Why does airline benefits program advertising not violate truth-in-advertising laws? Advertising for airline customer loyalty programs frequently offers customers &quot;miles&quot; as a reward. For instance, Delta Airlines claims: Earn up to 50,000 bonus miles with the Delta SkyMiles® American Express Cards. Terms apply. (This example technically only says &quot;up to,&quot; but there are others that do not include such a qualifier). Of course, these miles do not correspond to any common usage of the term miles, but rather represent a certain number of loyalty program points, one that would be insufficient to buy any combination of flights that would travel a distance greater than twice the circumference of the earth. On the surface, would seem like a clear example of misleading or false advertising under a number of legal regimes (including the USA): a company redefines a term related to their product (the distance travelled) in such a way as to produce a misleading impression that can result in financial benefit, without noting the redefinition in its advertisement. However, this does not appear to have caused any legal problems for airlines, so that would suggest that such advertising is legal. Why is this?
Airline miles are pegged to the miles you fly For those airlines which still call their points miles (many don’t) you usually earn 1 mile for each full-fare economy nautical mile flown. More for business and first class, less for discount fares. So, no problem. That said, the word is now generic to the extent that any loyalty program could use then without confusion.
As described, no. Paying employees with benefits instead of money is called in kind remuneration. There are various limits on in kind payments around the world, including the US. Very generally, in kind payments are only allowed for particular industries and occupations, only allowed up to a certain dollar value, and only allowed as a certain fraction of the employee's wages. Furthermore, the value of the benefit can't exceed the actual cost to the employer - a meal that's priced at $7.25 on the menu is sold at a profit, and would be worth less than the menu price as in kind remuneration. So, given the scenario described, a restaurant employer could not replace 100% of their employee's wages with food sold for the same amount. It's too high a percentage of the wage paid as in kind payment, and the menu price equivalent of the wage would not have sufficient in kind value. A more detailed description of in kind payment laws can be found here. It's a rather long document that's not particularly well-organized, and is structured by describing various aspects of law in different geographic locations, rather than describing all aspects of the law in a location-specific manner. I was able to find US-specific law by searching the document for "United States".
An employee is an agent of the employer when working and owes a duty of loyalty to the employer. One of the obligations associated with a duty of loyalty is to refrain from receiving anything other than the employer authorized compensation for the work, rather than benefitting personally from work done on behalf of the employer. By appropriating additional benefit from the customer in a way that is unauthorized by the employer (the employer would be within its rights to sanction and authorize this conduct if desired), an employee who does not turn the profit in this transaction over to the employer has breached a fiduciary duty to the employer for which the employer would have a right to sue the employee for the amount by which the employee was unjustly enriched in the transaction. Would it actually play out this way in real life for these sums of money? Probably not. The stakes involved wouldn't justify the time and money of a lawsuit. But, breaching a fiduciary duty of loyalty to your employer in this context probably constitutes good cause to terminate the employment of the employee without paying severance that would otherwise be payable under Canadian employment law (in theory anyway, I've never seen a reported court case on point).
Misrepresentation At common law, if you are induced to enter a contract by a material misrepresentation then you can rescind the contract and/or sue for damages. The person concerned would have to prove on the balance of probabilities that: the misrepresentation was actually made, which, if it was only verbal and there were no independent witnesses will be problematic, the misrepresentation caused them to enter the contract. If the dealer were to deny everything, and it came down to a &quot;he said, she said&quot;, then, on the evidence, the person should lose. The facts are equally consistent with the buyer making an unprompted mistake as to the model of the car. Unfortunately, while most cases are compelling when you only have one side's story; when both sides get to have their say the facts become less easy to determine. Outside of misrepresentation, the person can complain to whatever government consumer protection agencies there are in Florida.
Lying may be wrong, but it in the United States, it is generally not illegal. United States v. Alvarez, 132 S. Ct. 2537 (2012). For a lie to be illegal, it generally needs to fall into one of a few specific categories, usually involving either fraud or the frustration of legitimate government activities (as in perjury, falsification of records, or lying to a federal agent). In any of these cases, the First Amendment is generally going to prohibit any penalties unless the false statement is material, i.e., it had the potential to change the outcome of the event in which it was uttered. As you noted, it is generally illegal to discriminate against Asians, so I would expect a court to treat the tenant's ethnicity as immaterial and require the landlord to honor the rental contract. Of course, this assumes that the landlord is prohibited from disciminating against Asians, which is not always true. The Fair Housing Act has exemptions for (a) private clubs; (b) for buildings with four or fewer units, one of which the landlord occupies; (c) for single-family homes that the landlord is renting without the help of an agent; and (d) for religious organizations. In such a case, the landlord may be actually be permitted to disciminate against Asians, so the tenant's false statement about their ethnicity would become material the transaction, and a court may therefore permit the landlord to rescind the contract. (Note, though, that even though the FHA permits discrimination in those limited situations, it does not permit advertising discriminatory preferences. The landlord's &quot;No Asians&quot; language is therefore illegal, whether it is communicated on a sign in the window or in a classified ad or by word of mouth.)
In the US, people are generally allowed to charge arbitrary amounts for services, as long as they do not violate various anti-discrimination laws in doing for. For example it would be illegal to charge people of one race less than they charge people of another race, because of federal and state anti-discrimination laws. Three primary factors govern the legality of a particular form of discrimination. One is the type of interaction, for example "voting rights", "public accommodation", "employment", "housing" – medical treatment would generally fall under "public accommodation". The second is jurisdiction – there can be federal, state, and municipal laws governing a particular kind of discrimination (the lower in the hierarchy you go, the stricter the laws tend to be). Finally there is the "protected class", that is, the basis for discrimination. Protected class is extremely variable, given the preceding two factors. Age discrimination is legal in ways that race discrimination is not. "Has insurance" is not a protected class anywhere, so this does not violate any discrimination laws (per se). There are numerous legal forms of discrimination which are analogous, for example to shop at Costco at all, you have to be a member; there are numerous businesses that offer "member discounts"; some doctors work on a "subscription" basis where they don't treat you unless you are a (paid) service subscriber. The idea that a service has to treat all comers identically is legally incorrect. Co-pay rates are dictated by insurance companies, and can vary depending on the specific insurance carrier that you have. To the extent that there are no specific laws saying otherwise, a service provider is legally entitled to charge less to a person who does not make a claims for coverage by medical insurance – or they could charge more. Indeed, the "without insurance" cost of medical services is typically higher, and the insurance company insists on doctors accepting lower compensation. A "practical" but somewhat risky solution is that if you know that the copay is higher than the street price, you can simply not reveal that you have insurance. However, sometimes an office visit results in a finding that some treatment is needed, and the street price for that treatment may be substantially higher than the insured price. At any rate, contractually-determined co-pays are legal. I should mention a remote possibility for applying anti-discrimination laws, owing to sec. 1557 of ACA. See this article on health care discrimination litigation, where the law enabled "private right of action for disparate impact claims opens the door to class-based claims challenging facially neutral health care policies, treatment decisions, and insurance coverage on the basis that they disproportionately affect members of protected classes". Under this regime, if a policy effectively discriminates on the basis of a protected class, without explicitly mentioning the class, the policy could still be found illegal. If there is a strong enough correlation between race and having health insurance, then "having health insurance" could be found to be a substitute for discrimination on prohibited grounds. There isn't enough case law on this issue, that we can clearly say that such an argument would or would not work.
You’re confusing satire with parody. Parody is when you use the protected work to comment on that work, while satire is when you use it to comment on something else. If you take R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly” and change the lyrics after the first verse to be about the singer jumping off a roof and having to spend the next three months in the ICU, that’s parody — you’re making fun of the song’s lyrics by exploring the consequences of an overly-literal interpretation. On the other hand, if you used the melody for a song with totally different lyrics about clubbing baby seals, that’d be satire. If you’re sued over “I Believe I Can Break My Spine,” you have a good excuse for why you used the copyrighted ”I Believe I Can Fly” you can’t exactly make fun of the lyrics without using substantial copyrighted elements of the song. On the other hand, for a satirical song about baby seals, you don’t need to use “I Believe I Can Fly.” You’re using it because it’s easier than coming up with your own melody, but if you just want to avoid extra work you need to get a license. The distinction can get fuzzy when a work is also clearly talking about other issues. Nader’s U.S. presidential campaign in 2000 featured this ad, which was clearly based off Mastercard’s “Priceless” ads. The ad was most directly criticizing his opponents as corrupt politicians, and that would be satire. However, when sued he argued that part of the subtext of the ad was commentary on Mastercard’s ultimate message of materialism (sure, there are “priceless” moments, but you can get them with things money does buy). In contrast, a book in the style of Dr. Seuss about the OJ Simpson trial was held to not be parody — it didn't make any point whatsoever about Seuss, just about the trial. Seuss’s style was just used to draw attention, not because they were giving commentary on Seuss. In any event, fair use is complicated. There are four statutory factors: The purpose and character of the use (specifically including whether or not it's commercial) The nature of the copyrighted work. How much of the original work was used The effect of the new work on the market for the old work. All four statutory factors have to be considered; none of them can automatically make something fair use or not fair use. Even a legitimate parody might not be fair use under the right circumstances. The only way to definitively know if something is fair use or not is if you’re actually sued for copyright infringement and convince a court that it was fair use. It’s fairly common for whoever’s backing your work to demand that you get a license even if it’d almost certainly be fair use, because they don’t want to have to go to court and argue that as a whole the four statutory factors suggest that your work was fair use.
No (in almost all U.S. jurisdictions). Truth or falsity is evaluated when a statement is originally made and doesn't have to remain true forever. Also, generally the law treats an ad like that as an invitation for you to make any offer to them, not a binding offer to form a contract that is held open indefinitely. So you can't force them into a contract simply by accepting their offer. The default rule is that an ad is an invitation to make an offer rather than an offer that can be accepted. And, even if it really is an offer, when it does not state any termination date, the default rule is that it can be withdrawn at any time.