Might - Law Dictionary Search Results
Home Dictionary Name: mightUses
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...
Tail
Tail [fr. tailler, Fr., to prune]. An estate-tail was formerly a freehold of inheritance and is now an equitable interest which may be created after 1925 in respect of personalty as well as realty by way of trust and which (if not barred or disposed of by will after 1925) will devolve inequity on the person who would have taken realty as heir of the body or as tenant by the curtesy if the Law of Property Act, 1925, had not been passed [s. 130 (4) (ibid.)]The limitation of an estate so that it can be inherited only by the fee owner's issue or class of issue, Black's Law dictionary 7th Edn., p. 1466.An estate-tail in land now constitutes a settlement. [(English) Settled Land Act, 1925, s. 1]With this and other statutory modifications under the (English) Law of Property Act, 1925, the rules relating to this form of estate are still applicable (a) in the investigation of all titles to land in existence on the 31st December, 1925; (b) in the construction of equitable interests into which th...
Labourers' dwellings
Labourers' dwellings. Prior to 1890 the following five sets of enactments provided for the erection and maintenance of healthy 'labourers' dwellings,' the first three of the five being materially amended by the (English) Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1885 (48 & 49 Vict. c. 72):(1) The (English) Labouring Classes Lodging Houses and Dwelling Houses Acts, 1851, 1866, and 1867. These Acts might be 'adopted' by the town council of a borough and other local authorities. Upon the adoption of the Acts, corporate land might be appropriated and lodging-houses erected thereon, or money might be borrowed by the local authorities for erecting such houses on other land.The (English) Act of 1885 amended the procedure for adopting these Acts, allowed land to be bought for the purpose of the Acts, and allowed separate houses to be erected under the process of the Acts.The (English) Act of 1885 took away from an owner, required to demolish such dwellings, the power which he had under these Acts of...
Manor
Manor [fr. manerium, Lat.; manoir, Fr., habitation, or manendo, of abiding there, because the lord usually resided there], an estate in fee-simple in a tract of land granted by the sovereign to a subject (usually of power and consequence) in consideration of certain services to be performed. The tenementales were granted out; the dominicales (whence the ter demesne) were reserved to the lord; the barren lands which remained formed the 'wastes'; the whole fee was termed a lordship or barony; and the Court appendant to the manor the Court baron. Every manor (with some doubtful and unimportant exceptions) is of a date prior to the statute of Quia Emptores (18 Edw. 1, c. 1).'A manor,' says Mr. Joshua Williams, 'was made by the owner of an estate in fee carving out other estates in fee to be held by other freeholders as his tenants. A manor consists of demesnes and services: of demesnes, that is, of lands of which the freeholder, now become lord of a manor, is seised in his demesne as of fe...
King's Bench
King's Bench. The Court of King's or Queen's bench (so called because the King used formerly to sit there in person (though the judges determined the causes), the style of the Court still being coram ipso rege, or coram ipsa regina) was a Court of record, and the Supreme Court of Common Law in the kingdom, consisting of a chief justice and four puisne justices, who were by their office the sovereign conservators of the peace and supreme coroners of the land.This court, which was the remnant of the aula regia, was not, nor could be, from the very nature and constitution of it, fixed to any certain place, but might follow the King's person wherever he went, for which reason all process issuing out of this Court in the King's name was returnable 'ubicunque fuerimus in Anglia.' For some centuries, and until the opening of the Royal Courts, the court usually sat at Westminster, being an ancient palace of the Crown, but might remove with the King as he thought proper to command.The jurisdict...
Actor
Actor, a doer, generally a plaintiff or complainant. In a civil or private action the plaintiff was called by the Romans petitor; in a public action (causa publica) he was called accusator. (Cic. Ad. Att. 1. 16.) The defendant was called reus, both in private and public causes; this term, however, according to Cicero (de Orat. Ii. 43), might signify either party, as indeed we might conclude from the word itself. In a private action the defendant was often called adversarius, but either party might be called so with respect to the other. Also a proctor or advocate in civil Courts or causes. Actor dominicus, a term often used for the lord's bailiff or attorney. Actor ecclesi' was sometimes the forensic term for the advocate or pleading patron of a church. Actor vill' was the steward or head bailiff of a town or village, Cowel.Actor is one who acts; a person whose conduct is in question, Black Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 35....
Bad faith
Bad faith, is the opposite of good faith, generally implying or involving, but not limited so, actual or constructive fraud, or a design to mislead or deceive another, or any other sinister motive. Conceptually bad faith can be understood as a 'dishonest intention', Harrison v. Telon Valley Trading Co. Ltd., (2004) 1 WLR 2577.Bad faith, is more appropriate to a consideration of commercial dealings and should not routinely be introduced into a criminal trial because it might confuse to jury and deflect them from their task of deciding whether the public office had been abused by the conduct of office holder, although there might be cases in which the concept of bad faith might be relevant to an assessment of the standard of the defendant's conduct, Attorney-General's Ref. No. 3 of 2003, (2005) LR 73 (QB): (2004) EWCA Crim 868....
Cassetur breve
Cassetur breve (that the writ be quashed). When the defendant pleaded sufficient matter in abatement and the plaintiff could not deny it, he could either obtain leave to amend his declaration, or he might at once enter on the roll a casetur breve, or judgment upon his prayer that his writ might be quashed, to the intent that he might sue out a better, 2 Chit. Arch. Prac. Pleas in abatement are, however, now abolished by the Judicature Act, 1875. See Abatement....
Coparceners or parceners
Coparceners or parceners. The name given to persons who until 1926 inherited an inheritable estate by virtue of descents from the ancestor which conferred on them all an equal title to it. It arose by act of law only, i.e., by descent, which, in relation to this subject was of two kinds:-(1) Descent by the common law, which took place where an ancestor died intestate, leaving two or more females as his co-heiresses; these, according to the canon of real property inheritance, all took together as coparceners or parceners, the law of primogeniture not obtaining among women in equal relationship to their ancestor: they were, however, deemed to be one heir; and (2) descent by particular custom, as in the case of gavelkind lands, which descended to all the males in equal degree, as the sons, brothers, or uncles of the deceased intestate ancestor; in default of sons, they descended to all the daughters equally.Coparceners had a unity though not an entirety, or necessarily an equality, of int...
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...
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