780 articles
Marriage in Israel
Marriage in Israel is conducted only through recognized religious authorities (Chief Rabbinate, Sharia, Druze, ecclesiastical courts); no civil marriage exists domestically. Couples excluded marry abroad, notably via Utah online marriages recognized after the 2023 Bril Supreme Court ruling.
Marriage in Ukraine
Marriage in Ukraine (шлюб): state-registered union of a man and a woman under the 2002 Family Code; 18-year minimum age, one-month ZAGS/DRACS waiting period, joint property default, wartime online registration since 2024.
Marriage law
Marriage law: the legal rules governing who may marry, valid formation, spousal rights, and dissolution. Covers the shift from canon law to civil marriage (France 1791, England 1753/1836), minimum ages, divorce, and same-sex marriage recognition.
Marybeth Whitehead
Mary Beth Whitehead (Whitehead Gould), American surrogate mother in the Baby M case; signed a 1985 $10,000 contract with William Stern, refused to surrender the 1986 baby, and won restored parental rights and visitation in the 1988 New Jersey ruling.
Matrilineality in Judaism
Matrilineality in Judaism: the halakhic rule that Jewish status follows the mother, codified in Mishnah Kiddushin 3:12, developed after the Babylonian exile, modified by Reform Judaism's 1983 resolution, and distinct from Israel's Law of Return.
Matrimonial Causes Act 1937
Matrimonial Causes Act 1937: English divorce reform statute from A. P. Herbert's Private Member's Bill, adding desertion (3 years), cruelty and incurable insanity (5 years) to adultery, with a three-year bar and new nullity grounds.
Matrimonial property in the United Kingdom and Ireland
Matrimonial property in the United Kingdom and Ireland dictates asset division upon divorce, with England and Wales using needs-based discretion and Scotland using a statutory fair-sharing model.
Maxims of equity
Maxims of equity: short pithy statements (equity follows the law; clean hands; equity acts in personam) of principles running through Chancery equity, guiding principles rather than binding rules, first collected in 1728 and contested today.
McLibel case
McLibel case: McDonald's libel action against Helen Steel and David Morris over a 1986 London Greenpeace leaflet; 313-day trial, longest in English legal history; 2005 ECHR judgment found UK violated their fair-trial and expression rights.
Medical malpractice
Medical malpractice is professional negligence by healthcare providers, a tort requiring proof of duty, breach, causation, and damages. Rooted in English common law, prominent in the US since the 1840s, with damages caps and no-fault alternatives.
Minor (law)
Minor (law): a person below the age of majority, usually 18 in the US, UK, and Australia. Minors have limited contractual capacity (voidable or void ab initio depending on jurisdiction), remain under parental care unless emancipated, and are treated differently in criminal, property, and record-privacy matters.
Misrepresentation
Misrepresentation is a false or misleading statement, or a material omission that misleads, made to induce reliance; it can make a contract voidable and may ground rescission or damages.
Missives of sale
Missives of sale are the exchange of formal letters between buyer's and seller's solicitors that form the binding contract for property sale in Scots law, concluded by a final unqualified acceptance, usually using the Scottish Standard Clauses, with no deposit typically paid.
Mistake (contract law)
Mistake in contract law is an erroneous belief of fact or law at contract formation that may void or voidable a contract. Covers common, mutual, and unilateral mistake, Bell v Lever Bros, Solle v Butcher, Great Peace, Restatement rules, and UNIDROIT Principles.
Modification and termination of child support
Modification and termination of child cover the legal procedures for changing or ending a child support order, which courts vary only when circumstances have materially changed since the original order.
Moge v Moge
Moge v Moge is a 1992 Supreme Court of Canada decision by Justice Claire L'Heureux-Dubé that rejected the self-sufficiency model and adopted compensatory spousal support under the 1985 Divorce Act.
Mohd. Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum (شاہ بانو بیگم)
Mohd. Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum (شاہ بانو بیگم), 1985 Indian Supreme Court case holding Section 125 CrPC maintenance applies to divorced Muslim women beyond iddat; led to the 1986 Muslim Women Act.
Mortgage law
Mortgage law governs using an interest in land as loan security, covering title versus lien theories, the equity of redemption, deeds of trust, and judicial versus nonjudicial foreclosure, with state-varying redemption periods and federal CFPB servicing rules.
Mortgage loan
Mortgage loan: a loan secured by real property, also called a home loan or housing loan. Borrower pledges the house as collateral; key choices are conventional versus FHA/VA/USDA programs, 15- or 30-year terms, and fixed versus adjustable rates.
MRR v GR
MRR v GR [2010] HCA 4 (also cited as 240 CLR 461) is a High Court of Australia family law decision holding that section 65DAA of the Family Law Act requires shared parenting orders to be both in the child's best interests and reasonably practicable.
Muir v Glasgow Corp
Muir v Glasgow Corporation (Glasgow Corp v Muir), [1943] AC 448, a House of Lords negligence case from a 1940 tea-urn scalding in King's Park, Glasgow, established the objective reasonable-foreseeability standard of care in Scots delict and English tort.
Musk v. Altman
Musk v. Altman, 4:24-cv-04722-YGR (N.D. Cal.), Elon Musk's lawsuit against Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, OpenAI, and Microsoft alleging betrayal of OpenAI's nonprofit founding mission; a jury found the claims time-barred on May 18, 2026.
Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019
The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019 (Triple Talaq Law) is an Indian statute declaring talaq-e-biddat void and criminalizing its pronouncement with up to three years' imprisonment, plus subsistence allowance and custody rights.
Napoleonic Code
Napoleonic Code (Code civil des Français), French civil code promulgated 21 March 1804 with 36 laws and 2,281 articles in three books; renamed Code Napoléon in 1807, still in force in amended form, and the foundation of many civil law systems including Louisiana's.
Natives Land Act, 1913
Natives Land Act, 1913 (Act No. 27 of 1913), South African law passed 19 June 1913 confining African land ownership to about 7% of the Union, first statutory territorial segregation, basis for apartheid land law, repealed 1991.
Natural person
Natural person: a living human being as a bearer of legal rights and duties, contrasted with the juridical or artificial person such as a corporation. Covers capacity at birth and majority, statutory drafting, GDPR, and Roman-law origins.
Necessaries doctrine
The necessaries doctrine is a common-law rule holding one spouse responsible for debts the other incurred for essential goods and services, now used almost exclusively for unpaid medical bills.
Necessity (tort)
Necessity (tort) is a common law defense to trespass, split into private necessity, a qualified privilege requiring compensation for actual damages (Vincent v Lake Erie), and public necessity, a complete defense protecting the community.
Negligence
Negligence, also known as the tort of negligence, is a civil wrong in which someone fails to show the care a reasonable person would show in the same situation.
Negligence across legal systems
Negligence across legal systems compares how England, France, and Germany define liability for carelessly causing harm, contrasting the common-law duty of care with codified delict articles.