What is the difference between the respective doctrines of de minimis and frivolous claims Some claims are dismissed as de minimis while others are said to be frivolous. Are these two notions completely synonymous? If not then what’s the difference between them?
Some claims are dismissed as de minimis while others are said to be frivolous. Are these two notions completely synonymous? No. they aren't even that similar in meaning. If not then what’s the difference between them? Frivolous means not having a basis in the law or a sincere and reasonable effort to extend the law. Sometimes the term frivolous is also used in a broader sense to include not having a factual basis, even though it would be a valid lawsuit if the facts alleged were true. But a narrower definition calls something without a factual basis groundless and calls something without a legal basis frivolous. For example, a lawsuit for breach of contract in circumstances where you are suing over a contract you wanted to enter into with someone even though you acknowledge that they didn't agree to that contract would be frivolous. You can only sue for breaches of contracts that are actually entered into and it is frivolous to bring a lawsuit when you don't argue that a contract was formed. A lawsuit alleging that a contract was entered into with someone and breached when, in fact, the other party to the alleged contract never interacted with the person bringing the lawsuit would be groundless, and within a broader sense of the term, frivolous as well. De minimis means that the magnitude of the harm is so small that the courts won't entertain a lawsuit to address the wrong even though the harm would otherwise be something that someone could bring a lawsuit over. For example, if you sued someone for negligence for slightly bumping into when you were walking down a crowded sidewalk, even though you suffered no physical injury, and you weren't even made to fall or drop something as a result, that might be a lawsuit that is dismissed because the harm was de minimis. Whether a claim can be dismissed for alleging only de minimis harm varies by the nature of the cause of action. Some legal theories will award nominal damages (e.g. $1), if you prevail on the other elements of the claim but show only nothing more than de minimis harm. For example, in Colorado, proof of damages are not necessary to prevail on a claim for breach of contract or negligence per se, and nominal damages will be awarded even if you fail to show damages. Other legal theories make a showing of more than de minimis harm one of the elements that must be proved as part of the cause of action for there to be any legal liability at all. For example, in Colorado, a showing of more than de minimis damages is necessary in a negligence claim. This is a distinction which matters a lot in cases where an award of costs and/or attorney fees depends upon which party prevails on particular causes of action. In the federal courts, there is an additional subject-matter jurisdictional threshold of &quot;standing&quot;, as a matter of constitutional law, which requires a showing that the person bringing a claim suffered &quot;actual injury&quot; which arguably involved more than a de minimis harm. But federal courts have recognized that at least for some kinds of lawsuits, standing is present even when the claim is only for nominal damages. A lawsuit seeking a remedy for a de minimis harm would rarely be considered to be frivolous.
I don't believe Canada uses the public official/figure distinction. American defamation law uses the distinction to determine whether to require proof of actual malice, but Canada does not require proof of actual malice. Canadian defamation law has a lot of other parallels to American defamation law, though, especially in terms of privilege. I'd expect the University could claim any of several available privileges, including truth, qualified privilege, and fair comment. And because it's a government institution, it's conceivable that it might even claim absolute privilege, though I definitely don't know enough about their interpretations of the privilege to say one way or another. For a broad primer on defamation law in Ontario, you can check out this report from the Law Commission of Ontario.
Law is more like sport than mathematics You don’t know how it will turn out until you play the game. If a case goes to trial it’s because at both sides believe they can win. Both sides probably have good reasons for their belief. At least one of them is wrong.
In the US, in general anyone can claim anything. Others are free to believe or disbelieve the claim. In theory, a person might base their decision to do business with Hilton partly on this particular claim (this is why some software companies start presentations about their new features with a Safe Harbor statement letting the audience know not to base purchasing decisions on unreleased features), and in that case they could argue that Hilton's claim damaged them by causing them to enter into a contract under false pretenses. I doubt such a case would be meritorious, but there could be some contrived situation where the point of whether Hilton owned the hotel when it invented the brownie was actually important.
Is there such a phrase in jurisprudential or legal thought? In those instances it is common to say that the evidence is inconclusive. Accordingly, it is unavailing because that evidence does not prove the party's allegation.
Whoever "derived" the illegal derivative work most likely has copyright in his derivations, unless they are not worth copyright protections. Say I take the Harry Potter books and add a few chapters and try to sell it - that's copyright infringement of course, but I have the copyright on these additional chapters. However, I don't have the right to allow you to copy the derived work. And even if you have the right to copy the original work, you don't have the right to copy the derived work because it is a different work. I could extract my changes, and allow you to take them and do with them what you like. You could then create an illegally derived work yourself. I couldn't sue you, but the original copyright holder could. To the comments: One, a work and a derivative of the work are not the same, so even if you have the right to make a copy of a work, that doesn’t give you any right whatsoever to copy a derivative work - they are not the same work. Two, the copyright holder has the exclusive right to control copying and the creation of derivative works. If the copyright holder doesn’t want derivatives to exist, then creating them, copying them etc. is always copyright infringement.
Because disputes are expensive, time-consuming and generally not fun An ambiguous term is a dispute waiting to happen. Far better to resolve the ambiguity and correctly allocate (and price) the risk at the start of a contract when nothing is at stake then have that term be at the centre of a dispute with $10 million on the table that both parties think is theirs. At best, a dispute strains the relationship, at worst, it involves time and costs putting the matter before an arbitrator or a judge and hope the resolve the ambiguity your way. I prefer to play roulette at a casino not a courtroom. Contra preferentum is unlikely to be a successful argument in any form of non-determinative dispute resolution - essentially the proffering party is never going to agree that it applies. Further, contra preferentum is a last-resort resolution mechanism. Maybe what you read as ambiguous is actually clear. Or clear in context, or clear when industry norms are considered or when past dealing or current dealings between the parties are considered. Relying on it is a real long shot. Also, almost all B2B contracts explicitly exclude contra preferentum as a method of resolving ambiguous terms.
A legal paper published in a peer reviewed journal is not science. Universities have faculties of Law and Science because they are not the same thing. while both disciplines use the terms ‘evidence’, ‘fact’ and ‘proof’ they do not mean the same thing. Notwithstanding, the law has already disproved science - see the Catholic Church v Galileo and the Heliocentric model of the Solar System. Yet NASA still uses it to send spacecraft to Pluto - possibly because engineering is neither science nor law.