Can I deny someone&#39;s request for me to be their Power of Attorney? Let's say that someone has made me their Power of Attorney and I don't want that kind of responsibility on my hands. Is there a way to deny it? I am in the state of Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin statute pertaining to power of attorney is here. 244.10(2)(b) indicates that the agent's authority terminates when they resign: there are other conditions, such as if the principle revokes the authority, the agent dies, and so on. If nothing else happens, you would have the authority, like it or not. 244.13 states that if you do anything to appear to accept the position (e.g. make a decision for the principle, or say "Sure, whatever" when offered the job), you have accepted the job. At that point (244.14), you then have to act loyally and with the principle's interest foremost. In order to avoid those bad things, you need to not do anything that can be construed as "accepting". But all is not lost if you say "Sure, whatever". 244.18 provides for agent resignation. Basically, you just tell the principle that you resign, and if the principle happens to be incapacitated, you also inform the guardian, coagent, or successor agent – if there is one – or, the caregiver, or "Another person reasonably believed by the agent to have sufficient interest in the principal's welfare", or "A governmental agency having regulatory authority to protect the welfare of the principal".
My questions are, where does this put me legally and what are my options? . . . Also, if I want to keep the tenants, how should I proceed? And if I don't want to keep them, do I have that option? Your Rights With Respect To The Tenants If the agency is telling the truth and the agreement made with the agent was for four tenants but their records and document only listed three by accident, you probably can't insist on additional rent or evicting the fourth tenant because if your agent does something on your behalf, that is binding on you just as much as if you had signed them up personally in that manner. This is true even if the agent didn't actually have the authority to rent the place to four people based upon your communications with the agent, because the agent has "apparent authority" to bind you in your agent's dealings with the prospective tenants. You probably have the right to insist that the fourth tenant sign the lease to conform to the actual agreement that was reached (four tenants in exchange for the rent stated in the lease). If the fourth tenant refuses to do so, that would be a repudiation of the lease/contract and would prevent him from claiming that he is a valid tenant of the property pursuant to the agreement reached with landlord through his agent. If the fourth tenant refused to sign, you could therefore insist that the fourth tenant pay additional rent or be evicted if you wanted to. On the other hand, if the agent is not accurately relating the facts, and there was never any agreement to have more than three tenants (as your communications with them and the written lease suggest), then you would have the right to evict the fourth tenant or insist on additional rent from that tenant. But, it might be hard to prove that the agent is not being accurate because it sounds like the agent and the tenants will testify consistently with each other and there were probably no other witnesses to the discussions between them. The Fourth Tenant Might Have Liability Anyway Also, at common law, you could sue the fourth person for unpaid rent during the period that the tenant was actually there anyway, since the fourth tenant was in "privity of estate" with you. (If someone actually signs the lease then they are in "privity of contract" with you.) England abolished the doctrine of privity of estate in most circumstances for residential tenancies in 1995. But, it is possible that this fact pattern is one of the situations in which the privity of estate doctrine remains in force since the 1995 reforms largely apply to assignments of leases by people who are tenants on the original lease, rather than occupants of a rented property who never signed a lease and never received a formal assignment. I don't have the legal research tools to confirm that accurately. But, none of the U.K. Landlord and Tenant Acts currently in force that I could locate addressed that issue, so the common law rule may still apply in this situation. If the doctrine of privity of estate does allow a suit against the fourth tenant based on occupancy without signing a lease, the incentive to even try to get the fourth tenant to sign a lease is very small indeed - you get no benefit at all from it other than slightly easier proof in an unpaid rent collection lawsuit if the agent's story is believed. If it doesn't the considerations earlier in this answer still apply. Practical Considerations All of this being said, there is also a practical consideration to consider. It you try to kick out the fourth tenant or impose additional rent on the fourth tenant, if the fourth tenant refuses to sign the lease, or if you believe that the original agreement did not include the fourth tenant, you still have to weigh the pros and cons of bringing an eviction or unpaid rent lawsuit. The lawsuit will cost you money (requiring you to advance money even if you are awarded attorneys' fees which may be impossible to collect from the tenants). You won't get your attorneys' fees for the lawsuit if you lose and will also have to pay their attorneys' fees if you lose. Tenants whom you are suing are unlikely to be cooperative on any other matter upon which you want their cooperation, and may bad mouth you, for example, in online consumer reviews. Unlike a typical eviction where the rent is not paid, it is very likely that the eviction will be contested, and if it is, the court could order the fourth tenant to sign the lease, but provide you with no other remedy if the court believes the story put forward by the tenant and the agent. If you don't sue, you won't incur attorneys' fees, you can still evict everyone if the rent isn't paid, you can still try to collect unpaid rent from three other people, and you are much less likely to have a dispute with or non-cooperation from the tenants. The only benefit you get from having a fourth person on the lease if that was the original deal (or if you can't prove that it wasn't the original deal) is that you have one more person you can sue for back rent if the rent isn't paid. If I decide to break my agreement with the agency, do I have grounds to do that? Terminating The Agent Often you can terminate an agreement with an agency without cause. If the agency agreement says that you can, you are free to do so and probably should because at a minimum they are sloppy and poor communicators. Generally speaking, even if you can't terminate the agreement without cause, you can terminate the agreement for cause, and the contradiction between their prior communications with you and their current communications with you probably constitute good cause to terminate the agreement both if they are telling the truth not, and if they are not accurately recounting the facts now. But, to be clear, terminating the agent won't affect the rights of the tenant. Suing The Agent If you clearly do lose money because the three tenants on the lease don't pay rent and for example, you get a judgment against them which can't be collected due to bankruptcy or them moving abroad to a place where it is not economical to collect a money judgment from them, or just not having any assets or income (or some combination thereof), and it turns out that the law does not allow you to sue the fourth tenant, and the fourth tenant was not judgment proof, you would probably have a right to sue the agent for the lost rent caused by the agent's negligence in failing to get all four tenants to sign the lease. But, the cost of proving that in a typical case would not be worth the money since this would be much harder to prove than simply proving that someone signed a lease agreeing to pay rent and didn't pay rent as agreed. If the agent didn't agree to pay for your losses voluntarily it might not be worth the time, trouble and risk of not prevailing in that lawsuit to pursue, even if you could get attorneys' fees for your suit against the agent if you won (which you probably could in England). The risks of doing that include paying the agent's attorneys' fees is you lose.
The solicitor is allowed not to accept a case. If your ex-wife asked him to prepare papers, and he feels that she is getting ripped off, it is absolutely understandable that he won't prepare these papers for her, because he doesn't want to be sued or badmouthed when the deal goes wrong. "We would also reserve the right to take our own professional advice as to our efforts on your behalf." means simply he is not specialised in some subject, and will prefer to ask someone who is. Like a medical doctor asking for a second opinion before going ahead and cutting your leg off. Now I would have preferred if the solicitor had said concretely what exactly is wrong with the contract. Also, it would be obvious that you would be very comfortable with anything that he would advice her against. If he thinks that it is a good deal for you but not for her, he should advice against it. (Your comment to another question seems to indicate that she should be paid a lot more than you offered, so her solicitor seems to have been perfectly right).
If the question asks, "did you do X" where X is or includes a crime that you could be criminally prosecuted for, you can invoke the 5th amendment in refusing to answer that. I have seen that done and seen that objection to the question sustained in court. However, if admitting to X would provide only civil liability, then the 5th would not apply. At trial, you may also have to take care not to give direct testimony on things that are so closely related that you "open the door" to being required to answer that question. For example, you can't say "I don't owe because I did X" and then expect to not have to answer "So just to be clear, did you do X?" Also, depending on context, invoking the 5th might cause a jury to view your testimony more skeptically (cpast points out that "For civil cases, adverse inferences based on pleading the fifth are totally okay"), and if that's going to come up you should ask your attorney about whether or not it'd be a good idea strategically.
Yes, for the jurisdiction specified in the tag In the United States, questioning must stop as soon as the accused assserts his or her right to counsel. It's been upheld by subsequent precedent, but the origin is in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 474 (1966): If the individual states that he wants an attorney, the interrogation must cease until an attorney is present. At that time, the individual must have an opportunity to confer with the attorney and to have him present during any subsequent questioning. If the individual cannot obtain an attorney and he indicates that he wants one before speaking to police, they must respect his decision to remain silent.
I feel that a person, not the subject of arrest, should be protected by the 4th amendment if they choose to remain in their vehicle, even if “ordered” to exit the vehicle by an officer. The intuition is fine, but is basically incorrect. I’m most interested to know: How would a driver (1) Politely (2) determine if a given instruction to exit the vehicle must be complied with, and (3) decline the instruction without giving the officer “cause” or otherwise damaging a potential case? From a practical perspective the only workable response is to comply. There are times when this is done without a reasonable suspicion (or in some cases probable cause) or other legal basis, but it is pretty much impossible for you to dispute this one the spot. Most of the time, the officer will have the legal authority to order you to leave the vehicle. If they order you to exit the vehicle despite not having the legal authority to do so, the right course of action is to comply and then to file a complaint with the agency employing the officer or to bring a civil lawsuit against the officer. There are good answers to a basically duplicate question at How can you tell if you have to follow a police officer&#39;s instructions?
You can always politely ask a person to leave, which could solve your problem. If that doesn't work, you will have to take legal action: you cannot change the locks or force him out (without the risk of a costly lawsuit). In Washington this would probably be the slower ejectment process, since you are not in a landlord-tenant relation. The actual process depends on the laws of your jurisdiction, though it is doable in any US jurisdiction. You probably have to hire an attorney to navigate the process, since an unlawful detainer action would likely be dismissed (that is, you have to file the correct action, not just some action that's in the ballpark).
You can request in advance that you get only a half-dose: there is certainly no law prohibiting making a request. They may refuse or they may agree. If they refuse, you can go elsewhere, but you cannot compel them to do what you ask for, given current law. You can also yell anything you want, or flail about however you want, at your peril. You could seriously hurt yourself by jumping around, and you would not be able to sue them for your stupid actions. Nor could you sue them for assault, since to get the ball rolling, you have to consent to getting the shot. Although consent can be withdrawn, there is the practical matter that you almost certainly cannot effectively communicate withdrawal of consent in the time needed to finish administering the job. If it took 5 minutes to administer the shot, you might be able to say &quot;I changed my mind&quot;, and they would be required to end the treatment, against medical advice.