Legal-Ease: Different states, different laws

Lee R. Schroeder is an Ohio licensed attorney at Schroeder Law LLC in Putnam County. He limits his practice to business, real estate, estate planning and agriculture issues in northwest Ohio. He can be reached at Lee@LeeSchroeder.com or at 419-659-2058. This article is not intended to serve as legal advice, and specific advice should be sought from the licensed attorney of your choice based upon the specific facts and circumstances that you face.

It should be apparent to anyone who travels or follows the news that different states have different laws. Participants in a transaction or contract can actually outline which state’s law will apply to disputes that arise over their agreement. This is usually specified in a paragraph or sentence called the “choice of law” provisions. The definition of where a dispute will be litigated is called “venue.”

Businesses can also benefit from legal differences between states. For businesses that span multiple states, this allows the business to only worry about a particular state’s laws, hiring attorneys familiar with the relevant laws. Usually this will be the state in which the business was established.

Today is the middle day of my long-anticipated, five-day, out-of-state retreat/vacation. When we travel nowadays, it can sometimes seem like we never leave home. Between LimaOhio.com and iheart radio, we never have to miss “Mike Miller and the Morning News” wherever in the world we may be.

However, different states have different laws. Typically, there is some consistency between states and their laws. Some of that consistency is due to Article IV of the Constitution, which requires that states respect other states’ “public acts, records, and judicial proceedings.” For example, in most instances, a valid driver’s license in one state is also valid in another state. However, certain gun rights set forth in certain state laws in one state (at least for now) are not usually honored in other states.

Read more about how legal agreements deal with differences in state laws in Lee’s article for the Lima News, “Legal-Ease: Different states, different laws.”

Source: “Legal-Ease: Different states, different laws,” by Lee R. Schroeder, May 6, 2017.

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