780 articles
Domestic violence in India
Domestic violence in India, governed by the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 (PWDVA), a civil remedy covering physical, sexual, verbal, emotional, and economic abuse; shaped by Harsora v. Harsora (2016), which deleted 'adult male' from the respondent definition, with NFHS-5 spousal violence prevalence of 29.3%.
Domestic violence in the United States
Domestic violence in the United States: pattern of abusive behavior by an intimate partner, also called intimate partner violence. Measured by CDC NISVS (over 12 million victims yearly); legal framework centers on the 1994 Violence Against Women Act and its reauthorizations.
Domicile (law)
Domicile (law): the common-law connecting factor tying a person to one territorial legal system as a permanent home, requiring residence plus intent; distinct from nationality and residence; types are origin, choice, and dependence; UK tax domicile abolished April 2025.
Donald Cline
Donald Cline, retired Indianapolis-area fertility specialist, secretly used his own sperm to inseminate patients 1979-1986; exposed via 23andMe, linked to dozens of children, convicted of obstruction of justice in 2017.
Donoghue v Stevenson
Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562, the Paisley snail case, is the House of Lords decision establishing the neighbour principle and the modern tort of negligence, holding a ginger beer manufacturer owed a duty of care to a consumer without contract.
Dorothy Roberts
Dorothy Roberts is an American legal scholar and 2024 MacArthur Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania whose work on race, reproductive rights, and child welfare shaped activism and policy.
Dower
Mahr, also known as dower, is an obligatory payment of money or property that a husband must give his wife as part of an Islamic marriage contract.
Dowry system in India
The dowry system in India, known locally as Dahhej or Jahez, transfers wealth from the bride's family to the groom, illegal since 1961 but widespread.
Duty of care
Duty of care: the legal obligation to act with reasonable caution to avoid foreseeable harm, the threshold element of negligence. Known for Donoghue v Stevenson, the Caparo test, and the omissions doctrine.
Duty of support between spouses
The duty of support between spouses is the reciprocal legal obligation, arising from marriage itself, that each spouse provide for the other's necessities and refrain from harm.
Duty to rescue
The duty to rescue is a legal obligation to aid a person in danger; Anglo-American common law imposes it only for special relationships, created perils, or undertaken rescues.
E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump
E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump, also called Carroll I and Carroll II, comprises two federal defamation and sexual-abuse suits; juries awarded $5 million (2023) and $83.3 million (2024), both affirmed by the Second Circuit, with Supreme Court review of the larger judgment pending as No. 26-141.
Early Irish law
Early Irish law (Brehon law) is the vernacular legal system of early medieval Ireland, preserved in over seventy Old Irish tracts mostly from the seventh and eighth centuries, alongside the Latin Collectio canonum Hibernensis, which shaped European canon law.
Early v. Commissioner
Early v. Commissioner, 445 F.2d 166 (5th Cir. 1971), a United States income tax case: a life interest received in settlement of a disputed gift claim was treated as acquired by gift, barring amortization under IRC 273.
Easement
Easement: a nonpossessory property interest allowing use of another's land; also called servitude right. Appurtenant easements run with land via dominant and servient estates; created by grant, implication, necessity, or prescription.
Economic abuse
Economic abuse, also called financial abuse, is control by a partner, ex-partner, or family member over a person's money, credit, employment, and economic resources. Recognized in the UK Domestic Abuse Act 2021; involves control, exploitation, and employment sabotage; affects about 97% of domestic abuse cases.
Eggshell skull
Eggshell skull rule, also called the thin skull or talem qualem rule: a common law tort doctrine making a defendant liable for the full extent of a plaintiff's injury, even when a pre-existing vulnerability made the harm unexpectedly severe.
Elder abuse
Elder abuse, also called elder mistreatment, is harm to an older adult within a trusting relationship, spanning physical, sexual, psychological, and financial abuse, neglect, and abandonment, affecting about 1 in 6 people over 60 each year.
Elective share
Elective share, also called statutory or forced share, is a US surviving spouse's right to take a fixed fraction, traditionally one-third, of a deceased spouse's estate despite the will; UPC states use an augmented estate reaching nonprobate transfers.
Emancipation of minors
Emancipation of minors, also called judicial emancipation or "divorce from parents," is the legal process freeing a minor from parental authority before the age of majority, typically age 18; routes include court order, marriage, and military enlistment, with rules set state by state.
Eminent domain
Eminent domain, also called expropriation or compulsory acquisition, is the government's power to take private property for public use. In the US it is bounded by the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause requiring just compensation (fair market value) and a public use, as shaped by Kohl, Berman, and Kelo.
Emphyteusis
Emphyteusis (ἐμφύτευσις), also called emphyteutic lease or bail emphytéotique, is a perpetual or long-term real right in another's land requiring cultivation and fixed rent, created in late Roman law by Zeno and Justinian and surviving in French, Belgian, Maltese, Greek, and Ukrainian property law.
Enclosure
Enclosure, also spelled inclosure, is a boundary such as a fence or hedge limiting access to land, and the English process of consolidating common fields.
Enforceability of marital agreements
Enforceability of marital agreements concerns whether prenuptial, postnuptial, or separation agreements bind the parties, with US statutes favoring enforcement and UK courts reviewing fairness under Radmacher.
Enforcement of spousal maintenance orders
Enforcement of spousal maintenance orders is the recovery of unpaid spousal maintenance through courts and agencies, using wage garnishment, bank account freezing, and sanctions such as license and passport refusal.
English contract law
English contract law governs contracts in England and Wales through offer, acceptance, consideration, and intention to create legal relations; case-law driven, shaped by assumpsit, Pothier, no general good-faith duty, and the Consumer Rights Act 2015.
English defamation law
English defamation law: the tort protecting reputation in England and Wales under the Defamation Act 2013, covering serious harm, truth, honest opinion, public interest defences, libel tourism, costs, and comparisons with Scots and US law.
English land law
English land law governs ownership, use, and transfer of land in England and Wales. Rooted in feudal tenure, it was reshaped by the six 1925 property statutes, chiefly the Law of Property Act 1925, and is now undergoing major leasehold and commonhold reform.
English trust law
English trust law splits ownership of trust assets between a trustee holding legal title and beneficiaries holding equitable title. Covers the three certainties, Trustee Act 2000 duties, medieval Uses origins, and the civil-law reception problem.
English unjust enrichment law
English unjust enrichment law lets claimants recover benefits received at their expense in unjust circumstances, built on four elements: enrichment, expense, unjust factor, and no defence. Key cases: Lipkin Gorman (1991), Woolwich (1993), Kleinwort Benson (1999).