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An accessory is a person who assists in, but does not actually participate in, the commission of a crime. The distinction between an accessory and a principal is a question of fact and degree: The principal is the one whose acts or omissions, accompanied by the relevant mens rea (Latin for "guilty mind"), are the most immediate cause of the actus reus (Latin for "guilty act"). If two or more peopl...

In contract law, an illusory promise is one that courts will not enforce. This is in contrast with a contract, which is a promise that courts will enforce. A promise may be illusory for a number of reasons. In common law countries this usually results from failure or lack of consideration (see also consideration under English law). Illusory promises are so named because they merely hold the illusi...

Trespass to chattels is a tort whereby the infringing party has intentionally (or, in Australia, negligently) interfered with another person's lawful possession of a chattel (movable personal property). The interference can be any physical contact with the chattel in a quantifiable way, or any dispossession of the chattel (whether by taking it, destroying it, or barring the owner's access to it)....

Exemptions and tax rates.  As noted before, a certain amount of each estate is exempted from taxation by the law. Below is a table of the amount of exemption by year an estate would expect. Estates above these amounts would be subject to estate tax, but only for the amount above the exemption. For example, assume an estate of $3.5 million in 2006. There are two beneficiaries who will each rec...

Hostile possession. The disseisor must have entered or used the land without permission from the true owner. The disseisor's motivations may be interpreted by the court in several ways, depending upon state law and precedent: Objective view – the land was used without the true owner's permission and in a manner inconsistent with the true owner's rights. Bad faith or intentional trespass view – the...

In Western jurisprudence, concurrence (also contemporaneity or simultaneity) is the apparent need to prove the simultaneous occurrence of both actus reus ("guilty action") and mens rea ("guilty mind"), to constitute a crime; except in crimes of strict liability. In theory, if the actus reus does not hold concurrence in point of time with the mens rea then no crime has been committed. Discussion. S...

In jurisprudence, duress or coercion refers to a situation whereby a person performs an act as a result of violence, threat, or other pressure against the person. Black's Law Dictionary (6th edition) defines duress as "any unlawful threat or coercion used... to induce another to act  in a manner  otherwise would not ". Duress is pressure exerted upon a person to coerce that person to per...

Trespass to land is a common law tort or crime that is committed when an individual or the object of an individual intentionally (or, in Australia, negligently) enters the land of another without a lawful excuse. Trespass to land is actionable per se. Thus, the party whose land is entered upon may sue even if no actual harm is done. In some jurisdictions, this rule may also apply to entry upon pub...

The estate tax in the United States is a federal tax on the transfer of the estate of a person who dies. The tax applies to property that is transferred by will or, if the person has no will, according to state laws of intestacy. Other transfers that are subject to the tax can include those made through a trust and the payment of certain life insurance benefits or financial accounts. The estate ta...

Adverse possession, sometimes colloquially described as "squatter's rights", is a legal principle under which a person who does not have legal title to a piece of property — usually land (real property) — acquires legal ownership based on continuous possession or occupation of the property without the permission of its legal owner. In general, a property owner has the right to recover possession o...

Foreseeability. Legal Causation is usually expressed as a question of 'foreseeability'. An actor is liable for the foreseeable, but not the unforeseeable, consequences of his or her act. For example, it is foreseeable that if I shoot someone on a beach and they are immobilized, they may drown in a rising tide rather than from the trauma of the gunshot wound or from loss of blood. However, it is no...

Capacity or more fully mental capacity covers day-to-day decisions, including: what to wear and what to buy, as well as, life-changing decisions, such as: whether to move into a care home or whether to have major surgery. The UK's Mental Capacity Act 2005 or MCA sets out a two-stage test of capacity: 1. Is the person unable to make a particular decision? 2. Is the inability to make a decision caus...

Trespass to goods. Trespass to chattels, also known as trespass to goods or trespass to personal property, is defined as "an intentional interference with the possession of personal property...proximately cause injury". While originally a remedy for the asportation of personal property, the tort grew to incorporate any interference with the personal property of another. In some jurisdictions, such...

Google LLC v Oracle America, Inc. was a legal case within the United States related to the nature of computer code and copyright law. The dispute centered on the use of parts of the Java programming language's application programming interfaces (APIs) and about 11,000 lines of source code, which are owned by Oracle (through subsidiary, Oracle America, Inc., originating from Sun Microsystems), with...

Unowned property refers to tangible, physical things which are capable of being reduced to being property owned by an individual but are not owned by anyone. Bona vacantia (Latin for "ownerless goods") is a legal concept associated with the unowned property, which exists in various jurisdictions, with a consequently varying application, but with origins mostly in English law. Nearly every piece of...

Causation is the "causal relationship between the defendant's conduct and end result". In other words, causation provides a means of connecting conduct with a resulting effect, typically an injury. In criminal law, it is defined as the actus reus (an action) from which the specific injury or other effect arose and is combined with mens rea (a state of mind) to comprise the elements of guilt. Causa...

An implied-in-fact contract is a form of an implied contract formed by non-verbal conduct, rather than by explicit words. The United States Supreme Court has defined "an agreement 'implied in fact'" as "founded upon a meeting of minds, which, although not embodied in an express contract, is inferred, as a fact, from conduct of the parties showing, in the light of the surrounding circumstances, the...

Trespass is an area of criminal law or tort law broadly divided into three groups: trespass to the person, trespass to chattels, and trespass to land. Trespass to the person historically involved six separate trespasses: threats, assault, battery, wounding, mayhem (or maiming), and false imprisonment. Through the evolution of the common law in various jurisdictions, and the codification of common...

Tax credits. Corporations, like other businesses, may be eligible for various tax credits which reduce federal, state or local income tax. The largest of these by dollar volume is the federal foreign tax credit. This credit is allowed to all taxpayers for income taxes paid to foreign countries. The credit is limited to that part of federal income tax before other credits generated by foreign sourc...

Personal property is property that is movable. In common law systems, personal property may also be called chattels or personalty. In civil law systems, personal property is often called movable property or movables – any property that can be moved from one location to another. Personal property can be understood in comparison to real estate, immovable property or real property (such as land and b...

Mens rea (Law Latin for "guilty mind") is the mental element of a person's intention to commit a crime; or knowledge that one's action or lack of action would cause a crime to be committed. It is a necessary element of many crimes. The standard common law test of criminal liability is expressed in the Latin phrase actus reus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea, for example, "the act is not culpable u...

Consideration is a concept of English common law and is a necessity for simple contracts but not for special contracts (contracts by deed). The concept has been adopted by other common law jurisdictions. The court in Currie v Misa declared consideration to be a “Right, Interest, Profit, Benefit, or Forbearance, Detriment, Loss, Responsibility”. Thus, consideration is a promise of something of valu...

Transferred intent (or transferred mens rea, or transferred malice, in English law) is a legal doctrine that holds that, when the intention to harm one individual inadvertently causes a second person to be hurt instead, the perpetrator is still held responsible. To be held legally responsible, a court typically must demonstrate that the perpetrator had criminal intent, that is, that they knew or s...

Corporate tax is imposed in the United States at the federal, most state, and some local levels on the income of entities treated for tax purposes as corporations. Since January 1, 2018, the nominal federal corporate tax rate in the United States of America is a flat 21% due to the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. State and local taxes and rules vary by jurisdiction, though many are b...

In English common law, real property, real estate, realty, or immovable property is land which is the property of some person and all structures (also called improvements or fixtures) integrated with or affixed to the land, including crops, buildings, machinery, wells, dams, ponds, mines, canals, and roads, among other things. The term is historic, arising from the now-discontinued form of action,...