Is lying in an application for a job at a private company, signed under penalty of perjury, prosecutable as perjury? A person applies for a job at the XYZ company. The XYZ company is a private company. As part of applying he fills out an application and signs it under penalty of perjury. The application has several lies in it. Can he be criminal prosecuted for perjury? If his signature had been notarized after he signed it, would that effect the answer?
united-states A &quot;penalty of perjury&quot; statement includes not just the warning about penalty of perjury, the person signing avows that the statements are true to the best of their knowledge. If you lie on such a statement, and if the &quot;penalty of perjury&quot; statement is legally allowed (typically, mandated), then the person can be prosecuted. However, XYZ cannot arbitrarily inject the risk of perjury, that requires some legal authorization. An example would be if XYZ is employing the person under a Defense Department contract that requires a sworn statement. The federal perjury statute characterises this as being when &quot;a law of the United States authorizes an oath to be administered&quot;. The only effect of notarization is that it decreases the probability that the person could effectively argue &quot;I never even signed this statement, that's a forgery&quot;.
Note: IANAL Does the placement of a sticker stating, "We accept XYZ credit cards," essentially obligate a business to accept that card? It depends on whether you mean whether they are obligated to provide goods/services to someone who presents the card, or whether, having provided goods/services, they are obligated to accept the card as payment. For the first question, the answer is "no". The credit card brand could theoretically go after them, however, as names of credit networks are trademarks, so claiming to accept a card but not doing so is trademark infringement. For the second, the answer is "pretty much". Since they misrepresented their establishment, there is no mutual assent and therefore no contract. If they try to use "defrauding the innkeeper statutes", those require fraudulent intent. If you fully intended to pay for you meal by a credit card, and it was their choice to refuse payment, then you have no fraudulent intent. The only avenue I can see for them is some sort of equity argument, but that would be problematic, especially if they ask for the retail, rather than wholesale, price, and not worth the hassle of collecting. So, legally, you can just walk out, but in practice if they have a bouncer they might make trouble for you.
Could the victim report this as fraud, theft or some other related crime? They could, but it's unclear whether they would be successful. A criminal conviction would require intent on the part of the company or an employee, and that will probably be difficult to prove. In a big system like this, individuals can usually claim misunderstandings and errors of omission, which makes such a proof difficult. They could try to establish criminal corporate liability, but again this is difficult to prove. So while possible, it's probably not worth it. Would the answer to the previous question differ based on whether the victim was eventually able to recover the money through litigation or by disputing the charge with their bank? Probably not. For a criminal conviction, it's necessary to prove that the company or an employee deliberately took money they knew was not theirs. Whether they later gave it back is not relevant for determining guilt (though it may reduce the sentence). Would the company itself or the specific employees involved be liable? In principle, both could be held liable. Again, this depends on what can be proved in court. Would a binding arbitration clause in the contract have any effect on criminal liability No, arbitration clauses cannot protect from criminal liability, only from civil liability (within limits). Off-topic: The fastest way to resolve such situations is usually to write one stern letter explaining why you are owed the money. If that does not work, sue them - if the situation is clear-cut, you will most likely win, or the company will settle. Many jurisdictions have simplified court proceedings for clear cases like this, for example the Mahnverfahren in Germany.
There are several forms of notarized documents, the most common of which are affidavits (which are written statements of a person made and signed under oath) and acknowledgements (which is a notarized statement that a document was signed before a notary, usually used for documents related to real property). There would be no legitimate reason I can think of to notarize an offer letter, and the fact that you want to do that probably means that you are confused about some other aspect of the law that would make you think that you would want to or need to do something like that. A more common thing to do, for example, in anticipation of a lawsuit, would be to prepare and execute an affidavit which states that the letter, attached as an exhibit, was signed by you, and anyone else that you have personal knowledge signed it, for your signature before a notary. A notary is not allowed to execute an affidavit (or a very similar document called a verification which is a very short document saying that the facts stated in a single document asserting a claim in a court case are true and correct in a form substantially similar to an affidavit) if it is signed outside the notary's physical presence (in theory because the notary administers an oath before you sign it). An acknowledgement can be executed by a notary if the person who signed the document comes before the notary in person and acknowledges that it was signed by him or her, even if the notary was not there when it was actually signed. The notary would state the date that you acknowledged it in person to the notary in the acknowledgement and would not make any statement regarding when it was actually signed. There is special formalized legal language that must accompany each kind of notarization, which is called the "jurat". Then the notary signs and dates the jurat in the appropriate place and applies a notary seal near the jurat in the indicated location (if any) mark "L.S." for "location of seal" in latin.
Not in jurisdictions I am familiar with. A "Power of attorney" is a power to act as an attorney-in-fact, not to act as an attorney-at-law. A layperson practicing law for someone other than herself is usually the unauthorized practice of law and is illegal in most jurisdictions. It would be permissible if a jurisdiction carved out an exception for a particular kind of case, but they generally don't and are very unlikely to do so in a criminal case. For example, in Washington State "Limited Practice Officers" can assist people with one of a very limited set of civil legal forms that do not need modification. There may be some exceptions, but they would be more likely to occur before a matter becomes criminal. For example, the accountant who represents a taxpayer before the IRS, or the agent who files a form containing perjury to a federal agency like the post office or homeland security on your behalf. So it is very unlikely, but if it is important to you you can ask someone familiar with your kind of case in your jurisdiction.
Yes P was standing in a hallway to which he had apparently been lawfully admitted Indeed. And what were the conditions imposed on P for that lawful admittance? If one of those was &quot;no photography&quot; then P would not have been lawfully on the premises once they started taking pictures; at that point, they would have been a trespasser. Similarly, if they were admitted under conditions of confidence. As a trespasser, the information they obtained would not have been obtained legitimately and would fall foul of protection on trade secrets. Of course, P's actions can be &quot;wrong&quot; without being unlawful.
Yes and no. Using deception to get someone to open the door so that you can execute a warrant is okay (United States v. Contreras-Ceballos, 999 F.2d 432). Leading a criminal to believe that you are a crime-customer (e.g. for purposes of a drug sale) and not a police officer is okay (Lewis v. United States, 385 U.S. 206), but must be limited to the purposes contemplated by the suspect and cannot turn into a general search. Lying about whether you have a warrant is not okay (Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U.S. 543, Hadley v. Williams, 368 F.3d 747), nor is it okay to lie about the scope of a warrant (United States v. Dichiarinte, 445 F.2d 126). Misrepresenting the true purpose of entry, even when the person is identified as a government agent, negates consent (US v. Bosse, 898 F. 2d 113; United States v. Phillips, 497 F.2d 1131; United States v. Tweel, 550 F.2d 297). However, there is no requirement to be fully forthright (US v. Briley, 726 F.2d 1301) so you can gain entry saying that you "have a matter to discuss with X" even when the intent is to arrest X. In a case similar to what you describe, United States v. Wei Seng Phua, 100 F.Supp.3d 1040, FBI agents disrupted internet access and then posed as repairmen to gain access to the computer. Their efforts were wasted, as fruits of the poisonous tree.
You could bring a motion to compel for failing to respond substantively to a motion to admit which is objected to, just as you could for an interrogatory. The process is the same. Normally, a request to admit would not be deemed admitted if a substantive objection was filed by the deadline, even if there was no express admission or denial. Only if the objection were completely and utterly meritless would a judge be likely to order that the request to admit would be deemed admitted in that case since the response was a de facto non-answer and the objection was a mere sham. @Iñaki Viggers states in his answer: the purpose of a request for admissions is [to attempt] to stipulate --rather than to discover-- the facts on which plaintiff and defendant agree. This is not really true. A request to admit is a discovery tool to prevent you from having to prove up what should be non-controversial facts that might nonetheless take time or documentation to prove at trial and to gather evidence for in advance of trial. The questions in a request to admit are typically ones that the other side would not willingly stipulate to (for example, because they'd like to be able to offer testimony to explain a seemingly unfavorable fact) but may not be able to deny. If a party denies a request to admit and then offers nothing to support the denial in discovery practice or at trial, that party risks court sanctions for the groundless denial. Good litigation practice is also always to include some requests to admit that are effectively outcome determinative to give the opposing party a chance to screw up and essentially default the case by not responding on time.