Spousal Rape: California PC 262

According to California Penal Code Section 262 spousal rape is defined as having sexual intercourse with spouse when one of the following situations is true:

• Intercourse is committed by force, threats or violence.
• Intercourse is committed when the victim is intoxicated.
• Intercourse is committed when the victim is unconscious of the nature of the act. At the time of the act the spouse was asleep; was not aware, that the act occurred or was not aware of the essential characteristics of the act due to the perpetrator's fraud in fact.
• The perpetrator threatened of future harm against the victim or any other person if the victim did not consent.
• The victim agreed under the threat of deportation or arrest and reasonably believed that the perpetrator is a public official.

Elements of Spousal Rape Crimes Under California PC 262

Prosecutor must establish the following elements to convict a defendant under California Penal Code Section 262.

• Defendant engaged in an act of intercourse with a person to whom he was married.
• Defendant engaged in an act of intercourse without the consent of the spouse.
• The intercourse was accomplished by one of the above described means.

Legal defenses to California PC Section 262 Charges

• Consent

One of the most obvious defenses is the consent of the spouse since the parties were married. In case the defendant's spouse actually gave the consent to the sexual act, then marital rape did not occur. In case the spouse initially gave the consent but then changed her or his or mind the defendant may not be convicted unless the victim clearly communicated that she or he wanted the act to stop.

• False Accusations

Many married couples don't like each other but remain married for different reasons or may even have started the divorce process when the false accusation of rape was made. False accusations can be based on a desire for custody of the children, revenge for infidelity, or anger directed towards the spouse for many reasons. This can be a valid defense in case there is no evidence of physical violence and no other corroborating evidence is present to accuse the defendant of spousal rape.

• Lack of Evidence

It should be enough to acquit the defendant in case the charge consists exclusively of a spouse accusing the other without any additional evidence.

Penalties for Violating California PC Section 262

Under California PC Section 262 crime of spousal rape is a felony, with the following possible penalties:

• Felony probation. As of January 1, 2017, this is no longer available for the rape of an unconscious or intoxicated spouse or forcible spousal rape.
• Three, six, or eight years in California State Prison.
• In case the defendant inflicted a great bodily injury on the spouse he can receive an additional three to five years in California State Prison.
• A Fine up to $10,000.
• A lifetime requirement to register as a sex offender in case the intercourse was accomplished by the use of physical force pursuant to California PC Section 290
• As a sex offender, the defendant will have to have a GPS to monitor his location and he will be prohibited from being within 2000 feet of a playground, school, or park.

What Is Catastrophe Insurance and What Does It Cover?

Catastrophe insurance covers a wide array of natural and man-made disasters. The rare events covered in these insurance policies are generally not common enough to be included in homeowners' insurance.

However, these low-probability disasters can and tend to cause extremely devastating amounts of damage to many people at once. Catastrophe insurance claims can cover a variety of things. A general catastrophe insurance policy could include coverage for the following:

• Tornadoes
• Hurricanes
• Snow and hail storms
• Earthquakes and other land-related events (sinkholes, mudslides)
• Floods
• Lightning
• Volcanic eruptions
• Man-made disasters (Terrorism, riots)

Someone looking to purchase a catastrophe insurance policy could choose to get one that covers a variety of catastrophic events or specific ones. Some common types of specific-catastrophe policies are flood insurance and earthquake insurance.

Hazard Insurance is also similar to catastrophe insurance, but it excludes man-made disasters such as terrorist attacks and riots. It may cover all or only some natural disasters.

How Is Catastrophe Insurance Different From Traditional Homeowners' Insurance?

Homeowners insurance generally does not cover any of the disasters in the list of catastrophic disasters above. Most notably, homeowners' insurance policies rarely cover earthquakes and floods, which leaves many victims uninsured each year.

The reason homeowners insurance policies do not include these events is because they are hard to predict and the damages are hard to estimate. There aren't very many people who would invest to protect themselves from events that are rare.

What to Keep in Mind When Filing a Catastrophic Insurance Claim

When a catastrophic disaster hits, it is imperative that you keep all of your receipts and bills in order to gain the most complete financial compensation from your catastrophe insurance claim. These events typically require several immediate/temporary repairs and may even cause you to relocate.

The catastrophe insurance claims typically cover for moving and living costs if the disaster prevents you from living at home. Make sure that you keep all records of any repairs and moving costs, however, keep in mind that spending more money on temporary repairs will come out of your final settlement.

You will need to record all specific damages to your property and all possessions that were damaged or destroyed. The more documentation that you can provide for your claim on losses, the faster and more accurately you will be compensated. Your compensation will partly depend on whether your policy gives people new replacements for lost items or gives the estimated value of the lost item in cash.

Are you in need of additional information regarding catastrophe insurance claims? Our legal team at KAASS Law would be happy to answer any questions that you have. Give us a call now at {meta.phoneFormatted} for more information.

What is the Procedure for Reporting a Faulty Product to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)?

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) exists to protect consumers from faulty products that may be unsafe or conflict with product safety guidelines.

The CPSC website has a page for reporting hazardous products, known as SaferProducts.gov, which allows both consumers and businesses who create these products to directly notify the agency that regulates them. The process of reporting for a consumer is different from how a business must report on their own faulty product, in that the business must follow strict requirements when they become aware of their product's problem.

Consumers can fill out the simple form found on SaferProducts.gov in order to report a defective product. It will ask about the problems with the product, the possible risks it poses for consumers, and the harm it may or may not have already caused. Keep in mind that all reports are confidential and that there are whistleblower protections for employers who report a faulty product created at their workplace. An employer may not fire an employee or retaliate against them for reporting a product to the CPSC.

Businesses who become aware that one of their products is defective or unsafe must adhere to a set of more stringent guidelines. The Consumer Product Safety Act Section 15 outlines these rules. A business is required to report its product to the CPSC within 24 hours if they become aware that the product:

• Poses an unreasonable risk of injury or death
• Fails to comply with any CPSC guidelines for product safety
• Has caused any sort of serious injury or death to a child (particularly with products that involve small parts that pose a choking risk)

Businesses must also report within 24 hours if they have any suspicions that their product may cause harm or break CPSC guidelines, even if no injury has occurred yet as a result of the suspected defect.

What Are the Elements Required to Win a Premises Liability Case?

• The defendant is the rightful owner (or lessee, occupant, etc.) of the property in which the accident took place
• The defendant was negligent in their maintenance of the property
• The plaintiff was harmed
• The defendant's negligence was a significant factor in causing harm to the plaintiff

What Counts as Government Property?

• Sidewalks
• Roads and highways
• Public parks and beaches
• Public restrooms
• Government buildings

What is the California Tort Claims Act?

• The government was negligent in maintaining the property
• The plaintiff was harmed
• The government's negligence substantially contributed to the plaintiff's harm

How Is the Legal Process Different When the Accident Happened on Government Property?

California PC 653m

PC 653m (a) states, "Every person who, with intent to annoy, telephones or makes contact by means of an electronic communication device with another and addresses to or about the other person any obscene language or addresses to the other person any threat to inflict injury to the person or property of the person addressed or any member of his or her family, is guilty of a misdemeanor."

PC 653m (b) states, "Every person who, with intent to annoy, telephones or makes contact by means of an electronic communication device with another and addresses to or about the other person any obscene language or addresses to the other person any threat to inflict injury to the person or property of the person addressed or any member of his or her family, is guilty of a misdemeanor. Nothing in this subdivision shall apply to telephone calls or electronic contacts made in good faith."

Is Making a Prank Call Legal in California? What Characteristics of a Prank Call Makes It Illegal?

Making a "prank call" is not always a crime in the state of California. However, there are certain characteristics of electronic messages that can make it an illegal act.

The first element of this crime is that you must have sent a message through a form of electronic communication. While it can be sent through a call or voice message, PC 653m also includes visual forms of electronic communication such as text messages, emails, and faxes. It is required that you knowingly and intentionally acted, but it is important to keep in mind that you did not necessarily have to send the message yourself to be charged with violating PC 653m, as long as it came from your electronic device.

Example: A mother frequently lets her children use her phone to make prank calls to a pizza restaurant for their own amusement. The mother knows that they use her phone for this purpose, and the kids do so repeatedly with the intent to annoy the restaurant workers. The mother could be found in violation of PC 653m even though she didn't make the calls, because she knowingly let her kids use her device to do so.

The next element regards the content of the calls or messages sent. It is required that they do one of the following:

• Contain obscene, vulgar, or lewd language
• Threatens harm to recipient of the message, or their loved ones/property
• The messages are repeated

Lastly, it must be proven that the messages were sent to harass or annoy the recipient. Even if the messages sound annoying or threatening, it must have been the intent of the sender to do so.

To summarize, the 3 elements of this crime are:

• Electronic message(s) were knowingly and willfully sent from your device
• The message(s) contained obscene/threatening language OR were sent repeatedly
• They were sent with the intent of annoying or harassing the recipient

Punishments for Violating PC 653m

PC 653m is considered a misdemeanor offense in the state of California, meaning that the punishments could include:

• Up to 6 months in a county jail
• A maximum fine of $1,000

While the offense itself does not carry very severe punishments, this is a crime that is commonly associated with others due to the fact that the content of the calls can sometimes lead to more charges. Making a direct threat over the phone would be a violation of PC 653m, for example, but it can also be its own crime (sometimes a felony) as stated in PC 422.

Legal Defenses for PC 653m

There are plenty of defenses that can be used against a false accusation of violating PC 653m. Some of these are:

• Your language was not actually "obscene"
• You didn't intend to annoy or harass anyone with your messages
• You didn't willfully send the messages

It may be the case that the language you used was labelled as obscene when it actually was not, but it also may be the case that you used obscene language in an environment where it doesn't constitute illegal activity. Case law provides protections for people who use obscene language with people who have a history of using such language with each other.

EX: Joe calls his friend, Bill, who doesn't pick up, so he leaves a voice message for him. Joe and Bill are known to use obscene language with each other, so Joe jokingly includes some obscenities in the message. Bill's wife, who doesn't know Joe, listens to the message and is disgusted, so she calls the police on Joe and has him arrested for violating PC 653m. Joe should be found innocent because he has an established history of using vulgar language with Bill.

Your message must have also been sent with the intention of harassing or annoying someone. This does not simply mean that someone was annoyed or felt harassed, but the sender must have meant to annoy or harass. A telemarketer that calls every day may be annoying, however they do not call with that intention, but rather to sell their product.

Lastly, you may not have known that the messages were sent at all, meaning that no crime has been committed. In reference to the earlier example about a mother's children using her phone to call a pizza restaurant, the mother may not have known that they were using her phone for that purpose, meaning that it would not be a violation of PC 653m.

Negligence

• Defendant knew or should have known that he was a carrier of a disease
• Owed the plaintiff the duty to disclose this information
• Infected the plaintiff with a sexually transmitted disease
• Defendant's action caused harm to the plaintiff

Civil Battery

Fraud

• Defendant knew that he had a sexually transmitted disease.
• Defendant hide, concealed, or otherwise failed in his duty to disclose that knowledge with the intention to have sexual intercourse
• Plaintiff contracted the disease as a result of sexual intercourse

Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress

Liability for Disclosing Another Person's STD

Damages

• The medical costs to treat the condition and costs of receiving psychological counseling after being receiving an STD
• Pain and suffering
• Emotional distress and mental anguish
• A jury may also award punitive damages to deter similar conduct in the future.

Glendale Personal Injury Lawyer

California Penal Code section 1320 states, "Every person who is charged with or convicted of the commission of a misdemeanor who is released from custody on his or her own recognizance and who in order to evade the process of the court willfully fails to appear as required, is guilty of a misdemeanor...Every person who is charged with or convicted of the commission of a felony who is released from custody on his or her own recognizance and who in order to evade the process of the court willfully fails to appear as required is guilty of a felony"

When Is It a Crime to Fail to Appear in Court?

Failing to appear in court constitutes a crime if the following 4 elements are fulfilled. The elements are:

• The defendant was charged or convicted of a misdemeanor or felony
• The defendant was released from custody
• The defendant willfully failed to appear at court when required to do so
• The defendant tried to avoid the legal process by failing to appear

It is important to note that for the second element that regards being released from custody, there are different ways of being released that can result in different penal code violations.

• If the defendant is released WITHOUT posting bail (on their own recognizance), and fails to appear in court, they could be charged with violating PC 1320
• If the defendant is released WITH bail, in a felony case, this is actually a violation of PC 1320.5, which carries more severe punishments

What Are the Punishments for Failing to Appear?

Failing to appear in court is a wobbler offense in California, meaning that it can sometimes be charged as either a misdemeanor or a felony. In the case of PC 1320, the evading court on a misdemeanor case will result in a misdemeanor, while evading a felony court date will result in a felony offense. As previously stated, there are other factors, such as the payment of bail, that can also affect the severity of the punishments given.

When failing to appear for a court date of a misdemeanor offense, the crime is charged as a misdemeanor, and the punishments can consist of:

• Up to 6 months in a county jail
• A maximum fine of $1,000

When failing to appear for a court date of a felony offense, the crime is charged as a felony, and the punishments can consist of:

• A maximum fine of $5,000
• Either up to 1 year in county jail OR a maximum sentence of 3 years in a state prison

When failing to appear for a court date of a felony offense when bail has been posted, the crime is charged as a felony, and the punishments can consist of:

• A maximum fine of $10,000
• Up to 3 years in a county jail or state prison

What Are the Punishments for Failing to Appear?

There are several ways to defend yourself if you are wrongfully accused of criminally failing to appear in court. Some of these include:

• You didn't willfully miss your court date
• You didn't mean to avoid the legal process by failing to appear
• You missed your court date based on a mistake made by the court

It is required that you failed to appear intentionally in order to be charged with a crime. There are several reasons why this may not be the case. Simply forgetting about your court date is not a crime, you must have knowledge of the court date and willfully decide not to go.

Even if you did purposefully fail to appear, it is only a crime to do so if you were trying to avoid the legal process. There are many legitimate reasons as to why you would have to miss a court date. For example, you may have been sick or injured.

Lastly, sometimes our legal system does make mistakes in coordinating dates for court appearances. It is not uncommon for the court to expect you to come on an incorrect date, or one that is different from what they told you. If you were charged with failing to appear because of a mistake on the court's side, this would easily be a legitimate defense.

What Is the Paycheck Protection Program?

What is PPP Loan Fraud or CARES Act Fraud?

What Are Examples of PPP Loan Fraud?

• Claim the incorrect number of employees to qualify for the loan.
• Wrongfully claiming that COVID-19 impacted your business.
• Increasing payroll costs to get an increased amount of funding.
• Using the funds for anything other than qualified expenses
• Failure to identify an employee that left in order to continue receiving funds on their behalf.

What Are the Penalties for PPP Loan Fraud?

• Fine up to $5,000 and/or
• A 2 year sentence in a federal prison.

• A fine up to $10,000 and/or
• A federal prison sentence of 5 years.

• Intent is important. Defendants cannot be charged if they had no intent to defraud. For example, making a mistake on the complicated loan application could be a result of the violation. If it was not your intent to defraud, but a simple mistake, you cannot be charged for fraud.
• An SBA mistake in communications, bank statements, accounting notes, receipts and even bills could seem like there is fraud occurring under a PPP loan. It is important to keep all data as reference in case there is a mistake in one of the weeks.

What is the California Penal Code Section 236.1(a)?

• Defendant deprived another one of his personal liberty or violated that person's personal liberty. Also, depriving or violating someone's personal liberty is defined as a sustained restriction of that person's liberty through deceit, coercion, duress, force and fraud, violence, or threat of injury.
• Defendant had an intention to obtain forced labor or service.

Penalties for violating Penal Code Section 236.1(a) are the following:

• Five, eight, or twelve years in state prison in California
• A fine of up to $500,000.
• Felony probation

What is the California Penal Code Section 236.1(b)?

• Defendant deprived another one of his personal liberty or violated that person's personal liberty
• Defendant had an intention to commit one of the following crimes associated with Penal Code Section 236.1(b):
• Enticing a female under the age of 18 to engage in prostitution: California Penal Code Section 266
• Pimping: California Penal Code Section 266h
• Pandering: California Penal Code Section 266i
• Procurement of a child under the age of 16 for lewd or lascivious acts: California Penal Code Section 266j
• Abduction of a person under the age of 18 for purposes of prostitution: California Penal Code Section 267
• Transporting or distributing child pornography: California Penal Code Section 311.1 or 311.2
• Developing, duplicating, printing, or exchanging child pornography: California Penal Code Section 311.3
• Employing minors to participate in child pornography: California Penal Code Section 311.4
• Advertising obscene material: California Penal Code Section 311.5
• Production of obscene live performances: California Penal Code Section 311.6,
• Extortion/blackmail: California Penal Code Section 518.

Penalties for violating Penal Code Section 236.1(b) are the following

• Eight, fourteen, or twenty years in California state prison
• A fine of up to $500,000
• Registering as a sex offender.
• Felony probation

What is the California Penal Code Section 236.1(c)?

• Defendant caused, persuaded, or induced or a minor to engage in a commercial sex act. Defendant can be convicted even if he was honestly mistaken about the victim's age.
• Defendant had an intention to commit one of the crimes associated with Penal Code Section 236.1(b)

Penalties for violating Penal Code Section 236.1(c) are the following

• Five, eight, or twelve years in California state prison. In case the defendant committed the crime through deceit, coercion, duress, force and fraud, violence, or threat of injury then the prison sentence will increase to fifteen years to life.
• A fine of up to $500,000
• Registering as a sex offender
• Felony probation

Legal Defenses to California Penal Code Section 236.1