Internationally.

Article 17 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states

1. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honor and reputation.

2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

United States.

The origins of U.S. defamation law pre-date the American Revolution; one famous 1734 case involving John Peter Zenger sowed the seed for the later establishment of truth as an absolute defense against libel charges. The outcome of the case is one of jury nullification, and not a case where the defense acquitted itself as a matter of law, as before the Zenger case defamation law had not provided the defense of truth.

Though the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was designed to protect freedom of the press, for most of the history of the United States, the Supreme Court neglected to apply the First Amendment to libel cases involving media defendants. This left libel laws, based upon the traditional common law of defamation inherited from the English legal system, mixed across the states. The 1964 case New York Times Co. v Sullivan dramatically altered the nature of libel law in the United States by elevating the fault element for public officials to actual malice – that is, public figures could win a libel suit only if they could demonstrate the publisher's "knowledge that the information was false" or that the information was published "with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not".

Later the Supreme Court held that statements that are so ridiculous to be clearly not true are protected from libel claims, as are statements of opinion relating to matters of public concern that do not contain a provably false factual connotation. Subsequent state and federal cases have addressed defamation law and the Internet.

Defamation law in the United States is much less plaintiff-friendly than its counterparts in European and the Commonwealth countries. A comprehensive discussion of what is and is not libel or slander under United States law is difficult, as the definition differs between different states and is further affected by federal law. Some states codify what constitutes slander and libel together, merging the concepts into a single defamation law.

Civil defamation.

Although laws vary by state, in the United States a defamation action typically requires that a plaintiff claiming defamation prove that the defendant:

1. made a false and defamatory statement concerning the plaintiff;

2. shared the statement with a third party (that is, somebody other than the person defamed by the statement);

3. if the defamatory matter is of public concern, acted in a manner which amounted at least to negligence on the part of the defendant; and

4. caused damages to the plaintiff.

American writers and publishers are protected from foreign libel judgments not compliant with the US First Amendment, or libel tourism, by the SPEECH Act, which was passed by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2010. It is based on the New York State 2008 Libel Terrorism Protection Act (also known as "Rachel's Law", after Rachel Ehrenfeld who initiated the state and federal laws). Both the New York state law and the federal law were passed unanimously.

Defenses to defamation that may defeat a lawsuit, including possible dismissal before trial, include the statement being one of opinion rather than fact or being "fair comment and criticism". Truth is always a defense.

Some aliens on temporary work assignment.

When a person temporarily works outside their country of origin, the person may be covered under two different countries' social security programs for the same work. In order to relieve a person of double-taxation, certain countries and the United States have entered into tax treaties, known as totalization agreements.

Aliens whose employer sends them to the United States on a temporary work assignment may be exempt from paying FICA tax on their earnings from working in the United States if there is a totalization agreement between the United States and the worker's home country. Countries who have such a tax treaty with the United States include Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary,  Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and United Kingdom.

In order to claim an exemption from paying FICA tax, the alien worker must be on a temporary assignment of no more than five years and the alien worker must have a certificate from the country stating that the worker will continue to be covered by the country's social security system while the worker is in the United States.

Some family employees.

When a parent employs a child under age 18 (or under age 21 for domestic service), payments to the child are exempt from FICA tax. The exemption also applies when a child is employed by a partnership in which each partner is a parent of the child. The exemption does not apply when the child is employed by a corporation or a partnership with partners who are not the child's parent.

Foreign governments and some international organizations.

Foreign governments are exempt from FICA tax on payments to their employees. International organizations are also exempt if the organization is listed in the International Organizations Immunities Act.

If an employee is a U.S. citizen, then the employee must typically pay self-employment tax on earnings from work performed in the United States.

Services performed by certain individuals hired to be relieved from unemployment.

If a state or local government pays individuals for services performed to be relieved from unemployment, the payments to the individuals are exempt from FICA tax. The services must not be performed by individuals under other types of programs. Payments are not exempt from FICA tax if the program's primary purpose is to increase an individual's chances of employment by providing training and work experience.

Services performed by inmates.

Payments to inmates of a prison for services performed for the state or local government that operates the prison are exempt from FICA tax, regardless of the location where the services are performed. Services performed as part of a work-release program are exempt from FICA tax if and only if the individuals are not considered employees under common law, such as when the individual has control over what work is done and how the work is done.

Services performed by patients.

Payments to patients of an institution for services performed for the state of local government that operates the institution are exempt from FICA tax. Services performed by patients as part of an institution's rehabilitative program or therapeutic program are exempt from FICA tax.

In English common law, fee tail or entail is a form of trust established by deed or settlement which restricts the sale or inheritance of an estate in real property and prevents the property from being sold, devised by will, or otherwise alienated by the tenant-in-possession, and instead causes it to pass automatically by operation of law to an heir determined by the settlement deed. The term fee tail is from Medieval Latin feodum talliatum, which means "cut short fee" and is in contrast to "fee simple" where no such restriction exists and where the possessor has an absolute title (although subject to the allodial title of the monarch) in the property which he can bequeath or otherwise dispose of as he wishes. Equivalent legal concepts exist or formerly existed in many other European countries and elsewhere.

Purpose.

The fee tail allowed a patriarch to perpetuate his blood-line, family-name, honor and armorials in the persons of a series of powerful and wealthy male descendants. By keeping his estate intact in the hands of one heir alone, in an ideally indefinite and pre-ordained chain of succession, his own wealth, power and family honor would not be dissipated amongst several male lines, as became the case for example in Napoleonic France by operation of the Napoleonic Code which gave each child the legal right to inherit an equal share of the patrimony, where a formerly great landowning family could be reduced in a few generations to a series of small-holders or peasant farmers. It therefore approaches the true corporation which is a legal body or person which does not die and continues in existence and can hold wealth indefinitely. Indeed, as a form of trust, whilst the individual trustees may die, replacements are appointed and the trust itself continues, ideally indefinitely. In England almost seamless successions were made from patriarch to patriarch, the smoothness of which were often enhanced by baptizing the eldest son and heir with his father's Christian name for several generations, for example the FitzWarin family, all named Fulk. Such indefinite inalienable land-holdings were soon seen as restrictive on the optimum productive ability of land, which was often converted to deer-parks or pleasure grounds by the wealthy tenant-in-possession, which was damaging to the nation as a whole, and thus laws against perpetuities were enacted, which restricted entails to a maximum number of lives.

In common law and statutory law, a life estate (or life tenancy) is the ownership of immovable property for the duration of a person's life. In legal terms, it is an estate in real property that ends at death when ownership of the property may revert to the original owner, or it may pass to another person. The owner of a life estate is called a "life tenant".

In the combined jurisdiction of England and Wales since 1925 a freehold estate intended to be 'held' as a life interest takes effect only as an interest enjoyed in equity, specifically as an interest in possession trust. The other type of land ownership is leasehold and although most long leases are for a period of between 99 and 999 years 'leases for life' will be interpreted in often unpredictable ways as either as a license or a lease.

Principles.

The ownership of a life estate is of limited duration because it ends at the death of a person. Its owner is the life tenant (typically also the 'measuring life') and it carries with it the right to enjoy certain benefits of ownership of the property, chiefly income derived from rent or other uses of the property and the right of occupation, during his or her possession. Because a life estate ceases to exist at the death of the measuring person's life, the life tenant, a temporary owner, may short-term let but cannot sell, give or bequeath the property indefinitely (including assuming it could pass to heirs (intestate)) or creating a purported document leaving it to devisees (testate)

In criminal law, the term offense against the person or crime against the person usually refers to a crime which is committed by direct physical harm or force being applied to another person.

They are usually analyzed by division into the following categories:

Fatal offenses.

Sexual offences.

Non-fatal non-sexual offences.

They can be further analyzed by division into:

Assaults.

Injuries.

And it is then possible to consider degrees and aggravations, and distinguish between intentional actions (for example, assault) and criminal negligence (for example, criminal endangerment).

Offenses against the person are usually taken to comprise:

 Fatal offenses.

Murder.

Manslaughter.

Non-fatal non-sexual offences.

Assault, or common assault.

Battery, or common battery.

Wounding or wounding with intent.

Poisoning.

Assault occasioning actual bodily harm (and derivative offences).

Inflicting grievous bodily harm or causing grievous bodily harm with intent (and derivative offenses).

These crimes are usually grouped together in common law countries as a legacy of the Offenses against the Person Act 1861.

Although most sexual offences will also be offences against the person, for various reasons (including sentencing and registration of offenders) sexual crimes are usually categorised separately. Similarly, although many homicides also involve an offense against the person, they are usually categorized under the more serious category.

An assignment is a legal term used in the context of the law of contract and of property. In both instances, assignment is the process whereby a person, the assignor, transfers rights or benefits to another, the assignee. An assignment may not transfer a duty, burden or detriment without the express agreement of the assignee. The right or benefit being assigned may be a gift (such as a waiver) or it may be paid for with a contractual consideration such as money.

The rights may be vested or contingent, and may include an equitable interest. Mortgages and loans are relatively straightforward and amenable to assignment. An assignor may assign rights, such as a mortgage note issued by a third party borrower, and this would require the latter to make repayments to the assignee.

A related concept of assignment is novation wherein, by agreement with all parties, one contracting party is replaced by a new party. While novation requires the consent of all parties, assignment needs no consent from other non-assigning parties. However, in the case of assignment, the consent of the non-assigning party may be required by a contractual provision.

Procedure.

The assignment does not necessarily have to be in writing; however, the assignment agreement must show an intent to transfer rights. The effect of a valid assignment is to extinguish privity (in other words, contractual relationship, including right to sue) between the assignor and the third-party obligor and create privity between the obligor and the assignee.

Liabilities and duties.

Unless the contractual agreement states otherwise, the assignee typically does not receive more rights than the assignor, and the assignor may remain liable to the original counterparty for the performance of the contract. The assignor often delegates duties in addition to rights to the assignee, but the assignor may remain ultimately responsible.

However, in the United States, there are various laws that limit the liability of the assignee, often to facilitate credit, as assignees are typically lenders. Notable examples include a provision in the Truth in Lending Act and provisions in the Consumer Leasing Act and the Home Ownership Equity Protection Act.

In other cases, the contract may be a negotiable instrument in which the person receiving the instrument may become a holder in due course, which is similar to an assignee except those issues, such as lack of performance, by the assignor may not be a valid defense for the obligor. As a response, the United States Federal Trade Commission promulgated Rule 433, formally known as the "Trade Regulation Rule Concerning Preservation of Consumers' Claims and Defenses", which "effectively abolished the doctrine in consumer credit transactions". In 2012, the commission reaffirmed the regulation.

Assignment of contract rights

After the assignment of contractual rights, the assignee will receive all benefits that have accrued from the assignor. For example, if A contracts to sell his car for $100 to B, A may assign the benefits (the right to be paid $100) to C. In this case, Party C is not a third-party beneficiary, because the contract was not made for C's benefit. Assignment takes place after the contract was formed; they may not precede them.

Defenses.

Even if a statement is defamatory, there are circumstances in which such statements are permissible in law.

Truth.

Proving adverse public character statements to be true is often the best defense against a prosecution for libel or defamation. Statements of opinion that cannot be proven true or false will likely need to apply some other kind of defense.

Another important aspect of defamation is the difference between fact and opinion. Statements made as "facts" are frequently actionable defamation. Statements of opinion or pure opinion are not actionable. Some jurisdictions decline to recognize any legal distinction between fact and opinion. To win damages in a libel case, the plaintiff must show that the statements were "statements of fact or mixed statements of opinion and fact." Conversely, a typical defense to defamation is that the statements are opinion, relying on opinion privilege. One of the major tests to distinguish whether a statement is fact or opinion is whether the statement can be proved true or false in a court of law. If the statement can be proved true or false, then, on that basis, the case will be heard by a jury to determine whether it is true or false. If the statement cannot be proved true or false, the court may dismiss the libel case without it ever going to a jury to find facts in the case.

Under English common law, proving the truth of the allegation was originally a valid defense only in civil libel cases. Criminal libel was construed as an offense against the public at large based on the tendency of the libel to provoke breach of peace, rather than being a crime based upon the actual defamation per se; its veracity was therefore considered irrelevant. Section 6 of the Libel Act 1843 allowed the proven truth of the allegation to be used as a valid defense in criminal libel cases, but only if the defendant also demonstrated that publication was for the "Public Benefit".

In some systems, however, notably the Philippines, truth alone is not a defense.

It is also necessary in these cases to show that there is a well-founded public interest in the specific information being widely known, and this may be the case even for public figures. Public interest is generally not "what the public is interested in", but rather "what is in the interest of the public".

Noonan v Staples is sometimes cited as precedent that truth is not always a defense to libel in the U.S., but the case is actually not valid precedent on that issue because Staples did not argue First Amendment protection, which is one theory for truth as complete defense, for its statements. The court assumed in this case that the Massachusetts law was constitutional under the First Amendment without it being argued by the parties.

In a 2012 ruling involving Philippine libel law, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights commented, "Penal defamation laws should include defense of truth."

The Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) is a United States federal payroll (or employment) contribution directed towards both employees and employers to fund Social Security and Medicare—federal programs that provide benefits for retirees, people with disabilities, and children of deceased workers.

Calculation.

Overview.

Share of federal revenue from different tax sources. Individual income taxes (blue), payroll taxes/FICA (green), corporate income taxes (red).

The Federal Insurance Contributions Act is a tax mechanism codified in Title 26, Subtitle C, Chapter 21 of the United States Code.

Social security benefits include old-age, survivors, and disability insurance (OASDI); Medicare provides hospital insurance benefits for the elderly. The amount that one pays in payroll taxes throughout one's working career is associated indirectly with the social security benefits annuity that one receives as a retiree. Consequently, Kevin Hassett wrote that FICA is not a tax because its collection is directly tied to benefits that one is entitled to collect later in life. However, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Flemming v Nestor (1960) that the Social Security system is neither a pension nor an insurance program and that no one has an accrued property right to benefits from the system regardless of how much that person may have contributed. FICA therefore behaves as a tax for all practical purposes, earmarked for particular uses by Congress but fully subject to Congressional authority, including redirection.

The FICA tax applies to earned income only and is not imposed on investment income such as rental income, interest, or dividends. The Hospital Insurance (HI) portion of FICA, which funds Medicare Part A hospital benefits, applies to all earned income, which the OASDI portion of the tax is imposed on earned income only up to cap annually set by Congress ($137,700 in 2020). In 2004, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities stated that three-quarters of taxpayers pay more in payroll taxes than they do in income taxes. FICA is subject to neither the standard deduction nor any personal exemption and so is generally considered to be a regressive tax.

In English law, a fee simple or fee simple absolute is an estate in land, a form of freehold ownership. A "fee" is a vested, inheritable, present possessory interest in land. A "fee simple" refers to a subcategory of such interests that features an absence of any temporal condition limiting its durational period under common law, whereas the highest possible form of ownership interest that can be held in real property is a "fee simple absolute," which is a subset characterized by an absence of limitations regarding the land's use (such as qualifiers or conditions that disallow certain uses of the land or subject the vested interest to termination). Allodial title is reserved to governments under a civil law structure. The rights of the fee-simple owner are limited by government powers of taxation, compulsory purchase, police power, and escheat, and may also be limited further by certain encumbrances or conditions in the deed, such as, for example, a condition that required the land to be used as a public park, with a reversion interest in the grantor if the condition fails; this is a fee simple conditional.

History.

The word "fee" is derived from fief, meaning a feudal landholding. Feudal land tenures existed in several varieties, most of which involved the tenant having to supply some service to his overlord, such as knight-service (military service). If the tenant's overlord was the king, grand serjeanty, then this might require providing many different services, such as providing horses in time of war or acting as the king's ceremonial butler. These fiefs gave rise to a complex relationship between landlord and tenant, involving duties on both sides. For example, in return for receiving his tenant's fealty or homage, the overlord had a duty to protect his tenant. When feudal land tenure was abolished all fiefs became "simple", without conditions attached to the tenancy.

In criminal law, incitement is the encouragement of another person to commit a crime. Depending on the jurisdiction, some or all types of incitement may be illegal. Where illegal, it is known as an inchoate offense, where harm is intended but may or may not have actually occurred.

International law.

The Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights requires that any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law. That few journalists have been prosecuted for incitement to genocide and war crimes despite their recruitment by governments as propagandists is explained by the relatively privileged social status of journalists and privileged institutional position of news organizations in liberal societies, which assign a high value to a free press.

Solicitation is the act of offering, or attempting to purchase, goods and/or services. Legal status may be specific to the time or place where it occurs. The crime of "solicitation to commit a crime" occurs when a person encourages, "solicits, requests, commands, importunes or otherwise attempts to cause" another person to attempt or commit a crime, with the purpose of thereby facilitating the attempt or commission of that crime.

United States.

In the United States, solicitation is the name of a crime, an inchoate offense that consists of a person offering money or inducing another to commit a crime with the specific intent that the person solicited commit the crime. For example, under federal law, for a solicitation conviction to occur the prosecution must prove both that defendant had the intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a felony crime of violence, and that the defendant commanded, induced, or otherwise endeavored to persuade the other person to commit the felony.

Differences in laws.

In the United States, the term "solicitation" implies some part of commercial element, consideration, or payment. In some other common law countries, the situation is different:

where the substantive offense is not committed, the charges are drawn from incitement, conspiracy, and attempt;

where the substantive offense is committed, the charges are drawn from conspiracy, counseling and procuring (see accessories), and the substantive offenses as joint principals (see common purpose).

Differences from other crimes.

Solicitation has in the U.S. these unique elements:

1. the encouragement of, bribing, requesting, or commanding a person.

2. to commit a substantive crime.

3. with the intent that the person solicited to commit the crime.

The doctrine of privity of contract is a common law principle which provides that a contract cannot confer rights or impose obligations upon any person who is not a party to the contract. 

The premise is that only parties to contracts should be able to sue to enforce their rights or claim damages as such. However, the doctrine has proven problematic because of its implications for contracts made for the benefit of third parties who are unable to enforce the obligations of the contracting parties. In England and Wales, the doctrine has been substantially weakened by the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999, which created a statutory exception to privity (enforceable third-party rights). 

Third party rights. 

Privity of contract occurs only between the parties to the contract, most commonly contract of sale of goods or services. Horizontal privity arises when the benefits from a contract are to be given to a third party. Vertical privity involves a contract between two parties, with an independent contract between one of the parties and another individual or corporation. 

If a third party gets a benefit under a contract, it does not have the right to go against the parties to the contract beyond its entitlement to a benefit. An example of this occurs when a manufacturer sells a product to a distributor and the distributor sells the product to a retailer. The retailer then sells the product to a consumer. There is no privity of contract between the manufacturer and the consumer. 

This, however, does not mean that the parties do not have another form of action: for instance, in Donoghue v Stevenson – a friend of Ms. Donoghue bought her a bottle of ginger beer, which contained the partially decomposed remains of a snail. Since the contract was between her friend and the shop owner, Mrs. Donoghue could not sue under the contract, but it was established that the manufacturer was in breach of a duty of care owed to her. Accordingly, she was awarded damages in the tort of negligence for having suffered gastroenteritis and "nervous shock".