” under state law, to wear a mask as a precaution when visiting factories. Trump refuses to wear a mask despite federal health guidance saying he should. I know it is a state law that says the president should wear a mask, but is there a way with the United States' legal framework that the Michigan's attorney general could bring some kind of legal action against the President for breaking Michigan's state law?


texts: Removing my personal data ex-employer (RGPD/GDPR)

texts:
I work and live in France. I worked for a company last year but I quit working there months ago. Since I left, they still have not have removed some data accessible on the internet, like my first name/Surname, job Title and the mailing address I had. They are at the end of some pdf document as a contact. This is not a big concern, but I would rather make those disappear. I really don't like to be exposed on internet. I already emailed them few times, they answered "Yeah, will do it!" but then did nothing, all the data is still on their website.

Can they publish this kind of data?
Can I force them to remove it using RGPD (also called GDPR)?


texts: Is it illegal for a fitness center to deny my request for a copy of my contract? Also is it illegal to cancel a membership via phone in Tennessee?

texts: I tried to cancel a gym membership over the phone and was told by the girl it would be taken care of. Then I end up in collections for not paying dues. The gym is telling me it’s illegal to cancel a membership over the phone. Is this so? Also they won’t provide me a copy of my contract.


texts: Does the employee or employer decide how to satisfy the tax withholding requirement for restricted stock granted as income?

texts:
I'm currently working at a startup and am going to receive some equity in the company through a restricted stock grant. The CEO inserted this clause into the grant agreement and it's giving me some pause because it wasn't in the original grant agreement drafted by the lawyers (actual dollar amounts replaced with (xxx) for privacy):

(iii)   As of the Grant Date, the Administrator determined, and Participant agrees, that (1) the Fair Market Value of the Award is $(xxx) per share of Common Stock, or $(xxx) in total, (2) because the Award is deemed fully vested as of the Award Date, the Company is required to make a federal tax withholding payment of 22% of that amount, or $(xxx) in total (the “Withholding Amount”), (iii) to satisfy the Company’s withholding requirement, Participant must provide to the Company, upon the parties’ execution of this Grant Notice, a check for the Withholding Amount, made out to the Company, and (iv) provided that the Company deposits such check into its bank account within two business days after its receipt thereof, this Award shall be deemed null and void in the event that such check does not clear within five business days after the Company makes such deposit.

This doesn't seem normal given other agreements I've seen. Don't employees typically have the option to either pay cash or have the withholding taken out of the shares being granted?

If it matters, the company is located in Washington D.C. (where I live as well), is incorporated in Delaware, and is private and not going to IPO anytime soon.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated, thanks.


texts: Do the police have to kick someone out the house if the owner demands it?

texts: I phoned the police to kick my in laws out the house after they started to take my furniture when they were only meant to take theirs (splitting up with wife). They came but refused to kick them out immediately and instead just waited until they had taken all their furniture. They also told them what they can take and what they cant take. Isn't this illegal for police to do?


texts:
From the footer on all SE sites, user contributions are licensed as CC BY-SA 3.0:

  site design / logo © 2018 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under cc by-sa 3.0 with attribution required.

Whilst licensing it as CC BY-SA 3.0 I sometimes want to license my code as MIT, GPL or any other license. This would allow users to take the code from one of my posts under a license which isn't CC BY-SA and have more freedom with the code.

And so my question is how could you dual license code in a code block?

I think something like the following would work, but I'm not sure if it's ok:

  The following codeblock is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 and GPLv2

print("Hello World")


texts: Does "vicarious consent" exception to ECPA apply in the 9th circuit?

texts:
In the US, ECPA/Wiretapping law prohibits interception/recording of phone conversations; an exception is when one party consents to the interception.  In some circuit and state jurisdictions a parent can secretly give "vicarious consent" on behalf of a minor child if it is reasonably necessary to protect the child from abuse or crimes; in other jurisdictions that exception has not been recognized.

I would like to know if the vicarious consent doctrine applies in the 9th Circuit or State of Hawaii, i.e., can a parent secretly record calls between the minor child and the other parent.


texts: Consequences for nurse who helps baby leave with parents against court order

texts:
In recent news, Charlie Gard, a child with a rare mitochondrial syndrome, was prevented from seeking experimental treatment in the United States by an array of different courts including the European court of human rights. This means that Charlie will die in the hospital.

My question is: if a nurse/doctor inside the hospital where Charlie is staying aids the parents in getting Charlie out of the hospital regardless of the court decisions, what would be the consequences for the nurse/doctor?

The hospital is located in England.


texts:
Let me start with specifying that I'm not asking about the act of web scraping itself, neither the use of the data obtained through that method.

What I'm asking exactly in simple terms:

Can I be sued for developing a web scraper that targets a specific site and publishing its source code online?

EDIT: About the duplicate suggestion - while answers there were helpful, I find the question too general for my case...


texts: Nuisance neighbor shining green laser light into my bedroom window

texts:
Does anyone know if its illegal to shine a green laser light into someone's bedroom in the state of Texas?

I know its illegal to shine it on police officers, but it seems other citizens are open game to this nuisance?

Would it also possibly fall under some harassment law if it happens repeatedly the way it already has?


texts: What Happens to Abandoned Infant Citizenship?

texts:
In the United States, you are considered a U.S. Citizen just by being born in the United States. However, I imagine that there are situations where there is no proof that a child was born in the United States, but it would be reasonable to consider or assume that a child was born in the United States, such as finding an infant in the United States.

I know that there are a number of people who do not give birth to their child in a hospital. How do they prove a child was born in the United States, to then give them a birth certificate, therefore, citizenship? Do they trust a mother is telling the truth when she reports her child being born after-the-fact? Who/what agency does she report to, in that case?

What happens if an infant within the United States is found, but no witnesses relating to the child are locatable/found, such as the child's mother? Technically, there is no proof/witness of birth. Does this child get a birth certificate? Do they get citizenship? Where are they a citizen of? If they receive a birth certificate, what date were they considered born?

Was there some sort of court case that a court ruled that an infant found in the United States is considered born in the United States?


texts: How would the law handle a "merge conflict"?

texts:
Imagine this scenario:

Bill A is passed, creating Law A.
Bill B is passed. It modifies some parts of Law A, plus it adds some laws that depend on it and some laws that do not.
A court rules that Bill A was not validly passed and must be repealed.

(Example of the last point: the Australian Petroleum and Minerals Authority Act, 1973. The High Court that the bill had not been "defeated" by the Senate merely adjourning without considering it, so the requirements for holding a joint session to pass it, as Parliament had done, had not been met.)

Obviously the legislature would have to meet to resolve the conflict, but before it does, what is the state of the law with the valid parts of Bill B?


texts: Can we provide IP address data that might not be the user's data?

texts:
We have a user who is being harassed by somebody and on our service, the harasser filled out the user's password reset form.
This created a log entry that essentially says

<Harasser's IP address> initiated a password reset for <User's Username>. Instructions were mailed to <User's Full email address>.

We would like to provide this data to the user who is being harassed so they can pursue it with the internet provider to see if they can figure out who is harassing them.
However, we're unsure if this data is considered somebody else's PII, and thus we cannot give out this information.
Would the harasser have a case against us for giving out their IP address to the user they are harassing?


texts: Is it legal to sell fan merch based of a group but only uses their name as promotional tags

texts: So I was wondering if it was legal to sell fan merch while only using the groups name for tags. The name wouldn't be listed under the product or could i say its xyz inspired. If this is still bad, what about using their actual names instead of the group name because I don't think its trademarked.


texts: Is it legal to change condo fees outside of the yearly owners' assembly and without notice?

texts:
Short version
In the condo where I live, in the province of Quebec, monthly condo fees are fixed once per year at the yearly owners' assembly, as required by the article 1072 of the Civil of Quebec. Is it legal to change the monthly fee during the middle of the year outside of this annual assembly, and if so is it required to notify owners in advance?
Detailed context (why I'm asking that question)
When I checked my bank account last weekend, I was surprised to see that the amount charged by the external condo manager was slightly higher than expected. I'm talking about a stupidly small difference of roughly a quarter of a dollar.
So, I contacted the condo manager, by email, to ask why the amount was different than expected. I received a one-line answer stating that the difference was because the amount was rounded to the dollar.
This surprised and confused me. The change was obviously deliberate, but I never received any advance notice about it. Also, while she claims the difference was due to rounding, the amount that was charged was NOT rounded at all, just slightly higher than the expected amount. I don't know what kind of rounding she did to end up with the actual difference. The only rounding I can see would simply add a few cents.
This was followed by a short exchange of emails where I tried to get her to explain further. I never got a satisfying answer, just some strange argument about it being logical nowadays not to calculate cents (what?), and the rounding she claims she did is the same one I'm doing, but somehow her result is different. She eventually got defensive, and stopped responding.
I'm baffled by the whole thing. It feels like she's deliberately being obtuse and confusing in order to steal from me. However, the amount in question is so small that this doesn't make sense. I'm not asking for legal advice. Considering the minuscule amount involved, going to court would be beyond ridiculous, and would simply end up antagonizing her. I'm just trying to understand what is happening here.
So, here is my question again just to be clear after that way too long story (sorry for that) : is it legal, in the province of Quebec, to change the monthly condo fees during the middle of the year outside of the yearly owners' assembly, and if so is it required to notify owners in advance?
Note : English isn't my first language, so I might be using the wrong terms at times. Sorry if this cause confusion. Also, feel free to edit if I wrote too many irrelevant details.


texts: Who is legally responsible for the traffic signage of a drive thru that intersects a sidewalk?

texts:
So here is the setup:

Drivers keep coming in through the oneway drive thru even though the "do no enter" sign is there. Although, to the credit of the people who do this, the sign is a bit high off the ground (second image). Who is legally responsible for this poor placement of traffic signage, and who do I talk to to have it changed?

To be clear, the offending maneuver in the first image is the arrow turning left.


texts: Copyright on a physical object where no patent exists

texts:
Lets say my company make a new shape of Rubik's Cube (a round ball twisty puzzle) and we call it a "Ball Cube" (my company is called "Puzzles" so its a "Puzzles Ball Cube").

I patent the "Ball Cube" and start selling it...

20 years later the patent expires and lots of other twisty puzzle manufacturers create the "Ball Cube" and call it their own brand so lets just say "Rubik's Ball Cube" and "LanLan Ball Cube" and "China Ball Cube".

Are they free to do so? do i legally own copyright for the "Ball Cube" phrase or the design of the original? Or would I have to file for a trademark?

Can a physical object like this twitsy ball cube be protected under copyright after the aptent expires?


texts: Historically, has the Categorical Imperative been used to establish “personal judicial precedent”?

texts:
Has the Categorical Imperative, or something similar, even been used historically to establish something that could perhaps be termed, “Personal Judicial Precedence”? By this, I mean a practice whereby a verdict is come to by looking at the actions of the defendant and seeing if s/he, him or herself was in a situation where the roles were reversed and then seeing how the defendant dealt with the situation.
I don’t have any legal background, so I apologize if my example scenario doesn’t sound quite right, but for example, if a defendant were on trial for failing to pay back a loan, but it was shown that this defendant had forgiven, when financially possible, other people’s not paying back loans on time (with non-legally binding loans for example), within this framework, then the defendant would be given more leniency on his or her own loan (even if legally binding), because of these prior actions. Conversely, had the defendant not forgiven loans in the past, whether legally binding or not, then the defendant would be, in this case, held up to his or her own standard as defined by their past actions.
Historically or presently has there been any such system?


texts: What would I get charged with if went around posting fliers for a non-existent yard sale at the house of someone I don't like?

texts:
This is only a weird hypothetical scenario and is not something I actually plan on doing.

Suppose there's someone in my town that I really don't like, for whatever reason.  I might not even know them, they might not even know me.  I know exactly where they live but I don't want to actually hurt them, just annoy them.

So let's say I put up a bunch of fliers (on telephone poles, bulletin boards, etc.) advertising a yard sale at this person's house a week from now.  Of course they're not really going to be holding one, but that's immaterial.  Assuming the following, what would I be charged with once the police find out?

This person is out of town and won't be home until the day after the "yard sale", so they won't physically notice the fake yard sale posters until it's too late.
This person was not planning on holding a yard sale that day.
This person lives alone, or the people they live with are also out of town (e.g. a family vacation).
It is possible that someone told this person via social media about my little plot while they're away, but not in a way that interferes with these other assumptions (e.g. calling the police before the day of the "sale").
I don't actually set foot on, steal, vandalize, or otherwise disturb this person's property.
At least one would-be customer actually does show up, but I don't know how long they were there for or what they did there.  They might have even done something illegal like steal their porch furniture, but I just don't know for sure.
I don't take down the fliers after the day of the "sale".
The fliers themselves are simple and contain no inflammatory content, but they do explicitly advertise a yard sale at a particular place and time.


texts:
BACKGROUND
An HOA has failed to follow its bylaws (breach of contract), which has been documented in a thorough email trail to provide the facts and demonstrating communicating the bylaws to the HOA board.
QUESTION
If post-demand letter it is necessary to bring the issue to small claims court:
Is there any reason not to request a Summary Judgment Motion?
Assume that my understand of MSJ is limited to the provided link.
It seems that MSJ provides advantage (if one documents and provides a strong case):

it provides the opportunity provide my narrative and exclude opposition
it will minimize time and legal cost if successful

As always, any lessons learned or pitfalls to avoid are highly appreciated.  Thank you
UPDATE
Attorney consultation indicates that the case would not be in small claims court.
The opposing side will get a chance to respond.   It was suggested that the case is a matter of law and not a matter of fact.


texts: If I can't move in right away, must my rent be pro-rated?

texts:
My new rental agreement contains the language:

  Delivery of Premises: If for whatever reason whatsoever Landlord does not deliver possession of the premises on the commencement of the term of this Agreement, rent shall be prorated until such time as Landlord tenders possession.

The rental period is set to begin May 1, 2016.

We will be out of state on the 1st, and have agreed (in email) with the landlord to pick up the keys on the 7th, on our way home from the airport, with the intent to move in the next day.

We offered to pick up the keys any time April 27-30, before we left town, but the landlord indicated she would prefer to give us the keys once we returned, for liability reasons, which I understand.

As of right now, the agreement indicates we owe the full rent ($1,100) for May, we have paid the deposit and last month's rent, and will pay the first month's rent when we move in.

I realize it's us that are unable to accept possession of the premises, but it does say "for any reason whatsoever."

We are renting in Seattle.


texts: Is a lawyer in the United Kingdom obliged by law to inform the court or the police if his client confesses crime he has commited?

texts: Is a lawyer in the United Kingdom  obliged by law to inform the court or the police if his or her client confesses to a crime he or she has committed? I looked everywhere, can't find this answer.


texts: What are ways that money can be held in trust for a beneficiary?

texts:
A grandmother has a will which leaves money to three grandchildren. The way it's written, the money would be in trust (managed by their father) until they reach 35, at which point the money is theirs outright. If they reach 35 before she dies, then the trust is skipped entirely.

One of the grandchildren (now 37) has some physical and mental health issues that lead to occasionally erratic behavior. The father has suggested to the grandmother that this means he's unable to manage his own affairs and she should write an exception so that grandchild's share is held in trust regardless of age. The grandson is really angry about this, and feels that this is meddling and controlling behavior. The truth lies somewhere in between (grandson is certainly irresponsible, but is not mentally incompetent) -- the two haven't gotten along well for years, and the proposal is causing a great deal of conflict and beginning to spread into a "pick sides" family-wide fight that can't end well. Hence, looking for ideas to propose a compromise that would satisfy all parties.

What are alternatives to a trust managed by a family member that still enable some oversight of inherited assets?

The grandson currently lives in New York State, but may move; the grandmother in Illinois. If this might be a better question for Money.SE, I apologize :)


texts: Charging someone with theft of virtual currency

texts:
I've done some reading about gruesome tales of folks spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on video game currencies only to have their accounts irreversibly stolen or lost due to a bad in game scam/trade, but are unable to take legal action because virtual currencies are not considered legal entities. Take for instance Warframe's platinum currency, Rockstar's virtual dollar or league of legend's Riot Points. Legally speaking, these "in game currencies" aren't recognized as personal property. But that doesn't change the fact that people place real dollar values on 60,000 Platinum or 50,000 riot points.

Now, I have to be guy to push this grey boundary. Suppose a stranger and I signed a contract in the real world (suppose the United States in a state of your choice) stating I'd pay him some in game currency for some real life service. If we ignore the EULA, TOS situation, if I received this real life service and refused to pay the in game currency would I be in legal trouble?

As per usual, not considering scamming anyone I'm just a curious guy.


texts: Justification for shooting a suspect in the back

texts:
IANAL.  I am puzzled by today's headline in the media.  As I understand it, civilians are sometime able to invoke self-defense if they have a reasonable belief of immediate life-threatening harm.   However, if the suspect is retreating and not threatening anyone else, a shot in the back is not justified.  There is justification "box" (context) that a citizen must be within order to invoke the self-defense justification.
Assuming my understanding is correct (if it is not please correct the above).

is law enforcement's box "bigger"?
In what context is shooting a suspect in the back justified?
Is governing law at the state or Federal?

Another example for consideration if needed:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/newly-released-video-shows-police-officer-shooting-16/story?id=66498285


texts: Is it legal for an employer to ask a potential hire about his foreign citizenships?

texts:
During the job interview process, is it legal for an employer to ask an applicant what foreign citizenship(s) he holds, if any? In other words, citizenship that is not necessarily relevant to the job (i.e. the applicant has already established his legal right to work where the job is located)

I understand this might be necessary when working for certain companies, for example Lockheed Martin, but are there laws about exactly when it is and when it is not legal?


texts: Are landlords required to accommodate service animals in a shared house?

texts:
Suppose several people have individual leases to share a house. US housing law requires landlords to allow pets even when they have a no pets policy, but does this carry through even if it is a shared space (though a private bedroom)?

What I've found suggests they can only be excluded if the animal poses a direct threat to "health or safety," so I am guessing that a landlord would have to allow the dog, but I cannot see how that is reasonable.


texts: What's the constitutionality of the debt ceiling?

texts:
Section IV of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution says the validity of the debt "shall not be questioned."  Yet, Congress plays politics with the debt ceiling (as put in this Atlantic article, they "point a gun at the national credit rating and scream, 'One step and I'll shoot!'"), and default has been threatened over the course of these battles (thankfully, that's done for this administration, just before another threatened default). The financial market shows evidence that investors "view the credit of banks as superior to that of the U.S. government."

What is the constitutionality of these limits and political games that do seem to cause people to question whether or not the debt will be paid?
Wasn't the point of this amendment to prevent Congress from playing politics with the debt?


texts: If I don't get a water/sewage/garbage bill in the mail for over 4 years, can the city now force me to pay it all?

texts:
I live in Layton, UT, USA and I have a neighbor who owns a home he rents out. For the last four years he hasn't seen a water/sewage/garbage bill for the property. He assumed that it was getting sent to the rental address instead of his personal one, and that the tenants must have been taking care of it because he never got a notice saying that his account was over due.
Well now the city is saying he owes over $4,000 in back pay for all the water and services over the past four years on the rental property. He found out that four years ago the city switched to a new utility billing software. It turns out that during the migration, his utility account for the rental property was lost, thus resulting in the lack of bills and over due statements.
Can the city legally force him to pay the full amount that he should have paid even though it is clearly the city's fault? I tried to find laws about this sort of thing, but my Google-fu is lacking when it comes to legal questions.


texts:
Must a contract be interpreted in context?

For example, if a lease contract has an item which is intended from keeping the tenants from attacking/fighting each other or the landlord, what if the activity happens in a location that has nothing to do with the contract, like a boxing gym?

For example, imagine the contract says, "Tenants may not engage in activities that my harm other tenants, the landlord, or guests."

What if a tenant trains at the same boxing gym as the landlord? What if a tenant has a guest over and another tenant beats up that guest on the street? Would either of these be a violation of the lease contract?


texts: How much is intentionality relevant to specific crime(s) in the US?

texts:
Let's say, person A who is not fluent in English, calls somebody else (B) by a derogatory or racist name or names, which might generally fall under some law restricting such speech (eg. hate speech) and gets sued for that.

Does it matter from legal perspective, if it can be proved that A either doesn't happen to know that this word is commonly understood as derogatory, or he was explicitly mislead by somebody else that it was a normal everyday word without any negative connotations, therefore, it can be proved that A didn't mean any harm to B by his speech?


texts: How does the U.S. Code organizational structure work?

texts:
The U.S. Code has the following organizational structure:

  Title > Chatper > Subchapter > Part > Section

A good example of that is shown on the Cornell law site. How are these components actually defined? What specifically is a title, chapter, subchapter, part and section?


texts: I purchased a mobile home with my money out of a settlement I got

texts: What if it is just two friends who are no longer friends. I payed for my mobile home in full with my own money but put him on the title. Can I sell my share which is the full price to someone else?


texts: Liability for vaccination required by employer

texts:
Suppose a current employee of some company is required by that company to receive a certain vaccination to remain employed. If the employee suffers damages by receiving the vaccine and it can be shown that the employee would not have received the vaccine had the employer not required it, who would the law generally hold financially responsible for those damages?

The employee, since the vaccine was freely taken?
The healthcare provider, since the vaccine was not properly administered or vetted for this patient
The vaccine producer, for making the product which caused harm
The employer, for requiring the employee receive the vaccination as a condition of employment

I am interested in the general theory, but if this is only answerable given a specific set of assumptions, these can be used:

All parties are located in the continental United States of America and are US citizens
There is no specific liability waiver signed by the employee/patient (bonus points: what if there were one with the employer, the provider or a law passed to protect producers?)
The employment relationship is at-will, right to work, no union, salaried/exempt


texts: Which article of the GDPR implies that one should use the BCC field in order not to dissiminate personal mail addresses?

texts: Which article of the GDPR implies that one should use the BCC field in order not to dissiminate personal mail addresses when sending mails?


texts: Why do tech companies have an easier time avoiding taxes than non tech companies?

texts:
First of all, is this true? I mean it's one of the claims of one US presidential candidate.

I suppose that the reason is because IT company can shift their profit to offshore companies.

Why can't normal companies do the same?

Why can't all restaurants set up corporation in Seychelles and pay "royalty" to their Seyschelles company?

What is so special about tech companies that allows them to avoid taxes?

Some source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzPoDCmYmwI he claims here that tech companies are hard to tax

I also know that Microsoft, Google, and Apple pay very little taxes.

I also know that tech companies do not need infrastructure as much as non tech companies. However, that would make sense if government tax land, or gasoline for example. If government tax income, I do not see why normal companies have a harder time avoiding tax.

We also need to take into account tax evasion. While normal companies often deal with many other companies around, tech companies often deal globally with people around the world. However, I am not seeing that tech companies are evading tax illegally. It seems that they legally avoid paying taxes.


texts: Is there a term denoting definitions that are contrary to a term's plain meaning?

texts:
Legislation sometimes defines a term so that it is contradictory to its plain meaning, or contradictory to the term's meaning in another context.  For example, 52 USC 30121 defines "foreign national" to exclude permanent resident aliens despite the fact that such a person does not have US nationality, and the Schengen Borders Code defines "third-country national" to exclude, among others, "third-country nationals who are members of the family of a Union citizen exercising his or her right to free movement to whom Directive 2004/38/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council applies."

As a hypothetical example, consider a definition of "grape" that excludes concord grapes.

Is there a term that describes such a definition?  I am thinking of calling it a "self-contradictory" definition, but that doesn't seem quite right.


texts: Verbal Agreement To Pay Rent On A Certain Date Admissable in Court

texts: A management company asked me to call them and tell them when I was going to pay my rent. I called and spoke with a representative from their company. She accepted my date to pay and said she was going to make a note on my account. I paid the rent on the day I said I would be saw that a legal proceeding for eviction was started the day before. Do I have an argument in court? Why would they send me a letter telling me to call them and let them know what day I can pay if when I do that and get a verbal agreement, they commence legal action against me as if I did not?


texts: Hipaa - doctor shared my medical information with everyone at religious facility

texts:
I went to the emergency room in March thinking I had Covid-19 and since I am young and healthy the doctors labeled me as having a panic attack and assumed I was on something and so they drew blood for a blood test and quickly found out I was on nothing and they gave me some prescription for coughing and the cold and sent me on my way. It turns out one of the emergency room doctors that looked at my blood sample goes to the same religious facility as me and he told everyone there about what had happened and people have been treating me significantly different and it wasn't until someone revealed that the doctor told everyone this. My question is, shouldn't this be a violation of hipaa? I thought doctors aren't supposed to share any sort of medical information with anyone?
Location - Dallas, TX.
What course of actions should I take?
What course of actions can I take?


texts: If a valid warrant uncovers a suspect's passwords, is another warrant needed to use them?

texts: Scenario: a valid search warrant is executed on John Doe and his computer is seized.  Somehow, this manages to net the police Doe's passwords for a bunch of sites (for example, Doe stored all his usernames and password in an unencrypted spreadsheet file rather than using a proper password manager).  Do the police need to get a new warrant to use those passwords to gain access to all of Doe's accounts?


texts:
I parked in a garage that has an automated pay-to-park kiosk - you specify how many hours you wish to purchase, and then insert payment.  For two hours of parking, the price was listed as $6.  It was only after I inserted a $10 bill that I noticed the "exact change only" sign under the payment slot.  So, I was effectively charged nearly twice what I should have been.

It was only $4, but I felt like I had been scammed and I went to the main parking office to request my change.  They told me I would have to contact the company that actually processes the payments.

Am I legally entitled to my change?  Or, did I "consent" to be ripped off because of the three words "exact change only"?  My receipt even said that the total cost was $6, and that I paid $10.


texts: When is an email message admissible evidence?

texts:
I am a parent who is pursuing a special education impartial hearing without a lawyer. I have learned (in the hearing) that I can question district employee A about an email message I sent to that person, or that that person sent to me.  However, I noticed that if the email message was sent to a different district employee, B, I can't ask employee A about it, even if A and B were working closely together on the matters mentioned in the message.

What about an email message I wrote to another witness, who is not a district employee?  In this case, it happens to be one of my expert witnesses.  In that message I described a specific incident that the student experienced at school.  I wrote the message the day the incident occurred, after my child described it to me.  Can I introduce that message, and question my expert witness about it?  I would like to use the witness as a fact witness (did you receive that email message?) and as an expert witness (is there a nexus between an incident such as what was described in the email, and the disability that this child has been diagnosed with?).

I think this is similar to Anita Hill bringing in friends who testified to the incidents she described to them during the period of time that the incidents were occurring.

Does my reasoning sound okay?  I am planning to testify about the description of the incident that I heard from my child, but my child has decided not to testify about that particular incident, which was embarrassing to the child.  I'm looking for a way to strengthen, with evidence, the description I will give in my testimony.

The incident occurred between one and two years ago, if that helps.

Edit 9/27/16:

I found that I was permitted to introduce emails as long as I followed the five business days disclosure rule, and as long as I was careful to submit the email in its entirety (i.e. with the header and with no words or paragraphs removed).  However, I did trim out signatures and redundant tails, to improve the readability of my email archive, and that was permitted.

When I discovered, during the hearing, that I needed to ask a witness about an email that I had not disclosed as an exhibit, then I found out there are two ways to proceed:

1) if it's short, read it out loud to the witness and then ask a question about it.

2) bring extra copies, show it to the witness, and introduce it into evidence then and there.


texts:
As practice, and for a fun project, I made a 3D model of a set of special dice that are intended to be used for a specific game I invented. I plan to share and refine the work over time but before I go public I want to ensure that the idea can't be used commercially but can be shared freely (basically Creative-Commons Sharealike NonCommericial).

How do you license a work like a 3D model and its associated gameplay material in such a manner that it has legal grounding? Would I need to file a copyright?


texts: What is the difference between “mandatory fair compensation” and “license” in EU copyright law?

texts: I have been reading laws about exceptions to copyright in the EU. Article 5 of the CDSM, for example, talks about licenses and about fair compensation to right holders. What is the difference between the two?


texts: Does the Consumer Rights Act 2015 cover damaged goods?

texts:
So the situation is:

I ordered a bathroom vanity unit from an online retailer.  I signed to acknowledge delivery but didn't look inside the boxes until it came time to fit the bathroom - 6 weeks later.  At this time I discovered that the ceramic basin was cracked, which was (as far as I know) not caused by me.

Does the retailer have a liability to replace the basin under the Consumer Rights Act 2015?  It says that goods have to be "of satisfactory quality", but the retailer is saying that this covers "faulty items and not damaged ones" and that they therefore have no liability to replace the basin.  However I have also read that the Act requires that the goods not be damaged.  Which is it?


texts: Is ETL or UL necessary to retail AC chargers?

texts:
Theoretical: I wish to import and sell wall chargers in the USA.

I realize it is a good idea to get a safety certificate that signifies my product meets national safety standards to avoid being sued.

However, my question is whether it is legal to sell them without a safety certificate (ETL, UL, etc).


texts: Can terms of service prohibit a user from quoting content on a website?

texts:
I was wondering whether Facebook's TOS on automated data collection would actually be legally feasible.

As far as I am concerned there is a universal right of quotation. Of course that will vary from the implementing country, but here in Germany this law is pretty strong, we are even allowed to quote entire pages, songs or pictures.

Does it matter whether I quote in an automated way? Suppose I visit Facebook once a day to observe a time change on the social network (e.g. a community page). Every day, I would then republish this information, explicitly marking it as a quotation, and referencing it back to Facebook.
The regulation suggests that for scientific purposes the quotation right can practically be expanded indefinitely.

I cannot see how Facebook could infringe with the universal right of quotation, which in this case weighs much more than their TOS. Technically speaking, there is no difference in me using a browser to visit their website, or me using a script that uses a browser to visit their website.


texts:
Given the recent ruling in regards to the EU-US Privacy Shield and GDPR [1] would it still be possible to implement a global system with regional data sources? Specifically can you request a user email and process it in a location that may be outside EU with the explicit purpose of determining whether that the user should use a EU tenant or not for the rest of their session?
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/11/eu-us-privacy-shield-is-dead-long-live-privacy-shield/
Example:
I have a software-as-a-service product with a global footprint. Most data is not classified as PII and so is stored in all regions. For data deemed PII I would like to store it in the appropriate region only. So when a user logs in to their account, the idea was to have them enter their email address, look up their region in a mapping table of a hashed value of the email address to a region, available globally and use that information to send all PII related browser requests to the regional servers only.
Follow up example:
Let’s say I still have a global software-as-a-service company. I set up two different data centres, one in EU, and one outside. When new clients are onboarded the select their region. How do I handle authentication in this case? One option is to give the clients different urls depending on region e.g. us.my-saas.com/login and eu.my-saas.com/login but that would not be an ideal user experience. Under GDPR, is there no way of having something like login.my-saas.com and depending on metadata associated with their profile or username automatically determine where to send them?


texts: Can the details of Estate-ownership be Protected by Attorney-Client Privilege?

texts:
Title says it all.

I am curious about whether properties (physical as well as "virtual estates" i.e. domain-names) in the name of one's lawyer would be a viable alternative to "proxy services" who, for all intents and purposes, become owners of that which is in their name.  My thinking is that a lawyer, unlike a private company, is being paid to do as you ask, to keep one's holdings confidential.  I am not talking about doing so to shield against breaking the law, just to maintain some semblance of privacy in the era of repealed civil liberties.

Edit:  I am fine with making someone else the legal owner and/or operator, I would trust a lawyer that I know much more than online companies who've been known to sell such information even without any legal pressure.


texts: Which insurer is liable for a peril than spans two policy periods

texts:
Consider the following hypothetical scenario -

A homeowner has decided to switch insurers from Gecko to NoState, the old Gecko policy ends at 12:01am on January 1st, and the new NoState policy starts at 12:01am on January 1st. Assume both policies have identical amounts of coverage.

Unfortunately, the battery in the homeowner's Samsing Milky Way Bill 7 overheats and starts a fire in one corner of the house at 11:30pm on Dec 31st. By 12:00am on Jan 1st the fire has reached the middle of the house, and by 12:30am the entire property is ablaze. The fire department shows up and puts out the fire, but there's no recoverable personal property and the entire (remaining) structure would need to be demolished and built from scratch.

Which insurer is responsible for covering the homeowner's costs to rebuild their house? What about costs of temporary accommodation, etc?

Bonus question - can either/both Gecko or NoState sue Samsing?


texts:
When an image has different copyright licenses, which one should I follow?
For example, this image is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 and in public domain.

Under CC2.0, the author should be attributed while under public domain, the attribution is not required. I don't know why the same image has two conflicting licenses and is it legal to use the image as public domain?


texts:
The Nazi swastika evokes emotional (fear, anger); is there a “bright line” in which this symbol crosses that public display of said symbol would result in an arrest in the US?  Or is the symbol’s display protected under the first amendment?
Sample context:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/28/us/minnesota-walmart-nazi-masks-antisemitism-trnd/?hpt=ob_blogfooterold


texts: A friend asked me to store his possessions for a week, but he hasn't collected it in 3 months. Can I get rid of it?

texts:
I'm in England. A so-called friend of mine left a lot of his possessions (clothes, books, homeware, keyboards, printers) at my place, saying he'd collect it with a week. It's now been three months, and he's no closer to taking it back.

Is it legal for me to donate it to charity? I've asked him time and time again (on Whatsapp/text) and he always replies with "OK I'll look into it" but never does anything.

So I would like to know if I can get rid of it without worrying about him suing me.


texts: In what circumstances are police able to stop the traffic for a convoy?

texts:
A bit of context:
Yesterday I was near Oxford Street, London, near to a T junction that has traffic lights. A few police officers on motorbikes, using whistles (not sirens), stopped oncoming traffic and allowed two Range Rovers through even though the traffic lights were red.
Therefore, what circumstances are police able to use there powers to stop traffic for a convoy?


texts: Distributing my own sexual photographs as a child?

texts: Would it be illegal to distribute sexual photographs of myself as a child for free or in exchange for money given that I am an adult now?


texts: Copyright question on character model techniques and style

texts:
Is it legal to use someone else's modeling techniques and/or art style?

Specifically I'm talking about a popular MMD modeler known as TDA, to create his characters he uses big eyelashes, colorful textures, etc, I create a model of my own using the same techniques, art style and similar proportions but I used those to create my own character, it is not an edit since I made it using blender yet I'm worried because I don't know how copyright works in this situation.

A few examples of things that look similar in my model are:

the eyes (I used exactly the same mesh here since the effect it creates adds more depth).
the highlights on the eyes (not the same mesh yet same technique of separate materials from the eyes).
the ears (placed proportionally exactly at the same place where the tda model ears are, meaning that the distance between the eyes and ears is exactly the same).
the textures on the face and body are similar but I painted them using a softer style (the shadows are proportionally in the same place).

Everything else from the face to the hair, body and animations is my original character.

I can include pictures of both the tda model I'm using as reference and my model if needed.


texts: What can a victim company do when it's hard to differentiate between a Physical Pentest from a Criminal Physical Penetration

texts:
Red Team: Adversary Simulation. A team of penetration testers (a red team) is hired to legally break into a facility to test its security.

Since the job of Red Teaming and Penetration Testing, especially physical, which is the focus of this question, involves a lot of traveling, it's hard to pin point a country to apply this question to. If it's absolutely necessary, let's assume US and European laws.

Hypothetical Situation:

The company Blue hires the company Red to do a Red Team engagement on Blue. Here, I'll be discussing only the physical part of the engagement, not social and cyber.

Red successfully infiltrates Blue and gives detailed reports of what was done in the engagement. Example part of the report:

...
In building A:

At door A101, we picked the lock. Techniques used in picking: Raking, Bump Key.
At door A102, we picked the lock. Techniques used in picking: Raking.
...

The report includes details of techniques used to exploit and infiltrate.

A week after the engagement is done, Blue is attacked by real criminals and had their data exfiltrated from building A. They didn't have camera footage of every door exploited. Installation of the doors and locks in building A are confirmed to be proper and most likely picked. However, those doors/locks have also been reported to be picked by Red during their engagement the week before.

The problem:

The locks being tested have been picked and exploited by both Red and the criminals. Forensics evidence would likely show traces of both or just Red's engagement. Since red team engagements are to simulate real criminals as accurately as possible, it's hard to differentiate between evidence left by Red and those left by the criminals.

Blue is highly confident that those locks were picked by the criminals, and let's assume they're correct about that. Blue wishes to investigate how exactly the criminals got in and track down those criminals. Additionally, Blue also wants to claim insurance for those locks being picked. (I've heard we can get insurance from the lock manufacturer if the locks are picked and we take damage from that)

Question(s):

How can forensic evident on the locks be used in court (for insurance) and investigation? How should Blue use said forensic evidence to claim their insurance and track down the criminals when it's hard to distinguish between marks left by Red and the criminals?


texts: Every few days specific websites remove explicit images uploaded by minors. Is having viewed this content illegal?

texts:
There's frequently stories about pornographic websites removing images from underaged users. The users of these sites use them with the belief that all material is of legal adults, but in the past people have been arrested for having images stored in a cache. In the case where the user not only didn't know it the person was underaged, but was using a website where there was some reason to believe that the content was moderated - could they be held responsible?

Similarly, videos are uploaded to adult sites from places like Twitter, Instagram, Webcam sites, etc. These videos often remain available if they pass the "eye test," but are users potentially responsible for viewing them?


texts: Can a federal agency refuse to accept a document because it doesn't have a wet signature?

texts:
As an example, the instructions for Form 83(b) state that:

Once you have completed the form, please sign it and mail a copy to your IRS Service Center and to your employer. Also, be sure to retain a copy for your taxes.

But what if you don't physically sign it but rather place an electronic copy of your signature inside the document, generate a PDF and then mail it online via a service like LetterStream that can print out the PDF and physically mail it for you? Is the IRS allowed to refuse accepting the document just because it hasn't been physically signed with a pen and paper?
I'm giving out Form 83(b) as an example but presumably similar rules should apply to all federal agencies.


texts: UK Buying house with lease on car port. Solicitor won't proceed

texts:
I am buying a freehold house with two parking spaces. One is under a coach house so I'm getting a 999 years lease for that.

My solicitor affirms we cannot proceed with the purchase because the builder has pre-registered the lease on their name so won't be able to provide the title until the registration is complete (likely to take months).

According to the seller this is the standard procedure and they have sold "hundreds of houses like that".

Who is right?


texts: How to validate an employee's expense receipt for an Uber ride

texts: I believe an expense receipt I have received for an Uber ride from an employee is fake. Am I legally allowed to contact Uber and ask them to verify the receipt? If I suggest to the employee i think the receipt is fake that is a serious accusation. I would rather validate the receipt independently with Uber first. Is that possible/allowed because it's not my Uber account?


texts: Can court change case judges as it pleases?

texts:
Say a lawsuit has been filed with a court. A judge looks at the case and makes some initial directions (e.g. requests formal written statements, considers case management memoranda filed by the parties, directs for amicus curiae to be appointed etc.).

Then, as the case proceeds, it suddenly happens to be in the hands of another judge: the court just changes judges without giving a reason.

Is this something that courts are allowed to do as they please? Should not a case, where possible, be done by the same judge? Should not changing judges be allowed only for a good reason e.g. unavailability of the original judge? Should a judge change be an alarm for the parties? Can the parties question the court as to why the judge was changed?

Answers re any jurisdiction are welcome, though particularly interested in New Zealand.


texts:
Hypothetically, suppose person A purchased a service B from company C in the UK. If person A believes they were mis-sold the service, they could start a case with the The Financial Ombudsman Service in case company C is a bank, with the Housing Ombudsman in case service B is rental of a property, or to Ombudsman Services in case company C is a telecom or an energy utility.

Suppose company C is a car rental company operating in the UK and based in the EU. What services would be able to mediate a complaint?


texts: Is an undercover cop offering money to a random woman for sex an example of "entrapment"?

texts:
T/F Test Question: "Officer Jones, who was assigned to the narcotics unit, decided to look for possible prostitutes in the financial district of his city. Although there are no reports of a prostitution problem in this area, Officer Jones approached Betty and said, "I would pay $500.00 for some really hot sex with you." Betty declined at first, but after Jones offered $700.00 a second time, Betty agreed. Jones immediately arrested Betty for prostitution. This arrest would be considered entrapment." (correct answer: True)

Our text says the current entrapment test is this: "Was the conduct of the law enforcement agent likely to induce a normally law-abiding person to commit the offense?"

I say no. A normally law-abiding woman knows what prostitution is just like a normally law-abiding citizen knows what cocaine is. If an undercover officer offers to sell a person cocaine and they agree to buy, that wouldn't be entrapment.

Does the issue have to do with "pressure"? The text says an offer is permissible but "pressure" such as badgering or cajoling is not. This all depends on further details about the officer's conduct and to what extent cash is considered a pressure to the average woman for "really hot sex". It may be dangerous to suggest that the average woman considers $700 a serious pressure for sex.


texts: Is there a rule preventing campaign rallies on the House floor?

texts: Is there a law or a House rule preventing House of Representatives members using their time on the House floor, or committee floor, to hold election campaign events?


texts: Where are the exceptions to the definition of tenancy?

texts:
CONTEXT

In Florida residential rental statutes define a tenant:

  83.43 Definitions.—As used in this part, the following words and terms shall have the following meanings unless some other meaning is plainly
  indicated:

  “Tenant” means any person entitled to occupy a dwelling unit under a
  rental agreement.

I was informed \ cautioned by a police officer that any person living (i.e. residing, accepting mail), that they are in fact a tenant and may not be denied access: despite not being on the rental agreement.

QUESTIONS

Is there any Florida statute or any other relevant authoritative (government) statute that supports the notion that anyone (i.e. not on the rental agreement)'living' in the unit (unknown how long that must be) is a tenant?   Is an adult child (not listed on lease) of the lease a tenant?

Is there a comprehensive (verifiable) standard for determining if a person is a tenant?  For example, if Joe Cool is listed on the rental agreement as a tenant, then a third party can verify Joe is on the lease.  I'd like to understand what exactly triggers tenancy.


texts: Tenant eviction law in Netherlands when renting is done via proxy company

texts:
I live in UK and have recently bought flat in Netherlands, found agent to rent it out and yesterday they told that they have found a tenant and sent me a contract to sign.

Turns out that 'tenant' that my agent has found is a company and not a person (which already feels dodgy since we agreed with agent that it will be a person), so I started doing some research. It turns out that this company ('Company X') is company that helps asylum seekers with getting accommodation (which I am happy with as long as I don't have problems to deal with).

However having done some (bad) enterprises to day, I got a bit more thorough (paranoid) and one potential possibility I see is that 'Company X' which has very little assets can sign hundreds of lease contracts with lenders like myself. This company places hundreds of asylum seeker families into flats with intention to pay their rents, but with no monetary 'buffer' or due to bad management (or many other potential reasons) fails to make payments.
After it fails to make payments in around 2-3 months of non payments this goes to court, then 'Company X' goes bankrupt and gets liquidated in another 3-6 months all the while flat is occupied by non paying tenants that do not have direct obligation to myself but rather to the company that is going bankrupt.

Netherlands is a very pro-tenant country so question is: if payments by 'Company X' fail can I start eviction process immediately (like I would normally do with tenants) or do I need to wait for company to get liquidated and only then can start eviction process?


texts: Is it legal to use Disney World movies as educational material for online paid classes?

texts: I have read on the Internet that certain educational enterprises are permitted to use video material in a legal way. I was wondering if the case of paid online classes would be one of them, either by buying a special license or without it.


texts: Law regarding associations around the world

texts:
In Sweden there is something called law of association/association law (associationsrätt). An association (that is the word used in Swedish too) in this context is any cooperation between people. It could be a chess club, a large company like Google, a building union, even a family or a state with its citizenship are considered associations. Law students have a dedicated part of their education to this (like the have dedicated parts about criminal law, marriage law, EU law and so on).

Now, of course there are dedicated laws regulating companies, marriage, non-profits etc but if a situation occurs in, e.g., a marriage that isn't covered by the dedicated marriage/divorce law, the court falls back on the generic association law and the principles present there.

Now I wonder how the situation with respect to this looks in France, UK, USA and Germany? Is it similar to Sweden or completely different?

The reason I ask about these countries is that the first three were part of the allies that won WW2 and also were/are democracies while Germany of course was on the losing side and that these three wrote the basic charter for UN as well as Germany's new legal code, partially considering how the nazi legal system was implemented.


texts: Borrow something and return it considered stealing?

texts:
So I was thinking, if I rode a coworkers bike home and returned it early the next morning before he noticed, is that legally considered stealing?

Would this be legally considered stealing in CA?


texts: Can I request companies to give me all the data they have on me when I'm visiting a country in the EU?

texts:
I'm not a citizen of the EU, nor do I reside in the EU. But as a consumer, I welcome GDPR. It gives me some limited rights even though I'm not in the direct interests of the regulation.

Anyway, if I understand the regulation correctly, I'm covered by it if I visit / reside in a country in the EU (even if I'm not a citizen). Does this mean I can request companies to give me a copy of all the data they have on me when I visit, for example, France on vacation?


texts: I buy a lot of old photos off of ebay. Most of these photos are photos of ships, and date back to the early 1900s or sooner. These are not photos taken by a professional photographer. These are one-of-a-kind photos that were taken by someone unknown, and the person who sold them to me is not a family member of the photographer. As the person who owns the actual photos, what are my rights? Do I own the copyright, and if I post them online, do people need permission from me to use them? Thanks.


texts: How to show an officer your insurance card?

texts:
When a police officer pulls you over, they always ask for the standard trifecta of documents; license registration, and proof of insurance.
In ye olden days of yore, insurance companies used to mail you insurance cards you’d keep in your glove box, but they don’t do that anymore. Nowadays, everything is in an app on your phone.
My personal policy for any interaction with a police officer (even ones I initiate) is to keep my phone passcode locked (not merely fingerprint/face locked) at all times when an officer is present. However, my insurance app requires me to unlock my phone to show my “virtual” insurance card to the officer, which is not a thing that’s going to happen.
I have not been pulled over in many years, but if I ever am, how can I show this information without compromising my own device security?


texts: When and how is service by publication valid?

texts:
Sometimes a prospective defendant cannot be served because s/he is out of the country, or just plain is in hiding. In that case, a judge will sometimes allow service by publication. That is, after publication of the charges, the defendant will have been deemed to have been served. Under what specific circumstances is this allowed?

If the defendant is represented by a lawyer who has answered for the defendant in other aspects of the case, can service be effected just by notifying the lawyer? After all, the defendant engaged the lawyer who (presumably) knows how to reach him or her. Or is this covered by attorney client privilege?


texts: Will software ever enter the public domain?

texts:
Works enter the public domain after ... years from publication. But most software these days is not sold but "licensed" (per EULA). So the recipient never received said "software", he's just using someone else's work (kind of like me using Google search, its code never enters the public domain).

Does that mean that code is considered to have never been "published"?


texts: Why are magisterial judges not addressed with "your majesty?"

texts: Magisterial judges tend to be lower-level judges, but court officers (e.g., lawyers) still address them as "your honor."  It seems, given the title of their office, that "your majesty" would be the most appropriate form of addressing the office.  Has that ever been used?  If not, are there logical or historical reasons it has not?


texts: If roommate steals, can police search other people's rooms too (US)?

texts:
I was speaking with my friend, who sounded real nervous, saying she thinks her roommate might be stealing from work.  It's been going on for a few weeks and she can't tell for sure, because her roommate is apparently sort of a mysterious person and my friend goes to school all day and barely sees this roommate anyways so is not really sure, but feels like there are enough hints of things she seen the roommate carry in and that it might be the case.  That maybe her roommate is selling stuff she stole from work, she doesn't know.  My friend has been afraid of asking the roommate directly if she's stealing.

Long story short, given that my friend is on anxiety medication and I felt real bad for her cause she sounded real anxious, I said just protect yourself, it's nothing to do with you, and don't think about it, and she said what if it IS true and cops come and go through her stuff and turn her room upside down and interrogate her (she has a trauma of when her dad went to prison when she was younger, and she and her family used to live in Russia).  I said it's not gonna happen, unless she has anything of the roommate in her room and she said none.

But after the call now I'm starting to wonder because I don't know the laws and have never dealt with cops myself, don't know their process.  She lives in Seattle btw.  So can anybody tell me what the procedure would be, like if someone is suspected of theft, like can they just break into a place and turn the whole apartment upside down, interrogate everyone, etc, if several people live there, or is it just the one person they suspect?


texts: Does one have legal right to access possessions "land locked" in a co-tenant's room?

texts:
Alice has possessions in a storage closet that requires traversing roommate Bob's bedroom to access. There was a preexisting oral agreement granting Alice reasonable easement. Bob eventually decides to deny Alice access to this room with posted notice. Obeying this is denying Alice access to her possessions, she now cannot remove them. There is no dispute over ownership of the possessions, both declare them to be Alice's.

Q: Can Alice legally disregard this notice despite Bob's intentions? Does doing so constitute invasion of privacy or trespassing?

Related questions:

How legal is this for Bob to do in the first place?
Can Bob do this indefinitely?
Can Alice get the law to grant easement if she can't just enter-at-will?
Does it matter if there was a preexisting oral agreement granting easement?


texts: Outside Activity Disclusure Form of an incorporated contractor

texts:
I've created a corporation to engage in software consulting for a major sensitive industry institution. As part of the contract paperwork to my corporation, they've presented me with a form stating I should disclose all my outside business (and otherwise time-consuming) activities to them.

My question is whether that form is directed at me as an individual, or to my corporation? (From the wording, it seems it refers to my person) Is it reasonable that I, as an individual, should report any of my outside activities (business and otherwise) to them if they're signing the agreement with my corporation?

What could be my strategy if I wanted to let them know that I don't intend to compete or undermine their business, while not having to divulge all my other unrelated activities, business and personal?

Thanks for your time!


texts: Is it legal to crawl the internet and use content to inform ML models?

texts:
This is largely what Google (et al.) do -- crawling the web and informing models as to the associations between various things.

Copyright appears to mostly pertain to reproduction, which Google and the like steer clear of. But nonetheless they do use content to inform various machine-learning models. Where does the law stand on this? And, even if it were to be legally questionable, how would it be discovered without any trace of reproduction?

An example scenario would be a "Medical Knowledge" AI that crawls and scrapes the entire web looking for information regarding medical ailments. It finds information on Wikipedia, forums, twitter, etc. and starts to create associations between ailments, symptoms and remedies. Any specific piece of content would only have had a very slight effect on the overall weightings within the various ML models, so what claim, if any, would a plaintiff have in laying stake to "their" copyrighted content?


texts: An employer is breaking multiple laws, but is doing so from another state. What venue do I sue in?

texts:
I am a citizen of a U.S. state that does banking through a religion-aligned credit union. I do this because my religious leaders have concerns about certain practices related to banking, and I bank through certain institutions because of my religious beliefs. After some research I discovered that federal law and state law force employers who require direct deposit to allow me to receive direct deposit at my credit union. Recently, an employer conducted a job interview over the internet from another state with similar laws in place. (Their laws are actually more restrictive than my state's.) The employer extended a job offer, but added the condition that I must open a new bank account with a bank of their choice, and that I receive direct deposit at the bank on their choosing. When I brought up my need for a religious accommodation the employer went on to violate multiple other statutes related to Equal Employment Opportunity laws, even telling me someone of my religion shouldn't be expecting to work in the industry. I have been told that the employer's behavior constitutes violations of multiple statutes, some relating to banking, some relating to labor law, some relating to religious discrimination. Both civil and criminal law are implicated. I have been told I should sue, but I'm uncertain about what jurisdiction I'm supposed to sue in.

Is this matter one that would be pursued in my state's courts, the employer's state's courts, or federal court?

Does the answer change based on what combination of statutes I want to pursue the lawsuit under?


texts: I'm reading through a lease agreement that a friend has been offered for renting a space for a business, and one of the clauses just says "TIME OF THE ESSENCE OF THIS LEASE", with no other explanation.  From reading this web page, I think they meant to say "time is of the essence".  What I'm curious about is how enforceable this aspect of the contract is.  As they provide no real explanation (such as what I found on the linked page), and they've left out a word, would this be considered as legally binding as if they had put the word in, as well as a full explanation?


texts: Can one be held liable for provoking a DDOS attack?

texts:
Let's say I'm in a Internet Cafe in some place of the world* and I buy their services to access some online instant messanging service.

Suppose I chat with a person online who decides they really dislike me, to the point that they find my IP address (which is, of course, the address of the computer I'm sitting on) and decides to launch a DDOS attack on that address, by sending a large amount of traffic through the internet, which as a result floods my connection and doesn't allow me to use the internet.

Let's also assume that the IP address is static and that the attacker is not willing to ever stop, which means that the specific internet cafe machine will stay flooded for quite a while, causing a lot of damage and money loss.

Could I be held responsible for the damage caused to that computer, just because someone decided to DDOS me?

* If some place of the world is too general, let's say I'm in the US.


texts:
If a defendant does not timely reply to a response, then a judge orders the defendant to file a reply within x amount of days; is that prejudicial to the responding party?

Prejudicial to plaintiff because:
The defendant lost the opportunity to file a reply by not filing a reply timely.
The defendant lost the opportunity to file a reply by not filing a good faith request for extension of time to file a reply showing good cause for not timely filing that reply.
Judge did not order defendant to show good cause for not timely filing a reply before ordering a reply be filed.
No good cause has been shown for why defendant did not make a timely reply prior to the issuing of an order for defendant to reply.
The defendant is being given x amount of more days to prepare a reply than the plaintiff is being offered to make a sur-reply.


texts: Purchased property with incomplete Buildings Regulations UK

texts:
About six ago we rented the first floor of a converted property. This property (and the flat below ours on the ground floor) was subsequently repossessed from the original landlord and we purchased it from the bank four years ago, with indemnity insurance to cover a number of missing pieces of paperwork. A different buyer purchased the ground floor.

Over time we have found a number of issues with the property which we have rectified as they have come up. Unfortunately we have also discovered that Buildings Regulations were not followed, or signed off, when the property was initially converted and we have been labouring to correct this since.

The most substantial failing in the regulations is that the property was not properly soundproofed. The bill to correct this will cost several thousand pounds, will be highly disruptive and even once complete is not guaranteed to pass subsequent tests.

How necessary is it to have these regulations signed off, given that it was not us who initially carried out the work, and what would happen if we knowingly sold/rented the property without this being done first?


texts: Under what circumstances is a lawyer permitted to draft documents "friendly" to the other side?

texts:
There are typically two parties on any contract, call them buyer and seller. Contracts can be drafted that are neutral, or they could be friendly to either the buyer or the seller.

I can see a case where one party says "I really want this deal;" I want you to draft a contract that protects my interests, but is friendly to the other side, to get them to sign. In this case, the lawyer would draft an "other-party" friendly contract.

But suppose the client says, "I want my rights protected, I want you to draft a "tough" (unfriendly) contract that they might walk away from, one that will separate the men from the boys." The lawyer protests and says something like, "While what you are proposing is legal, we need to go easy on these people; they're minorities." The lawyer then produces a "soft" contract and pushes the client to sign, but s/he later regrets this.

Does the lawyer have the right to do this? Or is this a potential conflict of interest?


texts: Are remaining "paid leave" paid at the end internship in France?

texts:
I am a french student, during a six-month internship in France.
Thus, my question is restricted to this country only.
My contract gives me 5 days of paid leave. I have used only 3 until now.
I will have to leave the company without being able to use them.
The reason why is off-topic.
My question is:
Must the company pay me these days that I couldn't take?
I have done some research, and it seems that for regular employees, they must:
Indemnité compensatrice de congés payés:

Bénéficiaires
Salariés concernés
Tout salarié qui n'a pas pu bénéficier de la totalité du congé auquel
il avait droit à la date de rupture de son contrat perçoit l'indemnité
compensatrice de congés payés.
L'indemnité est due, même en cas rupture du contrat de travail pendant
la période d'essai. Peu importe que la rupture soit du fait du salarié
ou de l'employeur.
Salariés exclus
Toutefois, le salarié n'y a pas droit en cas de licenciement pour
faute lourde, et uniquement pour les congés acquis durant la période
de référence en cours.

But I don't know whether this can apply to an intern.


texts: Is a cookie notice required for analytics?

texts:
Note: I've been directed here from Meta.SE

I'm using GoSquared for my website analytics.
I've visited quite a few sites using Google Analytics but they don't have a cookie policy or a cookie banner/cookie notice, even though Google Analytics uses cookies to provide their services.
Do I need to make my own cookie policy or cookie notice if I use GoSquared Analytics (which also uses cookies to function)?
Note that these are non-essential cookies provided by a third party.
And does the fact that I am in the UK change anything?


texts: To what extent is a "reasonable inference" acceptable as "proof" in a court of law?

texts:
In his autobiography, T. Boone Pickens relates the story of how he managed to do a deal with a man on his sickbed. He took the contract to the man's house, was shown to the man's room, and handed the papers and a pen to the man.

The man pulled the covers over the paper, pen, and his head, and the papers were signed.

Pickens' lawyer asked him, "Did you actually see him sign the papers?"

Pickens said something like, "No. But I can swear out an affidavit that I handed the papers to him unsigned, and received them back from him signed."

In this case, there is an inference that it was the man, and not a supernatural being that signed the papers. How acceptable are such inferences in a court of law?


texts: Is it possible for Bangladesh to fully adopt British laws?

texts:
How different is British law and Bangladeshi law?

What practical problems may arise if Bangladesh adopts British civil and criminal laws in entirety?


texts: Australia: Can a NDA be broken to show evidence in court?

texts: If a defendant says they have documents proving their case but will only show if a non-disclosure is signed and assuming the documents fail to vindicate the defendant, can I break the NDA and use those documents in court against the defendant? Thanks.


texts: Can a lease contract be voided due to incongruency?

texts:
I've recently rented a flat in Malta and signed a rental agreement which states, prior to the terms, I am the landlord and he (the landlord) is the tenant.
By the last page at the bottom, he signed as the landlord and I signed as the tenant.

Would this contract be invalid due to the incongruity?


texts: Is "not available for resale" a legally enforceable statement?

texts:
I've seen this label on coke cans at one point, and I was wondering: is this legally enforceable?
If it's not, is it possible for a retailer in any way to disallow the resale of an item purchased?
Something like, I don't know, maybe a license you have to agree to in order to be allowed to purchase said item?
This comes in the larger context of these new tech releases (GPUs, consoles) and how the producers/retailers could legally prevent scalpers.


texts: Illegal to pay attorney more if acquittal is obtained?

texts:
I would think that for a criminal defendant, assuming that they have money, it would be in their interest to pay much more for a result of acquittal, than for a conviction. For example, imagine an attorney tells his client: "I charge $10,000 retainer to get started and if it goes to trial it will probably cost you $35,000." The client might then say, "Fine, I will pay that, but if I am acquitted or the prosecution drops the charges, I will pay you a bonus of $150,000". So, in that case the attorney has a strong incentive to get the client acquitted.

Are such deals illegal or considered "unethical"? I.e., could an attorney get in trouble for accepting such a deal?


texts: Personal, Subpoena'd Information that's Exculpatory is 'Missing'

texts: If information is acquired by a prosecutor that is potentially exculpatory but misplaced, what should a defense attorney do, and what (beyond admonishment) would a judge ordinarily do?


texts: What is the difference between Article 10 and Article 11 of the Indian Constitution

texts:
I am from a non law background and reading Indian Constitution. After reading Laxmikanth and PM Bakshi, what I could get is that both the Articles deals with law made by parliament related to Citizenship but I am unable to get the finer details of it.

What was the need to make 2 articles? If someone can explain with an example that would be most welcome.


texts: Mental Capacity of family member with means

texts:
I have a family member who has over the last few years made quite a lot of money.

Recently he has been diagnosed with bi-polar.

He is ATM off his meds and is currently on a 'high' and spending a lot of money on dubious things.

He also has a whole entourage of hangers-on that he supports daily. They are forever in his ear about 'projects' and 'new opportunities' etc that he is wasting money on.

I hope you get the picture.

As a family member, what can I do? I am doing quite well for myself also so I have zero interest in the money for myself.

Is there something we can do to set up a kind of trust that a solicitor oversees to make sure the money isn't completely wasted?

He will have to pay for care at some point and that will be expensive I am sure.


texts: Liability for spouse's actions in the US

texts:
This is hypothetical.  Person A and Person B are married.  Person A cannot control the actions of Person B, because that would be domineering.  If Person B makes a mistake that results in financial repercussions (maybe in the form of large fines, insurance deductibles, whatever), but does not have much money, will Person A (who works and saves for retirement) have to pay their spouse's obligation?

In other words, can one be financially ruined due to the actions of their spouse, when they have no real control over them?


texts: Does the law make any legal distinction between finding guilt and categorically establishing that someone committed an act?

texts:
Short of undeniable video evidence or multiple firsthand accounts, guilt is established "beyond a reasonable doubt".

Is there any kind of distinction made where the legal system understands that it's impossible to categorically state that someone did something in the absence of such irrefutable evidence? False convictions do happen, so I'm curious if we have an eloquent way of saying "I can't say with absolute certainty that you did this thing, but a number of your peers have viewed the information available and decided that you did it."

Are there any side effects where a finding of guilt (or, I suppose, a not guilty finding) is not enough to establish a factual argument elsewhere?


texts: Subject Access Request (SAR) of data relating to cookies?

texts:
Take a search engine (e.g. Google), where user A can make searches without logging in with their account. The search engine collects, processes and stores, over time, a number of data about the user A, such as cookies identifiers, IP address, browsers fingerprint, and the search strings. I think all these are "Personal Data" according to GDPR (right?).
How could user A exercise his right of access to these data? In particular:

how could user A compile such a SAR, given that the search engine has no identifiable information other than the cookie ID (something like "please supply the personal data you hold about me, identified by cookie ID X"?)
how could user A demonstrate he is the real owner of those data (and not someone else using the same device/connection)


texts: can you get prosecuted for a crime in country(A) for a crime that took place in country (B)?

texts:
if (Bob) who lives in country(A) infringes copyright of citizens of country (B) and hacks into country(B) government servers and continues to do crime against  country(B),if country (A) and country(B) have no extradition treaty with eachother:

is there any way that country (B) would be able to arrest or stop (Bob) from continuing his attacks?
can country(B) prosecute (Bob) in country (A) because black hat hacking is also illegal in country(A)?


texts: Can someone wait before patenting something?

texts:
Let's say I invent something.

I manufacture it without patenting it.

30 years later, someone reverse-engineered my invention.

I see that he is a few months away from manufacturing it, can I rush in and patent it now?


texts: Is it legal to sell copies from unbranded products?

texts: If I buy a item on Ebay from China, which says nothing about ownership, brand, legal rights or copyrights, could I legally make copies of that product and sell them commercially?


texts: Right of way at opposing stop signs: car turning left vs later car going straight

texts: I'm interested in Pennsylvania and Maryland specifically. At a 4-way stop or stop signs on opposite sides of a street, say a car arrives at the sign with their left turn signal on. Say a car then arrives at the opposing stop sign intending to go straight. When the way is clear of cross-traffic, who has the right-of-way? Who would be at fault in the event of a collision?


texts: What is the limitation on publishing / promoting stock positions and also having a vested interest in those stocks?

texts:
On a popular internet forum I follow for amusement, people will commonly announce their stock options positions before they make them so that once the positions succeed, they can brag while having some measure of proof that they actually were in favor of the position before it proved profitable.
But I believe there's some kind of law preventing someone from entering an investment position (whether it be purchasing a stock option or share or futures contract) and then publishing that position or an article that might affect it. Supposedly this is to prevent financial groups from using their publication power to affect stock movement in a way beneficial to their position.
At what point would the forum activity I'm referring to become prohibited by law? Or why would it not?
Could someone here point me to the most relevant law(s) that would regulate the legality of this scenario?


texts:
There are lots of attributes that are better covered by either a copyright or trademark, but suppose there is a business that makes movies, short films or games or comics uses and "Darth Vader" in their project (without permission) but visually makes them look very different. Does Lucasfilm's or Disney's (or whoever owns IP for Star Wars) copyrights protect against that usage?

If we were just dealing with an image or just dealing with a name, the answer would be clearer, but Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker or R2D2 (or other SW characters) are overall characters, not just an image nor just a name, but I don't know if it's a necessity that for such a name to be trademarked.


texts: Presentations allowed during final argument?

texts:
I have not studied civil procedure in detail.

What are the rules concerning presentation of charts and data during final arguments before a jury? Is the rule simply that any such charts must be introduced into evidence before the trial, or can explanatory charts be used in final arguments without having submitted them beforehand?


texts:
Suppose a web designer plans to store hashed IP's in a database for analytical purposes of tracking unique clicks, and for security purposes to prevent botting unique clicks. Suppose the site only stores one-way hashes of the IP addresses, and only for as long as the data is needed. The plan is to allow Users can also contact the site to remove their data entirely.
Would such a design be GDPR compliant?
I've read a lot of mixed commentary on whether this type of use case would be allowed, and any sources to support your reasoning would be appreciated.