The full library in alphabetical order, across every area of law.
DNA testing establishes biological relationship with very high confidence, which resolves some questions completely and others not at all. Legal parentage may exist without a biological link and may be absent despite one. Where testing is used, the collection procedure, the accredited laboratory and the documented chain of custody determine whether the result is accepted.
When a state disappears, its records are generally inherited by a successor authority, transferred to an archive, or distributed among the states that replaced it. Identifying the current custodian is the whole exercise, and it usually has a documented answer. Where no successor holds them, the position becomes one of substitute evidence supported by a documented enquiry.
Employment records are split between a personnel file, a payroll record, a benefits file, a medical file kept separately by law, and any investigation material held by whoever conducted the investigation. Access rights vary by state and by category. Requesting by category, rather than asking for the personnel file, is what determines whether the useful material arrives.
Where an opponent destroyed evidence after a duty to preserve arose, remedies including inferences, exclusions and sanctions become available. Where a third party or an accident destroyed it, the secondary evidence route applies instead. In every case the first task is proving what the material was, that it existed and that it is genuinely gone.
Gaps in evidence are ordinary, and how they are handled determines their effect. A gap identified in the filing, explained plainly and supported by whatever material exists, is assessed as one feature among many. The same gap discovered by a reader raises questions about everything else, and answering it afterwards happens on much worse terms.
Judicial notice allows a decision-maker to accept a fact without evidence where it is generally known or readily verifiable from an unquestionable source. Geography, calendars, official publications and the like qualify. Contested matters, disputed statistics and anything requiring interpretation do not, and a request that overreaches usually fails entirely.
Failure for want of proof means an element was not established, not that the opposite was shown. It happens most often on requirements nobody was contesting, on facts assumed to be obvious, and on propositions supported only by assertion. Mapping the elements before gathering evidence prevents most of it, and the weakest element is usually identifiable months in advance.
Charges are generally limited to the cost of production rather than the value of the material, and waivers exist in most statutory schemes. Format obligations vary: some schemes allow the requester to state a preference where the holder can readily comply, others require production in whatever form is held. Delivery of large volumes needs to be agreed rather than assumed.
A foreign judgment may be offered for recognition of the status it created, for enforcement of the obligation it imposed, or simply as evidence that a court reached a stated conclusion. Recognition and enforcement engage doctrines about jurisdiction, notice and public policy; evidential use engages only authentication and the ordinary rules about what a record proves.
A questioned foreign document is tested by comparison against known specimens, by verification with the issuing authority, and by examination of the physical object. A finding of forgery or of a knowingly false statement carries consequences well beyond the individual document, which is why the distinction between fabrication and an inaccurate genuine record has to be drawn carefully.
Whether a transfer was a gift or a loan is a question about intention when the money moved. A contemporaneous agreement settles it; in its absence the answer is built from what was said at the time, whether repayments were made, whether the sum was ever demanded, and how the parties treated it in every other document that touched it. Where the characterization changes to suit a later requirement, that change is usually more damaging than either answer would have been.
Handwriting examination compares a questioned writing against samples of known origin and reports a degree of similarity. The field has been re-examined in recent decades and the strength of the conclusions it supports has narrowed. Sample quality, contemporaneity and quantity determine what any comparison can actually establish.
