Can child support be settled out of court, and can that settlement be challenged in court? Can child support be settled out of court, and can that settlement be challenged in court? I am wondering if settlement of child support out of court has any bearing on the legal proceedings and if they're recognized at all by the court even if a contract was signed. Is this the case in North America, what about Europe?
Child support arrangements can be negotiated by the parties, however, approval of the court is required to make them binding. Courts will reject arrangements that deviate too far from what a court would impose.
Yes, the correct forum is the Local Court in the relevant state (in some states these are called Magistrate's Courts). The amount is too large ($10,000) to qualify as a small claim . If you want to do it yourself the court websites are very informative and in NSW, at least, the process can be initiated online including your paying for the Sheriff to serve the summons (they will not find the person, you have to give them an address). After being served they have 28 days to file a defence or you can get a default judgement and begin recovery. If they do file a defence then things will get more expensive. Of course, you may want to hire a local lawyer.
Yes Quite a large chunk of the legal system deals with those general concepts. 27 - pretty much all contract law deals with when and how you must discharge your obligations 28 - ditto, although if it’s not owed until tomorrow … 29 - there are laws against criminal conspiracy 30 - making false accusations can be a crime and can give rise to defamation
We can assume there was a meeting of the minds when the contract was drafted, and both parties expected payments to me made based on product usage. Plaintiff alleges that this did not happen. Thus plaintiff is indeed alleging that the contract was breached. Now plaintiff alleges that defendant broke the contract, while defendant counters that plaintiff broke the contract. "[T]o be determined by tracking software" is woefully ambiguous. The court will want to know which party drafted the contract, as disputes arising from ambiguity are often resolved in favor of the non-drafting party.
These offer letters typically state explicitly that the offer is contingent on approval by the relevant governing board. This is sufficient to thwart promissory estoppel. Such highest-level overturning are frequent enough in the US that a reasonable person would know that the principal (for instance) does not have final authority to make a contract. There is no requirement that the board justify their decision to you. If you file a lawsuit alleging racial or religious discrimination, and if you can make a prima facie case for discrimination,you might survive the motion for dismissal, and the board might be required to say why they didn't hire you.
No Or at least not necessarily. Contract terms are legally one of three types: Conditions, Warranties, or Intermediate. Breach of any term allows the aggrieved party to sue to recover damages - monetary compensation to restore them to the position they would have been in had the breach not occurred. Breach of a condition also (or instead) allows them to terminate a contract. Breach of a warranty does not. Intermediate terms are terms that might be a condition or might be a warranty depending on how egregious the breach was. A contract can explicitly make a term a condition, the historical and still used phrase being that X is “of the essence”. If the contract is not explicit (most aren’t), then that is the concept that the court uses to decide - is the term “of the essence”, that is, absolutely fundamental to the performance of the contract. Similarly a term can be explicitly a warranty, usually by saying party Y “warrants” something. Most incidental or procedural terms are warranties - if breached, they never give rise to a right to terminate. Most terms are intermediate, particularly most terms about time. Normally, intermediate terms are warranties but if a breach is egregious enough, then this can elevate the term to a condition. Payment terms are a classic: if you are a day or a week late in making payment, the other party can’t cancel the contract. If you are a year late, they can. Somewhere in between, your breach changes the term from a warranty to a condition. For your situation, the early delivery is clearly a breach of a warranty, not a condition. If it even is a breach - the contract may say that they are obliged to deliver by 1 December: delivery on 1 November is clearly in compliance with that term. If it is a breach, you do not have the right to terminate the contract and if you tried you would be breaching the contract yourself by repudiation. By the way, repudiating the contract is definitely breaching a condition. A huge number of contract disputes turn on who validly terminated and who repudiated the contract. If it is a breach, you can sue for damages which, since they have not charged you for November, would be what it cost you or what you lost by having their bin on your premises for a month. My guess that this would be in the order of zero.
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.
A spouse in Toronto, Canada can seek a divorce at any time by filing a petition in the appropriate court in Ontario Province, although it is only granted after the parties have been separated for at least one year (or sooner if adultery or domestic violence are present). A divorce court can order temporary support during the pendency of the case. The relevant law is national, but the relevant court is part of the provincial court system. Abandonment or separation from a spouse is not a concept recognized by criminal law in Canada, and abandonment has no relevance to entitlement to a divorce in Canadian divorce law which simply asks if parties are currently living together or not as a factual matter (although it may go to need for maintenance payments or access to property). If they are not living together, then they are separated, something that requires no court approval. Upon divorce, and during a separation (in fact) of the spouses prior to a divorce, a Court can enter orders regarding property division or maintenance (and child support, if relevant) if the husband can be served with process, and as to any property that the Court can gain control over. UPDATE: Contrary to my previous answer to this question, apparently there is a relevant criminal statute that I previously failed to locate because it was in part of the criminal code where I didn't expect it to be, which states in the pertinent part (the language in bold has been held unconstitutional and has no legal effect). § 215 (1) Every one is under a legal duty . . . (b) to provide necessaries of life to their spouse . . . (2) Every one commits an offence who, being under a legal duty within the meaning of subsection (1), fails without lawful excuse, the proof of which lies on him, to perform that duty, if (a) with respect to a duty imposed by paragraph (1). . . (b), (i) the person to whom the duty is owed is in destitute or necessitous circumstances, or (ii) the failure to perform the duty endangers the life of the person to whom the duty is owed, or causes or is likely to cause the health of that person to be endangered permanently . . . (3) Every one who commits an offence under subsection (2) . . . (a) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years; or (b) is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding eighteen months. (4) For the purpose of proceedings under this section . . . the fact that a spouse . . . is receiving or has received necessaries of life from another person who is not under a legal duty to provide them is not a defence. Canadians call this crime criminal neglect. Some interpretative material and case law is provided here, although all of the easily accessible case law cited at the source involves child neglect rather than spousal neglect. More interpretations of the statute and procedural issues are explored here. Notably, the summary offense statute of limitations is six months. Under the statute: "Necessaries of life" are necessaries that "tend to preserve life and not necessaries in their ordinary legal sense". According to a case involving failure to provide medical care to a child who was also physically abused. Other cases have held that: Where the duty is found, the crown must prove:3 the culprit acts or omissions which led to the failure to provide necessaries of life were a marked departure from the conduct of a reasonably prudent person in similar circumstances, and it was objectively foreseeable that the failure to provide necessaries would lead to a risk of danger to the life or permanent endangerment to the health of the person to whom the duty is owed. The accused's conduct is to be considered on an objective standard and so the individual characteristics and experiences of the accused are not relevant. Neither abandonment nor separation are concepts involved in the statute which merely involves a "failure to provide." The lion's share of the cases involve what could be called child neglect (about half of the reported cases) or elder abuse, not infrequently involving an adult child and a severely unhealthy dependent parent. (These cases also hold that the spouse's duty to provide necessities takes priority over the child's.) "Lawful excuses" are a matter of common law and are not itemized in the statute. The decision to charge the crime as a "summary offense" (basically a misdemeanor) or an "indictable offense" (basically a felony) appears to be up to the prosecutor and there is no mandatory minimum sentence. In a couple hours of searching, I have not been able to locate any Canadian case under Section 215 with a fact pattern similar to that of the question. The elder abuse cases don't tend to involve spouses and involve neglect of personal care that a person cannot provide themselves or a lack of medical care, by and large. So, it seems that the conclusion, that one should bring a divorce action, still appears to be the correct one. It seems unlikely that this situation would be prosecuted when a civil action could secure another result. Also, incarceration of a spouse will ordinarily prevent the spouse from earning any income.