History LoopholeAbuse / RealLifeLaw

* UsefulNotes/VladimirPutin was re-elected for a third presidential term after a four-year gap when he served as Prime Minister. The Russian Constitution imposes a limit on ''consecutive'' terms (no more than two) but says nothing about a limit on ''lifetime'' terms.

* In the United States, for a beverage to be declared non-alcoholic it must contain 0.5 percent alcohol by volume or less. Due to this, in some [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._history_of_alcohol_minimum_purchase_age_by_state US States,]] like Texas, products with this declaration included light beer can be legally sold to minors. In theory, parents in Texas can allow their teenagers to drink beer without criminal charges just as long as it's non-alcoholic.
** In fact, while it's still illegal for a minor to buy one that's over 0.5 percent alcohol by volume, in some US states there's no law saying it's illegal for minors to drink it. In some states, like Wisconsin, it's fully legal for underage people to be served alcohol as long as they're with a parent (although establishments serving alcohol do have the ''right'' to refuse to serve minors, they're just not ''required'' to). Drinking age laws also include exceptions for religious grounds, medical reasons, employment requirement and [[InDaClub private club possession]]. [[http://www.rrstar.com/x221018867/Sip-and-spit-for-young-culinary-students-gets-Illinois-OK Minors in Illinois]] are allowed to drink alcohol if they're taking part in culinary classes where such drink in used.

** In an "At-Will Employment" state (which is almost all of them), you can be fired for pretty much whatever reason and it will pretty much ''never'' be questioned by courts. Even though there are laws against firing someone for being a member of a "protected class", it is explicitly legal to fire anyone for literally no reason, or at least over some minor infraction (e.g. "I totally didn't fire him because he is gay, I fired him because he missed a tiny spot while mopping the floor."). So if you ''happen'' to be a member of a protected class, and your ex-boss didn't ''say'' why they fired you, it's rather difficult to prove your case in court. Not impossible, but difficult.

** Jamukha, [[WeUsedToBeFriends former childhood friend]] of UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan turned rival for the title of Khan of all Mongols, was bent backward until his backbone snapped.
** Earlier, Jamukha had boiled some of Genghis Khan's generals alive in a [[CannibalCauldron giant cauldron]].

* The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, operator of the UsefulNotes/NewYorkCitySubway, put forward a rule that no animals (except service animals) may board trains or enter stations without being inside a container. The implication is that small pets should be carried in purses and larger ones should be inside travel crates, but the rule doesn't specifically say anything about what kinds of "containers" are valid: [[https://www.eatliver.com/funny-bagged-dogs/ Cue pet owners carrying their dog in a duffel bag, or cutting four holes in a plastic IKEA bag so their pet can wear it]].

* American law says that a legally binding contract cannot be legally binding forever. However, there's nothing stopping one party from making the length of contract valid for a ''very'' long time. Disney used this move against Florida when Florida wanted to strip Disney of its special taxation status. The contract said that any terms or rules that affected taxation on its land must be reviewed by Disney first. The length of contract is written as "for as long as the British Monarchy exists". While the British Monarchy could someday end, the fact it survived for about one thousand years at the time of the contract being signed meant that it was unlikely.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Prince_Sado Sado, of the Joseon Dynasty]], suffered from mental illnesses that led to him becoming a serial murderer who slew several court officials. His father, King Yeongjo, wanted to be rid of him, but was faced with two hurdles. The first was that, as members of the royal family, both he and Sado were considered divinity, so he could not even raise a hand to Sado. The second was that laws of the time mandated punishment for the convicted's family, so he couldn't afford to have Sado tried and convicted, for it would mean death or exile for Sado's son, the only male heir to the dynasty. Yeongjo, however, managed to find a way to dispose of his murderous son: by ordering him to climb into an empty rice chest, sealing it shut, and leaving him to die of starvation.

* ThoseWackyNazis never abolished the German Republic. Through his whole 12-year run, UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler issued nothing but "emergency" decrees. This came to bite the Nazis in the arse after the war, because as the Nuremberg courts noted, not even those emergency decrees had ever legalized murder, thievery, and all those other things the Nazis enthusiastically engaged in so much.

* The German intercity bus company [=FlixBus=], among the biggest in the world, operates by leasing all of its coaches to ensure operating flexibility. The sole problem with this is that German regulators require bus companies to own busses in order to classify as such. So [=FlixBus=] owns just one bus to check that box.

!!American countries

!!European countries

!!Rest of the World

[[folder:Egypt]]
* [[AncientEgypt Hatshepsut]] was crowned Pharaoh, a masculine title, and dressed up in drag (to the point of wearing a wig on her chin and going around topless) after the death of her husband (and half-brother) Thutmose II. [[SheIsTheKing Ain't no rule the Pharaoh has to be a man]].
* The State of Emergency proclaimed in Egypt during the Arab-Israeli War in 1967 lasted until 2012 with only an 18-month long break in 1980-1981. [[MeetTheNewBoss It was reinstated in January 2013]].
[[/folder]]

** In an "At-Will Employment" state (which is almost all of them), you can be fired for pretty much whatever reason and it will pretty much ''never'' be questioned by courts. Even though there are laws against firing someone for being a member of a "protected class", it is explicitly legal to fire anyone for literally no reason, or at least [[DisproportionateRetribution over some minor infraction]] (e.g. "I totally didn't fire him because he is gay, I fired him because he missed a tiny spot while mopping the floor."). So if you ''happen'' to be a member of a protected class, and your ex-boss didn't ''say'' why they fired you, it's rather difficult to prove your case in court. Not impossible, but difficult.

* The electric [=REVAi=], or G-Wiz, which is better known was similar to the kei car, being so small and underpowered it was legally a "heavy quadbike," allowing it to dodge safety regulations. However, these are not as well liked as the kei car due to the [[AllegedCar many issues]] with the car.

** The way the federal drinking age came about is also fairly wacky. You see, Congress actually has no power to dictate the states where they set their legal drinking ages and at some point in the 1960s and 1970s some were actually lowering their legal drinking age to 18 or even lower - which is in line with what's practiced in much of the Western world [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and Canada]] - but at the same time, studies indicated that young people were particularly prone to drunk driving. The solution? Well Congress ''can'' decide who gets the money from the Interstate Highway fund as that is a federal entity, so they told states that they would only get the highway money if they raised their drinking ages to 21. It did not take long for the state laws to change.

* Many environmental laws and pledges state that something must be accomplished "using renewable energy sources". A common loophole abuse is to meet such a pledge by burning wood, which is considered a "renewable energy source" because trees can be replanted. But replanted trees take a long time to grow, so actually using wood renewably requires very careful management and limiting of energy usage over time; and simply pledging to use wood as an energy source makes no promises about doing either of those things. So the wording allows an energy strategy wich would lead to an entire forest being burned before the replanted trees were more than saplings to still be considered "renewable".

** Tony Benn added "As a committed republican, under protest, I take the oath required of me by law, under the Parliamentary Oaths Act of 1866, to allow me to represent my constituency … " at the beginning.

* If you are hired as a waiter or waitress in most states, legally you're allowed to have a paycheck below minimum wage. However, the loophole is that you ''must'' be able to make up the difference in tips. This hasn't stopped some places from hiring everyone as a waiter simply so they could get away with paying them $2.50 an hour...and subsequently getting blacklisted by the working force when word gets out.[[note]]This is a state-by-state item. Some states, such as Washington, legally demand minimum wage for such jobs.[[/note]] Some places that do this try for damage control by pooling the tips that servers make between everyone they hire at that wage, with varying levels of success.

** There are various rules of statutory interpretation which mitigate this, such as the "mischief rule", which is best understood as "what is the mischief the legislature was trying to prevent with this law?" and then upholding that prevention, and the "golden rule", which is "don't be a twit". Indeed, judges ''hate'' LoopholeAbuse, and unless the law is so badly drafted that they can't change it without legislating from the courtroom, a lawyer will spend their time convincing them that their argument is ''not'' loophole abuse. Famous common law cases where this was tried include a Canadian case where a man tried to claim that a law forcing drugstores to close at 10:00pm let him re-open at 10:01, and an English case where a statutory ban on solicitation or molestation by "common prostitutes"[[note]]As distinct from street prostitutes and normal prostitutes (i.e, the ones the judges use.)[[/note]] in ''the street'' was circumvented by solicitation from balconies and windows. The legal judgements in both cases are essentially the sentence "piss off and stop wasting my time" [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness expressed in 2000 words]].

* The state of Tennessee's vagueness in when a newly-elected Governor is to be sworn in was taken advantage of in an interesting way in January 1979. Ray Blanton, the Democratic Governor who was leaving office after a single term[[note]]Blanton was the first Governor eligible to run for a second term since Tennessee expanded its gubernatorial terms from 2 to 4 years; but chose not to for reasons explained elsewhere in this entry[[/note]] due to his involvement in a series of [[CorruptPolitician pardon and liquor license bribery scandals]][[note]]in 1977; Blanton fired Board of Pardons and Paroles chairwoman Marie Ragghianti after Ragghianti refused to release prisoners that were later revealed to have bribed state officials in exchange for the pardons. Ragghianti - represented by future U.S. Senator Creator/FredThompson - would sue and receive a $38,000 judgment; with the events featured in the 1985 movie ''Marie''; with Creator/SissySpacek playing Ragghianti while Thompson would start his acting career [[AsHimself by playing himself]][[/note]] that resulted in Blanton's legal advisor T. Edward Sisk and two others going to jail following an FBI raid on the state capitol; with the event that led to this trope resulting from Blanton's January 15, 1979 signing of 52 pardons, including 20 for convicted murderers - among those was Roger Humphreys, convicted in 1973 of the murder of his ex-wife and a male friend who just happened to be the son of a Blanton supporter and upon which Blanton boasted "This takes guts." (Gentry Crowell, the Secretary of State from 1977 until he [[DrivenToSuicide committed suicide]] following his own corruption scandal in 1989, sarcastically noted "Some people have more guts than brains."). After State Senate President and Lieutenant Governor[[note]]in Tennessee, the president of the Tennessee State Senate also serves as Lieutenant Governor[[/note]] John Wilder and State House Speaker (and future Governor) Ned [=McWherter=] learned that Blanton was planning to sign more pardons, they noticed the vagueness of when the Governor-elect was to be sworn in and decided to have the Governor-elect; Republican candidate Lamar Alexander, sworn in three days before the traditional inauguration date, a process which Wilder called "impeachment, Tennessee style".

* The state of Tennessee's vagueness in when a newly-elected Governor is to be sworn in was taken advantage of in an interesting way in January 1979. Ray Blanton, the Democratic Governor who was leaving office after a single term[[note]]Blanton was the first Governor eligible to run for a second term since Tennessee expanded its gubernatorial terms from 2 to 4 years; but chose not to for reasons explained elsewhere in this entry[[/note]] due to his involvement in a series of [[CorruptPolitician pardon and liquor license bribery scandals]][[note]]in 1977; Blanton fired Board of Pardons and Paroles chairwoman Marie Ragghianti after Ragghianti refused to release prisoners that were later revealed to have bribed state officials in exchange for the pardons. Ragghianti - represented by future U.S. Senator Creator/FredThompson - would sue and receive a $38,000 judgment; with the events featured in the 1985 movie ''Marie''; with Creator/SissySpacek playing Ragghianti while Thompson would start his acting career [[AsHimself by playing himself]][[/note]] that resulted in Blanton's legal advisor T. Edward Sisk and two others going to jail following an FBI raid on the state capitol; with the event that led to this trope resulting from Blanton's January 15, 1979 signing of 52 pardons, including 20 for convicted murderers - among those was Roger Humphreys, convicted in 1973 of the murder of his ex-wife and a male friend who just happened to be the son of a Blanton supporter and upon which Blanton boasted "[[MoralEventHorizon This takes guts]]." (Gentry Crowell, the Secretary of State from 1977 until he [[DrivenToSuicide committed suicide]] following his own corruption scandal in 1989, sarcastically noted "Some people have more guts than brains."). After State Senate President and Lieutenant Governor[[note]]in Tennessee, the president of the Tennessee State Senate also serves as Lieutenant Governor[[/note]] John Wilder and State House Speaker (and future Governor) Ned [=McWherter=] learned that Blanton was planning to sign more pardons, they noticed the vagueness of when the Governor-elect was to be sworn in and decided to have the Governor-elect; Republican candidate Lamar Alexander, sworn in three days before the traditional inauguration date, a process which Wilder called "impeachment, Tennessee style".

* Laws in the US state that a legally binding contract can't have something that something to the effect that the contract is legally binding forever. However, there's nothing stopping one party from making the length of contract effectively such, or at least, valid for a ''very'' long time. Disney used this move against Florida when Florida wanted to strip it of its special taxation status of its Disney World land by making a contract that said that any terms or rules that affected must be reviewed by Disney first. The length of contract? For as long as the British Monarchy exists.

* Since the [[PopulationControl one-child policy]] (first replaced with a two-child policy in 2016, then briefly replaced by a three-child policy in 2021 before being completely scrapped that same year) didn't punish multiple births, many women, especially in the urban upper class and conservative rural areas, [[http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-02/14/content_520025.htm sought fertility treatment with the express intention of having twins,]] causing the number of twins born in China to double.