Is there, in any jurisdiction, an hybrid between the &quot;loser pays&quot; rule and the &quot;american rule&quot;? Spawned from this question: is there any jurisdiction which implements an hybrid between the "loser pays" and the "american rules", concerning who pays the legal fees? I understand it would be very complicated to design a good system to deal with such a situation, but given that both systems have very bad downsides, I'd also be quite surprised if nobody tried to.
When people talk about the "American rule," they usually mean a system where every party pays their own legal costs, and the winner is not compensated in any way for the costs of litigation. Using that as your basis, the American system itself is actually a "hybrid." The details change a bit from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. But in general: The loser in many American civil cases is required to pay the actual court costs. These are not as substantial as the attorney's fees, but they can easily run into hundreds or thousands of dollars. These costs are for things like filing fees, process servers, witness fees, court recorders and transcripts, and other costs that, generally speaking, are going to be the same no matter how much your lawyer charges. (Again, what specifically is included in costs depends on your jurisdiction). This imposes a non-trivial expense on the loser of a lawsuit, without allowing the other side to run up the costs to an outrageous figure by hiring huge teams of expensive lawyer, as is possible under the pure English system. While the "American rule" is the default rule in most or all American jurisdictions, there are generally rules that allow the Court to shift part or all of a prevailing party's legal fees to the other side under certain circumstances. For example: in many courts, if you bring a frivolous motion, or a motion designed primarily to inflate the costs of the suit, the court can require you to immediately pay any attorneys' fees expended in responding to that motion, even if you eventually win the lawsuit as a whole. This is a more specific and targeted penalty for misconduct than the English rule. Similarly, if the Court finds that the entire lawsuit you brought &ndash; or the defense you presented &ndash; was frivolous, or presented in bad faith, or under certain other circumstances, the Court can include attorney's fees in the final damage award, just as would have been done under the English rule. The result is a hybrid system. The benefit of this hybrid system, at least in theory, is that frivolous lawsuits are discouraged, but lawsuits that have some merit &ndash; even if they are ultimately unsuccessful &ndash; do not have to worry about the imposition of massive costs. However, the disincentive is not as much as it might be, since the standards courts use to judge a motion or lawsuit "frivolous" are generally quite stringent.
Judge Judy is not a real judge; it's a TV show where the "litigants" sign contracts to enter into arbitration (Wikipedia) on the show in the format of court proceedings. The participants' travel expenses are paid by the show, as are the monetary settlements. The papers that can't be removed could be anything: their contracts for the show, the settlement agreements, NDAs, etc. The fact that they can't take the paperwork is outlined in the contracts they sign to be on the show.
There have been cases in the UK where paying someone's legal bills was interpreted as joining their case. So when A with no money libels someone, and B with deep pockets pays A's lawyer, then B risks being held liable for damages if A gets convicted. So B should be very careful. Just giving you money is probably the safest. But attorney-client privilege is between attorney and client. I have been laid off twice with my company asking me to take an employment lawyer and paying for it. (Interestingly each time the bill was exactly the maximum amount the company was willing to pay :-) It would have been absurd if my company could demand information that is under attorney-client privilege just because they paid the bill. Why did two companies pay the lawyers bill? Because that way they ensure that the separation is without problems. The lawyer explained the settlement contract and what it meant exactly. They also checked that the contract didn’t contain anything unacceptable which the company would have fixed. So if I had tried to sue them later I would have no chance to win (but there was no reason to sue). Another reason not to sue was that the company offered I settlement that was very significantly more than was legally required, but if you sued them you would only get what you got in court - most likely less than you would get without suing. So basically they paid to make sure I would have no reason to sue them later.
Yes, this is allowed. A famous example was the Rodney King beating, where police officers were acquitted at the state level but convicted federally. US v. Lanza formalized the rule, and it has survived the application of the double jeopardy rule to the states. It's called the separate sovereigns doctrine, and also applies to prosecutions by two states (see Heath v. Alabama) and by an Indian tribe and the feds (see US v. Wheeler). It does not apply between DC and the feds or territories and the feds, because DC and territorial laws are established under the power of the federal government. These prosecutions are uncommon. As far as the feds go, they normally consider a state prosecution to have satisfied the federal interest in the case (win or lose). But prosecution by multiple sovereigns is not barred by the Fifth Amendment.
The linked Bloomberg story quotes the rule as: The recipient is allowed to keep the funds if they [the funds] discharge a valid debt, the recipient made no misrepresentations to induce the payment, and the recipient did not have notice of the mistake. If the recipient, or somone acting on behalf of the recipient, hacked the sender to induce the payment, that sounds like a form of misrepresentation to me. If the hacker is unconnected with the recipient there seems no way that the hacker benefits financially, although I suppose a hacker might simply want to cause an amusing disruption. As I understand it this rule only applies when the sender in fact owes a debt to the recipient that the transfer pays off. If the hacker were working for one of a large group of recipients, most of whom are innocent, and subsequent analysis establishes that there was a hacker, but not who the hacker was or which of the many recipients the hacker was working for, I suspect, but cannot prove, that the doctrine would not apply, because the transfer was not a valid but incorrect act by the sender, but was a fraudulent intervention in the sender's procedures.
If I read this correctly, (and more context would support this, but I don't have time to do research at the moment; I also don't have the book in question, so I'm only basing off of the provided snippet) then it appears two different (higher court) justices making rules, not only to guide their own judgements before them, but for reference for lower court justices to base their rulings against. Note that these two cases appear to have taken place about 3 decades apart, and in two different countries, albeit with related legal codes. The Purple is "identical" to the Green, because their wording is near enough identical between the two passages. I don't think "dumbness" or lack of distinguishably is implied. Rather McRae's rule is Conditions Green AND (logical "and") Condition Red, while the British rule is just Condition Green. The orange text suggests that, under the rule in Associated Japanese Bank Ltd v Credit du Nord SA, Condition Red need NOT be shown. I.e., you don't need to show that a party is responsible for convincing the other party of an unreasonable falsehood, to prevent the first party from using the doctrine of "common mistake". It also suggests that the rule from McRae does impose Condition Red. Essentially, the text is describing two different (non-exhaustive) tests for determining when the doctrine of "common mistake" can be invoked.
There is no general law making it illegal to lie about debts, or anything else. It is illegal to lie to a law enforcement officer in the course of an investigation. (And of course it is illegal to lie in court testimony or when otherwise under oath.) But it is in no way unlawful to decline to answer, unless a proper court order has been obtained, or other lawful means of compelling an answer. I would expect any law office to respond to such a question with something like "Am I/we being investigated? If so, send the appropriate notice and our lawyer will consider what we should tell you. If not, tell us what information you want, and we will consider and provide a written response in due course." If a taxpayer has been found to be delinquent in paying taxes, in some cases a court order may be obtained seizing assets, including unpaid debts. But no IRS agent can make such a claim on the spot, and indeed for a client to make such a payment without such a court order, or the order of an IRS tribunal (or the creditor's written consent) would itself be unlawful and would subject the lawyer to a suit by the PI (Private Investigator). When the lawyer pays a service provider, a 1099 must be filed with the IRS. If the PI is a corporation, a different form is used, but a record of payment is still required. As failure to timely file such a form is a violation of the tax code, an accusation of paying without filing would permit the lawyer to decline to answer under the Fifth amendment. If the lawyer did pay and did file a 1099 or other documentation, the IRS would know what had been payed, and would not need to confront the PI. Also, as the comment by Hilmar points out, a PI would be likely to use the cash accounting method, and so would own no tax on work performed but unpaid (as yet). So unless the IRS agent thinks the PI was paid "off-the books" and is intentionally failing to report the payment, there would be no point to such a question. And if that were he case, the lawyer would be very likely to decline to answer. I find the story quite implausible.
The US has jurisdiction because the systems that the accused allegedly attacked are in the US. To use an example with older technology, you can't escape criminal liability for defrauding someone in one country simply because you did so through the mail or by telephone from another country. The UK and the US have an extradition treaty. The UK might refuse to extradite the accused; in that case the US would most likely complain loudly. If too many extradition requests are refused on one side, the other side might start limiting cooperation in any of several areas.