Can I claim recompense if a government action destroys my house? Let's say I rent out a house to someone who I don't know, but turns out to be a terrorist using a false identity. The government raids the house, there is a fight, and my house is destroyed. Can I claim compensation from the government for destroying my house? Can I do it even if it is a foreign government conducting the raid?
In the United States, the government has, multiple times, destroyed homes while trying to catch a fugitive. And the homeowner sometimes makes a claim in federal court that this is an unconstitutional taking without compensation in violation of the 5th Amendment. In Lech v. Jackson, the 10th Circuit decided that the police and city were not liable for destroying a house while trying to arrest a criminal who had fled there. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case. But in Baker v. City of McKinney, Texas, less than 3 months ago, a district court declined to dismiss a case in which police destroyed a home to catch a fleeing criminal. Allegedly, in this case the police were given a key to the door, a garage door opener, and the code to the back gate by the homeowner - and instead of using those, they used explosives on the garage door and used a BearCat to knock down the fence and the front door. I'm not sure to what extent those facts, perhaps showing that the scale of the destruction was unnecessary, matter. To the best of my knowledge the case is still ongoing.
There is no legal obligation of the police or any of its officers to reimburse you. It comes within a police powers exception to the 5th Amendment obligation to provide compensation for takings. Sometimes a government will compensate someone even though it has no legal obligation to do so, but this is unlikely to happen. A petition for certiorari from 10th Circuit decision of Lech v. City of Greenwood Village (10th Cir. October 29, 2019) recaps a lot of the relevant law and arguments for changing it (the petition was subsequently denied by the U.S. Supreme Court). The question presented in the petition was: Using explosives and a battering ram attached to an armored personnel carrier, the Greenwood Village Police Department intentionally destroyed Petitioners’ house. Afterwards, they offered the family $5,000 “to help with temporary living expenses.” The family sued, arguing that they were entitled to Just Compensation under the Fifth Amendment for the intentional destruction of their house. The Tenth Circuit, however, held that no compensation was due because the home was destroyed pursuant to the police power rather than the power of eminent domain. The question presented is whether there is a categorical exception to the Just Compensation Clause when the government takes property while acting pursuant to its police power. (To be clear, Texas is in the 5th Circuit and not the 10th Circuit, but there is not a circuit split on this particular issue between any U.S. Court of Appeals Circuits, and the Texas Supreme Court has not taken a contrary position.) Needless to say, that fact pattern was even worse for the innocent citizen, because law enforcement had more discretion and time to make a conscious decision about how to respond to the &quot;bad guy&quot; (an armed man wanted for shoplifting and resisting arrest) in the house to which the suspect had no connection. You could sue the &quot;bad guys&quot; who were involved in the shootout (if known) for causing an incident that foreseeably damaged your car, or you could make a first party insurance claim with your own car insurance.
I'm not sure it makes sense to talk about having "jurisdiction" over an IP address, for the purposes you're discussing. If you wanted to sue the IP address itself--something that is possible under limited circumstances--then you might need to locate it for jurisdictional purposes. But I don't think that's what you're talking about. You're talking about taking civil or criminal action against the people who are using the IP address to commit crimes. What matters, in that case, is not a theoretical legal question about the location of an IP address. It's questions like: where do these people live? Where do the people downloading the illegal content live? Where are the physical servers located? ("In the cloud" is not an answer--there are physical servers somewhere making up that cloud). For jurisdictional purposes, the chair they're sitting in when they upload the illegal data, and the location of the AC power outlet the physical server is plugged into, are as important as, if not more important than, the metaphysical "location" of the IP address of the server.
The relevant part of Texas law is in the property code, §§92.101-92.109 §92.104 allows them to "deduct from the deposit damages and charges for which the tenant is legally liable under the lease or as a result of breaching the lease", and then they must "give to the tenant the balance of the security deposit, if any, together with a written description and itemized list of all deductions" (except when there is uncontroversial rent owed). §92.109 states what the landlord's liability is, namely a landlord who in bad faith retains a security deposit in violation of this subchapter is liable for an amount equal to the sum of $100, three times the portion of the deposit wrongfully withheld, and the tenant's reasonable attorney's fees in a suit to recover the deposit. This requires bad faith, not just being wrong. If you dispute the deductions, you can sue the landlord to recover the deposit. The law also provides that "In an action brought by a tenant under this subchapter, the landlord has the burden of proving that the retention of any portion of the security deposit was reasonable". In order to extract more money from you for putative damages, the landlord will have to sue you and establish that there was an additional $2,000 damages. If the court finds that you did actually did damage the apartment, you may be ordered to compensate the landlord. Until you get such an order, you don't owe them anything; you may be able to recover the damage deposit if the "damage" was insignificant. This sketches the process of suing in Justice Court to get your deposit back, highlighting details like the demand letter that you might not have known you have to write. As far as your credit history is concerned, this is not entirely clear. The Fair Credit Reporting Act regulates the industry of credit reporting, and crucially you can dispute false claims of debts. This does not prevent a person from making such a claim. I do not have an account with the Big 3 reporting services, so I don't know what their standards are for recording a putative debt. However, you can insert a suitable statement in your record disputing the validity of the claim. It is most likely that the landlord would sell the putative debt to a collection agency. That industry is regulated by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and there is a procedure about disputing an alleged debt.
In Austria they have a law about &quot;Kreditschädigung&quot; (website from the Austrian government, &quot;credit damage&quot;) translated by Google as: Because of credit damage, a person is liable to prosecution if he or she asserts incorrect facts and thereby harms or endangers the credit, the acquisition or professional advancement of another person. A prison sentence of up to six months or a fine of up to 360 daily rates is provided for the offense of credit damage. If you setup a webpage which lists things which might harm somebody's business, you have to proof that every single claim you make is correct (not just your individual experience). So if you have solid proof for each of your claims of your Q&amp;A, you might win a probable law suite. The way you wrote it, it might be difficult to proof because it seems to be your personal experience. See also here for details. (in German).
australia A tenant must return the property in the state it was given subject to fair wear and tear Fair wear and tear represents the deterioration that occurs in normal use - so it includes wear on a carpet from walking on it but not wear from having a horse walk on it (unless you’re renting a stable but who puts carpet in a stable?) If the wall is in the condition that it was given to you but for the normal deterioration over time, then you are not liable to fix it. As for who has the onus of proof, since the landlord is the one claiming the entitlement, they have to prove it. However, the burden is only the balance of probabilities. So, if there is a fist shaped hole in the plaster wall and there is no evidence it was there when the tenant moved in, then, it’s more likely than not that it happened on the tenant’s watch and they have to fix it. Because putting fists through walls is something that residents are more likely to do than landlords. However, if there is a painted wall and the initial application of the paint is defective, then absent evidence that the tenant painted the wall, it’s more likely than not that the landlord did it. Because painting walls is something landlords are more likely to do than residents.
In the absence of an agreement to the contrary, you could usually be sued in the jurisdictions where the events giving rise to the claim took place, if you were personally served with process anywhere in the world in a procedurally correct manner. If this happens and you default or fail to cooperate in the judicial process, you will probably have a judgment entered against you. If you lost, the other party would get a judgment against you (an official declaration of a court that you owe another party money that authorizes various involuntary means of debt collection from your income and assets). This could be enforced against assets you have in the jurisdiction where the judgment was entered, or could be "domesticated" to a different jurisdiction where you had assets by bringing suit or exercising another process set forth by treaty or a law of the jurisdiction in which the foreign judgment holder seeks to domesticate the judgment. Whether the foreign judgment is conclusive against you or not, depends upon the domestic law of the place where they seek to enforce the foreign judgment, the nature of the underlying claims upon which the foreign judgment is based, and the legal process used to obtain the foreign judgment. Many countries will pretty much automatically enforce a judgment enforcing a breach of a contract between private sector parties obtained through the ordinary legal process in a country whose legal system is recognized by the U.S., but often will not give legal effect to legal procedures like a pre-dispute "confessions of judgment", an award of exemplary damages, an award of non-economic damages, or an award based upon a legal theory that is not recognized by the jurisdiction in which you seek to enforce the judgment. In general, judgments of U.S. courts in tort cases are rarely recognized by other countries. Similarly, a U.S. court, for example, would not enforce a foreign judgment, from say, ISIL controlled territory, for breach of a contract to deliver slaves to a buyer. Some Saudi Arabian money judgments are not enforced in the U.S. because the courts have held that their system does not protect basic principles of due process and the rule of law, which is why contracts with Saudi Arabia often have arbitration clauses instead of relying upon the royal courts in existence there. Some countries might enforce a judgment entered following a trial on the merits regarding a dispute, but not a default judgment, without essentially bringing the lawsuit all over again in the country where the assets are located, applying the general principles of legal concepts known as "collateral estoppel" and "res judicata". Most countries have special laws specifically governing when an arbitration award will be enforced with a money judgment in that jurisdiction and when it will not be enforced. This varies considerably from one country to another. The U.S. is unusually deferential to employment and consumer arbitration, but most countries will recognize express signed contractual arbitration agreements in a business to business situation that conforms to basic standards of due process.
If you want to be argumentative about it, the burden of proof is on the person making the accusation. This also means the burden of production is, too. Underlying the whole matter is a claim that you've engaged in &quot;breach of contract,&quot; namely failing to pay rent. Your legal obligation is to not engage in contract fraud nor breach of contract. You are to exercise due diligence in resolving any breach of contract. You may ask the lessor to provide evidence in support of the claim while admitting that you have difficulty looking that far back into the issue. The idea here is to &quot;work with&quot; the lessor rather than immediately taking an adversarial stance. Normal people become very disgruntled by those taking an immediate adversarial approach rather than seeking to work with the other person to resolve the dispute.