Is there anything to stop a private business from barring a previous customer who takes a civil action against it? Suppose that a customer C sues a shop, S, for some reason or other, whether it be discrimination, negligence, or another reason. Or they make a claim but it gets settled by the business without going to court. Can the business refuse future dealings with the individual supposing that the claim was valid and successful? It seems to me that they could unless there are provisions preventing retributive refusals that I’m not aware of. And this would be even if the triumphant claim was for discrimination on a protected characteristic. Because the previous refusal would be unlawful discrimination, but the future would be on the basis of the customer having been litigious and the business not wanting the trouble of that which is not a protected characteristic per se, although perhaps this could be argued indirect discrimination. Or could the retributive future refusal generally be seen as contempt of court and contempt of the law, in trying to evade future repercussions for any potential unlawful conduct?
A business has the right to refuse service, except in the case of unlawful discrimination. &quot;Sued us&quot; is not a protected characteristic. Unless part of the settlement was that the business must serve that customer in future, there is no way this could be considered contempt.
Your question isn't quite as simple as it sounds; some civil cases are tried before juries, and though a judge can give directions to a jury to give a particular verdict, they are not always required to obey; there are eighteenth-century English cases on the point that established that principle for most related jurisdictions. But your last sentence does have a simple answer: No. A judge usually takes an oath on assuming office, to administer the law without fear or favour. That means he will investigate the relevant law (with the assistance of the parties' lawyers), and enforce what it says. "This law would be unfair to the customer, so I will ignore it" would be just as bad as "The mechanic threatened to hit me with a wrench, so I find for him". Of course, most jurisdictions do have overriding principles of fairness; it may be that this contract term was not shown to the customer, so is not enforceable, or it may be that it is contrary to public policy to be uncertain what repairs will cost. But unless there is an explicit legal reason, the judge will have to find for the mechanic. It would be neither improper nor unusual for the judgment to include the sentence "This result is clearly unfair to the customer, and I urge the legislature to look at closing the loophole; nevertheless, the law is clear, and I find the customer must pay the increased price."
Can a landlord (UK, English law) make a claim from a potential tenant who wants to back out of signing a Tenancy Agreement? No. Your description reflects that in this particular scenario there is no tenancy contract. The only actual contract relates to the holding deposit, and your description suggests that both parties fully complied with their obligations pursuant to that contract. Accordingly, neither party has a viable claim against the other. Regardless of whether verbal agreements are cognizable under UK tenancy law, the meeting of the minds you portray is that this tenancy ought to be formalized only by signing a contract. That supersedes customer's prior verbal expressions of intent about moving in. The landlord incurred expenses that either were covered by the customer's holding deposit or were unreasonable. An example of the latter is the fees &quot;landlord has paid for the dates on the contract to be changed (repeatedly)&quot;, a task that any person can perform with a text editor at a negligible cost. Likewise, &quot;turn[ing] down other potential tenants&quot; is covered by the holding deposit the customer paid. As for taking &quot;a detailed inventory&quot;, that is a task the landlord would perform with any potential tenant and which would render the same outcome regardless of who the tenant would be. The holding deposit must be associated to a deadline or holding period. Beyond that deadline, it is up to the landlord to grant customer's requests for postponement. But the landlord is not entitled to compensation for a risk he deliberately took without even requiring a [renewed] holding deposit. what's the situation if the tenant still claims they want to move in, but the landlord wants to withdraw because they no longer trusts the tenant's promises? That depends on the deadline associated to the holding deposit. Once the holding period has elapsed, the landlord is entitled to do with his property whatever he wants. The customer would have a claim only if (1) landlord withdraws prior to the deadline and (2) customer provably intended to move in.
Your description of the facts is vague enough that we can't offer an informed judgment, but to remedy this, I will paraphrase your account of the facts (you can decide whether this is what you were trying to say). I was sitting outside of the Sprint store today waiting for my step daughter to come out. While waiting, two police officers walked up to my car and asked me to turn off my vehicle and come inside. When I voluntarily went inside, the store staff said that they called the police because they had had some sort of problems with people applying for service and absconding with the phone to resell on the black market, and they thought that was part of some such criminal plan. Because of that, they refused to give her a phone or service contract. But then they also told us to never come back, threatening arrest for trespassing. I have never been in that store before. Were my rights violated? No, neither by the police nor by the manager. The police, or the store manager, can legally request you to come in for a conversation: what matters most is whether you were forced to come in against your will. By your report, you were not, so your rights were not violated. The police are irrelevant to the remainder of the question. What remains is whether your rights were violated because the manager told you to go away and never come back under pain of prosecution. The store is private property, meaning that the owner has wide latitude to grant or deny permission to enter. If they hate pink hair and your hair is pink, they can legally "ban" you. If they suspect you of involvement in a criminal activity, that can most certainly legally ban you. That does not mean that it was a righteous or justified decision on their part, or a good business choice, but it is their legal right. So, no, your rights were not violated.
england-and-wales I think the main reason is that in specific prosecutions such behaviour may not be found to constitute any of those criminal offences. While on the face of it the behaviour is illegal, the court is also obliged to take into account the rights to freedom of expression, of assembly and association, in the Human Rights Act 1998. But a court's injunction sets out in black and white the restrictions on behaviour after considering the human rights aspects of the case, and breach of the order is a contempt of court (not a criminal offence as such, but punishable by imprisonment and/or a fine). Such injunctions are an additional tool for trying to mitigate or deter the behavior to which you refer and in a sense they are more convenient than criminal prosecutions. Some considerations and more detail in no particular order: Standard of proof differences You mention relevant criminal offences. These necessarily have the criminal 'standard of proof'. The trier of fact (the jury at jury trial; the magistrate or judge at non-jury trial), having considered all the relevant evidence, must be sure the defendant is guilty. However, the entity seeking an injunction (the claimant) does not need to meet that standard of proof to obtain an injunction that includes restrictions on behaviour. They need only persuade the court there is a real and imminent risk of a civil wrong for which they merit relief, or that there is a serious issue to be tried at a later date for which they merit relief until the conclusion of that trial. Criminal prosecution delays For the past two years to the time of writing this answer, circumstances have been such that if there were a criminal trial (which is by no means guaranteed), it may be scheduled months, perhaps even a year or two, in the future. But the claimant (and the wider public) may want relief 'now' and the defendant(s) might be free to continue their behaviour in the meanwhile, the defendant might not be held in custody pending trial. Due to delays, some defendants have been in custody for several months pending trial and this isn't satisfactory either, particularly if they are innocent: &quot;everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time&quot; (article 6 Human Rights Act 1998). The behaviour may not be found to constitute a criminal offence In this context, the law providing for the criminal offence must be read 'compatibly' with the human rights legislation - the qualified rights to freedom of expression, to assembly and association. Meaning, is this criminal justice system reponse to that behaviour provided for in law, necessary and proportionate, in pursuit of a legitimate aim, protecting the rights and freedoms of others, and were there no alternative and less restrictive responses? Now, some of those elements are a definite yes (e.g. trespass to or obstruction of the highway are provided for in law), others may be arguable. But in any case, the police, prosecution and the court (if it gets that far) must consider those things, must do that weighing up - it is not explicitly provided for in the legislation that creates those criminal offences. The courts have not found every protest on a highway to constitute a trespass to (Director of Public Prosecutions v. Jones and Another) or obstruction of a highway (Director of Public Prosecutions (Respondent) v Ziegler and others (Appellants)). On the other hand, when these claimants seek an injunction the court does that weighing up and may consider alternative, less restrictive approaches (the claimant submits a wishlist, the defendant or court may push back). The court will say &quot;Yes, this is in pursuit of a legitimate aim and necessary to protect the rights and freedoms of the claimant and the wider public, however X is disproportionate, Y is proportionate, the defendants may go in area A but not area B, this time period is disproportionate, that time period is proportionate,&quot; and so on. So the claimant and the police are now armed with that injunction, the claimant will publish it, defendants are aware of its contents and fellow protesters ought to be made aware of it. It's there in black-and-white what is restricted and anyone breaching the injunction could be found guilty of contempt of court (punishable by up to two years in prison and/or unlimited fine or asset seizure; must be proved to the criminal standard). Example judgments about injunctions including lists of restrictions Here are some examples from the context that include different kinds of restrictions by court order and the court's weighing up of the competing interests of the claimants, the defendants and the wider public. Shell UK Oil Products Ltd v Persons Unknown [2022] EWHC 1215 (QB) (20 May 2022) The claimant sought (and succeeded) to maintain an injunction that was granted on an emergency basis, its restrictions set out at para 20, conclusion at para 70. National Highways Ltd v Heyatawin [2021] EWHC 3078 (QB) - see para 7 for restrictions, the court found some protesters breached the so-called M25 Order and the court ordered their immediate imprisonment (para 66). National Highways Ltd v Persons unknown (blocking traffic) [2021] EWHC 3081 (QB) (17 November 2021) - the reasons for the decision to not set aside the ex parte interim injunction made by Linden J on 25 October 2021, some restrictions at para 4. High Speed Two (HS2) Ltd &amp; Anor v Four Categories of Persons Unknown &amp; Ors [2022] EWHC 2360 (KB) (20 September 2022) - restrictions at para 188.
Some kinds of companies (e.g. freight shipping companies and banks) often do have those policies. The real issue is not whether those policies are permitted, but what the consequences are for breaking them. The fact that a company forbids its employees from exercising a legal right doesn't mean that the employee ceases to have that legal right. It simply means that if the employee exercises that legal right, then the employee has breached the contract and may suffer the consequences for breaching that contract. Violations of those policies are grounds for termination from employment, and this would probably not be void as a matter of public policy. For an employee at will this is really pretty meaningless, although it could conceivably affect unemployment benefit eligibility. But, for a unionized or civil service employee who can only be fired for cause, this is a big deal. But, in theory, a company policy does not impact the tort liability or the criminal liability of the individual engaging in legally privileged self-defense to anyone. This is because two people can't contractually change their legal duties to third parties with whom they are not in privity (i.e. with whom they do not have a contractual relationship). And two people also can't contractually change the terms of a country's penal laws. The policy may be a defense of the company from vicarious liability for the employee's use of force in violation of the policy that gives rise to civil liability for the employee because the grounds for authorizing self-defense were not present. If the employee using force did so wrongfully and was sued for negligence rather than battery, the existence of the company policy might also go to the issue of whether the employee was acting negligently since a reasonable person in the employee's shoes might have been less likely to wrongfully use force in purported self-defense if there was such a policy than if there was not such a policy (and instead there might arguably have been a legal fiduciary duty as an agent to protect the property and workers of the principal in the absence of the policy).
There is, of course, no way to tell how the Court would deal with such a case today. This is not a frequently litigated issue, with lots of case law. I note that in the case you link to, the court limited the statute to false claims made "with a fraudulent purpose". This normally means that the claimant is attempting to secure an improper financial or materiel advantage. In the United States v. Tandaric case, the person convicted had falsely claimed to be a US Citizen on an employment application for a company which did not hire non-citizens, and so gained a job through this false statement. He could have been convicted of ordinary Fraud. The court has not been as protective of Fraud under the First Amendment as it has been of speech generally, or even of false but non-fraudulent speech. I am not at all sure if the court would overturn this law in a similar case today. Edit: In the United States v. Achtner case, the court wrote: But we agree with the District Court that the representation of citizenship must still be made to a person having some right to inquire or adequate reason for ascertaining a defendant's citizenship; it is not to be assumed that so severe a penalty is intended for words spoken as a mere boast or jest or to stop the prying of some busybody, ... This seems to dispose of the example in the question of a neighbor who is merly inquiring as to the character of the area, or perhaps from simple curiosity, and a false speaker who seems to get no direct benefit or advantage from the falsehood. Both linked cases involved false statements made to employers or potential employees, during wartime at that, with the false speaker's employment apparently at stake.
No contract can limit a court's jurisdiction An NDA is a contract: it cannot prevent the application of the judicial process. Should your dispute reach a courtroom, the NDA and the documents it seeks to protect are all admissible and you should subpoena them from the defendant and submit those copies to the court (that way you are not breaking the terms of the NDA). What is not admissible is bona fide "without prejudice" documents: that is documents that contain admissions and offers made in a genuine attempt to settle a dispute. This privilege is established by the context of the document, not by if it does or does not have the words "without prejudice" on it (except, of course, that their presence/absence is part of the context).