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Ferguson V. McKiernan
''Ferguson v. McKiernan'' was a 2007 Pennsylvania Supreme Court case in which, in a 3–2 decision, the court reversed a lower court ruling requiring sperm donor Joel McKiernan to pay child support. Factual background Joel McKiernan met Ivonne Ferguson in May 1991, with their relationship becoming intimate several months later. In 1993, Ferguson expressed a desire to have another child. However, after finding out that her tubal ligation was irreversible, Ferguson submitted to in vitro fertilization (IVF) in order to conceive another child. During this process, she asked McKiernan to deliver his sperm so that she could use it for the IVF procedure. While he was initially hesitant to do so, she convinced him by promising that she would not track him down for any child support afterwards. Ferguson gave birth to male twins (Travis and Tyler) on August 25, 1994. Afterwards, McKiernan mostly maintained his anonymity until Ferguson found his phone number and filed for child support ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supreme Court Of Pennsylvania
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania is the highest court in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's Unified Judicial System. It also claims to be the oldest appellate court in the United States, a claim that is disputed by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania began in 1684 as the Provincial Court, and casual references to it as the "Supreme Court" of Pennsylvania were made official in 1722 upon its reorganization as an entity separate from the control of the royal governor. Today, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania maintains a discretionary docket, meaning that the Court may choose which cases it accepts, with the exception of mandatory death penalty appeals, and certain appeals from the original jurisdiction of the Commonwealth Court. This discretion allows the Court to wield powerful influence on the formation and interpretation of Pennsylvania law. History The Original Pennsylvania constitutions, drafted by William Penn, established a Prov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beacon Press
Beacon Press is an American left-wing non-profit book publisher. Founded in 1854 by the American Unitarian Association, it is currently a department of the Unitarian Universalist Association. It is known for publishing authors such as James Baldwin, Mary Oliver, Martin Luther King Jr., and Viktor Frankl, as well as ''The Pentagon Papers''. History The history of Beacon Press actually begins in 1825, the year the American Unitarian Association (AUA) was formed. This liberal religious movement had the enlightened notion to publish and distribute books and tracts that would spread the word of their beliefs not only about theology but also about society and justice. The Early Years: 1854–1900 In the Press of the American Unitarian Association (as Beacon was called then) purchased and published works that were largely religious in nature and "conservative Unitarian" in viewpoint (far more progressive, nonetheless, than many other denominations). The authors were often Unitarian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Child Support
Child support (or child maintenance) is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child (or parent, caregiver, guardian) following the end of a marriage or other similar relationship. Child maintenance is paid directly or indirectly by an ''obligor'' to an ''obligee'' for the care and support of children of a relationship that has been terminated, or in some cases never existed. Often the obligor is a non-custodial parent. The obligee is typically a custodial parent, a caregiver, a Legal guardian, guardian. Depending on the jurisdiction, a custodial parent may pay child support to a non-custodial parent. Typically one has the same duty to pay child support irrespective of sex, so a mother is required to pay support to a father just as a father must pay a mother. In some jurisdictions where there is joint custody, the child is considered to have two custodial parents and no non-custodial parents, and a custodial parent with a higher income (obligo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Straub V
Straub is a Germanic surname that literally means "one with bushy or bristly hair". Its original meaning in Middle High German is "rough" or "unkempt". It may also refer to people who come from Straubing in Germany. Spelling variations of Straub include ''Straube, Strauber, Straubinger, Strauble, Strob, Strobel, Strube, Strub, Strufe, Struwe, and Struwing.'' The first known Straub in the United States was Johannes Straub, one of the Palatine Germans brought to New York in 1710. There were later arrivals, especially in the Pennsylvania Deutsch region and Ohio, most with an origin in Baden-Württemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt, Rhineland-Palatinate, Bavaria, Austria, the German cantons of Switzerland, and Alsace-Lorraine. Some Straubs who had earlier migrated east out of Germany, settling in German enclaves in Russia and Austria-Hungary (now Romania), have subsequently immigrated to the U.S. as well. There were two notable breweries founded in Pennsylvania by Straub immigrants. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pennsylvania Legislature
The Pennsylvania General Assembly is the legislature of the U.S. commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The legislature convenes in the State Capitol building in Harrisburg. In colonial times (1682–1776), the legislature was known as the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly and was unicameral. Since the Constitution of 1776, the legislature has been known as the General Assembly. The General Assembly became a bicameral legislature in 1791. Membership The General Assembly has 253 members, consisting of a Senate with 50 members and a House of Representatives with 203 members, making it the second-largest state legislature in the nation, behind New Hampshire, and the largest full-time legislature. Senators are elected for a term of four years. Representatives are elected for a term of two years. The Pennsylvania general elections are held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November in even-numbered years. A vacant seat must be filled by special election, the date of which is set b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Separation-of-powers
Separation of powers refers to the division of a state's government into branches, each with separate, independent powers and responsibilities, so that the powers of one branch are not in conflict with those of the other branches. The typical division is into three branches: a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary, which is sometimes called the model. It can be contrasted with the fusion of powers in parliamentary and semi-presidential systems where there can be overlap in membership and functions between different branches, especially the executive and legislative, although in most non-authoritarian jurisdictions, the judiciary almost never overlaps with the other branches, whether powers in the jurisdiction are separated or fused. The intention behind a system of separated powers is to prevent the concentration of power by providing for checks and balances. The separation of powers model is often imprecisely and metonymically used interchangeably with the ' principl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Saylor
Thomas G. Saylor (born December 14, 1946) is a former chief justice and associate justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and a former judge of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania. A member of the Republican Party, Saylor retired from his supreme court seat in 2021 at the constitutionally mandated judicial retirement age of seventy-five. Formative years Born in Meyersdale, Somerset County, Pennsylvania, Saylor lived in Cumberland County for most of his life. He received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Virginia in 1969, a Juris Doctor from the Columbia University School of Law in 1972, and a Master of Laws from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2004. Legal and public service career Saylor worked as a prosecutor in Somerset County from 1972 to 1982, before serving as a Director of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Consumer Protection from 1982 to 1983. He was First Deputy Attorney General for Pennsylvania from 1983 to 1987, and served on the Superior Court ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises in a topic-neutral way. When used as a countable noun, the term "a logic" refers to a logical formal system that articulates a proof system. Formal logic contrasts with informal logic, which is associated with informal fallacies, critical thinking, and argumentation theory. While there is no general agreement on how formal and informal logic are to be distinguished, one prominent approach associates their difference with whether the studied arguments are expressed in formal or informal languages. Logic plays a central role in multiple fields, such as philosophy, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics. Logic studies arguments, which consist of a set of premises together with a conclusion. Premises and conclusions are usually un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Law Professor
A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the United Kingdom the term "jurist" is mostly used for legal academics, while in the United States the term may also be applied to a judge. With reference to Roman law, a "jurist" (in English) is a jurisconsult (''iurisconsultus''). The English term ''jurist'' is to be distinguished from similar terms in other European languages, where it may be synonymous with legal professional, meaning anyone with a professional law degree that qualifies for admission to the legal profession, including such positions as judge or attorney. In Germany, Scandinavia and a number of other countries ''jurist'' denotes someone with a professional law degree, and it may be a protected title, for example in Norway. Thus the term can be applied to attorneys, judges an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California State Normal School (now San José State University). This school was absorbed with the official founding of UCLA as the Southern Branch of the University of California in 1919, making it the second-oldest of the 10-campus University of California system (after UC Berkeley). UCLA offers 337 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines, enrolling about 31,600 undergraduate and 14,300 graduate and professional students. UCLA received 174,914 undergraduate applications for Fall 2022, including transfers, making the school the most applied-to university in the United States. The university is organized into the College of Letters and Science and 12 professional schools. Six of the schools offer undergraduate degre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Causation (law)
Causation is the "causal relationship between the defendant's conduct and end result". In other words, causation provides a means of connecting conduct with a resulting effect, typically an injury. In criminal law, it is defined as the '' actus reus'' (an action) from which the specific injury or other effect arose and is combined with '' mens rea'' (a state of mind) to comprise the elements of guilt. Causation only applies where a result has been achieved and therefore is immaterial with regard to inchoate offenses. Background concepts Legal systems more or less try to uphold the notions of fairness and justice. If a state is going to penalize a person or require that person pay compensation to another for losses incurred, liability is imposed according to the idea that those who injure others should take responsibility for their actions. Although some parts of any legal system will have qualities of strict liability, in which the '' mens rea'' is immaterial to the result and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uniform Parentage Act
The Uniform Parentage Act (UPA) is a legislative act originally promulgated in 1973 by the National Conference of Commissioners of Uniform State Laws. The 1973 original version of the act was created to address the need for new state legislation, because at the time the bulk of the law on the subject of children born out of wedlock was unconstitutional or led to doubt. It was amended in 2002 and in 2017. The most recent changes are reflected in the 2017 version of the Uniform Parentage Act. The Act serves to provide a uniform legal framework for establishing paternity of minor children born to married and unmarried couples. It allows more than two people to be legally recognized as parents. 2002 Revisions The new revisions in 2002 include adding new definitions to Article 1, General Provisions, to help clarify determinations of parentage and fitting the act to scientific developments at the time. Article 2, Parent-Child Relationship was kept similar to the 1973 version, only the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
