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Prim' impressionis. A case prim' impressionis (of the first impression) is a case of a new kind, to which no established principleof law directy applies, and which must be decided entirely by reason as distinguished from authority. See COMMON LAW, and the remarks of Parke, B., in Mirehouse v. Bennell, (1832) 8 Bing at p. 515....
Serjeants' inn
Serjeants' inn. A society consisting of the entire body of serjeants-at-law, which included all the Common Law judges appointed before the commencement of the Judicature Acts. Their property in Chancery lane was sold by auction in 1877, and the proceeds, 57,000l., divided amongst the then members of the Society. See title SERJEANT....
Uses
Uses (History). A use is the intention or purpose, express or implied, upon which property is to be held. The Common Law treated the actual possessor for all purposes as the owner of the property. It was not difficult to find him out, since the possession of his estate was conferred upon him by a formal and notorious ceremony, technically called livery of seisin, which was performed openly and in the presence of the people of the locality.It soon became evident that the simple rules of the Common Law were stumbling-blocks to the complicated wants of an enterprising people.Hence ingenuity was sharpened to hit upon a device which should set at nought the rigidity of existing law and formalities.A system was found by the monastic jurists upon a model furnished by the Civil Law, which, by a nice adaptation, evaded, without overturning, the Common Law. Two methods of transferring realty began to co-exist in this country-the ancient Common Law system, and the later invention, which is denomi...
Joint-tenancy
Joint-tenancy. This tenancy is created where the same interest in real or personal property is, by the act of the party, passed by the same matter of conveyance or claim in solido, and not as merchan-dise, or for purposes of speculation, to two or more persons in the same right, either simply, or by construction or operation of law jointly, with a jus accrescendi, that is, a gradual concentration of property from more to fewer, by the accession of the part of him or them that die to the survivors or survivor, till it passes to a single hand, and the joint-tenancy ceases.Anciently, joint-tenancy was favoured because it did not induce fractions of estates, and returning to early principles the (English) Land Legislation of 1925 has employed the tenure generally as the machinery by which legal estate may in such cases always be in some person, called the estate owner, who is competent to give a title to the whole estate without the concurrence of other parties. that legal estate has been ...
Marriage
Marriage. Marriage as understood in Christendom is the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman, to the exclusion of all others, Hyde v. Hyde, 1866 LR 1 P&D 130. Where a marriage in a foreign country complies with these requirements it is immaterial that under the local law dissolution can be obtained by mutual consent or at the will of either party with merely formal conditions of official registration, and it constitutes a valid marriage according to English law, Nachimson v. Nachimson, 1930, P. 217. Previous to 1753 the validity of marriage was regulated by ecclesiastical law, not touched by any statutory nullity but modified by the Common law Courts, which sometimes interfered with the Ecclesiastical Courts, by prohibition, sometimes themselves decide on the validity of a marriage, presuming a marriage in fact as opposed to lawful marriage. A religious ceremony by an ordained clergyman was essential to a lawful marriage, at all events for dower and heirship; but if in an i...
Magna Carta
Magna Carta, [Latin 'great charter'] The English charter that King John granted to the barons in 1215 and Henry III and Edward I later confirmed. It is generally regarded as one of the great common-law documents and as the foundation of constitution liberties. The other three great charters of English Liberty are the Petition of Right (3 Car. (1628)), the Habeas Corpus Act (31 Car. 2 (1679)), and the Bill of Rights (1 Will. SM. (1689)). Also spelled Magna charta, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 963.This Great Charter is based substantially upon the Saxon Common Law, which flourished in this kingdom until the Normaninvasion consolidated the system of feudality, still the great characteristic of the principles of real property. The barons assembled at St.Edmund's Bury, in Suffolk, in the later part of the year 1214, and there solemnly swore upon the high alter to withdraw their allegiance from the Crown, and openly rebel, unless King John confirmed by a formal charter the ancient li...
Husband and wife
Husband and wife. the Common Law treated them, for most purposes, as one person, giving, with exceptions comparatively unimportant, the whole of a woman's property to her husband for his absolute use, and a husband could not make a grant to his wife at the Common Law, though he might do so: (1) under the Statute of Uses, by granting an estate to another person for her use; (2) by creating a trust in her favour; (3) by the custom of particular places; (4) by surrendering copyholds to her use; and (5) by will.Equity, however, from very early times, by the doctrines of 'separate use,' 'trusts,' and 'equity to a settlement,' very largely modified the Common Law in favour of the wife; and the statute law has, by s. 1 of the Law Reform (Married Women and Tortfeasors Act), 1935 (25 & 26 Geo. 5, c. 30), almost completely abolished the property distinction between an unmarried and a married woman. See MARRIED WOMEN'S PROPERTY.At Common Law, a gift of either realty or personal-ity to a husband a...
Copyhold
Copyhold. Tenure in copyhold has been abolished under the (English) L.P. Acts, 1922 and 1925, and the Amending Acts of 1924 and 1926, but the greater part of the former title on this subject has been retained verbatim in view of the importance of the subject in examining titles. In the previous edition of this work, copyhold was described as a base tenure founded upon immemorial custom and usage; its origin is undiscoverable, but it is said to be the ancient villeinage modified and changed by the commutation of base services into specified rents, either in money or money's worth.A copyhold estate is a parcel of the demesnes of a manor held at the lord's will, and according to the custom of such manor. The tenant may have the same quantities of interest in this tenure as he may enjoy in freeholds, as an estate in fee-simple or (by particular custom) fee-tail, or for life, and he may have only a chattel interest of an estate for years in it. By the custom of some manors, the estate devol...
Equity
Equity [fr. 'quitas, Lat.] There is some confusion as to the meaning of Equity; as a scheme of jurispru-dence distinct from Law 'Equity' is an equivocal term; the difficulty lies in drawing the dividing lines between the several senses in which it is used. They may be distinguished thus:-(1) Taken broadly and philosophically, Equity means to do to all men as we would they should do unto us-by the Justinian Pandects, honeste vivere, alterum non l'dere, suum cuique tribuere. It is clear that human tribunals cannot cope with so wide a range or duties.(2) Taken in a less universal sense, Equity is used in contradistinction to strict law. This is Moral Equity, which should be the genius of every kind of human jurisprudence; since it expounds and limits the language of the positive laws, and construes them not according to their strict letter, but rather in their reasonable and benignant spirit.Aristotle, in his discussion concerning Moral Equity, Ethics Eud., b.v., c. x, calls it the correc...
Misdemeanour
Misdemeanour, 1. A crime that is less serious than a felony and is usually punishable by fine, penalty. Forfeiture or confinement in a place other than prison, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 1014.Misdemeanour, a crime less than felony, as perjury, obtaining money by false pretences, endeavouring to conceal a birth, and fradulently obtaining property on credit and not having paid for it within four months of bankruptcy, which are misdemeanours by statute; and any attempt to commit a felony or misdemeanour, whether the crime attempted be so by statute or Common Law (Arch. Cr.Pl., 2); any disobedience of a statute, Reg. v. Hall, (1891) 1 QB 747; any incitement of another to commit a felony where no such felony is actually committed, Reg. v. Gregory, (1867) LR 1 CCR 77; sale of provisions unfit for food, R. v. Dixon, (1814) 3 M&S 11; public nuisances (see NUISANCE); and very many other offences, which are misdemeanours at Common Law. 'In the present state of our law we can only defin...
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