نشریه پژوهش های حقوق تطبیقی
سال نوزدهم شماره 4 (پیاپی 90، زمستان 1394)

The history and evolution of civil liability of parents against their children in Iran and England’s legal systems indicate the acceptance of absolute discretion for parents regarding their children to such an extent that unconditional power of parents over the lives of their children could be put forward from a historical perspective. The result of that historical approach in the field of civil liability was parents’ immunity from civil liability, which is called "the parents’ immunity rule from civil liability against their children". However, as time passed and changes occurred in the field of tort law, history underwent a new chapter, and parents’ immunity rule from civil liability against their children was altered from its absolute and unconditional form so that children could be covered and supported by individual rights; consequently, its special protections and immunity turned into liability in numerous cases. This research demonstrates that in the current law, civil liability of parents against their children has progressed from being "personal" to the "collective" civil liability and even to the "state compensation" stage for damages incurred by children. In our legal system, along with the use of progressive views of Islamic jurisprudence in regard with "Zaman Aqele (liability of the male members of
families)", part of which includes liability of Jarire and compensation by relatives and compensation by the Islamic treasury (or Beytolmal) as well, which is compensation by the government, a new viewpoint has been established toward compensation through social contracts such as insurance and social security, on the one hand, and the government, on the other. Therefore, the legislator can hold the government responsible by formation of “Civil Liability Insurance Funds” through enacting the required law for the events in which there are no sources of compensation or legal bases of financial capability for compensation. This paper illustrates the fact that the scope of the mentioned rule has been widely reduced in English law, and also the fact that its exceptional application has been accepted in Iranian law. Hence, it can be said that the rule of “parents’ immunity from civil liability” has moved out from its absolute form and has entered the history of law.

Patent troll is a non-practicing entity in the domain of inventions, which obtains patent ownership without any intention of using it. Patent trolls buy their favored invention and waits for its infringement from other companies. After infringement and commercializing of the patent, in order to transfer the license and its royalty, the patent trolls threat companies with litigation. These entities initially were formed and have their central core in the United States due to the traits of the American system of inventions. Although some lawyers believe that trolls are useful by increasing inventor's motivation and providing capital for them, they have also some negative effects. These drawbacks force the legislators and judicial systems to pass new legislations and introduce new ways of redress in the related disputes in order to decreasing or limiting the patent trolls’ activities.In this paper, the concept of patent trolls is defined and explained, and its positive and negative effects are illustrated.

Potential treatment risks refer to those risks that concern treatment measures in its strict sense, and these risks must not be predictable at the time of concluding the treatment contract between the physician and patient. Of course, the conventional meaning of these risks relates to the situation in which its arrival is neither that of the doctor’s default, nor that of the patient’s default. In this paper, the reasons behind the recoverability of potential treatment risks were analyzed, and we came to the conclusion that, on the one hand, the doctor is not liable for these risks because of the observance the scientific standards and conventional manners of doctors during special conditions and circumstances of treatment, and like France, there should be taken into account some special provisions in Iran’s law, and on the other hand, on the subject of compensating patients for unjust losses in this respect, since they (patients) have not defaulted in the course of incurring these losses, it would be reasonable that the Iranian legislator protects the patients’ interests by establishing “a security fund related to compensating aggrieved people due to terrorist activities, crimes and accidents whose causes are unknown or it’s impossible to get blood money from the harming party for any reason”, just like France’s law in which such losses are recoverable from a specific security fund by complying with special conditions and formalities.

One of the basic characteristics of documentary transactions is the independence of these transactions from the underlying contract and the documentary payment terms in these transactions. The beneficiary of the letter of credit shall present the documents stated in the Letter of Credit or the bank guarantee in order to claim payment. In some cases, the documents presented by the beneficiary are fraudulent while this action might have been committed without cooperation or even the information of the beneficiary by a third party. Whether or not the principle of fraud would be applicable regarding the third party fraudulent actions, two viewpoints have been presented. Many lawyers believe in the view that the fraud principle is also applicable for the third party deceptions, and the payment shall be withheld (it shall be refrained from payment) in this regard. On the other hand, another group believes that the fraud principle is not applicable against the guiltless beneficiary, and the amount in the letter of credit shall be paid. This article will review and analyze the position of legal systems in this respect.

To establish a creative volition in unilateral engagements, the determinant should, firstly, create his/her internal will in his/her mind. Although some jurists believe that as we do not need other's interference, the internal will is sufficient to establish a unilateral engagement, it seems that this kind of will ought to be expressed in order to be realized as a social and legal fact. This view is also because of the fact that the unilateral engagement effects other's rights and its undertakings should be insured. Hence expressing is a "term", which effects the internal will and so creates the unilateral engagement.
In process to establish the creative volition, we should use "the special ways to express volition" in order to make the internal will enter the external world. These ways and instruments are traditionally "word" and "act", and the new "electronic instruments". As it is doubtful to express volition with "gesture", "exchange", "inactivity" and "silence" in unilateral engagements, here we evaluate the possibility of using them. However, all these ways and instruments should explicitly or implicitly indicate the volition. In other words, the external will should accord the internal one. The explicit word (literal or written) indicates the volition equivalently while the implicit words and also acts, circumstantially and implicitly, indicate the volition.

The artificiality of the legal basis of company requires the involvement of natural person in its management. Appointment of director is accordingly prescribed. Management of the company requires setting limits to the powers and duties of directors in order to avoid arbitrariness. The latest duty foreseen for better management of the company is to promote its success, and this is an innovation of the English legislator. Corporate governance includes the “primacy shareholder theory” and “stockholder theory” that the English legislator, in its new regulation, has tried to establish a balance between the two. To attain this goal, the legislator has focused on “enlightened shareholder value”, and obliged the directors to abide by requirements to achieve other goals as well. We have no precedent for such a duty in the Iranian law, and due to lack of safeguard it is not possible to impose on the directors. Fiduciary duty also creates merely a negative commitment whereas duty to “promote the success of the company” is a positive commitment.

The purpose of res judicata in arbitration awards is that if the presented dispute has been already considered between the same parties or their representatives and a final judgment has been issued in that respect, the said judgment is precluded the re-litigation of that dispute. Considering that, in the Iranian law, there is no stipulation on the res judicata effect in arbitration proceedings, the findings of this article demonstrate that there is no difference in the necessity of applying this rule between the court judgment and arbitration award in this respect. Non-admission and rehearing of the dispute object in arbitration tribunal is the result of the parties̕ first agreement and concluded contract to refer to arbitration. In the United States law the res judicata effect of arbitration award in judicial decisions has been accepted on the basis of issue preclusion and claim preclusion.