Do governments need to compensate business owners if they temporarily force a business closure? If the government (let's say in the US or EU) prohibit businesses engaging in an otherwise legally compliant enterprise, do it need to compensate the business owners for that? Assuming that's for example extreme weather, an imminent war or the 2020 pandemic, and assuming they do not single out concrete businesses, that is, they close entire sectors (all restaurants not only Bob's Diner). Would that be analogous to the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution (if the government takes private property for public use, it must provide &quot;just compensation.&quot;)?
No Always assuming that the government has operated within the limits of its powers or, at least, that if they have exceeded those powers the excess was in good faith. First, there is the issue of sovereign immunity. Basically, a government can be held liable only when it consents to be held liable. Most governments never waive this with respect to their lawmaking powers because they have to be able to make laws in what they see as the public interest without fear of litigation. See, for example, cases on plain paper packaging of cigarettes. Second, most governments have the power to regulate commerce and to deal with public emergencies. There is an issue which comes up in Federations about which government has the power but even if a law is invalid, it does not follow that compensation is payable. It certainly isn’t if the law is valid.
The customer list is indeed a trade secret if the shop kept its customer list secret and has an advantage from having that customer list, while others don’t have it. And I would think that is the case, because a competitor laying their hands on the list could for example send special offers to the customers in the list. The question is whether your two hairdressers took that customer list and whether the store has reasonable evidence that they did. If customers find out where their favourite hairdresser moved to that’s no legal problem. Can’t understand why no attorney wants to take the case. To the attorney it doesn’t make a difference whether they took the list or not. If they took the list then his or her job is to end the case with the smallest possible amount of damages being paid. PS. Just read in the comments that there is an accusation of "intentional interference with economic relationship". I would want a lawyer who knows the difference between perfectly legal competition which includes trying to get customers to move their business, and "intentional interference with economic relationship". PS. Really make sure that these guys appear in court. With a lawyer. Not appearing means that if the plaintiff says "Judge, these guys did X, punish them!" and they are not there to say "We absolutely didn't do X, prove it if you can", the judge will assume that they did X.
In the U.S. severance payments are not provided for statutorily, and are rarely made when an employee quits or is fired for cause. However, even when not provided for within contracts it is common to see voluntary severances paid during lay-offs. Furthermore, in the U.S. it is more likely that they would be "laid off" in order to qualify for unemployment insurance. In Pennsylvania one can make claims on the state-run unemployment insurance system only if one is able to work and does not refuse suitable work when offered. If one quits one is not eligible for these payments. Ultimately unemployment claims are born by the employer (since their legally-mandated unemployment insurance premiums are adjusted based on realized claims). So managers with the authority to layoff employees can impose real costs on their companies, both in terms of direct severance payments (which may be optional), and in terms of the inflated unemployment premiums that will hit the company down the road. However, I have never heard of a company attempting to recoup such costs from managers, since such decisions are specifically delegated to managers with hiring/firing authority. It seems much more likely that a manager deemed to have abused the company's purse would be demoted or fired rather than being sued, unless there were some gross fraud involved (e.g., kickbacks).
It is mandatory for the employer to provide sufficient restrooms (“cabinets d'aisance”), as per article R4228-10. Other provisions regulate evacuation, ventilation, heating, disabled access, etc. There is no provision regarding when employees are permitted to use the restrooms. There can't be a single rule that works for every profession: some jobs don't let you leave your post whenever you like (e.g. machine operator, driver, guard, teacher, etc.). The most common dispute regarding restroom use is whether employees should be paid during that time. Some employers want to count restroom use as unpaid pause time. Strictly speaking, that's legal: an employee who is in a restroom is not at the employer's disposal, therefore this doesn't count as work time. However enforcing this is often logistically difficult and wildly unpopular, so in practice it's only done in places where employees must clock out to reach a restroom. I could only find one case with actual jurisprudence. In 1995, an industrial butchering company (Bigard) decided to limit restroom breaks to three fixed times a day. This was, as you might expect, unpopular; the employees went on strike, and eventually the labor court struck down this measure. That's a precedent, but it doesn't seem to have made its way to the appellate court. Your case is also slightly different in that the restrooms would only be inaccessible for an hour, which is shorter than in the Bigard case. So legally speaking, it isn't clear who will win. You'll have a better chance of success by banking on the unpopularity of the measure. Talk with your colleagues and your representatives and shop stewards. Point out that employees who are trying to hold it in are unlikely to be at the top of their productivity.
As was mentioned in a comment, in the United States, businesses are generally registered at the state level. The information collected, and the extent to which or manner in which the public has access to it, varies from state to state. There may still be states where that's a paper-only process, but I'd guess in most of them it's accessible online, at least for basic information. For example, in Michigan the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs has a Business Entity Search tool. If a business deals directly with consumers, it may be a member of the Better Business Bureau. Even if it isn't, but consumers have complained about it, the BBB will make public the information it has about the purported business. If a company is publicly traded (that is, it's corporation that issues stock, and the stock is traded on a stock exchange), it is required by law to be registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC's EDGAR tool will display the company's filings, which should include annual and quarterly reports. If the company is or wants to be a government contractor, it generally needs to register with the General Services Administration, and certain information about successfully registered entities is publicly viewable in that system. (Conversely, the same system also lists "Excluded Parties" who are prohibited or partially restricted from doing business with the government.) Depending on what the business does, it may also be subject to registration with and regulation by additional state or federal agencies. For a full picture, however, unless you're dealing with the obvious agent of a Fortune 500 company, you'll probably want to get information from a private credit-check service as well; for example, as also mentioned in a comment, Dun &amp; Bradstreet for the business itself, or for a really small business a personal credit report on each of the owners and officers.
If a farmer had recently built a barn (within the past year) that cost 45,000 dollars (paid for from a loan), on a piece of property that was originally 10,000 dollars(not paid for from a loan), but the market only values the property with the barn at 35,000 dollars, is the government only responsible for paying the market value if they decide to seize this land through eminent domain? Yes. The fact that you owe more on debt secured by condemned property than it is worth does not entitle you to more compensation, although the fact that the bank was recently willing to lend that much is strong evidence that its fair market value is more than the value of the loan, unless there was a corrupt or non-economic reason for it to make the loan. United States v. Commodities Trading Corp. is concerned with situations where property is difficult to value (e.g. thinly traded derivatives contracts), or where property is not of a kind that derives its value primarily from market transactions (e.g. family photographs or grave sites). But, real property with a purely economic function, like a barn used by a farmer for farming, does not fit in either of those categories. It is easily appraised. And, it is common for people to make improvements to real property that doesn't return $1 in fair market value for every $1 spend on it. But, eminent domain is not based upon book value. Now, it is important to note that the fair market value of the property that is taken itself is not the only thing that is valued in an eminent domain hearing. An eminent domain hearing also considers the impact that the property taken has on the property that is not taken. For example, suppose that while the going fair market value of a comparable barn on a comparable amount of real estate is $35,000, but it is the only barn at the farm which is useless without a replacement barn on the premises, and it costs $70,000 to build a replacement in the less than ideal conditions of the remaining land (for example, maybe the farmer has to build a bridge over a river to access the only other part of his land suitable for building a barn at a cost of $35,000 in addition to $35,000 to build the new barn itself). In that case, the eminent domain award would be more than $70,000, but probably less than $105,000 (most likely $80,000, with $10,000 being for the land and $70,000 for the replacement barn that needs to be built to preserve the value of the rest of the farm). Impact on the value of property not taken comes up a lot in eminent domain cases involving highway construction. The linked law firm's website illustrates many of the kinds of compensation for harm to the residual caused by a physical taking that are frequently awarded.
I take that to mean that section 14 alone should not be construed to give a department the power to sue under sub section (1), nor the ability to be sued under sub section (2). Rather, if some other law, or some other section of that law confers such a power or ability, section 14 indicates how the power should be used, that is, gives the proper procedure. But if no such other law is in effect, section 14 alone won't do. If the law has simply said: civil proceedings under this Act by the Crown may be instituted by (a) the appropriate government department in its own That might have been construed to grant such powers to every "appropriate " department, which apparently was not desired.
You are not obligated to pick the thing up, but you are obligated to pay. Analogously, if you go into a restaurant and order a steak, you are obligated to pay for it, but you are not obligated to eat it. You can cancel the steak order within some reasonable short period of time (maybe a minute) – it depends on whether they have relied on your acceptance of their offer, and have done anything that puts them in a worse situation (such as "started cooking it"). You could have informed them that you decided that you didn't want the thing and they might have been able to cancel the order with no or minimum cost to you (depends on whether your job was simply "in the queue", or had they done something like ordered parts or detrimentally committed an employee to some schedule so that other customers could not be serviced). Once you accept their offer, you have an enforceable contract. The additional information about lateness of delivery doesn't clearly change the situation. If there were an explicit "time is of the essence" clause in your contract, related to any delay causing harm, then failure to meet a deadline could constitute a breach of contract. For example, if you have a contract where you will be transported to a location by a specific deadline so that you can get on the boat, failure to meet that deadline causes material harm (if you miss the boat, you suffer a loss). You apparently do not have any such clause, and there's no indication that you suffered a loss because of the delay in delivery. A reasonable delay would not be interpreted as the other party breaching the contract.