Can a person be fired, banned and evicted (etc.) without a court order? It seems like a lot of &quot;punishments&quot; can be applied to a person without having to go to court. For example a person can be banned from private or public property for any or no reason. I've seen residential leases that state a lease can be immediately terminated if a tenant commits a crime, though a courts decision is not necessary to find them guilty (clause 7, here). An employee can be terminated with cause if an internal investigation finds them guilty of misconduct (even if the process was total bogus, for example not giving them a chance to defend themselves). Do I understand things correctly? Is the idea that these things probably won't happen to an &quot;innocent&quot; person? Also this does not preclude counter lawsuits, for example I've heard of a case where an employee was fired for sexual harassment but he he maintains he didn't do it and is suing his coworkers and former employer for defamation of character. Does Habeas corpus come into play in any of these situations, or is it only applicable when physically being detained or jailed?
It seems like a lot of &quot;punishments&quot; can be applied to a person without having to go to court. Yes, because everyone has the right and freedom to associate, or dissociate, with other people, and the freedom of contract, at least when the state does not decide to interfere. The state, owing to its monopoly of legitimate violence, has a duty towards everyone under its rule and the people in many countries decided that the state's power should be significantly limited with judicial supervision where individual rights and freedoms are implicated. Other individuals or legal persons do not in general owe a duty to be friend with you or to sign or continue a labour or rental contract with you. At the same time, the people and their government have also decided in certain situations there exists a power imbalance (e.g. between the landlord and the tenant, the employer and the employee, groups suffering from discrimination and stereotypes) where unlimited freedom of association and contract not only harms the individual's human dignity but also harms the society as a whole (e.g. homeless and unemployment, which may lead to increased crimes etc.). Thus, in some situations, the law prohibits discrimination and provides for legal rights generally for the more vulnerable. However, this is a decision that is undertaken by each jurisdiction. A court order is only required if the law says that you normally have a legal entitlement but the state or someone else wants to take it away or limit it, or if the law explicitly requires a procedure before the court. Since you tagged the question with canada... Can a person be fired ... without a court order? Yes. However, in Canada, all jurisdictions have labour laws that regulate dismissal of an employee. Dismissal without cause usually requires notice period and/or severances, depending on the length of employment. Dismissal for cause can be challenged in court and the employer has the burden of proof to justify the cause on a balance of probabilities (more probably than not) and the terminated employee will have the right to have them heard before the court and present their evidences. If the person occupied a unionized position, they may also be able to file grievances with the union before an arbitrator, depending on the text of the collective agreement. The collective agreements also often provide for procedural requirements before the dismissal of an employee in a unionized position. Violation of these procedural requirements may lead to the annul of dismissal or awards of damages. Can a person be banned ... without a court order? Yes. You have no general right to be on another person's property in Canada. Your rights end where others' property (or other) rights begin. Like said in the beginning, this is a societal decision and an act of balancing particular to each jurisdiction, for example, in some places, there exists a right to roam over certain publicly accessible lands. The property owner or another person otherwise legally authorized has the authority to decide who they want on their property (which means what is one's own), subject to certain narrow exceptions, under common law and provincial trespassing acts. Your neighbour cannot prevent you from crossing on their land if you have a valid easement and are not abusing it. But if you are abusing your easement, your neighbour may take you to court for an order. Here the property owner includes the state. However, like almost all decisions made by the state, in Canada and many other countries with the rule of law, can be judicially reviewed for their reasonableness, and sometimes correctness. Like all decisions made by the state, trespassing notices may be challenged if the decision is arbitrary or without legal basis. Can a person be evicted ... without a court order? No. In all jurisdictions in Canada, eviction, that is, the forced removal of tenant from a premise, can only be carried out by sheriffs or other legally authorized officers upon an order from a court or tribunal (often called Landlord and Tenant Board or similar), with exceptions for certain tenancies (e.g. where the landlord and the tenant share living area). Court order is not required for the termination of a tenancy; but the termination of tenancy can only be achieved if the tenant agrees or a tribunal or court orders so. Does Habeas corpus come into play in any of these situations No. Habeas corpus means &quot;that you have the body&quot;, which is an order from a judicial official to command the state to bring someone in its custody before the court, so that the legality of their detention by the state may be determined. In Canada, habeas corpus only protects liberty interests of an individual.
In theory, a store can ban you or anyone else for any reason except those protected by law against discrimination. As a practical matter, you potentially have various forms of recourse. The first thing to do is to write the the CEO of the chain, with a long detailed letter describing the incidents, and naming names. Most CEO's don't want to deal with this kind of bad publicity, and will at least order an investigation, and make amends, if the internal investigation is in your favor. This would apply even to the late Sam Walton, if the chain is WalMart, or whoever the current CEO is. If you are a member of a protected minority, or even have dark skin, you can sue the chain on those grounds. There will be a presumption that they barred you on grounds of race or color. Then the burden of proof will be on them to show that they didn't bar you for those causes. As a form of "entrapment," you should take a witness, basically the most influential person you can get hold of that's not a family member, to the store with you to ask them why you were barred. The mayor of your town would be ideal, more llkely it would be a boss, teacher, or clergyman, but in any event, someone who knows you well. If you can get them to accuse you of stealing in front of this third party, you have the makings of a defamation case. And even if you aren't a minority, you can sue them anyway. You can demand "discovery" of all internal documents, videos, etc. relating to your case. Your lawyer will also the right to "depose" (cross examine) all offending managers.There's a good chance that something embarrassing will turn up in the process. (Many defendants settle in connection with discovery.) You might want to hire a second (libel) lawyer to teach you how to publicize the case without running into libel laws. If all this fails, the store can probably bar you, but you want to make it prohibitively expensive for them to do so, meaning that most rational people wouldn't bar you after the above. If they do, they're not rational and you're better off not using the store.
It is a felony to escape from a jail; see California Penal Code section 4532. (Escapes from a prison are covered in section 4530). However, California law recognizes a necessity defense when a crime is committed in order to avoid "significant bodily harm". (See the link for other important elements of the defense.) This defense would probably only be viable if after escaping, the inmate turned himself in as promptly as he reasonably could, once clear of the immediate danger of harm. He could go to any police station or law enforcement office; or he could call any police agency, explain the situation, and wait for them to come and arrest him. He would then presumably be taken to a different jail. If the inmate thinks the jail is unsafe, he can sue the state in either state or federal court (the latter as a civil rights case). It's unlikely that a court would order his release on this basis; more likely, they would order the state to improve conditions in some specific way, and they might award monetary damages to the inmate if he is injured. He also would probably not be able to stay out of jail during the suit. If the state arrests him, they'll put him in jail unless a court orders his release (or he's granted bail, or his case is otherwise resolved). If he hides to avoid arrest, then he's a fugitive. I seem to recall there's a general principle that fugitives don't have access to the courts.
A store owner may ban any person from that store that s/he chooses, provided that the ban is not for a reason forbidden by applicable anti-discrimination law, such as banning all people of a particular race or religion. That does not appear to be the case in this situation, from the description. Since this is a franchise, the store has a local owner who is not the chain company. The company will have a franchise contract with the local owner, which will specify in what ways the company can and cannot control the store. They might or might not have the power to require the store owner not to ban you, or not to engage in verbally abusive behavior in the store. In any case, you, or any third party, cannot force them to exercise such power, even if they have it under such a contract. It is very unlikely that law enforcement the authorities will treat the verbal harassment as a crime based on a customer report. You could publicize the situation, as by an online review, which might cause the chain company to take some action, for fear of bad publicity. But be careful. You have already learned that your initial understanding of the situation was significantly incomplete. If any public statements you make are untrue, and harmful to reputation, you could be accused of defamation and sued, perhaps successfully.
They come to her house excessively and have even told her if she has house guests they will arrest her. Can they really do that? Absent special circumstances such as those discussed below, however, having house guests is not a crime, and some laws that purport to prohibit this are unconstitutional. But, there are a variety of proper and improper reasons that this could be happening, as well as some that are in a legal gray area. Clearly, the police are doing this for some reason, proper or improper, because it is a sustained pattern of conduct that seems to be singling out one person. But, without more of a factual context it is hard to tell what that reason is so that it is possible to determine whether or not their threat has a legal basis. Like most legal questions, the answer cannot be provided in a vacuum and a full factual context is necessary to know if the police conduct is illegal or not. Valid Reasons Part of A Pattern Of Evidence Showing A Suspected Vice Offense One possible subtext is that the police believe that the premises is a de facto house of prostitution, or that she is dealing drugs out of the house, even though they don't yet have the evidence to arrest her on those suspicions. The police could be implying in their threat to arrest her that the presence of &quot;house guests&quot; would give them probable cause to arrest her on suspicion of a vice offense such as prostitution or drug dealing. Municipal Ordinance Violations Many valid reasons involve municipal ordinances, almost all of which can be punished by arrest and incarceration just like a misdemeanor criminal offense, even when the ordinance does not describe conduct that would usually be considered to be criminal in nature. For example, municipal codes usually authorize law enforcement to arrest someone for a zoning violation, even though it would be very unusual to arrest someone for violating a zoning law. There are often municipal ordinances which limit how many house guests you can have at any one time in a single family house or apartment, such as fire codes and laws designed to prevent loitering and gang activity, and there are often rules that prohibit certain kinds of activities like loud and disorderly parties (especially where alcohol is served or available). But, these ordinances almost never prohibit all house guests. The police could think that she is operating a short term leasing operation (i.e. Air B-n-B) or hotel, in a place where this use of the property is banned by municipal ordinance, and it appears that her &quot;house guests&quot; fit this description. Many municipal ordinances impose curfews on minors, and someone could be arrested for having a party at which minor house guests are present after curfew under some of those municipal ordinances. Some municipal ordinances (or even sometimes state laws), which are not always constitutional or valid under federal housing laws, prohibit unrelated people from cohabiting, either because the cohabitation amounts to de facto polygamy, or because zoning laws prohibit more than a certain number of unrelated people from living at a residence. Valid Reasons Particular To Certain Individuals If someone is on probation or parole or house arrest or out on bail pending criminal charges, the conditions of that criminal sentence or bail condition could also limit the ability of someone to have house guests. For example, if someone had previously been convicted of disorderly conduct and noise violations and contributing to the delinquency of minors, with a wild party, a probation condition for that person might prohibit them from having house guests during the duration of the probation sentence. Similarly, many probation, parole and bail conditions, prohibit the person released in the community from associating with known felons or gang members. Civil or criminal protection orders can also prohibit particular people (e.g. ex-spouses) from being at a particular location. Many states impose restrictions on where sex offenders can reside that could be implicated in this case. A few states also have a criminal sanction of &quot;exile&quot; on the books that prohibits certain people from being in certain jurisdictions following their conviction. Gray Area Reasons It is also entirely possible that the police are asserting rights to do things that they don't actually have the right to do. And, in most jurisdictions in the U.S., it is not categorically unconstitutional for law enforcement officers to lie to members of the public about their authority or other matters, in order to achieve a law enforcement purpose, even if they would be violating the law if they followed through on their lies about what they are permitted to do. Improper Reasons There could also be clearly improper reasons for this conduct. For example: perhaps a police officer wants men to say away from his ex-spouse or daughter, even though he has no right to do so and his colleagues are backing him up, or perhaps the police think that her house guests are disreputable and are taking matters into their own hands without legal authority to keep &quot;bad people&quot; out of territory in their &quot;beat&quot;, or perhaps they suspect but can't prove that she deals drugs or conducts some other sort of illegal activity at her residence, or perhaps she is one of the few black residents of the neighborhood (or her house guests are black) and the police want to harass her to cause her to leave the neighborhood, and they don't think that she will be able to punish them for their misconduct effectively though legal channels before getting fed up and moving away. For example, if they make an arrest and can articulate some kind of alleged probable cause even if it doesn't hold up in court, they may be able to dramatically inconvenience this women with impunity, particularly if the local trial court judges that would consider the arrest decide to side with the police even when misconduct would be clear to a neutral observer.
While there are certainly statutory and procedural vehicles for sanctions, they are almost never requested or allowed when moved for, and are almost never imposed by judges. Something very severe needs to occur and not just your typical discovery violation ("speaking objections" during depositions, being late with responses, failure to cite to affidavits, affidavits citing conjecture rather than fact, et). It would have to be something quite serious....like misleading the court or directly failing to comply with a direct order or ruling on a motion. It is exceedingly rare. It is most seen in Federal Court.
This law sounds likely to be unconstitutional and/or invalid because it is pre-empted by state or federal laws. Among other things it probably violates the First Amendment right to petition the government, and the Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection of the laws (by depriving people who have had previous police calls of the right to call the police without penalty) and due process (by imposing a penalty based upon a call, without a presumption of innocence, rather than a finding of wrongdoing that overcomes a presumption of innocence). It could also implicate a tenant's right as a Fourth Amendment seizure without probable cause, or a Fifth Amendment taking of property without just compensation. It is probably also pre-empted by state law which establishes the grounds for which someone may be lawfully evicted, which almost certainly do not include this condition. Likewise, the conditions under which liability for police injuries is imposed are also probably pre-empted by state law. California has an express statutory prohibition on this kind of rule at Cal.Civ.Code § 1946.8(c) which provides that: A landlord cannot punish, or threaten to punish, you or another resident for exercising your right to request law enforcement or emergency assistance on behalf of a: victim of abuse; victim of crime; or person in an emergency. Your landlord also cannot put any penalties in place if a person who is not a resident or tenant calls law enforcement or emergency assistance to your residence. To be protected under this law, the person who calls the police must believe that law enforcement or emergency assistance is needed to prevent or deal with an act of abuse, or the heightening or worsening of an act of abuse, a crime, or an emergency. The American Civil Liberties Union is currently actively attempting to identify cases where these laws (often called nuisance laws) are being used in this manner for the purposes of bringing litigation to invalidate the laws or restrain their use. Litigation is in process in Seattle, Washington and East Rochester, New York. The ACLU also notes that: In situations where an alleged &quot;nuisance&quot; offense is related to an incident of domestic violence, landlords may choose to evict all the residents to avoid future incidents or police calls that could result in a fine. Yet, these evictions violate federal law. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has made it clear that tenants who are denied or evicted from housing because they have suffered domestic violence can file sex discrimination complaints with HUD under the federal Fair Housing Act. Thus, there would often be pre-emption of the local law by federal law as well. An op-ed piece in the New York Times reviews similar issues in Lakewood, Ohio and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, pointing out that the U.S. Constitution and federal housing laws are likely to be violated by these statutes. In at least two instances, one included in an edited question in Norristown, Pennsylvania, and one mentioned in another answer, the case of Somai v. City of Bedford in Bedford, Ohio, the ACLU has concluded favorable settlements after litigation to have these ordinances repealed and to win compensation for aggrieved parties, although, because they are settlements, neither case establishes a binding appellate precedent. We don't intend to challenge the laws at this time - they make it easier for us to evict problem tenants whose visitors damage our property - but were wondering if there are examples of similar laws that have either gone unchallenged for a long period of time or that have been challenged and judged to be legal. As landlords, you are in a difficult position. These laws have not gone unchallenged for a long period of time nor have they been challenged and judged to be legal. Instead, in all likelihood, a legal challenge to these newly enacted laws is likely to be imminent. And, while you face violations of local laws in these cases by not taking action, you may face federal housing law liability if you do utilize these laws and these laws are found to be invalid.
I don't know Canadian rental law, but as a general rule in civil cases you don't get to play Perry Mason and bring in evidence at the last minute. If you have evidence that the landlord broke the law then disclose it immediately and use it to pressure him into settling. His later lies to you are less important than the fact that he broke the law in the first place. However you can certainly testify about what he said as evidence that he has acted in bad faith.