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contract

contract [Latin contractus from contrahere to draw together, enter into (a relationship or agreement), from com- with, together + trahere to draw] 1 : an agreement between two or more parties that creates in each party a duty to do or not do something and a right to performance of the other's duty or a remedy for the breach of the other's duty ;also : a document embodying such an agreement see also accept, bargain, breach, cause, consent, consideration, duty, meeting of the minds, obligation, offer, performance, promise, rescind, social contract, subcontract Uniform Commercial Code in the Important Laws section NOTE: Contracts must be made by parties with the necessary capacity (as age or mental soundness) and must have a lawful, not criminal, object. Except in Louisiana, a valid contract also requires consideration, mutuality of obligations, and a meeting of the minds. In Louisiana, a valid contract requires the consent of the parties and a cause for the contract in addition to c...


Fee

Fee [fr. feoh, Sax.; fee, Dan., cattle; feudum, Med. Lat.; feu, Scot.], property peculiar; reward or recom-pense for services. See FEES. Also an estate of inheritance divided into there species: (1) fee-simple absolute; (2) qualified or conditional or base fee, including (3) fee-tail, formerly fee-conditional. By the (English) Law of Properties Act, 1925, s. 1, a fee-simple absolute in possession and a term of years absolute are the only estates in land capable of being conveyed or created at law. All other estates in land take effect as equitable interests [ibid., s. 1 (4)]. See FEE-SIMPLE.A charge for labour or services esp. professional services; Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 629.A 'fee' is generally defined to be a charge for a special service rendered to individuals by some governmental agency. The distinction between a tax and a fee lies primarily in the fact that a tax is levied as a part of a common burden, while a fee is a payment for a special benefit or privilege, Com...


Arbitration

Arbitration, the determination of a matter in dispute by the judgment of one or more persons, called arbitrators, who in case of difference usually call in an 'umpire' to decide between them.Means a method of dispute resolution involving one or more neutral third parties who are usually agreed to by the disputing parties and whose decision is binding, Black Law Dictionary 7th Edn., p. 100.Means any arbitration whether or not administered by permanent arbitral institution. [The Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, s. 2(a)]An arbitrator is a disinterested person, to whose judgment and decision matters in dispute are referred, Termes de la Ley.The civilians make a difference between arbiter and arbitrator, though both found their power in the compromise of the parties; the former being obliged to judge according to the customs of the law: whereas the latter is at liberty to use his own discretion, and accommodate the difference in that manner which appears most just and equitable.An ar...


Specific performance

Specific performance. Equity, in obedience to the cardinal rule of natural justice that a person should perform his agreement enforces, pursuant to a regulated and judicial discretion, the actual accomplishment of a thing stipulated for, on the ground that what is lawfully agreed to be done ought to be done, and that damages at law for breach of the contract are not a sufficient com-pensation. The Common Law has not recognized this principle; it has only given damages to a suffering party for the non-performance of an executory agreement. The (English) C.L.P. Act, 1854, however, imparted to the Common Law writ of mandamus a little more efficacy by provisions since superseded by s. 24 of the Judicature Act, 1873, now by Judicature Act, 1925, s. 36, and the (English) Mercantile Law Amendment Act, 1856, introduced a procedure for enforcing the specific delivery of goods sold, specially superseded by s. 52 of the (English) Sale of Goods Act, 1893.An award of damages may be combined with a ...


Damages

Damages, constitute the sum of money claimed or adjudged to be paid in compensation for loss or injury sustained, the value estimated in money, of something lost or withheld, Divisional Controller K.S.R.T.C. v. Mahadeva Shetty, (2003) 7 SCC 197 (202).The expression 'damages' is neither vague nor over-wide. It has more than one signification but the precise import in a given context is not difficult to discern. A plurality of variants stemming out of a core concept is seen in such words as actual damages, civil damages, compensatory damages, consequential damages, contingent damages, continuing damages, double damages, excessive damages, exemplary damages, general damages, irreparable damages, pecuniary damages, prospective damages, special damages, speculative damages, substantial damages, unliquidated damages. But the essentials are (a) detriment to one by the wrongdoing of another, (b) reparation awarded to the injured through legal remedies, and (c) its quantum being determined by t...


Valuation

Valuation, is a process which does not end on marks being awarded by an examiner, Sanjay Singh v. U.P. Public Service Commission, (2007) 3 SCC 720.Means the act or process of valuing, Jensen v. Jensen, 458 NW 2d 391 (1990).This term is generally applied to the equivalent in money of any kind of property. Thus for the payment of estate duty, a valuation of property of all kinds has to be made. Perhaps the most important and the most difficult valuation is that of land. This has almost invariably to be undertaken whenever land is compulsorily acquired. The difficulties that surround this question were fully considered in the case of Re Lucas and Chesterfield Gas and Water Board, (1909) 1 KB 16, in which Lord Justice Moulton in the course of his judgment said (at p. 29):-'The principles upon which compensation is assessed when land is taken under compulsory powers are well-settled. The owner receives for the lands he gives up their equivalent-that is, that which they are worth to him in m...


Railway

Railway. A road owned by a private person or public company on which carriages run over iron rails; if the road is a public highway, that part of it on which the rails are laid is called a tramway. Every railway in this country (except a few private railways running through land owned by the owner of the railway) is constructed and managed (1) under a local and personal Act of Parliament; and (2) under the Companies Clauses, Lands Clauses, and Railways Clauses Consolidation Acts; and (3) under the general Acts relating to railways. The (English) Railway Act, 1921, provides for the reorganization of almost all the railways in England.Railway Companies as Carriers, The powers of railway companies as carriers are given by the 86th section of the Railways Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845, and controlled by the (English) Railway and Canal Traffic Acts of 1854, 1873, and 1888. The (English) Act of 1845, s. 86, enacts that:-It shall be lawful for the company [authorized (see s. 3) by the speci...


Occupancy

Occupancy, mere possession or use either by agreement or otherwise without other claim (if any) to the ownership or enjoyment of property, also taking possession of land to which no one else lays claim or without leave of the owner.The right of occupancy has been confined by the laws of England within a very narrow compass, e.g., where a person was tenant pur autre vie, or had an estate granted to himself only (without mentioning his heirs) for the life of another man, and died without alienation, during the life of the cestui que vie, or him by whose life it was holden; in this case, he that entered first on the land was called the occupant or common occupant and might lawfully retain the possession so long as the cestui que vie lived, by right of occupancy, see Re Michell, Moore v. Moore, (1892) 2 Ch 96. The title of common occupancy is now, in effect abolished, for it is enacted by the Wills Act, 1837, s. 3, that an estate pur autre vie, of whatever tenure, and whether it be an inco...


Poor laws

Poor laws. By the (English) Poor Relief Act, 1601, (43 Eliz. c. 2), frequently called 'The Act of Elizabeth,' overseers of the poor were annually appointed in every parish; the churchwardens of every parish being also ex-officio overseers, except in rural parishes, in which the churchwardens ceased to be overseers by virtue of the Local Government Act, 1894.Overseers of the Poor and Boards of Guardians were abolished (overseers from 1st April, 1927, boards of guardians from 1st April, 1930, except in the Scilly Islands) by the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925, and their powers, duties and property were transferred to local authorities.By the Poor Law Amendment Act, 1834, the administration of the parochial funds and the management of the poor throughout the country were placed for five years under the control of a central board called 'The Poor Law Commissioners'; succeeded in 1847 by a temporary 'Poor Law Board' made perpetual, after many continuances, in 1867; and in 1871, by 'The (Eng...


Protector of the settlement

Protector of the settlement. The person whose con-sent is required to enable a remainderman in tail to bar the entail. In the absence of such consent the remainderman can only bar his own issue and create a Base Fee (see that title). Under the (English) Fines and Recoveries Act, 1833 (3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 74), s. 32, the settlor might appoint a special protector. In the absence of this 'special' protector, the statutory protector, i.e., the owner of the first (sufficient) estate in possession, e.g., the tenant for life under the same settlement, was and is a statutory protector. The special protector was to be appointed as stated in substitution for the old tenant to the pr'cipe, whose concurrence in barring estates-tail in remainder was required in order to preserve, under certain modifications, the control of the tenant for life over the remainderman. The statutory protector might be excluded by the settlor, who by the settlement creating the entail might appoint not more than three per...



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