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Possibility on a possibility

Possibility on a possibility. Lord Coke lays it down as a rule that the event on which a remainder is to depend must be a common possibility, and not a double possibility, or a possibility on a possibility, which the law will not allow. Thus he tells us that the chance that a man and a woman, both married to different persons, shall themselves marry one another is but a common possibility. But the chance that a married man shall have a son named Geoffrey is stated to be a double or remote possibility; see Williams on Real Property; 2 Rep. 51 a; 10 Rep. 50 b; Co. Litt. 184 a. The idea that there cannot be a possibility and a possibility seems to have been a conceit invented by Popham, C.J., but it was never really intelligible, Whitby v. Mitchell, (1890) 44 Ch D p. 92, per Lindley, LJ, and never applied to trusts of personal estate [Re Bowles, (1902) 2 Ch 650]. It gave rise, however, to the rule, now well settled in regard to limitations and trusts of realty created by instruments comin...


Littleton

Littleton, a judge of the Common Pleas in the reign of Edward IV., who composed a book of tenures for the use of his son, to whom it is addressed. Sir Edward Coke's Commentary upon Littleton, 'Not the name of the author only, but of the law itself,' is one of the most renowned and authoritative works on English law in existence....


Material resources of the community

Material resources of the community, The expression 'material resources of the community' does not mean that the ownership of the resource must already vest in the State. The distribution envisaged by Article 39 (b) necessarily takes within its stride the transformation of wealth from private ownership into public ownership by nationalisation. Hence the expression 'material resources of the community' is not confined to natural resources; it is not confined to resources owned by the public; it means and includes all resources, natural and man-made, public and private-owned, Sanjeev Coke Manufacturing Company v. M/s. Bharat Coking Coal Limited, AIR 1983 SC 239 (251): (1983) 1 SCC 147: (1983) 1 SCR 1000. [Constitution of India, Art. 39 (b)]The expression 'material resources of the community' would cover the lands held by private owners also, State of Maharashtra v. Basanti Bai Mohanlal Khetan, AIR 1986 SC 1466: (1986) 2 SCC 516: (1986) 1 SCR 707....


Maxim

Maxim [fr. maximum Lat.], an axiom; a general principle; a leading truth so called, says Coke, quia maxima est ejus dignitas et certissima auctoritas, atque quod maxime omnibus probetur, 1 Inst. 11.Modern opinion, however, does not rate maxims so highly, and Lord Esher, M.R., in Yarmouth v. France, (1887) 19 QBD 653, in connection with Volenti non fit injuria, went so far as to say that they are almost in variably misleading, and for the most part so large and general in their language that they always include something which really is not intended to be included in them. Similarly, the late Mr. Justice Stephen (Hist. Crim. Law, 94) wrote:-'They are rather minims than maxims, for they give not a particularly great, but a particularly small, amount of information. As often as not the exceptions and qualifications are more important than the so-called rules'--which, while they mostly bad abstracts of it. A contrary view, however, is given in a lecture by Mr. H.F. Manistry, K.C., on 'The ...


Misprision

Misprision [fr. mepris, Fr.], neglect, negligence, or oversight.All such high offences as are under the degree of capital, but nearly bordering thereon, are misprisions; and it is said that a misprision is contained in every treason and felony whatsoever, and that, if the Crown so please, the offender may be proceeded against for the misprision only. And upon the same principle, while the court of Star Chamber existed, it was held that the sovereign might remit a prosecution for treason, and cause the delinquent to be censured in that Court, merely for a high misdemeanour; as in the case of Roger, Earl of Rutland, in 43 Eliz., concerned in Essex's rebellion. Every great misdemeanour, according to Coke, which has no certain term appointed by the law, is sometimes called a misprision.Misprisions are divided in the text-books into two kinds:-(1) Negative, the concealment of what ought to be revealed; such is misprision of treason, the bare knowledge and concealment of treason without any ...


Murder

Murder [fr. morthor, morthen, Sax.; murdrum, Low Lat.]. It is thus defined by Coke (3 Inst. 47): 'When a person of sound memory and discretion unlawfully killeth any reasonable creature in being, with malice aforethought, either express or implied'; see 4 Bl. Com. 195. Consult Russell on Crimes; Arch. Cr. Pl.; Steph. Dig.(1) The person committing the offence must be conscious of doing wrong, and able to discern between good and evil. See IDIOT; LUNATIC; DRUNKENNESS AND MACNAUGHTON'S CASE.(2) Death must result within a year and a day after the cause of death administered, see R. v. Dyson, (1908) 2 KB 454.(3) The person killed must be a reasonable creature in being, and under the king's peace.(4) The killing must be with malice aforethought, express or implied, and malice is implied from the perpetration of any felony, however absent from the mind of the perpetrator any intention to kill may be. When the act by which death is caused is done with the intention of causing death (See Indian...


Office

Office, an employment, either judicial, municipal (see CORPORATE OFFICE), civil, military, or ecclesiastical.As to obtaining offices by desert only, the repealed 12 Ric. 2, c. 2, enacted that--The Chancellor, Treasurer, . . . the Justices of the one bench and the other, Barons of the Exchequer and all other that shall be called to ordain, name, or make justices of the peace, sheriffs, . . . or any other officer or minister of the King shall be firmly sworn that they shall not ordain name, or make justice of peace, sheriff . . . nor other officer or minister of the King for any gift or brocage, favour or affection: nor that none that pursueth by him or by other privily or openly to be in any manner of office shall be put in the same office or in any other; but that they make all such officers and ministers of the best and most lawful men, and sufficient to their estimation and knowledge.Officia magistratus non debent esse venalia, (The offices of a magistrate ought not to be saleable.)L...


Paternity

Paternity. The general rule is that 'pater vero is est quem nupti' demonstrant' (Dig. Lib. 2, tit. 4, 1. 5). For a discussion of the law on the subject of paternity and the cases in which it may be shown that the child is not that of the husband, see Russell v. Russell, 1924 AC 687; Hubback on Succession, pp. 378 et seq.; Sir Harris Nicolas on Adulterine Bastardy. A husband may give evidence that he had never had intercourse with his wife before the marriage (The Poulett Peerage, 1903, AC 395). It becomes a question, when a widow marries immediately after the death of her husband, and she is delivered of a child at the expiration of ten months from the death of the first husband, as to the paternity of the child. Blackstone and Coke say, that if a man dies, and his widow soon after marries again, and a child is born within such a time as that by the course of nature it might have been the child of either husband in this case he is said to be more than ordinarily legitimate; for he may,...


Pleas of the Crown

Pleas of the Crown, the Criminal Law department of our jurisprudence; so called because the sovereign, in whom centres the majesty of the whole community, is supposed by the law to be the person injured by every wrong done to that community, and is, therefore, in all cases, the proper prosecutor for every such offence. See the works on this subject of Coke (3rd Institute), Hale, or Hawkins....


Riparia

Riparia, a medi'val-Latin word, which Sir Edward Coke takes to mean water running between two banks; in other places it is rendered 'bank.' See MAGNA CHARTA, cap. 15; 2 Inst. 478....



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