780 articles
Boy Scouts of America sexual abuse settlement (2022)
The Boy Scouts of America sexual abuse settlement of 2022 is the roughly $2.7 billion compensation plan for survivors approved in BSA's bankruptcy, the largest in US history.
Breach of contract
Breach of contract: failure without lawful excuse to perform contractual obligations, by non-performance, defective or delayed performance, or renunciation. Covers material versus minor breach, anticipatory breach, termination, expectation damages, mitigation, liquidated damages, and CISG remedies.
Breskvar v Wall
Breskvar v Wall ([1971] HCA 70, (1971) 126 CLR 376) is the High Court of Australia's leading Torrens-system case establishing immediate indefeasibility: registration vests title despite a void or fraudulent transfer instrument.
Brussels II Regulation
Brussels II Regulation: EU regulations (1347/2000, 2201/2003 Brussels IIa, 2019/1111 Brussels IIb) allocating jurisdiction and governing recognition of cross-border divorce, separation, annulment, and parental responsibility judgments; applies to all EU Member States except Denmark.
Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch
The Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, known as the BGB or German Civil Code, is Germany's civil code, enacted in 1896 and in force since 1900, regulating contracts, property, family, and inheritance.
Burnie Port Authority v General Jones Pty Ltd
Burnie Port Authority v General Jones Pty Ltd [1994] HCA 13; (1994) 179 CLR 520, High Court of Australia tort case in which the majority (Mason CJ, Deane, Dawson, Toohey, Gaudron JJ) subsumed the Rylands v Fletcher strict liability rule into ordinary negligence via a non-delegable duty of care.
Cambridge Water Co Ltd v Eastern Counties Leather plc
Cambridge Water Co Ltd v Eastern Counties Leather plc [1994] 2 AC 264, House of Lords, 9 December 1993: PCE spillages at a Sawston tannery contaminated a borehole 1.3 miles away; foreseeability of damage of the relevant type was held a prerequisite of liability in nuisance and under Rylands v Fletcher, so ECL was not liable.
Canadian defamation law
Canadian defamation law: common law tort requiring defamatory words, reference, and publication, with falsity and damage presumed; key defence is responsible communication on matters of public interest from Grant v. Torstar (2009), plus anti-SLAPP laws and Criminal Code defamatory libel.
Canadian tort law
Canadian tort law: private-law compensation for civil wrongs. Common law torts (negligence dominant) in the provinces, extra-contractual liability under the Civil Code of Quebec in Quebec; bijural federal drafting, apportionment, SCC developments.
Canal de Craponne
Canal de Craponne: French Cour de cassation case of 6 March 1876 (Commune de Pélissanne v marquis de Galliffet) rejecting judicial revision of contracts for imprévision, upholding a 3-sol sixteenth-century watering fee, governing French civil contracts until Article 1195 of the Civil Code in 2016.
Canon law
Canon law (jus canonicum) is the Catholic Church's own legal system, from Gratian's Decretum (c. 1140) and the Corpus iuris canonici to the 1983 Code, its penal-law revision of 2021, and ongoing synodal amendments.
Capacity (law)
Capacity (law): the legal ability to enter binding contracts, requiring minimum age and sound mind. Related to incapacity doctrine (void or voidable contracts), minors, mental incapacity, and conflict-of-laws connecting factors.
Caparo Industries plc v Dickman
Caparo Industries plc v Dickman [1990] UKHL 2, House of Lords negligence case establishing foreseeability, proximity and fair-just-reasonable elements for duty of care; auditors owed no duty to investors; universal test rejected by Robinson 2018.
Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co
Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co [1893] 1 QB 256, English Court of Appeal case holding a £100 influenza-reward advertisement was a binding unilateral offer accepted by performance, with the £1,000 Alliance Bank deposit negating puffery; leading precedent on unilateral contracts.
Cecil Jacobson
Cecil B. Jacobson, Jr., Virginia fertility doctor and former George Washington University geneticist, convicted in 1992 on 52 fraud and perjury counts for using his own sperm in patient inseminations and inducing false pregnancies with HCG at his Reproductive Genetics Center clinic.
Central Waqf Council
Central Waqf Council: Indian statutory advisory body under the Ministry of Minority Affairs, set up 1964 under the Waqf Act; chaired by the Union Minority Affairs Minister; advises on Waqf Boards and runs waqf development schemes.
Change of position
Change of position is the principal defense to unjust enrichment, letting a good-faith recipient reduce restitution; English law recognized it in 1991 in Lipkin Gorman v Karpnale Ltd.
Change of position (defence)
Change of position is the principal defence to unjust enrichment claims, recognized in Lipkin Gorman (1991), reducing restitution pro tanto where a good-faith defendant's position has changed; adopted across common law jurisdictions with divergent reliance rules.
Charitable trust
Charitable trust: a common law trust dedicated to a public charitable purpose rather than named beneficiaries, perpetual and exempt from the Rule Against Perpetuities, enforced by the Attorney General, and modified under cy pres when its purpose fails.
Charlie Gard case
Charlie Gard case: 2017 UK legal dispute over Great Ormond Street infant with MDDS (RRM2B); parents' experimental-treatment bid failed in High Court, Court of Appeal, Supreme Court, and ECHR; he died 28 July 2017.
Child abduction and divorce overlap
Child abduction and divorce overlap where the end of a cross-border marriage produces a child's removal abroad, triggering the 1980 Hague Convention's summary-return machinery alongside divorce and custody proceedings.
Child abuse
Child abuse, or child maltreatment, is abuse and neglect of children under 18, including physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, neglect, and exploitation; WHO estimates 400 million young children experience violent discipline and 1 in 5 women report childhood sexual abuse.
Child custody
Child custody law determines legal authority over a child and where the child lives after separation. Also called parental responsibility or child arrangements orders; covers best-interests standard, joint versus sole custody, jurisdiction, and 2025 reforms.
Child selling
Child selling is the exchange of a child for payment, for sexual exploitation, forced labor, illegal adoption, or organs; a 2000 UN protocol obliges states to criminalize it.
Child support
Child support is money paid by a noncustodial parent to the custodial parent to help raise children after separation; courts may order either or both parents to pay.
Child support guidelines in the United States
Child support guidelines in the United States are state presumptive formulas, required by federal law since 1984 and made rebuttable presumptions in 1988, using income shares (41+ states), percentage-of-income (6 states), or Melson formula (3 states) models.
Child support in Australia
Child support in Australia is assessed by Services Australia under the Child Support (Assessment) Act 1989 using an eight-step formula based on both parents' incomes, care percentages, and Costs of Children tables; the scheme began in 1988 and was reformed in 2006-2008.
Child support in the United Kingdom
Child support (child maintenance) in the UK: payments from a non-resident parent, arranged privately or via the Child Maintenance Service (Direct Pay or Collect and Pay), calculated from gross income under the Child Support Act 1991 system.
Child support in the United States
Child support in the United States: court-ordered payments from noncustodial parents, enforced through the federal-state Title IV-D Child Support Enforcement program created in 1975, run by HHS's OCSE with 66% federal reimbursement, distributing $27.4 billion in FY2022.
Children Act 1989
The Children Act 1989 is the principal statute on children in England and Wales, combining private law disputes between parents with the state's public-law powers to protect children.