Landlord/Tenant and Actus reus I'd like to add something to my previous question The first part of the scenario: A person breaks a window, enters the house through the window, takes $1000 worth of computer equipment, and leaves through a door. Now add: The house was being rented out at the time of the crime. The renter called the police. They came out and a report was filed. The renter notified the landlord of the situation the same day. Several days later, the landlord learns the identity of the perpetrator. The landlord does not notify the tenant or the police. Is the landlord guilty of any crime?
Code sections cited in this answer are to the New Mexico Criminal code, Chapter 30 as they were in my answer to the linked question, and to chapter 59A. Neither the landlord (whom I will cal LL) , nor any ordinary citizen, is legally required to report information that s/he may have about a crime to the police or other authorities. LL cannot actively conceal or destroy or tamper with evidence (section 30-22-5. of the NM code), nor assist the criminal by more than silence which would be a crime iunder section 30-22-4, Harboring or aiding a felon. If the police question LL about the crime, s/he should not lie. Apparently lying to officers during an investigation is not a crime in New Mexico, although filing a false crime report is, under section 30-39-1. If LL were to make an insurance claim while omitting or misstating a materiel fact (such as that LL knows who broke in) that would be a violation of Section 59A-16-23 paragraph (2) which prohibits: for the purpose of obtaining money or benefit, present or cause to be presented a false or fraudulent claim or proof in support of such a claim for payment of loss under a policy I am not sure if LL owes an affirmative duty to the tenant. If LL does owe such a duty, the tenant may have grounds to sue LL if LL fails to help the tenant recover the stolen property, but it is probably not a criminal matter.
Most leases have a provision allowing a landlord to make entry without notice in an emergency, but the better course of action, as noted in a comment by @BlueDogRanch, is to call the police and ask them to make a &quot;welfare check.&quot; You would ordinarily be permitted to cooperate with police by unlocking doors in furtherance of their welfare check. The police are trained to do this properly in a way that properly balances the need to aid someone who is sick or ill, the need to preserve evidence if there was a death or crime that needs to be understood legally, and to protect the legitimate privacy interests of the tenant. You are not. You could incur liability for failing to prevent death or aggravating injury, could be wrongfully implicated if physical evidence from you contaminates the scene or you destroy evidence showing the true cause, and could be sued for invading the tenant's privacy if it was found that you entry was unreasonable and that it wasn't really an emergency, which is always easier to conclude with 20/20 hindsight. As it is, your biggest potential source of liability is delaying in calling the police seeking a welfare check. They often respond quite quickly to these by the way, although it is not the very highest priority for law enforcement.
When Bob buys a thing, it becomes his, and it ceases to be the property of the seller. By &quot;buy&quot;, we understand that to mean &quot;pays for and receives physical control of&quot;. At that point, Bob is responsible to control of his new property. His ownership of the property is not contingent on him leaving the store. You might assign blame to the shop if they were negligent in some way, for example if they hire a thief to do the exit-check and the door guard takes Bob's property. Obviously, the thief is ultimately liable, but the store might under special circumstances be liable if they indirectly caused his loss. A store does not have an obligation to guarantee that a customer immediately and securely exits the store after making a purchase, so they are not liable for failing to immediately eject him from the store after buying the goods.
http://www.tenantslegalcenter.com/html/eviction_notices.html 3 DAY NOTICE TO CURE BREACH (sometimes called PERFORM COVENANT) OR QUIT is used to notify a tenant that he/she has 3 days to do or stop doing something as per the rental agreement or the law. The tenant can comply with the notice or vacate within the 3 days. If the tenant vacates within the 3 days, he/she is NOT relieved from the rent obligation under the lease or rental agreement. So, the notice must be based on a law and/or the lease agreement. Presumably, the law and/or lease provision must be cited in the notice. The City of San Diego has a GOOD CAUSE law (Right to Know Ordinance) protecting certain tenants in a residential tenancy of at least TWO years and that good cause must be written in the notice. You state that you've been there seven years, so this law applies. To count the days of a notice, you begin on the next day after service as the first day. Weekends and holidays are counted but the last day of a notice to act generally may not land on a weekend or holiday. If it does, and if applicable to that notice, the "last day" can carry over to the next business day. For example, if a 3 day notice to pay rent is served on a Thursday, we count Friday as the first day Sunday is the third day. Since the last day of this type of notice cannot be a Sunday, the "third day" is then Monday (giving the tenant four days instead of three) to pay the rent. If that Monday was a legal holiday, then Tuesday would then be the "third" day (giving the tenant five days instead of three) to pay the rent. http://www.rogerfranklin.org/Instructions_for_Landlords_2017.pdf B. SERVE THE THREE-DAY NOTICE 1. After the Three-Day Notice has been filled out and signed, you must serve it on the tenant. The Three-Day Notice may be served either: (a) By delivering a copy to the tenant personally, or (b) If the tenant is absent from is place of residence and from his usual place of business, by leaving a copy with some person over the age of eighteen (18) years at either place, AND mailing a copy of the Three-Day Notice addressed to the tenant, postage prepaid, first-class mail, to his place of residence; or (c) If such place of residence and business cannot be ascertained and a person over the age of eighteen cannot be found at the tenant’s residence, then by affixing a copy of the Three-Day Notice in a conspicuous place on the property, AND mailing a copy of the Three Day Notice to the tenant at his residence. So if the notice was just left at your apartment, and was not delivered personally or mailed, then the service is invalid.
Don't trivialize this because it appears to be minor and inexpensive. If something goes wrong, you could be liable for damage. You should have an idea of what a reasonable cost should be based on the rent and condition of the property. Discuss it with the landlord. If the landlord chooses to fix it, you should have something in writing, signed by both you and the landlord, acknowledging that you aren't responsible for reimbursing the landlord for the cost or acknowledging receipt by the landlord of any contribution from you and a statement that the contribution fulfills your lease requirement. If you're going to fix it, you should have something in writing, signed by both you and the landlord, agreeing to the choice of replacement parts and the choice of anyone you hire to do the work. It might be nice to think you can save money by doing it yourself. But if anything happens and there's damage, you could be liable. You should have renter's insurance. You should check your renter's insurance policy to see what, if anything, it says about tenant responsibility for repairs. Your insurance might pay for it. More importantly, will your insurance protect you if something goes wrong and there's damage? I recommend you copy this and modify it as you see fit or, if you don't this is correct, make up something that you think is correct. Keep an electronic copy on your computer. But also have a notebook in which you keep how-to papers, so you don't have to figure it out all over again at some time in the future and to use the how-tos you accumulate to help you make new how-tos as necessary. Also keep documentation, especially warranties. Scan receipts (receipt ink is notorious for fading over time) and warranties, keep them the electronic copies on your computer and print the receipts and put the printed receipts and original receipts with the warranty papers in the notebook. Keep a manilla envelope with receipts, warranties, instructions, and any papers you receive from anyone you hire to do the work. When you move out, you should give the envelope to the landlord so the landlord will be able to maintain what was installed and obtain warranty service if necessary.
I gather that the numerous ramifications you outline are merely contexts and that your main concern is about the application of contract law (contract law in the U.S. does not really vary among states). Thus, I will not really delve in the intricacies of --for instance-- privacy or copyright issues arising from the commercial use of a person's likeness that you mention in one of the scenarios. As a starting point, one needs to bear in mind that: a contract is an exchange of considerations under terms and conditions entered knowingly and willfully by the parties, which can be evidenced by the parties' subsequent conduct (that is, not just by signing a document); and a contract is unenforceable if it contravenes public policy and/or the covenant of good faith and fair dealing. Accordingly, the questions are (1) whether a person knew or reasonably should have known about the terms &amp; conditions at or by the time of those events which trigger obligations pursuant to the contract; and (2) whether the provisions therein are unreasonable, illegal, or tantamount to a penalty, especially in the event that the party breaches or repudiates the alleged contract (see the Restatement (Second) of Contracts at § 356(2)). The scenario of house for sale entails various difficulties as per contract law and otherwise. Here are some of those issues: Are visitors properly (including "beforehand") notified about the "walkway clause"? If not, the contract is void because it cannot be said that visitors knew about &amp; accepted that condition. Does the house provide alternatives for lawful &amp; informed visitors to safely avoid the walkway? If not, then the seller/owner might end up incurring premises liability with respect to those visitors who get injured in making their reasonable effort not to trigger the "walkway clause". Is the house owner realistically able to prove that use of the walkway by lawful &amp; informed visitors is sufficiently "inconsistent with the offeror's ownership of offered property" so that triggering a house sale is a reasonable consequence (see Restatement at §69(2))? Is the owner-imposed mortgage rate compliant with state law pertaining to granting of credit &amp; loans? These exemplify only some of the burdensome complications when trying to enforce "contracts" which are extravagant or quite one-sided. Lastly, as a side note, the presumption that a person reading the poster and walking in the intended area does not thereby receive consideration is not necessarily accurate. As an example, the "intended area" could have been devised by an entity in the business of enjoyment and recreation, such as a private park. The person who deliberately walks in (regardless of whether he read the poster) certainly receives a consideration, which is the amusement or recreation for which the park was designed.
This is actually a very complicated question, about (1) the scope of "knowingly", (2) what kind of "intent" is required for conviction, (3) how does the jury understand and evaluate concepts of intent and (4) how does an attorney persuade the jury that the situation does or does not satisfy the particular intent requirement. One thing we can dispose of quickly is the possibility that the law says that the accused has to actually know that the act is against the law. It is a standard legal fiction (2,400 years old) that the accused knows the law, or should have known. As for the 4th element, persuasion, on the strong side we have statements of intent by the accused – "And I pulled out my rifle and blew his head off, and I laughed the whole time". What the jury has to decide is whether the accused had in mind a conscious purpose of doing some act (that is, it wasn't just an accident like butt-dialing, or an instant stimulus-response reaction to some event). "Intent" generally falls in the realm of acting "purposely", which the Model Penal Code §2.02 defines as: A person acts purposely with respect to a material element of an offense when: (i) if the element involves the nature of his conduct or a result thereof, it is his conscious object to engage in conduct of that nature or to cause such a result; and (ii) if the element involves the attendant circumstances, he is aware of the existence of such circumstances or he believes or hopes that they exist. which more or less means what you think "with intent" means. That doesn't say what they intended to do, it just distinguishes intent from negligence and accident. The prosecutor would then present factual evidence that the accused had a bad intent, like showing that he actually made an attempt to access credit card account data (that such data had been accessed when he broke into the system), etc. We can sort of dispose of the other scope question about "knowingly", namely, what things would he have to know? The chunk accessing a protected computer without authorization can be interpreted in a number of ways, having to do with which elements of the clause are known to the accused. You might know that you were accessing but not know that you were unauthorized; you might know that you were accessing and unauthorized, but not know that the computer is protected. The only reliable way to know which is which is to study the case law on a statute and see if there is a controlling decision that say e.g. that you have to know that you are accessing and are unauthorized, but you don't have to know that the computer is protected. I haven't determined (yet) is there is decisive case law on this, but I'm betting that the outcome would be that not knowing of the protected status of a computer carries no weight. As for what kind of intent, there is a distinction between "specific intent" and "general intent". The distinction comes down to having some evil purpose like "make him suffer" (general intent) versus a specific evil purpose like "kill him". Finally, the people who actually decide, the jury, will be given instructions that say what they have to look for. Here is the tip of the tip of the iceberg, from California's criminal jury instructions. The judge will say... The People must prove not only that the defendant did the acts charged, but also that (he/she) acted with a particular (intent/ [and/or] mental state). The instruction for (the/each) crime [and allegation] explains the (intent/ [and/or] mental state) required. A[n] (intent/ [and/or] mental state) may be proved by circumstantial evidence. Before you may rely on circumstantial evidence to conclude that a fact necessary to find the defendant guilty has been proved, you must be convinced that the People have proved each fact essential to that conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt. Also, before you may rely on circumstantial evidence to conclude that the defendant had the required (intent/ [and/or] mental state), you must be convinced that the only reasonable conclusion supported by the circumstantial evidence is that the defendant had the required (intent/ [and/or] mental state). If you can draw two or more reasonable conclusions from the circumstantial evidence, and one of those reasonable conclusions supports a finding that the defendant did have the required (intent/ [and/or] mental state) and another reasonable conclusion supports a finding that the defendant did not, you must conclude that the required (intent/ [and/or] mental state) was not proved by the circumstantial evidence. However, when considering circumstantial evidence, you must accept only reasonable conclusions and reject any that are unreasonable. and then there will be some specific elaboration of whether they have to find that the accused just generally intended to do bad, versus intended to specifically defraud.
Since the incident was on private property (inside a building), a person does not have the same right to be there that you would have on the street outside the building. Yale police therefore can legally make a determination whether a person is trespassing (for example, by asking for identification), especially when there is an allegation that a person is trespassing. A law holding a person criminally or civilly liable for reporting their &quot;suspicions&quot; to the government without e.g. &quot;reasonable suspicion&quot; could easily run afoul of the First Amendment.