Papal nuncios, diplomatic immunity, and canon law Supposing I thought my country's papal nuncio owes me money and he thinks otherwise. So I sue him and he gets the case dismissed on the grounds of diplomatic immunity. Maybe I could go to Vatican City and sue him there. (?) But since the Catholic church has tribunals of the kind in which canon lawyers practice, might a local tribunal of that sort in my own neighborhood suffice? (Obviously it's not the sort of thing those courts usually handle. Nor do the courts in Vatican City in the present day usually try cases in which a defendant gets sentenced to imprisonment, and yet that happened and was in the headlines about six or seven years ago.)
It depends in part why you think he owes you money: is it about real estate in the US, it is about his role as executor or heir in an estate, does it relate to professional or commercial activity outside his official function? This is covered by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations Article 31. If so, you can sue him the regular way. Enforcement of a judgment can be a challenge, since he can't he held in contempt for ignoring the order, and the police can't enter the embassy to take property. A theoretical alternative would be to take the case to the local Archdiocese, but Canon 366 precludes that "the seat of a pontifical legation is exempt from the power of governance of the local ordinary unless it is a question of celebrating marriages", so taking your case to the Archdiocese of Washington is pointless. Consequently, I think the case would have to be presented to the Roman Rota. But from what I can tell, unless this situation is a violation of church law, you will fail to state a cognizable claim.
On what grounds would you sue? Contract Well, I think that you would struggle to find the necessary elements (see What is a contract and what is required for them to be valid?) In particular, you would struggle to prove that there was intention to create legal relations on their part and possibly on yours. Are you able to identify in your "back &amp; forth" a clear, unequivocal offer and acceptance? Without knowing the details of the "back &amp; forth": I was hoping that someone at $organization might be willing to write an article explaining what you do, the history of the organization and how it works appears on the face of it to be a request for a gift; not an offer to treat. Promissory Estoppel If you don't have a contract then it is possible (IMO unlikely) that they induced you by your actions to commit resources (your time in writing) in anticipation of a reward (them publishing what you wrote). To be estopped they would have to have known that you were writing the article in the expectation that it would have your organisation's name in it, that they did not intend for that to happen and that they allowed you to invest those resources notwithstanding. If you can prove all of that then you can require them to do what they promised. The big difficulty I see in this is did you tell them that a) you were writing the article, b) it would have your name in it and c) you expected it to be published in that form. Copyright If they publish the work or a derivative work without your permission you can sue for breach of copyright. As it stands, they probably have an implied licence to publish and you would need to explicitly revoke that. Options There are two reasons to go to court: Money Principle If you are going to court for money then this is at best a risky investment and at worst a gamble: balance your risk and reward carefully. If you are going to court for a principle then I simultaneously admire your principles and think you're an idiot. Make a deal Explain that the reason that you wrote the article was a) to support their fine publication and the fantastic work it does (even if you don't) and b) to garner good publicity for your organisation. You understand and admire their strong editorial stance (especially if you don't) but the article involved a considerable amount of work and could they see their way clear to give you a significant discount (~80%) on a full page ad facing the article.
You would be amazed at how vanishingly few the number of cases are where a signature is disputed. Signatures are easy, quick and don't require you having inky fingers all the time. They are so useful that to throw them out to deal with infinintesimally small fractions of disputes over their veracity (bearing in mind that 99.999999999% of contracts never have a dispute that gets to a court [or at all]) is ridiculous. When it does happen, handwriting analysis is probably not going to be put into evidence anyway. Testimony like "I saw him sign it" is way more likely to be used.
Like this Let's assume that the perpetrator is a California based company. The Brazilian government initiates a prosecution in Brazil. It follows its proper course and the company is convicted and the judge orders a fine of, say 5 million Real. The Brazilian government takes this judgment to a Californian court who determines that the case was conducted correctly under Brazilian law. This would be a judicial review and not a retrial on the issues. Further, they would check that the matter was not in conflict with ant treaty between the US &amp; Brazil about such matters. If the Californian court is satisfied that this was done correctly, it issues a judgment for the same amount in USD. The Brazillian government then collects against that debt using all the normal methods in California. Refusal by the company to pay will now be contempt of court in California. Virtually every country in the world reciprocally enforces judgements for other nations. By the way, there is no extraterritoriality in the offence: the offence was committed in Brazil and prosecuted in Brazil, the enforcement is under US law in California.
Standing requirements are different in state and federal courts, and from one state to the next. A random individual would not have standing to object to a stranger's abortion in federal court, and likely not in any state court, under normal circumstances, as they are not injured in any meaningful way by the abortion. I don't know what the normal rules of standing are in Texas, but it is likely perfectly acceptable for the Legislature to wave its wand to grant standing to whomever it wants regarding any violation of the law it sees for. That seems to be what is happening here.
I found a mention of this issue here, where the case Rhonda Eddy v. Ingenesis was cited. Eddy worked from home in West Virginia, but had signed her contract with a company headquartered in Texas. The link is the decision of The State of West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, which upheld the decision of the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, namely, that the Circuit Court did not have the authority to hear Eddy's petition against her employer because she was out of the Circuit Court's jurisdiction. The circuit court found that it did not have personal jurisdiction over respondent under West Virginia’s personal jurisdiction statutes, and that respondent did not have sufficient minimum contacts with West Virginia to satisfy federal due process considerations. The circuit court also found that it did not have subject matter jurisdiction over petitioner’s WPCA claim because petitioner’s employment contract contained a valid choice of law clause that mandated Texas law would govern any dispute between the parties. Emphasis mine. It all depends on stipulations made in the employment contract. This (in the United Kingdom) states 4. Place of Work Allows the employer to specify the location where the employee will work. However, it also allows for the employer to specify any other location in the future. This gives the employer much greater flexibility. That would seem to indicate that (at least in the U.K.) the place is specified in the contract.
Yes, certainly. A prominent example was Lawrence v. Texas. The defendants were charged in state court with "deviate sexual intercourse". They moved to dismiss on the grounds that the statute was unconstitutional. Their motion was denied and they were convicted and fined; the denial was upheld by the state's court of appeals. They then appealed to the US Supreme Court, which eventually ruled that the statute was indeed unconstitutional. A defendant likely wouldn't have standing to sue the state for enforcing the law in general, only for enforcing it on the defendant himself.
This appears to be a complaint about lawyers using the legal process to achieve what their client wants. Forgive me, but this seems to be like complaining that doctors only want to cure the client's disease, architects only want to design the client's buildings and generals only want to kill the client's enemies. Your lawyer is not your business strategist or your life coach! A civil case is always about the money. If you are pursuing a civil case over a principle then you are going to spend a lot of money and probably lose. The use of a lawyer should always be part of your wider negotiation strategy in the same way that your armed forces are part of your diplomacy; in both cases the threat of use is usually better than the actual use. A civil case always follows a failure to successfully negotiate. Not all by any means, but most, civil cases would be better settled by agreement than litigation by all parties. If you believe that your objectives can best be served by a social media campaign, political pressure, etc. then go for it. Your lawyer can advise you what the risks are wrt to defamation etc. but ultimately how you choose to pursue your goal is up to you. Lawyers, understandably, look for legal solutions. A public relations professional is far better placed than a lawyer to inform your media strategy.