Plea - Law Dictionary Search Results
Home Dictionary Name: pleaplea
plea [Anglo-French plei plai legal action, trial, from Old French plait plaid, from Medieval Latin placitum, from Latin, decision, decree, from neuter of placitus, past participle of placēre to please, be decided] 1 a : an allegation of fact in civil litigation made in response to a claim compare demurrer b : a defendant's answer to a plaintiff's claim in civil litigation NOTE: Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and in states where they have been adopted, civil pleas are abolished, and answers and motions are used instead. Such pleas were used at common law. dil·a·to·ry plea [di-lə-tōr-ē-] : a common-law plea which is intended to defeat the pending action or proceeding without involving any decision on the merits of the case plea in abatement : a plea entered by a party seeking postponement or dismissal of an action by setting forth some matter or defect regarding procedure, jurisdiction, or timing called also plea of abatement plea ...
Petition
Petition, a supplication made by an inferior to a superior, having jurisdiction to grant redress.The subject has a right to petition the sovereign, or the two Houses of Parliament, and all commit-ments and prosecutions for such petitioning are declared by the Bill of Rights (see BILL OF RIGHTS) to be illegal.But by 13 Car. 2, st. 1, c. 5, prior in date to the Bill of Rights, it was enacted that not more than twenty names should be signed to a petition to the Crown or either House of Parliament for alteration of matters in Church or State, without the previous approval of the contents by three justices or the majority of a grand jury, and further, that no petition should be presented by a company of more than ten persons.There are several regulations respecting petitions to Parliament, which, if neglected in any one parti-cular, will prevent their reception. For instance, signatures or marks must be original, not copies nor signatures of agents on behalf of others; no chairman of a publ...
Plea
Plea [fr. plee, Fr.]. this was the name of a defendant's answer of fact to a plaintiff's declaration; anciently a suit or action.Pleas were divided into common pleas, relating to civil causes, and pleas of the Crown, relating to criminal prosecutions.At Common Law pleas were divided into:(1) Dilatory; which were subdivided into:(a) To the jurisdiction of the Court.(b) In suspension of the action,(c) In abatement of the writ or declaration, and:(2) Peremptory, i.e., in bar of the action.The distinction between these two classes of pleas was that the dilatory showed some ground for quashing the declaration, the peremptory for defeating the action. Consult Bullen and Leake, or Odgers on Pleading, and Ch. Arch. Practice.In equity, a plea was resorted to by a defendant when an objection was not apparent on the bill itself, or, as the technical phrase was, where it arose from matter dehors the bill, other matter being dealt with by 'Answer' (see that title).A defendant now raises his defence...
Bar, plea in
Bar, plea in, a pleading showing some ground for barring or defeating an action at Common Law. A plea in bar was therefore distinguished from all pleas of the dilatory class, as impugning the right of action altogether, instead of merely tending to divert the proceedings to another jurisdiction, or suspend them, or abate the particular writ or declaration. It was, in short, a substantial and conclusive answer to the action. It followed from this property, that, in general, it must either deny all, or some essential part of, the averments of fact in the declaration, or, admitting them to be true, allege new facts which obviated or repelled their legal effect. In the first case the defendant was said, in the language of pleading, to traverse the matter of the declaration; in the latter, to confess and avoid it. Pleas in bar were consequently divided into (1) pleas by way of traverse, and (2) pleas by confession and avoidance.In Equity, a plea in bar was a defence resorted to when there w...
Petition de droit (Petition of Right UK)
Petition de droit (Petition of Right UK), one of the Common Law methods of obtaining possession or restitution from the Crown of either real or personal property, or compensation in damages for breach of contract, the Crown not being liable to an ordinary action at the suit of a subject. It is said to owe its origin of Edward I.By the (UK) Petition of Right Act, 1860 (23 & 24 Vict. c. 34) (commonly called Bovill's Act), the procedure on a petition of right is assimilated as far as practic-able to the course of an ordinary action. The fiat of the sovereign 'that right be done' is, however, a necessary preliminary step; this is obtained by leaving the petition with the Home Secretary. A judgment that the suppliant is entitled to the whole or some portion of the relief sought by his petition, or to such other relief as the Court may think right, has the same effect as a judgment of amoveas manus. Costs are made payable both to and by the Crown, and nothing in the Act is to prevent any sup...
nolo contendere plea
nolo contendere plea a plea in which the defendant does not admit guilt, but does waive the right to trial and authorize the court to impose punishment at sentencing. Nolo contendere is a Latin term that means "it is not contested." This type of plea is rarely entered. The motivation for entering a nolo plea is that unlike a plea of guilty, a nolo plea may not be used against the defendant as an admission in a related civil case. Source: Federal Judicial Center ...
upgrade a petition
upgrade a petition If you naturalize (become an American citizen) you may ask the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to change the petitions you filed for family members when you were a lawful permanent resident (LPR) from one category to another. This is called upgrading. For example, a petition for a spouse will be changed/upgraded from F2 to IR1. That is, the petition changes from a preference category with numerical limits to an immediate relative category without numerical limits. The applicant no longer has to wait for her/his priority date to be reached. Upgrading a petition sometimes has consequences. A preference petition for a spouse permits derivative status for children. An immediate relative petition does not. You, the petitioner, would need to file separate petitions for each of your children. Source: Department of State. March 2007. ...
Dilatory pleas
Dilatory pleas, a class of defence founded on some matter of fact not connected with the merits of the case, but such as might exist without impeaching the right of action itself. They were either pleas to the jurisdiction, showing that, by reason of some matter therein stated ,the case was not within the jurisdiction of the Court, or pleas in suspension, showing some matter of temporary incapacity to proceed with the suit; or pleas in abatement, showing some matter for abatement or quashing the declaration. These pleas must have been verified by affidavit or otherwise, and pleaded within four days from delivery of declaration, 4 Anne, c. 16. Pleas in Abatement are now abolished. See ABATEMENT....
Petition of Right
Petition of Right, 3 Car. 1, c. 1, a parliamentary declaration of the liberties of the people, assented to by Charles I. in the beginning of his reign.In the first Parliament of Charles I., which met in 1626, the Commons refused to grant supplies until certain rights and privileges of the subject, which they alleged had been violated, should have been solemnly recognised by a legislative enactment. With this view they framed a petition to the king, in which, after reciting various statutes by which their rights and privileges were recognized, they prayed the king 'that no man be compelled to make or yield any gift, loan, benevolence, tax, or suchlike charge, without common consent by Act of Parliament; that none be called upon to make answer so to do; that freemen be imprisoned or detained only by the law of the land, or by due process of law, and not by the king's special command, without any charge; that persons be not compelled to receive soldiers and mariners into their houses agai...
Puis darrein continuance, plea of
Puis darrein continuance, plea of. In olden times, when the pleadings were each entered separately on the record, every entry after the first was called a continuance. When the matter of defence arose after writ, but before plea or continuance, it was said to be pleaded 'to the further maintenance' of the action. When it arose after plea or continuance it was called a plea of puis darrien continuance--since the last continuance; see 1 H&C 797 (Odgers on Pleading, 7th Edn., p. 232).'Pleading after action' is now regulated by Order XXIV. Of the Rules of the Supreme Court....
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