The standard American legal definition, used in tax law and valuation: the price at which property would change hands between a willing buyer and a willing seller, neither under compulsion, both having reasonable knowledge of the relevant facts. The definition contains no reference to cost. Value is defined as the outcome of a hypothetical negotiation between two informed parties.
law
The Freedom of Information Act
Signed in 1966 and effective from Independence Day 1967, it establishes that any person may request records from a federal agency.
Any person. Not any citizen — a foreign national, a corporation, a journalist from another country all have the same standing. And the requester does not have to say why they want it. The burden of justification sits entirely with the agency withholding.
No statutory paid leave
The United States is the only advanced economy with no federal law requiring paid annual leave. There is no minimum, no entitlement, and no obligation on an employer to grant any.
Where leave exists it is a benefit offered by the employer, negotiated individually or set by company policy, and it can be changed.
A promise without a bargain
American contract law will not enforce a promise unless something was given in exchange for it. The doctrine is called consideration, and the Restatement defines it as a bargained-for exchange.
A promise to drive a friend to the airport for nothing is not enforceable, however clearly and unequivocally the promisor expressed a wish to be bound. A promise to pay a taxi driver is.
An American yes, on its own, carries no legal weight at all. The question is always what came back the other way — which is why a yes can be given freely and why its reliability has to be established some other way.
The works meeting
German law requires the works council to convene a works meeting of all employees once every calendar quarter and report on its activities. At least once a year the employer must report to that meeting on staffing, the financial position and trends of the establishment, and environmental protection.
Where the employer or a quarter of the eligible employees request it, the works council must convene a meeting and put the requested matter on the agenda.
A statutory forum exists in which the workforce assembles, the employer accounts for himself, and anyone may put a subject on the table.
The common law
American law is built from decided cases. A court reaches a result on particular facts, that result binds later courts, and the rule emerges from the accumulation. Nobody wrote the rule first. It was extracted from a sequence of situations, and it changes when a new situation shows the extraction was incomplete.
The binding offer
Under German law, whoever proposes a contract to another is bound by that proposal — unless he has expressly excluded the binding. The provision is § 145 BGB.
The default is commitment. Once the offer has reached the other side it cannot be withdrawn, and the recipient can bring the contract into existence by saying yes.
A German who makes an offer has already given something away.
caveat emptor
caveat: may he/she beware. emptor: buyer. caveat emptor is Latin for “Let the buyer beware”. Generally, caveat emptor is the contract law principle that controls the sale of real property after the date of closing, but may also apply to sales of other goods.
The phrase caveat emptor and its use as a disclaimer of warranties arises from the fact that buyers typically have less information than the seller about the good or service they are purchasing. This quality of the situation is known as information asymmetry. Defects in the good or service may be hidden from the buyer, and only known to the seller.
caveat emptor is a short form of Caveat emptor, quia ignorare non debuit quod jus alienum emit: “Let a purchaser beware, for he ought not to be ignorant of the nature of the property which he is buying from another party.”
A common way that information asymmetry between seller and buyer has been addressed is through a legally binding warranty, such as a guarantee of satisfaction.
Auskunftspflicht
The duty to provide information is a legally standardized right to receive information from or about a specific legal or natural person. The obligation to provide information may also relate to information on a specific matter.