A habeas application may be signed and verified by the person for whose relief it is intended or by someone acting on that person's behalf. Courts require a next friend to explain why the detainee cannot proceed personally and to show a genuine relationship and dedication to the detainee's interests. The showing is made in the petition itself, and a next friend does not become a party or acquire authority over decisions the detainee can still make.
Most circuits treat acts taken in violation of the automatic stay as void, while others treat them as voidable and capable of validation by annulment. Section 362(k) provides that an individual injured by a willful violation shall recover actual damages, including costs and attorneys' fees, and may recover punitive damages in appropriate circumstances. Willfulness generally means knowledge of the case and an intentional act, not an intent to violate the stay.
Actual cash value is commonly measured as the cost to repair, rebuild or replace less a fair deduction for physical depreciation, and California limits that deduction to components normally subject to repair during a structure's useful life. Replacement cost coverage pays the full cost, but the standard mechanism advances actual cash value first and releases the depreciation holdback when repairs are complete, within a period the policy or a statute sets.
Additional living expense coverage pays the increase in the cost of living while a residence is uninhabitable after a covered loss. California requires an insurer to give the claimant a list of items it believes may be covered, sets a floor of twenty-four months for losses connected with a declared state of emergency with extensions to thirty-six, requires two weeks where a civil authority order restricts access, and allows an advance of four months on a total loss.
Employment losses for two or more groups at a single site, each below the statutory minimum but exceeding it in the aggregate, are treated as a plant closing or mass layoff if they occur within any ninety-day period. The employer can rebut that treatment by demonstrating that the losses result from separate and distinct actions and causes and are not an attempt to evade the requirements. The regulation requires employers to look ninety days forward and ninety days back before deciding.
A temporary administrative stay is a short holding order entered so that a court can read an emergency motion without the subject of the motion disappearing while it does. It is not a ruling on the stay factors and carries no assessment of the merits. It is requested in the opening lines of the motion, states its own expiry, and a single judge can often enter it when the full panel cannot be assembled.
Under 28 U.S.C. 1292(a)(1) a court of appeals has jurisdiction over interlocutory orders of the district courts granting, continuing, modifying, refusing or dissolving injunctions, or refusing to dissolve or modify them. A temporary restraining order is ordinarily not appealable, though an order that operates as an injunction may be treated as one. Review is for abuse of discretion on the ultimate ruling, with legal conclusions reviewed afresh and facts for clear error.
A receiver is an officer of the court appointed to take custody of property, and sometimes to operate a business, while litigation is pending. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 66 governs the administration of a federal receivership, and the substantive grounds come from equity and from state statutes such as California's list of eleven categories. Courts require a showing that the property is in danger of loss, removal or material injury and that no less intrusive remedy will serve.
The appraisal clause applies when the parties agree the loss is covered and disagree about how much it is worth. Each side names a competent and disinterested appraiser within twenty days, the appraisers select an umpire, and an itemized written award signed by any two determines actual cash value and loss. California makes appraisal a request rather than a demand and bars compulsion after a declared disaster. Wisconsin tolls the suit limitation while appraisal runs.
Prejudgment attachment lets a plaintiff have property seized or encumbered before judgment so a later award can be satisfied. It is entirely statutory and the statutes diverge sharply. Connecticut allows a prejudgment remedy on probable cause that a judgment will be rendered. California confines attachment to commercial contract claims for a fixed sum. New York, Florida, North Carolina and Minnesota list conduct-based grounds.
The reinstatement provision states that the prior order is not subject to being reopened or reviewed. Courts have nonetheless recognized a narrow collateral attack where the earlier order was a gross miscarriage of justice, meaning it had no valid legal basis when entered or when executed. The reinstatement order itself remains challengeable by petition for review, and that route is usually more productive than an attack on the order underneath it.
A denial that turns out to be mistaken is a breach of contract. Bad faith requires more: conduct that was unreasonable, or a failure to attempt in good faith to settle where the insurer could and should have done so. Florida creates a statutory civil remedy conditioned on sixty days of written notice with an opportunity to cure, and provides that mere negligence alone is insufficient. Several states also impose interest on overdue payments.
