On Wed, Sep 24, 2025 at 1:07 PM Tom Beecher <beecher@beecher.cc> wrote:
"illegal" and "unlawful" mean the same thing : an act that is in violation of a statute. The statute that is violated can be either criminal or civil.
Hi Tom, If I drop a bag of poop on your front stoop, I have violated no statutes. You can bring a civil action against me for nuisance and you'll win, but no statutes have been broken. My action was unlawful not illegal. Illegal and unlawful are often used as synonyms and in many cases the activity they're used to describe is both. Breaching a contract is not one of those cases. If I breach a contract, the party I've wronged can sue me for damages. No one else can, and that includes the government itself. I have not wronged the state or the people it represents by breaching a contract with _you_. When something is _illegal_, it means that I have. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William Herrin bill@herrin.us https://bill.herrin.us/