Why it&#39;s legal to tip waiter and not a doctor? Waiters and a wide range of other services industry employees are often tipped for their good work and as a sign of gratitude. Why when a teacher or a doctor is being tipped, it counts as bribery and is therefore illegal?
It is generally legal to tip anyone; it is just not culturally done. Lots of things are legal, but culturally inappropriate. As an aside, tipping waiters in Australia is only done for exceptional service; not as a matter of routine. This is culturally different from say the USA. From the Judicial Commission of NSW: The common law offence of bribery is constituted by the receiving or offering of an undue reward by or to any person in public office, in order to influence that person’s behaviour in that office, and to incline that person to act contrary to accepted rules of honesty and integrity. The offence can be constituted by the mere offer of a corrupt inducement, even if the offer is rejected. The offence of bribery can be constituted by the making or offering of a payment with an intent to incline a person in public office to disregard his or her duty at some future time — the occasion for the disregard of duty need not have arisen at the time of the offence, and it need never arise: R v Allen (1992) 27 NSWLR 398 at 402. A gratuity is not a bribe: it post-dates the service provided and was not foreshadowed. However, if it is part of an ongoing relationship, that may be problematic.
This is just saying that if they can’t host your event then the only remedy you get is your money back that your paid them (your deposit, advance payments, and of course your don’t owe final payments). It is there to make it clear that they are not responsible of any other money. What else might the client want them to refund? Other lost expenses. Non refundable deposits to the band, the florist, the caterer if this is just for the space. The non refundable airline tickets your relatives bought. Prepaid hotel rooms. They will not pay for any of that. The pandemic is a bit of a red herring because although that is of course the big thing now, it says any occurance whether or not the business caused it. The answers to your specific questions though are pretty trivial. -The business did not cause the pandemic or control the state health office (Irrelevant as noted) -There is nothing they can do about it. The state or county will allow the events when the situation improves. But even if say there was no state order but the venue for their own reasons or because they could not get enough staff cancelled, the answer would be the same.
There is no general law making it illegal to lie about debts, or anything else. It is illegal to lie to a law enforcement officer in the course of an investigation. (And of course it is illegal to lie in court testimony or when otherwise under oath.) But it is in no way unlawful to decline to answer, unless a proper court order has been obtained, or other lawful means of compelling an answer. I would expect any law office to respond to such a question with something like "Am I/we being investigated? If so, send the appropriate notice and our lawyer will consider what we should tell you. If not, tell us what information you want, and we will consider and provide a written response in due course." If a taxpayer has been found to be delinquent in paying taxes, in some cases a court order may be obtained seizing assets, including unpaid debts. But no IRS agent can make such a claim on the spot, and indeed for a client to make such a payment without such a court order, or the order of an IRS tribunal (or the creditor's written consent) would itself be unlawful and would subject the lawyer to a suit by the PI (Private Investigator). When the lawyer pays a service provider, a 1099 must be filed with the IRS. If the PI is a corporation, a different form is used, but a record of payment is still required. As failure to timely file such a form is a violation of the tax code, an accusation of paying without filing would permit the lawyer to decline to answer under the Fifth amendment. If the lawyer did pay and did file a 1099 or other documentation, the IRS would know what had been payed, and would not need to confront the PI. Also, as the comment by Hilmar points out, a PI would be likely to use the cash accounting method, and so would own no tax on work performed but unpaid (as yet). So unless the IRS agent thinks the PI was paid "off-the books" and is intentionally failing to report the payment, there would be no point to such a question. And if that were he case, the lawyer would be very likely to decline to answer. I find the story quite implausible.
California Penal Code 647f states that being intoxicated in public is prohibited. When the police arrived, they were confronted with probable cause for an arrest. They (presumably) became aware of the matter because the doctor called the police, since she believe that you would drive drunk. (We can inquire into whether that was a reasonable belief, but it doesn't matter, what matters is that she had the belief and acted on it). Now the question is whether the doctor acting on the belief (making the call) was legal. A negative answer does not affect the legality of the arrest. There is also a law imposing on medical professionals a duty to report, which is fairly wordy, but does not seem to directly require reporting the fact that a person is publicly intoxicated. However, attending circumstances could have suggested one of the triggering causes for mandatory reporting (wounds, for example). Again, it does not matter (to a point) if, in the light of close scrutiny, the doctor's conclusions were mistaken. When doctors are required to report facts to the police, reasonable over-reporting is not penalized. There is also no law against calling 911 to report a potential DUI (the usual public-campaign focus is on those actually driving). So calling the police under the circumstances falls between "allowed" and "required". The HIPAA privacy rule could be relevant because that theoretically could block the doctor from making the call. (Note that the doctor, and not the patient, is bound by the confidentiality requirements). §160.203 allows exceptions to the confidentiality requirement if "necessary... For purposes of serving a compelling need related to public health, safety, or welfare", so an exception may have been granted. If this was done within the scope of a mandatory reporting law, it is legal to disclose PHI; under §164.512 it is allowed, "to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to the health or safety of a person or the public". A confidentiality agreement would not increase your chances of being arrested. If the doctor's confidentiality statement were less restrictive than HIPAA, HIPAA prevails (the law trumps contract terms). If it is the same as HIPAA, it has no effect (and simply states what HIPAA says – the normal case). If the agreement were more restrictive, it is possible that the doctor calling the police would be a breach of contract, unless the call was required by law. You would have to see what in the agreement would have prohibited calling the police. But that would not affect the validity of the arrest. To re-phrase the matter: the arrest was because you were found to be intoxicated in public. The police were there and could judge your state (probable cause). They were there by permission of the property owner, so the arrest was not unlawful for lack of a warrant. That is as far as one can go in searching for an illegality to the arrest itself. One might go further and ask whether the doctor has committed an actionable wrong by calling the police with her suspicions. This could go either way: it really depends on the full set of details, regarding your condition. If the doctor suspected that your actions fell under one of the mandatory reporting categories, she had to report, and otherwise it is not prohibited under HIPAA. If a person is intoxicated and answers the question "Would you normally proceed to drive home in this state?" in the affirmative, then it is a reasonable inference that the person will do so. An answer "No, absolutely not", on the other hand would work against the "public danger" inference: that has no effect on the arrest, but could have an effect in a suit against the doctor (violation of the privacy rule). In such a suit, the doctor's defense would presumably be that despite the answer, she still had a reasonable belief that you were a public danger. Then the matter would reduce to what other facts she knew of that would support a public danger conclusion.
A business owner can normally refuse service for any reason unless anti-discrimination law, or some other specific law, applies. &quot;Critic of the business&quot; is not a protected class. Whether a business would act in such a way I cannot say if it would risk significant negative publicity. But I see no legal reason why they could not.
If you were in the office, and ready to take instructions what to do from your manager, then you were legally working and need to be paid. There's plenty of things you can do in an office without electricity unless it's too dark. If the manager didn't ask you to do anything, it's the company's problem, not yours. If you took the opportunity to leave for 90 minutes to do your weekly shopping, then you shouldn't get paid.
I overdosed on an illegal drug and called an ambulance. I was honest and told them what I took. [emphasis added] You stated that you had possession, and had recently used a notable amount, of an illegal substance. That is reasonable cause (or "probable cause" in some jurisdictions) for a search, regardless of a warrant, and they do not need permission. For example, as FindLaw.com explains, in the USA. [p]olice may use firsthand information, or tips from an informant to justify the need to search your property. If an informant's information is used, police must prove that the information is reliable under the circumstances.
Sure You run a restaurant employing relatives and cronies and you scrupulously pay them and their taxes. Say $500k. That is clean money. You take some money from running the restaurant but not enough to cover costs. Say $200k. However, you declare that your revenues were actually $800k with the difference being $600k of dirty money which “customers” paid in cash. You pay your taxes on your $300k profit and now have nice clean legitimate money. Now, what legitimate businesses typically do is underreport their cash income to minimise taxes but a laundering front overreports and pays too much tax to clean the money. For every $1 of dirty money going in you only get 70c out (or whatever depending on local taxes) but that money is clean.