Are there specific criteria that I must meet to be considered a member of the Camp Lejeune class? I have been inundated with advertisements lately regarding a class action lawsuit that claims that people that have spent a period of time at a Marine base (Camp Lejeune) during the 1990's may have been unknowingly exposed to benzene and may be entitled to compensation. Are there specific criteria that I must meet to be considered a member of this class or is it really as simple as spending any amount of time there? I ask because I spent a week or two of time at on base at Camp Lejeune as part of a special JROTC field trip/program during the 90's. I was a minor at the time. I drank the water as well as showered in it so even though my stay was very brief, I was probably exposed. I have a few health problems however I am not sure they could be linked to benzene exposure.
Each class action case defines the relevant class in its own way, a definition usually proposed by the lawyers for the plaintiff and ultimately approved by the judge handling the case. It is possible that anyone who spent time on the base is a class member, or there may be some further requirements. The clerk of the court handling the cse may be able to provide the approved definition of the class, if that has been established. It may not yet be fully defined, depending on what stage the case has reached. Lawyers handling class action cases often obtain fees in proportion to teh number of plaintiffs who have signed up with them, and so have an incentive to enlist as many potential plaintiffs as possible. Settlements of such cases often provide individual plaintiffs only relatively small payments, but everything varies from one case to another.
I see lots of possible issues here, including: Will the Apprendi decision be given retroactive effect? Were the constitutional issues raised at the time of trial, and if not will a court permit them to be raised later? Will a court agree with the law review publication? Will the facts in your case be sufficiently similar to the cited case? Beyond those, in a section 1983 suit many public employees have qualified immunity unless the legal point was already "well established" when the violation occurred. To pursue this you will need to work with a lawyer skilled in this area. No one on this forum can possibly given you a reliable answer as to whether you have a reasonable case.
Authority A lot of this falls under life skills and common sense, rather than law per se. If you've lived and worked in skyscrapers and laboratories and corporate environments these are things you just come to know. Maybe some of this comes from being a Boy Scout growing up as well. Calling 911 Usually there would be a law prohibiting employment retaliation against someone making a legitimate report to law enforcement, but an employer might reasonably suggest when it is and is not appropriate to do so. Outright stopping someone from calling 911 when it is appropriate to do so would probably constitute obstruction of justice or something similar. Private Security There are a variety of tasks normally performed by private security in a business. Routine patrol to make sure that nothing is amiss and that only authorized people are in the building; excluding trespassers with non-deadly force if necessary; maintaining awareness of neighborhood security threats (e.g. protest marches, repeated crime incidents where employees go) investigating property crimes on the property after reporting the to law enforcement for insurance purposes (which usually has a policy of not investigating small dollar crimes reported to them themselves); maintenance and monitoring of security cameras; organizing fire wardens, scheduling fire drills and scheduling real fire department inspections of the premises when required; response to disturbances (if necessary notifying police); confirming that doors that should be locked are locked; alerting emergency services of fires and crimes in progress or observed; greeting legitimate employees and guests; supervising outside maintenance people; and providing minor first aid, and getting someone to health care when an ambulance is not necessary and calling for one when it is not. Their objective is to serve the company's needs, but often, those heavily overlap with the public's need in the area of security and safety. Fire Wardens A "fire warden" in an office building is responsible for: passing on information from the fire department that employees in the fire warden's unit need to know; to be alert to identify and remedy fire code violations that are identified in inspections (e.g. fire extinguishers that are no longer certified, alarm signals that are broken or need new batteries); to understand and communicate how to respond to a fire alarm and to distinguish between scheduled tests of the equipment and true drills; to supervise the conduct of fire drills and non-drill evacuations; to make sure that everyone knows the meet up location following a true fire; and to keep track of who gets out, who was never at work in the first place when there was an evacuation, and who was unable to escape. A "fire warden" is basically a responsible civilian who coordinates with the fire department which does real inspections and responds to real fires. In contrast, any competent person calls the fire department when there is a real fire that requires response and/or rescue. Any competent person might put out a fire in progress, but a fire warden would be told standard operating procedure for follow up response after an emergency fire or incident is dealt with as a putting out a visible fire in a complex urban or commercial environment is often not sufficient to know that the threat is gone. Often a fire warden would insist that the fire department be called even though there was no visible ongoing threat. This is particularly important in high rises, commercial kitchens and industrial buildings.
The citation could be written but it should be easy to beat. In the circumstance that you describe the accused could just say the he was not driving his car at the time. If the prosecution is a sham with all your friends saying you all saw this thing, then the defendant can bring all of his friends to say that he was at some other place. The benefit to having a cop on the scene is that the cop will get ID and positive identification. The other thing the cop has is expert judgment. If a cop sees unsafe lane movement and writes a ticket, his testimony in court carries more weight than the "it was not unsafe!" testimony of the accused. Keep in mind, getting all of your witnesses to court on the same day, after continuances and other delays, and getting them all to tell the same story to overcome the presumption of innocence is no small feat. All that to say, it's easier with police as witness. There are two mechanisms which could get you where you want to go. Private prosecution and citizen's arrest. Private prosecutions are a part of history but not strictly unavailable at the state level. You could write up some charging documents to see if you can get your target indicted. Citizen's arrest is interesting because the rules are fairly unclear unless governed by a specific statute. There are two necessary parts of citizens arrest and the first part gets the attention. The first part is the detention (arrest). The crimes for which a citizen can legally detain a suspect are likely defined by state statute. The second part is giving testimony about the witnessed crime. Let's assume that you see a felony happen and watch the perp walk into a gas station bathroom. You are prepared to arrest, do part number one, and then call the cops, to do part number two. But while you wait for the guy to come out of the bathroom a cop walks up. You explain the felony and the cop goes into the bathroom and arrests the guy. It's purely witness testimony that led to the arrest and the indictment (physical evidence - let's say there is none) and even the trial. You successfully get the guy indicted and when you show up to testify you tell the story as you witnessed it. Now the accused gets to take the stand. When he takes the stand he says, "it was the other guy." When asked, "what other guy?" He says, "I was in the bathroom and a guy ran in and went into the stall. Then a cop came in and arrested me." Reasonable doubt right there. How much more if it's a bunch of friends ratting on some lone driver? Police need evidence. Prosecutors need evidence. Judges need evidence.
What can we do to dismiss such report? Does she just show up at a local police department telling them that she's fine and it was her own decision? In short, yes. She shows up at a local police station, tells her side of the story including the whole bit about things getting destroyed and her getting kicked out, cites the missing persons report, and make it clear that she's not missing but an independent adult who is free and making her own decisions. Since she's over 18, she can do that. (Bringing proof of age might be helpful.) The mystery of the missing person will be considered solved from the police side. She does not have to give a specific address where she's living, just convince the officer that she's OK and making an intentional decision to create distance between herself and her mother. She could also try calling (the same local station which is convenient to her current location) before showing up to see if that satisfies the officer, and only go in if needed. Would I get in trouble for being in a relationship with her daughter since I was 20 and she was 16? We had never met in person until now, to avoid any trouble. Shouldn't be a problem, as long as it's a mutually willing (non-coercive) relationship. Her mother said the police also wanted to talk to me separately. I do not want to get involved in this at all. Can I reject it? Yes, you can reject it. You do not have to answer ANY question a police officer asks; you have the right to remain silent and/or to say only "I have the right to remain silent." To reduce the probability that they'll even ask questions, you might prefer not accompanying your girlfriend when she goes to clear the missing persons report, if she goes in-person. This adds more weight to her assertion that she's going there to clear it of her own free will, not because you're forcing her.
"If it were not assize-time, I would not take such language from you." (said while grabbing the handle of sword) This is a famous conditional threat where the speaker/actor was not found to express intent to do harm; perhaps better called a negative condition. This probably confuses matters but if you are to search for more answers this could be a good place to start. One of the elements of common law assault is that the threat must be able to be carried out immediately; it must be imminent. I do not have a cite for this but I recall that this means that conditional threats are excluded from assault. So calling a politician on the phone and telling them that if they do not drop out of a race you will hurt them is not assault. So, "You cut that out now or you’ll go home in an ambulance" sounds a lot like, "stop or you will get hurt." The victim has the opportunity to avoid the danger; the threat is not imminent. But the facts here are interesting because the speaker touched the victim while speaking which might mean fear of imminent was real. But they were in a crowded room in front of cameras - could the victim really feel that threat was imminent? Plus, the "you will go home" implies a future harm. Oh, and the speaker does not say "I will hurt you," maybe she was actually trying to protect the victim from someone else's actions. Like when my teacher knew someone was waiting outside the classroom to fight me and she told me, "if you go out there you will get hurt!" I would hope that a jury would consider this hard bargaining.
british-columbia I am not aware of any judicial consideration of this issue. The Liquor Control and Licensing Act, s. 78(1) says: A minor must not, except as provided under this Act or unless the minor does so with other lawful excuse, ... consume liquor. (One of those exceptions are when the alcohol is supplied by the minor's parents, spouse or guardian in a residence for consumption in the residence. There are other exceptions, too. But I'll assume you're asking about a circumstance where no exception applies.) The Liquor Control and Licensing Act defines a &quot;minor&quot; to be a person under the age of majority established by the Age of Majority Act, which is age 19 today. The Liquor Control and Licensing Act, s. 57 makes it an offence to contravene s. 78(1). The Interpretation Act, s. 25.1 states that &quot;A person reaches a particular age expressed in years at the beginning of the relevant anniversary of the person's birth date.&quot; The Interpretation Act also clarifies that the reference to time &quot;is a reference to Pacific Standard Time&quot; (or Pacific Daylight Saving Time, when it is in effect). Thus, a person is a minor until &quot;the beginning [in Pacific time] of the relevant anniversary of the person's birth date.&quot; It is most clear in relation to the identification requirements when selling to a minor, but the Regulations (s. 158) refer to the date of birth as displayed on the person's identification card. This all suggests that when consuming alcohol in the greater Vancouver area, a person just about to reach the age of majority must wait until the date in the Pacific time zone is that which is displayed on their identification. Or barring any identification, until the date in the Pacific time zone is the date that is the person's birth date.
The main source of liability would be "for injuries caused by the act 'of things that he has under his guard'" (this article). As stated in Art. 1383. of the 1804 Civil Code, "Everyone is liable for the injury he has caused not only by his act, but also by his negligence or imprudence". Then the question is whether the teacher was negligent in allowing a poisoning to happen. It is much more difficult to judge French standards, since court rulings do not generally create legal principles. To take two extremes, suppose on the one hand that a teacher were to store a bottle of sulfuric acid on the table where anyone could take it. Knowing that some rapscallion might take the bottle and prank someone with it, the teacher might have neglected her duty as a teacher to safeguard students. However, if it is safely locked up and yet someone manages to get into the locker (e.g. they have a safe-cracking device that nobody expects a student to have access to), then she probably would not be liable. The difference comes from whether there is fault in the teacher's choices of action, that is, is that choice something that a reasonable person would know is wrong. It's not clear from the description how Bob got the substance: finding a means of preventing students from accessing dangerous materials should be the main goal, and probably does not require stopping experimentation. But facts about the school might imply that the risk is not practically controllable (e.g. no locks on the chemical cabinet).