Law School

Negligent entrustment is a cause of action in United States tort law which arises where one party ("the entrustor") is held liable for negligence because they negligently provided another party ("the entrustee") with a dangerous instrumentality, and the entrusted party caused injury to a third party with that instrumentality. The cause of action most frequently arises where one person allows anoth...

Uniformity Clause. The final phrase of the Taxing and Spending Clause stipulates: but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States. Here, the requirement is that taxes must be geographically uniform throughout the United States. This means taxes affected by this provision must function "with the same force and effect in every place where the subject of it is found....

A mortgage is a legal instrument of the common law which is used to create a security interest in real property held by a lender as a security for a debt, usually a mortgage loan. The corresponding term in civil law jurisdictions is hypothec. A mortgage in itself is not a debt, it is the lender's security for a debt. It is a transfer of an interest in land (or the equivalent) from the owner to the...

Victim. All jurisdictions require that the victim be a natural person; that is, a human being who was still alive before being murdered. In other words, under the law one cannot murder a corpse, a corporation, a non-human animal, or any other non-human organism such as a plant or bacterium. California's murder statute, penal code section 187, expressly mentioned a fetus as being capable of being k...

Liquidated damages, also referred to as liquidated and ascertained damages (LADs), are damages whose amount the parties designate during the formation of a contract for the injured party to collect as compensation upon a specific breach (for example, late performance). This is most applicable where the damages are intangible, such as a failure by the contractor on a public project to fulfill minor...

The tort of negligent infliction of emotional distress (NIED) is a controversial cause of action, which is available in nearly all U.S. states but is severely constrained and limited in the majority of them. The underlying concept is that one has a legal duty to use reasonable care to avoid causing emotional distress to another individual. If one fails in this duty and unreasonably causes emotiona...

General Welfare Clause to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; Of all the limitations upon the power to tax and spend, the General Welfare Clause appears to have achieved notoriety as one of the most contentious. The dispute over the clause arises from two distinct disagreements. The first concerns whether the General Welfare Clause grants an i...

Property Deeds registration is a land management system whereby all important instruments which relate to the common law title to parcels of land are registered on a government-maintained register, to facilitate the transfer of title. The system has been used in some common law jurisdictions and continues to be used in some jurisdictions, including most of the United States. It is being replaced b...

Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. This state of mind may, depending upon the jurisdiction, distinguish murder from other forms of unlawful homicide, such as manslaughter. Manslaughter is killing committed in the absence of malice, brought about by reasonable provocation,...

Specific performance is an equitable remedy in the law of contract, whereby a court issues an order requiring a party to perform a specific act, such as to complete performance of the contract. It is typically available in the sale of land law, but otherwise is not generally available if damages are an appropriate alternative. Specific performance is almost never available for contracts of persona...

Negligence (Latin, negligentia) is a failure to exercise appropriate and/or ethical ruled care expected to be exercised amongst specified circumstances. The area of tort law known as negligence involves harm caused by failing to act as a form of carelessness possibly with extenuating circumstances. The core concept of negligence is that people should exercise reasonable care in their actions, by t...

The Taxing and Spending Clause (which contains provisions known as the General Welfare Clause and the Uniformity Clause), Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution, grants the federal government of the United States its power of taxation. While authorizing Congress to levy taxes, this clause permits the levying of taxes for two purposes only: to pay the debts of the United S...

Torrens title is a land registration and land transfer system, in which a state creates and maintains a register of land holdings, which serves as the conclusive evidence (termed "indefeasibility") of title of the person recorded on the register as the proprietor (owner), and of all other interests recorded on the register. Ownership of land is transferred by registration of a transfer of title, i...

Corporate manslaughter is a crime in several jurisdictions, including England and Wales and Hong Kong. It enables a corporation to be punished and censured for culpable conduct that leads to a person's death. This extends beyond any compensation that might be awarded in civil litigation or any criminal prosecution of an individual (including an employee or contractor). The Corporate Manslaughter a...

A legal remedy, also referred to as judicial relief or a judicial remedy, is the means with which a court of law, usually in the exercise of civil law jurisdiction, enforces a right, imposes a penalty, or makes another court order to impose its will in order to compensate for the harm of a wrongful act inflicted upon an individual. In common law jurisdictions and mixed civil-common law jurisdictio...

Breach of promise is a common law tort, abolished in many jurisdictions. It was also called breach of contract to marry, and the remedy awarded was known as heart balm. From at least the Middle Ages until the early 20th century, a man's promise of engagement to marry a woman was considered, in many jurisdictions, a legally binding contract. If the man were to subsequently change his mind, he would...

Development of the modern income tax. Congress re-adopted the income tax in 1913, levying a 1% tax on net personal incomes above $3,000, with a 6% surtax on incomes above $500,000. By 1918, the top rate of the income tax was increased to 77% (on income over $1,000,000) to finance World War I. The top marginal tax rate was reduced to 58% in 1922, to 25% in 1925, and finally to 24% in 1929. In 1932...

In law, conveyancing is the transfer of legal title to (of) real property from one person to another, or the granting of an encumbrance such as a mortgage or a lien. A typical conveyancing transaction has two major phases: the exchange of contracts (when equitable interests are created) and completion (also called settlement, when legal title passes and equitable rights merge with the legal title)...

Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th century BC. The definition of manslaughter differs among legal jurisdictions. Types. Voluntary. In voluntary manslaughter, the offender had intent to kill or s...

In legal theory, particularly in law and economics, efficient breach is a voluntary breach of contract and payment of damages by a party who concludes that they would incur greater economic loss by performing under the contract. Development of the theory. The theory of efficient breach seeks to explain the common law's preference for expectation damages for breach of contract, as distinguished fro...

The tort of seduction was a civil wrong or tort in common law legal systems, and still exists in some jurisdictions. Originally, it allowed an unmarried woman's father - or other person employing her services - to sue for the loss of these services, when she became pregnant and could no longer perform them. Over time, the tort was altered, so that instead, it would be used by an unmarried woman to...

The history of taxation in the United States begins with the colonial protest against British taxation policy in the 1760s, leading to the American Revolution. The independent nation collected taxes on imports ("tariffs"), whiskey, and (for a while) on glass windows. States and localities collected poll taxes on voters and property taxes on land and commercial buildings. In addition, there were th...

Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more generally) buildings or housing in general. Real estate is different from personal property, which is not permanently attached to the land, such as vehicles, boats,...

Intimidation (also called cowing) is intentional behavior that would cause a person of reasonable apprehension to fear injury or harm. It is not necessary to prove that the behavior caused the victim to experience terror or panic. Threat, criminal threatening (or threatening behavior) is the crime of intentionally or knowingly putting another person in fear of bodily injury. "Threat of harm genera...

Fundamental breach of contract, is a controversial concept within the common law of contract. The doctrine was, in particular, nurtured by Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls from 1962 to 1982, but it did not find favor with the House of Lords. Whereas breach of condition is a serious breach that "denies the plaintiff the main benefit of the contract", fundamental breach was supposed to be even wors...