Enabling statutes require a written agreement signed by the person acting as surrogate, that person's spouse if any, and each intended parent, with signatures notarized or witnessed. Independent legal representation is required for each side and is paid for by the intended parents. Eligibility conditions commonly include a minimum age, a prior birth, and completed medical and mental health evaluations. The agreement must be executed before any medical procedure under it begins.
A prescription for a controlled substance is effective only when it is issued for a legitimate medical purpose by an individual practitioner acting in the usual course of professional practice. A document that fails that test is not a prescription within the meaning of the law, and the person who knowingly fills it is subject to the penalties that apply to unlawful distribution. Formal content requirements sit on top of that substantive test and cannot cure a failure of it.
The charging document that starts a removal case sets out numbered factual allegations followed by one or more charges of inadmissibility or deportability. The facts must support the charge; the charge decides who carries the burden of proof and what relief remains available. Admitting an allegation removes it from dispute permanently, and the government may lodge additional or substituted charges in writing at any point during the case.
Parentage statutes provide that a donor is not a parent of a child conceived through assisted reproduction. Some states apply the exclusion unconditionally; others condition it on the gametes having been provided to a licensed physician or sperm bank, or on a writing signed before conception. Where the donation was informal, courts examine intent and later conduct, and a donor who lived with the child and held the child out as his own may be found a parent.
Statutes exclude transient occupancy from landlord and tenant acts, but transience is a description rather than a duration. The factors that matter are the length and open-endedness of the stay, whether the rate is nightly or monthly, whether the operator retains housekeeping access, whether the occupant has another residence, and whether hotel services are actually supplied. Several states set a presumption at a fixed number of days, and several prohibit forcing a check-out to reset the count.
A voluntary corrective action is a negotiated plan agreed with staff and publicly announced. A mandatory recall requires the Commission to determine, after affording interested persons an opportunity for a hearing, that a product distributed in commerce presents a substantial product hazard and that notification or remedy is in the public interest. The compulsory route offers procedural protections the negotiated route does not, at the cost of time, cost and publicity.
Cremated remains are not treated as waste, and most states allow wide freedom in placing them, subject to permission from whoever controls the place. Scattering on private land generally requires the owner's written permission, and statutes commonly require the remains to be removed from the container and left indistinguishable. National park units require a permit. Burial at sea falls under a federal general permit with a three nautical mile minimum and a reporting duty within thirty days.
Most states split protective authority in two. A guardian decides personal matters — residence, medical treatment, daily support — while a conservator manages property, income and financial transactions. Each requires its own finding, and a conservatorship may be granted where an adult is missing or detained without any capacity finding at all. Bonding, inventories and accountings attach to the money side; care plans and status reports attach to the person side.
For immigration purposes a conviction exists where a court entered a formal judgment of guilt, or where adjudication was withheld but the person was found guilty, pleaded guilty or no contest, or admitted facts sufficient to warrant a finding of guilt, and a judge ordered some form of punishment, penalty or restraint on liberty. Later expungement or rehabilitative relief generally leaves that conviction intact, and a suspended sentence still counts toward a term of imprisonment.
Where an operator sells without a valid lien or without following the statutory procedure, the sale is a conversion and the occupant's claim lies against the facility. Statutes commonly protect a good faith purchaser, so the goods are not recovered. Damages are measured by the value of the property converted, frequently constrained by a value limit in the rental agreement, and by the occupant's ability to prove what was stored and what it was worth.
