Talk:Laches (equity)

Scope

the doctrine of laches seems only applicable in common law countries, is it so? China has a different legal system, will the research on laches meaningful?

In civil law systems similar equitable principles may have evolved, though not under the same type of terminology or typology. If a judge has the power to issue orders the question of one's right to ask the judge to order or prohibit someone from doing something after a period of time has lapsed is a valid question, no? Alex756

Non-examples

Should these be removed? Rich Farmbrough.

Etymology

What's the origin of the word? The Jade Knight 21:32, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

— PhilHibbs | talk 09:30, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Futher, a pronunciation note in this article would be helpful. 206.57.41.114 (talk) 16:10, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc.

IANAL, but this current case seems to highlight the conflict between laches and statutory limitations.

• SCOTUSblog

• Penn Law Supreme Court Clinic waging copyright fight over Scorsese/DeNiro film “Raging Bull”
  (University of Pennsylvania Law School, January 21, 2014) (boldface added)

Culminating more than a year of meticulous preparation by students and faculty in the University of Pennsylvania Law School’s Supreme Court Clinic, Prof. Stephanos Bibas will appear before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, January 21 to argue a copyright case involving Raging Bull, the Oscar-winning Martin Scorsese film in which Robert DeNiro portrayed the boxer Jake LaMotta.

Bibas, who founded and directs the Supreme Court Clinic, will be representing Paula Petrella, who is seeking $1 million in damages for copyright infringement. Her father, the late Frank Petrella, was a longtime friend of LaMotta and worked with him on a book and two screenplays about his life, on which the classic 1980 movie is based.

On one level the case is about a legal principle called “laches,” a judicial doctrine that bars suits brought after an unreasonable delay that is unfair to the other litigant. The justices are being asked to decide whether Petrella waited too long to press her copyright claims. Two courts said she did and have thrown out her suit based on the laches doctrine.

On another level, the case pits an individual copyright holder against a powerful Hollywood studio, in what Bibas describes as a “David and Goliath” contest.

The case, Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, began in 1991, when Petrella renewed the copyright in her father’s 1963 screenplay, “The Raging Bull.” MGM had acquired the movie rights, but under federal copyright law, Frank Petrella’s death in 1981 meant that his heirs had the right to renew his copyright when the original 28-year term expired. After the copyright was renewed, Petrella’s attorneys exchanged letters with MGM about her interest beginning in 1998, but she didn’t sue until 2009.

Arguing that the Supreme Court should reverse decisions by a federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which have dismissed the suit, Bibas and the Clinic maintain that the laches doctrine, which is applied differently in different circuits, shouldn’t bar Petrella’s claim. They argue that the federal copyright law contains a three-year statute of limitations, which should take precedence.

 “Because Congress has specified a three-year period for bringing copyright infringement suits, judges may not use laches to constrict that statutory period,” they write in their brief. “The separation of powers prevents judges from reducing the time prescribed by Congress for bringing infringement suits.”

--Thnidu (talk) 21:51, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Edits of this day

As noted in the edit summaries, in the edits today I:

• noted the lack of source for the Latin/equity adage in the lede;
• moved some in-text citations into the ref-/ref markup as WP demands;
• prepared other text citations for ReFill to deal with bare URLs and to make the web sources as uniform as possible for this non-legal scholar;
• ran reFill to fill-in 4 (all but 1 offending) bare URLs in the automated pass;
• addressed the format and title mistakes from the automated reFill, filled the last offending bare URL citation manually, and removed the "bare URL" tag;
• removed Bray from External Links because it was already in the references, and was, in any case, a dead link as it appeared in the External links section;
• reproduced lede content, as necessary, in the main body of text, so that it did not appear only in the lede (per WP policy);
• made changes to article section titles to accommodate this, and to remove repetitive and internally discrepant appearances of the word "elements" (inviting legal editors to check the elements vs. components usage);
• moved the sources that did appear in the lede, to the main body, annotating only sentences lacking sources there;
• removed, for the interim (until quote is sourced) the Latin portion of the quote from the lede, because having both the unsourced L. quote, and the unsourced English translation overemphasized the fact that this information was unverifiable (and so, with other unsourced content, in violation of WP:VERIFY);
• noted, throughout, an over-reliance on law cases (primary sources), therefore requiring WP:OR;
• added the call for a legal expert to move this away from WP:OR and primary case law citations, noting that there is, throughout, a dearth of secondary sources, instead, reliance on primary case citations (and so WP editor interpretation instead of outside scholar's expertise);
• in the expert tag, also called attention to the inconsistent, non-standard state of the case law citations.

Have at it, legal eagles. Tip-'o-the-hat to the Late Hon EOD. Cheers. Le Prof. Leprof 7272 (talk) 20:28, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

A couple of citations have been added, but I think you went way overboard in the first place. Are you claiming that the tagged items are "likely to be controversial" or unverifiable (WP:V)? This isn't supposed to be a moot court, it's an encyclopedia. As a suggestion, you seem to have put an awful lot of time into critiquing the sources of a lot of non-controversial and pretty well-known content, which might have been better spent googling and inserting references.Tarchon (talk) 01:19, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Harms who?

The lede says, "Laches...is an unreasonable delay that can be viewed as prejudicing the opposing [defending] party" No, it doesn't prejudice (cause harm to) the defending party; it harms the plaintiff, who has lost or is losing what may be an important right, and such a right can never be worth nothing; it may be worth a great deal, even though it is an intangible worth. The defendant may be simply a passive bystander against whom a claim was available, but never asserted. I think there was confusion about what happens if laches is waived or the defense is unavailable - in that case the defendant may suffer grievous harm. Sbalfour (talk) 22:22, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

That is incorrect- because the application of laches in a given case is largely an issue of judicial discretion under the rules of civil procedure. e.g. the trial judge applies a balancing test of the competing interests in any given case based upon the degree harm the application or lack thereof uniquely poses each party in a case. The rules of civil procedure typically provide that the court "may" dismiss for laches as opposed to stating "shall" dismiss making it an issue of judicial discretion, subject to the abuse of discretion rule that requires the application must not be arbitrary and capricious. (e.g. the court must explain why it choose to apply or not to apply laches to the given case otherwise the appellate court will likely reverse for abuse of discretion.) 98.178.191.34 (talk) 23:30, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Feb. 2022 Remove Primary source and original research tags

The primary source tags and hatnote have been removed. First, Findlaw is a secondary source, not a primary source. The primary source would be the United States Reporter for purposes of an encylcopedia. e.g. a primary source is the first instance of the appearance of fact, not a source that merely parrots it. Also, as applies here, any secondary source that said anything different from the official opinon of the court would be incorrect on its face, therefore making it a moot point for all intents and purposes of an encyclopedia. The original research tags were removed because official court opinions are indisuptable statements of what the law is. If the court later overrules something in a different case then the reference becomes a bad reference and should be replaced with the case that overruled it. (e.g. citing Lawrence v. Texas as opposed to Bowers v. Hardwick, etc.) However, because the official opinion of a court of law is a binding statement of what the law is that is indisputable for all intents and purposes, citing to such is a clear exception to the original research rule in general. Original research would be stating more than what the case clearly states on it's face. 98.178.191.34 (talk) 23:07, 20 February 2022 (UTC)