In Osmium Shipping v Cargill the High Court has ruled that the placement of a comma was crucial in deciding whether or not seizure by pirates fell within a crucial clause of the shipping contract*.

The clause provided that if the vessel should “be put back whilst on voyage by reason of any accident or breakdown, … or capture/seizure, or detention ( Read more... )

Julia's unhappy relationship with Inland Revenue was due to her omission, during four years of modestly successful practice at the Bar, to pay any income tax. The truth is, I think, that she did not, in her heart of hearts, really believe in income tax. It was a subject which she had studied for examinations and on which she had thereafter advised ( Read more... )

I use a legal update aggregator that dumps into my inbox every morning a collection of articles about recent cases in my areas of interest. (These are usually pieces written by law forms to highlight their specialist knowledge in such fields.) One such area is employment law and today my attention was caught by this story:

A belief in a ' ( Read more... )

Dropbox Terms of Service not actually that evil

Back to civil work and I'm doing some research in relation to music contracts. One of the relevant cases is John Wadlow v Henry Samuel (performing as Seal), a 2006 case about alleged unfairness in Seal's original recording contract. As I often do I looked up legal articles discussing the case, and found one in Entertainment Law Review by one Matt ( Read more... )

I was asked to repost this, part of a longer post that was f-locked because it included discussion of a specific case. It's a review of the way in which English criminal law addresses the question of whether someone can consent to sex if very drunk but not actually insensible.

( Intoxication and Consent )

And it's going to be a Trilogy - I discuss the news that the Knockoff Stormtrooper Helmet Case is heading all the way to the Supreme Court.

Remember this query? Well, I noticed that Chambers' library has a copy of Rook and Ward on Sexual Offences, the standard practitioner text on the subject. (A 'practitioner text' is a book, usually by experienced lawyers, that is respected enough that you can generally get away with citing it in court.) I looked up s.69 SOA 2003 and sure enough R&W ( Read more... )

My Darling Beloved (darth_hamster) has asked me a question.

Me: Hmmm... I'll have to check. Pass me that really thick dark blue book called Blackstone's, will you?

(Riffle of pages)

Me: Well, section 69(1)(b) of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 makes bestiality an offence, but only with a living animal. And section 70(1)(b) criminalises necrophilia, but only ( Read more... )

The Sound of Silence - could the Royal British Legion be sued by the estate of John Cage?