Torts - 民事诉讼

测量仪

Scott v Shepherd (1773) 96 ER 525 Court of Common Pleas

The case is such: A threw a firework into a market. It landed on B’s stall.  B picked it up and threw it in another direction. It landed on C’s stall. C picked it up and threw it in another direction. It hit on D’s face and exploded. D’s one eye was blinded by the explosion.
Three key questions: 1. Did A commit trespass? 2. If yes, to who A commit trespass? 3. Who is responsible to D’s harm?
I am of the opinion that any person of reasonable age understand the consequence of the action, which in this case is throwing a firework into a busy market. The consequence will be a very likelihood that the action will cause harm to persons in the market. Therefore, A has commit trespass.
There is a distinction that if the harm is direct or immediate, or consequential? The judges were of the opinion that the harm was consequential, which indicate there is an action on the case. A has commit trespass to B.
One judge is of the opinion that A should not be responsible for the harm D received based on the firework was changed its initial course several times before it hit D. I disagree. One important factor should be considered is that in what situation the firework was changed course. The firework is designed to explode in a very short time once fuse was lit. Any ordinary people, without special training, will not react reasonably well in this situation, other than from instinct to protect his own safety. Hence B and C’s action based on their own instinct in a very short lapse of time, which I am of the opinion that they should not be liable for the harm done to D. A should be the sole person responsible for the harm to D. Judgement for D.

测量仪

非法侵入- 地产篇之砍树

近来发现有很多大神都邻居家树枝伸到自家后院的情况。这种情况怎么正确处理，我谈谈个人看法。

在英联邦法律中一直是有个人财产神圣不可侵犯的惯例。法律肯定土地拥有者的使用权的唯一性和排它性。这种使用权包括土地本身，土地上方的空间，和地表以下部分。

但这一条款本包括树枝长到你家的情况，除非长到你家的部分对你在你地皮上的生活造成影响。这也就是说单单树枝长过界，你是不能采取行动的。只有当过界部分影响到你正常生活了，比如树叶老是落在凉衣架上，树枝挡住走廊，树叶经常堵塞屋顶的排水管，树根破坏了篱笆，下水道，那你就可以采取行动了。

行动的步骤一直受到法律根本原则的影响。法律的根本原则是维持社会的和睦。原话是“To maintain the peace and harmony." 所以行动必须按部就班地协商。

首先要非正式地与邻居沟通，如果可以解决问题那是最好的。如果邻居不理你，你就要正式一点，给他写分书面的材料，说说你的不便。这些沟通和邻居的反应最好留下记录。

如果邻居还是不理你，那你就要找Council 正式投诉。把前几次交涉的情况也说明一下。

如果邻居连Council都不理，那只能走法律程序了。前几个步骤是走法律程序前必须要做的。

如果前几个步骤都走了，那证据也就差不多了。法庭判决的赔偿分两种，一种是对损害的赔偿，包括物质上和精神上的。还有一种是对这种非法行为的惩罚性罚款。这笔款子的多少与你邻居态度有直接联系。这部分你早期的记录就能派上用场了。

fubao

法律系第一年？
第一题你答了一半。还有一半 “harm is direct or immediate, or consequential” 和 "change course".
你要要说 reasonable, urgency 和  necessity.
如果A丢进B的院子，没有urgency 和 necessity，但 B却捡起来丢去C哪里。那么就算change course 了。A未必要负责的。
你的老师有没有跟你说，真正诉讼时，法庭已经预判了的。还没有打官司就已经决定判谁有罪，在法庭上只是一个演出show 罢了。
逻辑很简单，但不方便说出来。
你想知道为什么，私信，我告诉你。
还有，这个案子最好先通过criminal - reckless causing serious injury 告。
Prosecutor 用criminal law 告赢了，你私人律师再用 tort 告，就能轻松取得赔偿。

fubao

第二题可以是admin law的范畴。
很多city council 都有地区的admin law，针对枝桠的事经常有。
直接找council 处理就可以了。
不用升级到tort 和 real property law 去。

我也还没毕业。
我给的答案也是猜的。

测量仪

树的纠纷全攻略- The Tree Act (2006) NSW 浅析

首先介绍一下这个立法的背景。私人领地神圣不可侵犯一直是法律界的铁律。但它有一个例外，那就是“树”。历来的观点是树的存在是让每个普通人感动愉快的事，这和领地的作用不冲突。（原话是： Tree is to the enjoyment of everyone. 而领地 for the use and enjoyment of personal land. 两次出现同一个词，这说明立法时，考虑了几百年对私人领地的定义。）

所有立法的根本是维持社会的和睦（peace). 对处理纠纷的主旋律是鼓励当事人双方积极的协商，找到解决方案。

还有一点很重要，在法庭裁决中经常出现“reasonable person 正常人” 这个词。这个词没有明确定义，而且会随着时代的前进，不断变化。一般认为是社会主流价值观念的体现。所以以下的提法与建议如果与国人传统观念有分歧的话，原因就一个，是价值观的分歧，无法理论，只有接受。

在处理实际纠纷中，法律规定了当事人受的损失必须得到赔偿。但是什么算损失，法官说了算。一般法官的看法就是以上提到的社会主流价值观的体现。

你的权利：你有权在任何时候裁剪过界的树枝，如果你自己出钱的话。而且砍下的树枝要还给邻居。因为这是邻居的财产。

如果你要让邻居来砍，那就要先和邻居商量，不行的话，让council介入。还不满意的话，可以去Land and Environment Court （LEC） 投诉。

去 LEC 投诉，我要请律师吗？
从07年以来，百分之八十的案子都是当事人双方自己出庭，没有律师。

去LEC投诉的条件是什么？

你必须证明邻居的树已经，正在，马上要对你的土地，房屋，个人造成损失。

现在让我们从07年以来的案例中了解一下什么不是损失，什么是损失。

什么不是损失：

树叶掉在后院，要经常清理
有小树枝偶尔掉在后院
树叶掉在屋檐的排水槽里，需要自己（或雇人）清理
树上寄生的虫，鸟对人，物造成的损失
树枝遮住了光
树枝挡住了景观

什么是损失：

地面明显的位移
篱笆的明显位移
房子基础的明显位移
主要枝杆或树本身坏死，已经掉下（或将要掉下），砸坏屋顶，天棚。
主要枝杆或树本身坏死，已经掉下（或将要掉下），有人受伤
树本身对人造成过敏

Cases referred
Leahy v Godbier; Horvath v Godbier [2007] NSWLEC 313
Mace v Graham [2007] NSWLEC 485
Barker v Kyriakides [2007] NSWLEC 292
Bowan v Glanville [2008] NSWLEC 10
Yang v Scerri [2007]NSWLEC 592
Robson v Leischke [2008] LEC 152
Tuft v Piddington [2008] NSWLEC 1249
Black v Johnson (No 2) [2007] NSWLEC 513
Bustamante v Mlinaric [2009] NSWLEC 1324
Robson v Leischke [2008] NSWLEC 152

测量仪

FACT

The definition of FACT given by LexisNexis Concise Australian Legal Dictionary is as follows:

Fact by definition is 'any act, occurrence, and other matter, other than a question of law, the existence of which is relevant to an issue at trial. Facts are required to make out elements of an offense or a claim in a case and are established by the parties abducting evidence. With the decline of the jury trail, the judge is more frequently required to determine both questions of law and fact.

The basic element of fact is act, occurrence or other matter. Now let’s have a look how act, occurrence or other matter are formed and expressed.
Now let me explain how the act, occurrence or other matter is formed.
First the information of the object, through our sensors, such as eyes and ears, forms a sensory information, which may include visual information and auditory information.

This information will be filtered through the system comprises of knowledge and experience and projected out as memory.
Then the memory will be retrieved and expressed in a language, which forms 'any act, occurrence, and other matter’.
As we can see that every step in this process, the information might be adjusted, might be modified, or even reconstructed.
If at each of these steps, we lose 10% of the original information, we will only have 65% of the original information. I believe this is one of the major reason why ‘degree of certainty’ is used. Because we can’t guarantee 100%, we possibly can’t guarantee 90%. We only can take the act, occurrence and other matter over a balance of probability.
Rule of evidence applying in the courts

There are three major rules suggested:
•        Witnesses should generally only give evidence of what they themselves have witnessed; their testimony should not contain ‘hearsay’.
•        Evidence should, as far as is possible, relate what the witness has observed, and be free of opinion and judgement.
•        In criminal trials, other allegations against the defendant and prior convictions will generally be excluded.

I would like, here, to elaborate a bit more on the second point, which is evidence should relate what the witness has observed, and be free of opinion and judgement.
The difference between fact and opinion is not always clear. I would like to use the following case to demonstrate how difficult the situation can be.
The example is an extract from La Trobe Capital & Mortgage Corporation Limited v Hay Property Consultants Pty Ltd [2011] FCAFC 4.
In short, A lend 2.4 million dollars to B using B’s property as security, based on C’s advice that B’s property valued at 4 million dollars. When B defaulted on the loan, the property sold at 2 million dollars. A sued C for damage under two heads:
1.        Capital loss of 0.4 million dollars
2.        Income loss-being the difference between the interest that it would have received from an alternative borrower on similar terms and the interest in actually received from B.
During the proceedings, Mr G, a senior manager of A, stated that A would have entered into an alternative loan on similar terms if it had no lent 2.4 millioin dollars o B.
The matter to be decided is that if Mr G’s statement is evidence of fact.
B quote S 76 of the Evidence Act 1995 (Cth), which states that ‘evidence of an opinion is not admissible to prove the existence of a fact about the existence of which the opinion was expressed.’ B characterised Mr G’s “assertions’ as opinion.
A rebuffed quoting  S 78 of the Evidence Act 1995 (Cth), ‘the opinion rule does not apply to evidence of an opinion expressed by a person if: (a) the opinion is based on what the person saw, heard or otherwise perceived about a matter or event; and (b) evidence of the opinion is necessary to obtain an adequate account or understanding of the person’s perception of the matter or event.’
Making the matter more difficult is that the Evidence Act 1995 (Cth) does not have a definition of ‘opinion’.
The court’s final decision is that Mr G’s statement is evidence of fact.
The judge first said ‘ It has been observed that the distinction between evidence of fact and evidence of opinion is difficult to draw.’
He ruled that Mr G put forward two proposition that A
1.        Had an opportunity (or opportunities) to make a loan (or loans) on similar terms to B’s loan
2.        Would have taken one of those opportunities, had it not lent money to B.
Justice Finkelstein ruled that the first proposition was simply an unparticularised statement of fact. He relied on a line of Australian authority which suggests that evidence as to what a person would have done in a hypothetical circumstance is not an opinion for the purposes of s 76 of the Evidence Act.


http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/a/memory.htm
Concise Australian Legal Dictionary (LexisNexis, 4th ed, 2011)
Margaret Davies, Asking The Law Question (Thomson Lawbook Co  3rd ed, 2008)

测量仪

关于离婚财产分配的若干问题

申请法庭的裁决是一个漫长，痛苦，烧钱的过程。 如果你是有‘就算自己拿不到一分钱，也不要你拿到。’那在一系列的协调后， 那就上厅吧。



1        家庭的定义（family）
家庭的定义非常有争议性。 各州立法不同，近年的立法着重于成员的功能（function）,不再纠结于成员的性别，这位同性婚姻的离婚提供了法庭裁决的授权。

2        财产定义的几点问题
2.1        法庭对于财产（property）一般采用较宽泛的解读。 财产不单指不动产，现金，股权。 还包括养老金，redundancy and long service leave entitlements.
2.2        可以预见的未来收入：如果在未来的几年中，其中一方有确定的收入，这部分收入也要计入裁决。比方说A方还有两年退休，可以领取退休金(superannuation). 那这笔钱也要计算在财产之内。
2.3        财产与何时获取，怎样获取无关。这就是说没有婚前，婚后一说。
2.4        财产评估由专业人士进行。（费钱呀！）
2.5        财产包括欠债。

3        家庭成员对财产贡献的评估
3.1        结婚住房
3.1.1        首付很重要。 哪一方付的首付，在短期婚姻结束后， 那一方在婚房分配中占绝大部分
3.1.2        对婚房的贡献还包括还房贷，房子的日常维护（比如雨水管，花园的维修清理费用）房子的装修费用。  
3.2        间接贡献
虽然通常的规定是彩票的归属是属于彩票上姓名的拥有者。但夫妻一方买的彩票，一直是被认为是夫妻双方共同买的
夫妻中一方父母给夫妻的钱，通常被认为是属于父母孩子那一方对家庭财产做出的贡献。在一，两年的短期婚姻中，一般可以大部追回。
3.3        间接家庭职责的贡献
这一般用于一方工作，一方在家从事家务。
从事家务的一方对家庭是有不可忽略的贡献。在评估中，一般会认为贡献在百分之三十左右。
对于长期婚姻， 在考虑婚房的裁决时，这一贡献一般以百分之五十为起点。从事家务的质量，和另一方工作的联系性是考虑的重要因素。