Slashdot Mirror
Britain's 400 Years of Cyber Law
corbettw writes "There's a news piece in The Register this morning about a British high court ruling about email signatures, and whether they constitute binding contracts. Apparently, the 1677 Statute of Frauds dictates what constitutes a contract, so an email with a disclaimer in the sig could qualify under the language of the statute. Since the statute predates the Constitution of the U.S., a clever lawyer could argue it applies here equally. Maybe there's some truth to the Internet joke 'take off every sig for great justice!'"
... so does this mean that laws made in Britain prior to the US Constitution are binding now in the USA? I think I am confused and I have not RTA so maybe someone could enlighten me.
- Andrew
I meta-moderate because I care.
I thought that, while much of American law is based on British Common Law, we don't actually follow British Common Law: we just used it as a basis for our own laws. We had a little bit of a scuffle about 230 years ago that made us no longer subject to British laws.
Editors, RTFA. This is not about email signatures in the sense of the things people like to put after the "-- " at the end of their emails to add a personal touch; it's about regular signatures (signing your name), and it's about the fact that the LACK of a name or signature in an email means that an email CANNOT be a valid "written offer".
The only thing this means is that if you include your name in your signature (the email signature again, i.e., the part after the "-- "), whatever you wrote in your email can be treated the same way as something you wrote in a regular letter that you signed with your name.
But that's neither surprising nor worrying - quite the opposite. The implicit statement in the story summary that the disclaimers some companies like to put into emails could somehow constitute a valid contract is a big, fat piece of Slash-FUD.
Speaking of which, I propose the term "Slash-FUD" for intentional FUD in and intentionally misleading summaries and headlines of Slashdot stories - the problem seems to have grown so large in recent years that I think it deserves a special name. Death to Slash-FUD! Let that be our battle cry.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
On the other hand, I think email is not admissible as 'proof' in a court of law, since it is too easy to forge and email and/or muck up the sender information. So, even if an email includes a clever sig and/or statement to the effect that it is a binding contract between the sender and the recipient, it is highly possible it would be thrown out of court, as it does not constitute admissible evidence.
At least, I am almost certain that's the case in my area... Napoleonic code and all that. YMMV, IANAL, etc...
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
It's ZIG. Not sig.
The statute of Frauds applies in the US for sure, as it was covered externisvely at my Uni business law class so many years ago. Wikipedia covers this pretty well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_frauds
Like the Anglican Church split from Rome and doesn't recognise the Pope, but the Queen as head of church, the US Constitution, though modeled on the Magna Carta, does not in any wording defer to it. I don't believe it defers from the Ten Commandments, but give Ralph Reed and George W. Bush time and it might.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Since the statute predates the Constitution of the U.S., a clever lawyer could argue it applies here equally.
The USA declared independence and is therefore independant of the British legal system. The same goes for Ireland too. do you think the 1801 Union Act still applies there because it predates their constitution? :P
In the British legal system a contract is formed when the following are all true:
For example, if you exchange e-mails with your girlfriend and you promise to take your girlfriend her to the pictures if she buys you a pint tonight, and she does, then she can sue for breach of contract if you do not take her. Notice the agreement is independant of the medium it is formed in. If some new medium communications medium existed tomorrow, contract law still applies to it.
Simon.
You now owe me 10% of my current debt (negative savings). I accept hard currency in mayonaise jars or under mattresses.
And you might want to add something about being legally required to not remove funds afterwards, or I'll gladly transfer 10% in for the 100% I'd take out :).
lol: You see no door there!
Those of you familiar with the Zardoz quote are in for a disappointment. Following this, I have changed my signature to be more compliant with UK law.
"Since the statute predates the Constitution of the U.S., a clever lawyer could argue it applies here equally."
Stupidest remark ever.
2006 - 1677 = 329 != 400
I guarantee you at least three more inches !
Since the statute predates the Constitution of the U.S., a clever lawyer could argue it applies here equally.
How could a clever lawyer argue that, exactly? Didn't we have a big war a couple hundred years ago so that English laws would no longer apply in America?
are worthless. If you happen to be an MTA admin, please convince management that appending these is both obnoxious and a waste of bandwidth.
--
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By reading this post you are hereby agreeing to transfer all of your assets to me, Anonymous Coward.
I'm gonna enjoy living in your houses.
No...are you ignorant?
"Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!"
We better all prey Slashdot sigs don't count! Otherwise we're all going to have a lot of problems.
Developers: We can use your help.
"Since the statute predates the Constitution of the U.S., a clever lawyer could argue it applies here equally."
So THAT explains why whenever I order tea from Boston, I still have to send a tax to Britain.
Thanks for clearing that up.
(And just to be even clearer, while our legal system has its foundations in the English common law, we um, modify it with our own statutes and common law now. It's a little thing called independence.)
IANAL, but IAALS (i am a law student). Although a grade school history class should be enough to know that the statement in the summary was way off... hmmmm...
tend to be inherited more in commonwealth countries. The US, as a rogue state that rebelled from Britian, is free to ignore all the laws it chooses. It's already guilty of high treason, from the British point of view.
By contrast, Canada explictly inherited a great deal of British law, though it has it's own laws on contracts which supercede British laws because the King/Queen of England wanted them to (to this day, no law can go into force in Canada without Royal Assent, or (recently) the consent of the Royal Designate, the Governor General).
The US is free to ignore Britian, because it rebelled. The countries that did not do so are still bound by British law.
First of, the statute of frauds is exactly that, a statute. In the U.S. ach state has its own. So whether it applies to email could vary from state to state. The original English statute does not apply in the U.S.
However, most states also adopt the UCC (which applies to sales of good vs. services), which has already been interpreted that signed emails satisfy the statute of frauds writing requirement.
This isn't that big a deal, after all, even an unsigned letterhead satisfies the statute of frauds. You still need to prove offer, acceptance, and consideration to form a contract. You could still contest an email contract if there were fraudulent emails.
...
Shut the fuck up cheesedick
lawyers always round up to the nearest 100
So, on top of everything else, Scalia thinks it's his job to ignore the American Revolution in deciding precedent. His "originalist" philosophy ignores Constitutional Amendments, too, so we shouldn't be surprised. Just disgusted at an unamerican Supreme Court Justice who almost became Chief, but still rules with an iron fist.
--
make install -not war
What could you possibly buy with $0.10?
My karma makes buddha cry.
Well, even if this decision is applicable in the United States (which I have not been convinced of), it doesn't mean it is binding. Judges don't necessarily practice stare decisis (rule of precedent). Famous examples: Lawrence v. Texas Plessy v. Ferguson I'm pretty sure the court would think twice before applying the same decision here.
Do not mark in this space. For official office use only.
He's right. Pre-independence British law applies as common law in the USA if it has not been superseded by a more modern congress-approved law.
In the 21st century, the legal definition of "sign" does indeed include some, not all, instances of "a few lines of text" in an email. I quote from paras 28 & 30 of the judgement.
"I have no doubt that if a party creates and sends an electronically created document then he will be treated as having signed it to the same extent that he would in law be treated as having signed a hard copy of the same document. The fact that the document is created electronically as opposed to as a hard copy can make no difference."
"If a party or a party's agent sending an e mail types his or her or his or her principal's name to the extent required or permitted by existing case law in the body of an e mail, then in my view that would be a sufficient signature for the purposes of Section 4"
Email is quite frequently used in court cases to establish intent. intent. Hell, if it wasn't useful, then why is this story important?
Now I'm not a lawyer, but I do know that emails ARE important.
Feloneous
IANAL, but I've seen actors play them on TV
Seems to me The Reg has drawn exactly the opposite conclusions the judge's decision supports.
The judge ruled that the name in the header did not constitute the name required for a binding contract, because it was put their automatically as a matter of course.
I think that similarly, a crappy e-mail signature disclaimer would be ruled completely invalid and not contractually binding, precisely because it is placed there as a matter of course, even when completely inappropriate.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
...things in England found to be older than things in the USA. Film at eleven.
The Statute of Frauds is most definately the law in the US. It is taught in every law school in the U.S. in contracts class, and it is tested on the Bar exam (at least in California).
Much of our law comes from British common law. It would not take a very clever attorney to get a court to consider English common law. It is done all the time where there is either no precident in the U.S., or it is such a long established rule of law (like the SOF), that it is taken as a fundamental underpinning of our system.
Also, the SOF is codified in the UCC for the sale of goods. So, not only is it valid under the common law, it is actually codified for a narrow set of caontracts.
BTW, this is not the point of view of some 'radical right-wingers' like Scalia, it is universally accepted by the legal community. The SOF IS the law in the U.S.
Actually Scalia OPPOSES use of non-English common law by our courts, and has bee quite outspoken about it, to the chagrin of many left-wing white-tower types.
I always understood a contract to have:
1) An offer
2) An acceptance
3) Consideration
4) Capacity to contract
5) Legality
Where are these elements in an email footer? Perhaps there's an offer, however there is no chance to decline acceptance. The consideration cannot be the email because it's one-sided. You aren't purchasing the email.
Capacity is moot for this, and the legality is also moot.
This will be over-turned.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
In October 2000 Congress addressed this issue. Please see the informative article at: http://www.cfg-lawfirm.com/articles/oneclick.html.
In an attempt to stem the tide of stupid comments about the revolutionary war and everything, I would like to say that I AM a lawyer and we DO use English common law in many cases.
We try to apply newer statutory law first. If that doesn't work, we fall back on the common law. When we go to the common law, we look for cases that are similar, and we apply them, often from other English common law countries AFTER the revolution, because we assume they run the same system and want to see what they did. It works pretty well.
The effect, then, is that some really old cases are still good law in America, and how England has adapated them has some part in it. We don't always keep the old common law rule (seisen, for instance), and often we don't follow subsequent foreign interpretation (equitable servitudes), but there's a whooole lot of contract law that is heavily influenced by what other legal systems within the common law framework are doing.
I think from now on whenever I read a post on Slashdot that mocks people as idiots for not being techologically sophisticated I'm going to think of the posts on this story, virtually all of which are completely clueless about the law in a way comparable to someone who doesn't know what an operating system is and thinks Microsoft Windows is somehow an inherent part of every computer.
It works like this. The statute of frauds is an ancient English statute that requires certain contracts to be in writing in order to be valid. Most contracts do not have to be in writing to be valid. However, back in the day, Parliament decided there was so much fraud based on suspicious witnesses showing up and swearing you really did promise to sell your estate for a pittance that something had to be done. What they did was enact the statute of frauds and since then, English contracts for certain things (such as the sale of land) must be in writing to be valid. The exact scope of that is actually quite complex, but that's the basic idea.
At the time of the American revolution, much law was not in the form of statutes enacted by legislatures, but rather based on precedent, that is to say decisions previously rendered by the courts. That's part of what makes it a common law system. After the revolution, US state courts couldn't operate in a legal vacuum, so they continued to rely on English common law decisions for many years, not because they were obligated to do so, but because they had to come up with rules for dealing with situations, and English common law was a familar, readily acccessible source of such rules. Many states had reception statutes that instructed their courts to look to English common law precisely because they needed a source of law to apply and couldn't make up an entire legal system from scratch.
Obviously today American courts don't need to look at English common law anymore except in certain very rare situations as we have over 200 years of our own cases to look at now. However, we still have an analogous situation today in which the courts of one state will sometimes look at the decisions of another state for guidance where an issue is coming up for the first time. It's not because the other state's decisions are binding, but because they might have some good ideas and good reasoning that are worth adopting.
Today, most if not all states have enacted their own statute of frauds. The terms vary from state to state but the basic idea is the same, namely that certain contracts must be in writing to be valid. Whole books have been written on the statue of frauds. Visit the library of your local law school if you want to see more analysis than you ever imagined was possible on this issue.
The key word is 'acceptance'. How do I know you accepted the offer? It's a hard question -- if I get a signed letter, how do I know it's your signature? How do I know you're authorized to accept that contract? And so on.
Under the UCC, a 'signature' is any tangible(?) mark indicating consent. It can be your legible signature in cursive. It can be your illegible signature in cursive. It can be an "X". It can be a crude drawing of Daffy Duck. It can be, in theory, an email where you say "I agree to this, Bob Smith" since you had to type it. (Anything written to a computer disk is 'tangible'. This post is tangible and hence covered by copyright.)
The problem is non-repudiation. If you give me a document claiming that I agreed to a contract, how do I disprove it? It's easy with email (easily forged) and crude drawings of Daffy Duck. Sometimes it's obvious with exemplars. Sometimes it requires some serious effort, e.g., determining that the inks used don't match.
(All with generous portion of NaCl since IANAL, but I have studied this since my signature is illegible and I occasionally run into law professors masquerading as clerks in chain stores.)
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Most US states have a statute of frauds as well, many which read very similar to the original British one. This isnt a matter of common law, but statutory law.
In Wisconsin's State v. Picotte (2003) an individual caused severe injuries to another, and that person died about two years later from those injuries. He was initially convicted with some type of assault charge, but after the guy died, they convicted him of a murder charge.
English common law, in the 13th century created a concept called the Year and a Day Rule in which a person is not culpable for a person's death due to injuries they caused if the person dies 366 days after the injuries were caused.
The Wisconsin legislature had entertained statutorily eliminating the Year and a Day Rule, but failed to do so, so the common law precedent stood and the conviction overturned.(Though the court did eliminate it from that point further (essentialy saying that the common law precedence is archaic) but let it stand for this one case.)
Hence, a British law from the 13th century (which no longer exists in Britain) played a major role in an American murder case in 2003.
I think you need to reread your history. Many of the founders of this country had a great deal of respect for the English legal system: in theory at least. It was a particular government (that of King George III) that they were less-than-fond of. A great number of the principles enshrined in both the Declaration of Independence and later in the Constitution trace their lineage back to Britain (in particular to the Magna Carta, which the Founders would have been familiar with).
The American court system in particular was essentially of British design, and most of the early judges and lawyers had read the a lot of British common law to pass the Bar. (At lower levels, the pre- and post-revolutionary court systems probably didn't change that much.) It was very common for aspiring lawyers to read Blackstone's as part of their studies until fairly recently--in my opinion, the lack of this today is really too bad. Recall also, that many of this country's Founders were lawyers who had read the Common Law and were used to thinking in its terms: Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, John Dickinson, Oliver Ellsworth, Patrick Henry, and George Mason are just a few; I'm probably forgetting a lot of others. These were men whose concepts of fairness and equality, perhaps of liberty in general, owe at least some credit to their understanding of law.
The everyday jurisprudential theories at work in the courts of England and post-revolutionary America really were about the same, on issues like torts, the definition of crime, etc. Over time there has been divergence on some issues, but there are still a lot of similarities. (More-so than between either the British or American system and a totally different theoretical foundation, like the Roman/Napoleonic Code that is the basis for the French and some other Continental systems.)
Law changes and evolves over time; it's not something that you can easily just create anew out of whole cloth. The American legal system was built on the conceptual foundations provided by Common Law, and there is nothing wrong with referring to it if precedent is needed and nothing more recent can be found. This doesn't happen often (after all, we have 200+ years of our own precedent to go through now), but occasionally some very old Common Law case can be elucidating.
This is not to say that a law is somehow automatically valid here, just because it was present in Britain prior to 1792 (that's an entirely separate branch of government anyway), or even that a court ruling there has an immediate and automatic effect here. It just means that in making arguments and looking for precedent, British case law prior to 1792 is fair game.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
If the court interprets what is known as an "email signature" as a "signature", the court is deeply confused about how signatures are added. An email signature is more like pre-printed stationery.
In this case, the sender of the email admitted to sending it, so the legitimacy was never an issue.
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
America took British Common Law as the standard, anything new superceedes it. However if there have been no ammendments or no new laws to superceede a law it falls back to the original.
Like a Fork in an open source project if there is no need to change it the original and the fork both share the same behavior and code.
I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. If you need some, go pay for it.
>The USA declared independence and is therefore independant of the British legal system.
Independent of the system, sure, but as for the law: the Constitution *explicitly* adopts the Common Law. Until a change in US or state law occurred, wehther by statute or Common Law (court precedent), British common law remained the same.
See (above?) for more on the Statute of Frauds, but precedents from other Common Law jurisdictions (pretty much the entire English speaking world) are persuasive but not binding upon other courts.
btw, a promise for a promise is adequate consideration.
hawk, esq.
If I have a batch of pre-printed stationary made up with my handwritten signature on it, that might get me in trouble if someone in my organisation comits to something on my behalf. So might a pre-inserted signature on an e-mail in similar circumstances.
But the line inserted by the ISP cannot be mistaken for an intention to sign, so it is not a signature. (i am an english contract lawyer)
By the way this court has only persuasive not binding precedent.
I am an attorney, but this is not legal advice. Find a lawyer licensed in your jursidction for that!
Neither the British Statute of Frauds, nor that of any US jurisdiction of which I am aware (or any non-US Common Law jurisdiction, for that matter) requires a signature. A *writing* is required from the person against whom the contract is to be enforced.
The purpose of the statute was to deal with some then-common frauds. Particularly, perjured testimony as to the existenc eof an oral contract to sell land. People would bring in friends to falsely claim that someone had agreed to sell. Accordingly certain types of contract became unenforceable (not invalid) without the writing. Most importantly, contracts for the sale of real property (including leases of more than a year) required a writing.
Assuming that the eamil can be authenticated as having come from the sender, it would be sufficient to satisfy the statute. That does *not* necessarily mean, however, that the contract exists or can be proven . . .
hawk, esq.
Hawk is absolutely right. This is a case about a contract of guarantee, which is one in the category including disposal of land, equitable interest etc. which requires signed writing. But the singature can be in any valid form. It's England and Wales not British.
Actually the hand gesture he used doesn't mean "go fuck yourself." (The gesture is one where you put your hand under your chin and brush your fingers forward and outward, like you're clearing something out of your beard.) It's Italian, and it means "you're not worth the hair on my chin," or "you're worthless."
That's my opinion/understanding, anyway, though I've also seen it defined as meaning "Me ne frego," or "I don't give a damn," which is listed here.
Not exactly polite, but not quite the same as giving someone the 'ol middle finger, either. The point is, he could have been a lot more offensive if he had wanted to, but he settled for something arguably middle-of-the-road.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
...the question is whether he can do so successfully. That is, whether the judge will rule in his favor.
I don't think "common law" means at all the same thing as an explicit statute, where Congress has set down in writing what the rule is. In those cases, the court is bound to enforce the law as written, regardless of whether or not it's the way things are usually done. Statute can break entirely new ground, make things illegal which were legal before (e.g. cocaine) or legal which were illegal before (e.g. abortion).
Not so with common law. I believe "common law" just translates to "what we've always mostly done." It's just a short way to imply that what people have almost always done, on their own, spontaneously, in response to a given situation should, after a long enough time, acquire much the force of written law. Especially when "what the people have done" has been ratified by repeated and consistent judicial decisions that agree with the tradition.
It's a way to recognize that all law derives ultimately from the will of the people, and in certain situations people have expressed that will directly, without the need for legislaturely lawyers to write it down on parchment in curly script. Hence, the idea of "common law" is a constraint on the judiciary, telling them that, in the absence of explicit written law, they can't just decide cases before them on the basis of their personal whim. They can't just say: well, there's no written law here, so I'll rule as I see fit. Instead, they are obliged to recognize as law that "law" which is merely implied in long social traditions and the body of prior related judicial decisions.
So from this POV could a lawyer successfully argue that English common law supercedes the Constitution? Of course not. Written statute always trumps unwritten common law. Common law is only used when there is no written law to provide guidance.
Could a lawyer successfully argue that English common law supercedes post-1776 American common law? Not any more than he could argue that the speed limit on highways should still be 55 MPH because the 1970s era 55-MPH laws predate the later laws allowing the speed limit to be higher. The later law always controls, even when it's common law.
So what's left? Only that a lawyer could successfully argue that in the absence of any relevant written statute, and the absence of any unique post-1776 American tradition, the court should consider the traditions in England prior to the Revolution. That doesn't sound very scary, or unreasonable.
>> It also just occured to me that with disclaimers such as:
>> "This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and
>> intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom
>> they are addressed.
I always read those as though they said,
"We're total losers who couldn't proofread an e-mail address if our business depended on it, which our lawyers advise us is actually the case. Instead of setting up an easy-to-use address book to handle and verify addresses, we are going to put some totally meaningless and legally-irrelevant boilerplate on every message we send so that there will be no doubt as to our total luser-itis.
"If you received this e-mail by mistake, we're screwed, because we can't bind you to a contract just because you read something you shouldn't have. Not only that, but by the time you read these instructions about how you weren't supposed to read it, you would have already read through the stuff you weren't supposed to read... and boy doesn't that make us look like complete morons... if there was any doubt earlier.
"All that is assuming we included some information that would let you determine that you are not, in fact, the intended recipient of this e-mail. Which we probably didn't, because we've heard that 'redundant' means 'unnecessary', because that's what they called the guy who used to sulk in the basement and make the computers go before they fired his ass."
Not that I'm suggesting anyone around here would consider them worth the electrons they're printed with....
(Shamelessly stolen from somebody whose name escapes me at the moment....)
Moderate drunk! It's more fun that way!
Most people seem to only remember 1776 in their heads for all things constitutional.
As I understand it, the United States became a sovereign state in July 1776 with the Unanimous Declaration of Independence as well as key military victories by the American separatists, and new common law and British statutes did not apply. During 1776-1788, the law of the USA was British common law pre-1776 plus the Articles of Confederation plus state laws. During 1789 to 1940s, the law of the land was the Constitution for the United States of America, as amended, statutes pursuant to said Constitution, and British common law pre-1776. But from the 1940s on, wickard v. Filburn tossed out most substantive limitations on the powers of the Congress, so nowadays you pretty much just have the United States Code, the Code of Federal Regulations, and at state level the Uniform Commercial Code and the Model Penal Code, which have largely superseded British common law.
Until a change in US or state law occurred, wehther by statute or Common Law (court precedent), British common law remained the same.
True, but the Uniform Commercial Code has largely replaced the Statute of Frauds in all U.S. states except Louisiana, whose legal system is based on French rather than British law.
Really, the sig is the comment. Skip on down there. Go ahead, do it. Are you still reading this?
Jester
Warning: This sig may be legally binding in England.
Louisiana is based off of Roman Civil law. (French Common law may be based off of that.)
Great sig. Thanks for cheering me up.
...I guess I can always screw around on YouTube until then.
Math is math. Regular expression is regular expression. The tools are there. The future is now.
You can not be charged with breaking common law. It must be law in America in the US Code, state or local laws.
http://www.jimloy.com/issues/unwrittn.htm
Common law: England has no formal constitution. Their "constitution" is the accumulation of court cases down through history. Their law of the land is what judges say, in addition to the laws made by Parliament. The U.S.A. has inherited some of this "common law." And the courts have added much more. But the Court has decided that there are no common law crimes; the laws that you are accused of breaking must have been enacted by federal, state, or local legislative bodies.
So since it predates constitution,also well it predates the revolutionary war.
As an act of war,I symbolically kill the messenger.(this case it is a lawyer)
I believe I am now up for a medal for solving the problem of outdated english law,ending the war and
repatriating air that would otherwise be wasted in a lawyers lungs.
Time to crack a Sam Adams Boston lager and celebrate.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
it is also my understanding that .. with regard to the rights granted to free men under the "magna carta" .. there is a clause that forbid future governing bodies from passing laws that take away the originally granted rights ..
.. "i" do not acknowledge that the signature has any significance .. (that a signature has no real .. only abstract value) .. and that "i" am signing this because someone is requiring that "i" do so ..
.. that some people are trying to raise with respect to what it means to be an actual physical existence apart from any conceptual or legal meaning and definition .. is really all about .. and how what some people refer to as a "natural person" is defined under the "law" .. which is actually another fictitious entity under the law .. apart for my actual physical sovereign existence as a living entity .. to which "i" have never granted anyone authority over .. nor have "i" ever agreed to live by anyone else's rules .. laws or conscience .. save my own ..
.. indoctrinated by public education .. that allows those of wealth and power to exert a claim to having authority over my being .. in the "name" of a civilized society controlled by "the rule of law" and the threat of punishment .. and by simple democracies .. were by 51 percent can claim a right to exert authority over 49 percent of a people .. in fact nothing but limited dictatorships ..
.. and a means of protecting their wealth and power .. and keeping us safe of course .. read .. them safe from the rest of the us .. the 95 or so percent of us without any significant wealth or real power over our own lives ..
.. but promising to seek out and punish anyone causing us harm after the fact .. along with no real opportunity for significant wealth .. unless you happen to win the lotory that is and even that is not the level of wealth the ruling class enjoy ..
also it is my understanding that by signing any document with the included statement:
"without prejudice and under duress"
signifies that "i" am signing this document stating that
which is what the whole issue
the whole modern system is nothing but a sophisticated scam
there by providing the means for a just and civilized society
while really not providing the vast majority any real security at all
http://www.angelfire.com/az/sthurston/
http://www.wealth4freedom.com/law/Mary.htm
http://matrix.freecanadian.net/
http://www.originalintent.org/edu/thelaw.php
For example in Missouri the following
In Florida In Virginia they recently modified it in 2005.
Virginia also honnors ancient acts of Parliament Similiar language is usually the first enumerated statute in every state, except Louisiana which uses the Napoleanic Civil Code.
Or maybe just a trolling legal neophyte. English statute law prior to 1789 is in no way relevant to US statute law. Our legal system was largely based on English common law, but that's totally separate from statute law. The US declared independence from Great Britain in 1776; being no longer under the rule British government, the US ceased to be beholden to her laws, past, present and future. The parent post is totally nonsensical on this point, and could be living in a time warp, or maybe is so ignorant of the world stage as to believe the US' head of state is HRM Queen Elizabeth II.
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"Statute of Frauds" is a legal term of art referring to certain kinds of contracts that are not enforceable if they aren't in writing. If a contract comes within the statute of frauds, an offer to enter into it must be both in writing and "signed."
English law, as codified in the U.S. in Uniform Commercial Code section 1-201(39), says that a writing is "signed" when it contains "any symbol executed or adopted by a party with present intention to authenticate a writing."
The header was inserted when the email was sent. The sender didn't even know this was happening. Obviously, he didntt put it in, or adopt it, intending to authenticate his writing.
Therefore the offer was unenforceable.
For the same reason, if a name is accompanied by a disclaimer saying that it is not intended to authenticate a writing, this negates any "present intention to authenticate" the writing and would therefore not would satisfy the definition of "signed."
The case is no big deal. Hold your towel and Don't Panic.
I have heard to the antecedent of the American legal system referred to as both "British Common Law" and "English Common Law" interchangeably; if you wanted to elucidate me as to which would be the more correct term and why, I would happily stand corrected.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
pretty sure this wouldn't count as common law.
and by pretty sure, I mean you'd be stupid to think it would.
no thanks
I'm certain not to be the first to say but, "Since the statute predates the Constitution of the U.S., a clever lawyer could argue it applies here equally." That's inane.
The ONLY arguments from foriegn courts have to do with common international standards of conduct, not laws that happen to be on the books.
Fucking hell, did you hear about the American Revolution.
or is that sentence just a troll for people like me.
well it worked.
-pyrrho
...is therefore subject to many of the same analyses that have been applied to out-of-court utterances. I am a lawyer, and so I have a bit of an informed opinion on this subject. First, everyone should know that the implications of an email will vary tremendously from case to case. So much of the discussion on this topic here on /. will be of limited use to the readers in any individual case, except by way of background information. If you have a legal issue involving an email, you really should either do your own legal research to develop an opinion as to that email's impact in your own case, or pay an attorney to do the research. Sorry if that sounds stupidly obvious.
A signature generally is defined in Anglo-American jurisprudence as a mark made with an intent to authenticate. So some of the issues that come up with regard to email is the intent of the author in the instance of every individual email; what constitutes a "mark" under each state's (province, territory, etc); and maybe the permanence of the form (is an email sufficiently "permanent" to be a medium that can be "marked"? Answer: probably yes, in every US state, I am guessing). I do know that in California, where I practice law, emails are admitted into evidence all the time, subject to various different limitations, such as a statement against interest exception to the hearsay rule, etc. Most trial judges are concerned about one thing: the trustworthiness of an out-of-court statement. From a practical standpoint, it is common for a witness who is being grilled by the proferring attorney to acknowledge in deposition, or before the deposition in interrogatories (written questions, requiring sworn written answers) that the particular email was, in fact, authored by the deponent (the person whose depsosition is being taken). Therefore, long before trial, most lawyers and most witnesses will know, from a practical standpoint, whether the email is authentic, and that gives them a pretty good idea whether or not the judge will admit the particular email into evidence. In fact, in California, we have a discovery tool called a "Request for Admissions" and most lawyers will routinely send the other attorney a "Request for Admissions" asking the other party to acknowledge the that the subject email is, in fact, authentic before a deposition is taken, unless, of course, there are strategic or tactical reasons for not wanting to allow the deponent and his / her attorney to see the document in question before the deposition. More info than you wanted, I know.
Bottom line: emails are routinely admitted into evidence, although many judges will also exclude emails from evidence for the same reason that they would exclude other out-of-court utterances. It really depends of the facts of the case, and the purpose for which the out-of-court statement is being offered.
As to whether an email can offer evidence of the terms of a contract, the answer is yes, of course. A contract is just an agreement that the court will enforce. The question is not whether an email signature can form a contract. The question is, was there a meeting of the minds of the parties sufficient to form a contract, and if so, what were the terms of the contract. From another practical level, most contracts now have what is referred to as "merger" clauses, meaning that most contracts have a clause in them that says that "this contract is the entirety of the agreement between the parties, no evidence extrinsic to the four corners of this document will be admitted into evidence for the purpose of establishing the terms of the contract between the parties" or words to that effect. Lawyers often don't want people modifying a contract later on, which is why they include such merger clauses to begin with.
Again, here's a summary:
Can an email form part of a contract? Answer: yes, so long as there is no merger clause prohibiting such modification of the contract with a preceeding or subsequent writing, and so long as the ju
Further this means that as of 1982 no new UK law applies here. Likewise since your old country declared itself indpendent this must mean that no new UK law applies directly to the USA since that date. But all the old laws apply unless invalidated in Canada this means any new Canadian law that is in conflict with ye old or new UK law, is valid and the old or new UK law no longer applies.
editorial note.
I am fully against the EFF exporting its beliefs and laws to Canada. Not that they are not without values but as you see from where this item went in comments laws about people and social relationships don't cross borders like the laws of electons can.
signed Not a coward because war and fighting stuff is not legal in Canada. Further this is not a legal document and not something in the style of my leagl studies this comment is worth 2 cents and no other contract will apply. The law governing this comment is Canadian Common law criticism.
Britain's 400 Years of Cyber Law
by g0dsp33d (#15121998)
Does this mean I legally do need enlargement?
This means they are legally bound to send it to you.
If I really am talking out of my ass...explain it to me with respect so I'll at least pull my ears out to listen.