When is imputed income not reasonable? Mary and Joe had a child. Mary owns a fast food franchise. Joe works as a service manager. Mary has residential custody of the child (New York). Joe sought to have child support reduced, arguing that Mary should have made more from the fast food franchise. Figures shown in court were that a typical franchise made $600,000/yr, and Mary's made $40,000. Joe sought to have Mary's contribution upped to $600K/yr. Note that Mary had the franchise prior to their having a child, and during the 7 year history, the franchise never exceeded $60,000 in net proceeds to Mary. The court has temporarily granted Joe's request, and the net effect is that Mary now receives about $300/yr in child support. She cannot support her child on her existing income and the reduced child support. What is the practical application of imputed income in New York? Is it appropriately applied when there is no earning history to back it up? What options in support court, should Mary be considering?
Imputed income is a legitimate concept, but it is hard to prove, particularly when there is an earning history to back up the claim that there is no malingering. Ultimately, the question is what that particular individual could earn and whether that particular individual was intentionally being lazy in order to influence child support. At a minimum an earnings history and testimony from Mary would be strong evidence disproving the claim, and it would probably take expert testimony to make any kind of credible claim that more income should be imputed that would still be unlikely to succeed. If more money were at stake, a battle of the experts with experts on each side with one testifying that Mary could earn more and the other debunking that expert's testimony, would be appropriate. But, for $300 a month at issue, it probably doesn't make economic sense for either party to hire any kind of expert. And, a judge is usually going to take some random statistical study much less seriously than a history of earnings and testimony from the franchise owner about why it earned more or less than average.
It's basically a question about the rules of court. While I can't say for sure about this case, a scheduled court date that isn't canceled, even in a stayed proceeding, is to be held. Non-appearance of a party or their representing lawyer is a bad idea as it might incur contempt of court. Such a court date can be used to (once more) inform the court and other parties of the stay. Paperwork that might have been delayed in postal service is then given over under the eyes of the judge, pretty much ensuring that the other parties did get them and nobody may cry foul play. Possibly the meeting can be used by the attorney to reschedule other court dates or depositions if the stay has a specific time length. Also note, that not all stays are for the whole case but might only rule to stay parts of it: a divorce case that includes a case for visitation of a child might stay the visitation part till a related case about where the child will live in the future is solved, but continue on the parts that try to sort out the divorce itself. Such non-stayed proceedings do proceed even under the stay of some others.
Canadian law defines "theft" thus: Every one commits theft who fraudulently and without colour of right takes, or fraudulently and without colour of right converts to his use or to the use of another person, anything, whether animate or inanimate, with intent (to deprive the owner, pledge as security, mess it up) In this case, you accepted what seemed to be an offer of a free pizza, so if you took and consumed the pizza you did so with a colorable claim of right and without fraud. Perhaps you misunderstood, but it is not a crime to misunderstand another person's intent. They could sue you for the cost of the pizza (assuming that you took it and did not pay), in which case the question would be whether whatever they said to you could reasonably be interpreted as an offer of a free pizza (if not, pay for the pizza). As an advertising stunt, this would not be unusual. However, if they fix the pizza but then demand money before handing over the pizza, you now know that you have no right to the pizza (if you abscond with the pizza in that circumstance, it would be theft). You may of course pay for the pizza, but you can also not pay and not take the pizza. Again, they could sue you, and in this case your defense would be that there was no contract (no agreement). An important question would be how reasonable it is to believe that you were offered a free pizza. People are offered "free" steak dinners all the time (at the cost of sitting through a sales pitch), so that is a reasonable belief. If a Lexus yacht salesman appears to be offering you a free $5M yacht, it is not reasonable to think that this is an ordinary advertising stunt, if you're not a celebrity.
Financial institutions in the US are subject to regulations that restrict what sorts of things non-licensed employees can talk about with clients and advice they can give about structuring accounts and payments in ways that might avoid triggering money laundering alarms. I think this employee was being cautious about getting into a gray area and phrased the reason they couldn't talk about it poorly. The reason they were restricted from giving you an answer could be a legality, but not necessarily because they are giving you legal advice.
What you have heard is not exactly correct (and also depends, in part, on the Chapter under which the bankruptcy is filed). I will address the simplest case, a Chapter 7 liquidation of an individual, which is simpler, because a Chapter 7 liquidation is determined as of a point of time, while Chapter 11 and Chapter 13 reorganizations are conceptually more complex and don't just transfer rights to a trustee at a single point in time. When you file a Chapter 7, all of your property, including you rights to sue people that had accrued as of that date, are transferred to the bankruptcy trustee as an asset of the bankruptcy estate, and the right of anyone to sue you is stayed automatically until the bankruptcy court either authorizes the lawsuit, or discharges the debt associated with the lawsuit (there are actually a few cases where the automatic stay expires on its own after a certain amount of time). Rights to bring lawsuits that arise after the bankruptcy is filed, or can be brought at any time, like a divorce/custody suit, are not barred, although property and enforcement of economic rights in those cases may be stayed until the bankruptcy court takes action. Custody issues other than child support, and termination of marital status are not affected. For example, if you file for bankruptcy on Monday and are hit by a bus on Friday, your personal injury suit claim is probably yours and not the bankruptcy estate's and can be brought by you. But, if you are hit by a bus on Monday and then file for bankruptcy on Friday, your personal injury suit claim is probably property of the bankruptcy estate. (It is a bit more complicated than this, because your right to sue for a personal injury might be exempt property, at least in part, but this example conveys the gist of the concept.) There is a further complication in the analysis which is that domestic relations actions and probate court actions are normally considered to be outside of the jurisdiction of the federal courts (bankruptcy court is a federal court), even when there is diversity of citizenship, which doesn't change the basic conclusions above.
If the question is: "Did she call you and talk about two business contracts? " then this is not hearsay. We have a witness, standing in court, saying that exactly these things happened - that she called, and that she talked about those deals. If the question is: "Did the company sign two business deals that day? " then it is hearsay. We know that she said two deals were signed, because we have a witness for that, but that doesn't mean she said the truth. She could have lied about that. We don't have a witness standing in court saying that the deals were signed. We have a witness in court saying that he heard someone say the deals were signed. In a libel case where Jim sues Joe for libel, a witness says "Joe told me that Jim is a lying thief". That's absolutely not hearsay in a libel case about Joe spreading false rumours. The exact same statement by the exact same witness would be hearsay if someone tried to convict Jim for theft.
Sarah, thanks for your question. You have asked this on the Legal forum; and whilst there might be many moral or ethical considerations surrounding your situation - I'll try to deal with the legal principles here - which are distinct from what people consider 'fair' in the common sense of the word - simply discussing the legal basis of what you are asking. The relevant law here is 'Gifting' under the Law of Property - here A gift, in the law of property, is the voluntary transfer of property from one person (the donor or grantor) to another (the donee or grantee) without full valuable consideration. In order for a gift to be legally effective, three requirements must be met: Intention of donor to give the gift to the donee (donative intent) Delivery of gift to donee. Acceptance of gift by donee. Gifts are generally considered by the court to be either 'outright, remunerative or onerous' - so there can be conditions placed on the acceptance/receipt of a gift. However, it doesn't sound like these apply and that you have given this gift, free of conditions to the donee. There are special legal considerations with respect to engagement rings between would-be spouses where the donee actually typically keeps an engagement ring even if they fail to get married. This is under revocation. Unfortunately, from a strict legal point of view - a gift, is a gift - which broadly speaking means that if the person is not willing to return the gift, they are under no strict duty to do so. One can sue for return of the gift if undue influence was exerted over the donor by the donee: There are two main forms of conduct that are unacceptable: Acts of improper pressure or coercion such as unlawful threats. In the case of Etridge the judge made it clear that the court will intervene to set aside a transaction which is the product of “excessive pressure, emotional blackmail or bullying”. Failure to perform an equitable duty; g. where A trusts B and B takes unfair advantage of A. see here It would ultimately be for first, your solicitor and secondarily a court (or similar) to decide whether you had a legal case based on any undue influence you may have been under, based on the situation which you did not know that she had other items of your mother, leading you to gift her the ring. This is very context dependent. This legal process would be under a civil action against the donee. Of interest, the supreme court have limited the scope of 'undue influence'; the technical details can be seen here. I hope this is helpful.
In practice this is rarely done in the US. There have been cases of employment contracts with automatic increases tied to the CPI (Consumer Price Index) or some other measure of inflation -- I believe at one time a number of union contracts specified this. Employer and employee could certainly agree on any such formula. But in the absence of any explicit provision for such a link, and an agreed formula for the resulting salary, I think a stated salary would be interpreted as a fixed sum, not subject to change until an explicit change is made. Fixed wages are the almost invariable custom, and in the absence of any explicit provision for an automatic inflationary change, I think a court would assume a fixed amount, if it came to a court case.