780 articles
Defamation in Australia
Defamation in Australia: a common law tort, harmonized since 2006 by uniform state and territory Defamation Acts based on Model Defamation Provisions, with a one-year limitation period, a $250,000 general damages cap, a serious-harm threshold from 2021, and 2023-24 digital intermediary reforms.
Defamation law of New Zealand
The defamation law of New Zealand is the tort law of injury to reputation, grounded in the common law and the Defamation Act 1992, in force since 1993.
Defence of property
Defence of property, or defense of property, is a legal justification allowing reasonable, usually non-deadly force to protect possessions, distinct from self-defense; Katko v. Briney, the MPC, and Canadian Bill C-26 set its limits.
Defences and remedies in defamation law
Defences and remedies in defamation law covers the defenses to a defamation claim, such as truth, honest opinion, and privilege, and the remedies, chiefly damages and injunctions.
Defences to nuisance
Defences to nuisance are the legal answers to claims of unreasonable interference with land or public comfort, ranging from complete defenses like statutory authority and prescription to limits on remedies.
Defender of the bond
Defender of the bond (defensor vinculi): a Catholic tribunal official required in every marriage nullity case, appointed by the bishop to argue against nullity, write animadversions, and appeal adverse sentences.
Defenses to divorce
Defenses to divorce: connivance, collusion, condonation, and recrimination, the classic bars a spouse could raise against a fault-based divorce petition, their origins, and their abolition under no-fault divorce.
Delict
Delict is the civil-law category of private wrongs, the Roman-law counterpart of common-law tort, covering wrongful acts like theft and property damage remedied by civil damages; rooted in the Twelve Tables and lex Aquilia, used today in Scotland and South Africa.
Delict (Scots law)
Delict is the Scots law of civil liability for wrongdoing, the counterpart of English tort law. Rooted in Roman law and the Institutional writers, it uses the general action for reparation and recognizes no nominate delict of negligence.
Demesne
Demesne: land a lord or owner kept and worked for his own use rather than granting to tenants; in medieval England the manorial lord's in-hand land, in royal form the Crown's direct estates.
Depp v. Heard
Depp v. Heard, CL-2019-2911, was the 2022 Fairfax County, Virginia defamation trial in which Johnny Depp sued Amber Heard over her 2018 Washington Post op-ed; the jury awarded Depp $10 million plus reduced punitive damages and Heard $2 million, later settled for $1 million.
Digital assets in estate administration
Digital assets in estate administration are the online accounts, cryptocurrency, and electronic property that executors must locate, access, value, and distribute when an account holder dies.
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Public Law 105-304 (1998), implements the WIPO Copyright Treaty and WPPT; it bans DRM circumvention under Section 1201 and grants online service providers Section 512 takedown safe harbors.
Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market
Directive (EU) 2019/790, the EU Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive (CDSM Directive), adopted 17 April 2019: press publishers' right (Article 15), platform liability (Article 17), TDM exceptions, upheld by CJEU C-401/19.
Disclaimer
Disclaimer: also exemption, exclusion, or exculpatory clause. A statement limiting responsibility or defining legal rights, used in contracts, warranties, trademarks, and tax; unenforceable against fraud, gross negligence, or unfair consumer terms.
Disgorgement
Disgorgement is a gain-based monetary remedy stripping wrongdoers of profits from unlawful conduct, unlike damages. Covers US securities enforcement (Kokesh, Liu, Sripetch 2026), antitrust, contract and fiduciary law, and comparative UK-EU approaches.
Divorce
Divorce is the court-ordered legal dissolution of a marriage. Key facts: no-fault divorce began in California in 1969, reached all 50 US states by 2010, and England adopted it in 2022.
Divorce Act (Canada)
The Divorce Act (Loi sur le divorce), R.S.C. 1985, c. 3 (2nd Supp.), is Canada's federal divorce statute: sole ground marriage breakdown, one-year habitual-residence jurisdiction, and parenting orders with 60-day relocation notice since March 1, 2021.
Divorce in European civil-law jurisdictions
Divorce in European civil-law jurisdictions is governed by codified family law, with grounds of fault, irretrievable breakdown, acceptance, and mutual consent converging toward divorce by consent.
Divorce in Islam
Divorce in Islam (talaq, khula, faskh) is the dissolution of marriage under Islamic family law: the husband's unilateral talaq, the wife's khula, and judicial faskh, across Sunni and Ja'fari schools and modern state codes from Egypt to Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
Divorce law
Divorce law is the body of law under which courts dissolve marriages and grant spouses the right to remarry, covering grounds for divorce, waiting periods, property division, and support.
Divorce law in Canada
Divorce law in Canada is governed by the federal Divorce Act, which grants divorce on the ground of marriage breakdown, proved by one year of separation, adultery, or cruelty.
Divorce law in Commonwealth jurisdictions
Divorce law in Commonwealth jurisdictions covers Canada and Australia, whose no-fault regimes grant divorce on the sole ground of marriage breakdown, usually proven by one year of separation.
Divorce law in England and Wales
Divorce law in England and Wales governs how a marriage is legally ended by court. Since April 2022 it has required only a statement of irretrievable breakdown, with no fault.
Divorce law in the United States
Divorce law in the United States is set entirely by state law, with no federal statute; all 50 states offer no-fault divorce, California first in 1969.
Divorce of same-sex couples
Divorce of same-sex couples: legal dissolution of same-sex marriages, also called same-sex divorce. Distinguished by pre-Obergefell jurisdiction barriers, wed-locked couples, the 2022 Respect for Marriage Act, and child-parentage issues.
Divorce Reform Act 1969
Divorce Reform Act 1969 (c. 55), English and Welsh statute in force 1 January 1971 that made irretrievable breakdown the sole divorce ground, proved by five facts, replacing fault grounds; consolidated in the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973.
Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020
The Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020 (c. 11) is an England and Wales statute introducing no-fault divorce: it replaced the five fault facts with a statement of irretrievable breakdown, allowed joint applications, barred contesting, and set a 20-week minimum period, in force 6 April 2022.
Domestic partnership
A domestic partnership is a legal status giving two unmarried people formal recognition and rights such as inheritance and hospital visitation under state law, without marriage; the federal government does not treat partners as spouses.
Domestic violence
Domestic violence (domestic abuse, intimate partner violence) is a pattern of coercive behavior, physical, sexual, economic, or psychological, used to control an intimate partner. Key facts: 1 in 3 women affected worldwide; 84% of countries have DV laws; protection orders are the main civil remedy.