wex articles

Right of Publicity: an overview

The right of publicity prevents the unauthorized commercial use of an individual's name, likeness, or other recognizable aspects of one's persona. It gives an individual the exclusive right to license the use of their identity for commercial promotion.

Trade Regulation: an overview

The terms commerce and trade are often used interchangeably, with commerce referring to large-scale business activity and trade describing commercial traffic within a state or a community.  The U.S. Constitution, through the Commerce Clause, gives Congress exclusive power over trade activities between the states and with foreign countries.  Trade within a state is regulated exclusively by the states themselves.  As with any commercial activity, intrastate and interstate trade is often times indistinguishable.

Pollution: an overview

Pollution is the contamination of air, water, or earth by harmful substances. Concern for pollution developed alongside concerns for the environment in general. See Environmental law. The advent of automobiles, increased chemical wastes, nuclear wastes, and accumulation of garbage in landfills created a need for legislation specifically aimed at decreasing pollution.

Definition

A trademark is any word, name, symbol, or design, or any combination thereof, used in commerce to identify and distinguish the goods of one manufacturer or seller from those of another and to indicate the source of the goods.  See 15 U.S.C. § 1127. 

trial practice: an overview

Only a small percentage of legal disputes are litigated in a court. When litigation does occur, several areas govern the lawyers' conduct of the trial or trial practice:

• Criminal procedure
• Civil procedure
• Appellate procedure
• Legal ethics

Unemployment Compensation law: an overview

Unemployment insurance provides workers, whose jobs have been terminated through no fault of their own, monetary payments for a given period of time or until they find a new job. Unemployment payments are intended to provide an unemployed worker time to find a new job equivalent to the one lost without financial distress. Without employment compensation, many workers would be forced to take jobs for which they were overqualified or end up on welfare. Unemployment compensation is also justified by sustaining consumer spending during periods of economic adjustment.

Welfare Law: an overview

In the United States, welfare benefits for individuals and families with no or low income had been almost non-existent prior to the Great Depression of the 1930s. With millions of people unemployed, the federal government saw income security as a national problem.

Workers' Compensation: an overview

Workers' compensation laws protect people who are injured on the job. They are designed to ensure that employees who are injured or disabled on the job are provided with fixed monetary awards, eliminating the need for litigation. These laws also provide benefits for dependents of those workers who are killed because of work-related accidents or illnesses. Some laws also protect employers and fellow workers by limiting the amount an injured employee can recover from an employer and by eliminating the liability of co-workers in most accidents. State statutes establish this framework for most employment. Federal statutes are limited to federal employees or those workers employed in some significant aspect of interstate commerce.

Workplace safety: an overview

Workplace safety and health laws establish regulations designed to eliminate personal injuries and illnesses from occurring in the workplace. The laws consist primarily of federal and state statutes. Federal laws and regulations preempt state ones where they overlap or contradict one another.

property tax: an overview

Taxes are sometimes classified as either specific or ad valorem. Specific taxes are of a fixed amount based on a number, or standard of weight or measurement. Ad valorem taxes are based on a fixed proportion of the value of the property with respect to which the tax is assessed. They require an appraisal of the taxable subject matter's worth. General property taxes are almost invariably of this second type -- ad valorem. Ad valorem property taxes are based on ownership of the property, and are payable regardless of whether the property is used or not and whether it generates income for the owner (although these factors may affect the assessed value).