Special Pleas - Law Dictionary Search Results
Suit
Suit, a following. It is used in divers senses:-(1) An action in the Supreme Court, or a proceeding by petition in the Divorce branch of that Court; a prosecution; a petition to a Court, etc. See Jud. Act, 1873, s. 100. By Jud. Act, 1925, s. 225, suit includes action.(2) Suit of Court, an attendance which a tenant owes to his lord's Court.(3) Suit Covenant, where one has covenanted to do suit and service in his lord's Court.(4) Suit Custom, where service is owed time out of mind.(5) Suithold, a tenure in consideration of certain services to the superior lord.(6) The following one in chase, as fresh suit, Cowel.The word 'suit' does not include an appeal or an application. [Limitation Act, 1963, s. 2 (l)]The word 'suit' will include appellate proceedings, Nachiappa Chettiar v. Subramaniam Chettiar, AIR 1960 SC 307: (1960) 2 SCR 209.The word 'suit' includes an appeal from the judgment in the suit. The only difference between a suit and an appeal is that an appeal only reviews and corrects...
demurrer
demurrer [Anglo-French, from demurrer to file a demurrer, literally, to stay, dwell, delay, from Old French demorer, from Latin demorari to delay] : a plea in response to an allegation (as in a complaint or indictment) that admits its truth but also asserts that it is not sufficient as a cause of action compare confession and avoidance NOTE: Demurrers are no longer used in federal civil or criminal procedure but are still used in some states. General demurrers are replaced in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure by motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim on which relief may be granted. Special demurrers are replaced by motions for more definite statement. In the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, a motion to dismiss or to grant appropriate relief takes the place of a demurrer. Demurrers are sometimes used to question a court's jurisdiction. demurrer to the evidence : a demurrer that asserts that the evidence is not sufficient to create a question of fact for the jury to...
Action
Action, conduct, something done; also the form prescribed by Law for the recovery of one's due, or the lawful demand of one's right. Bracton (Bk. 3, cap. 1) defines it:-Actio nihil aliud est quam jus prosequendi in judicio quod alicui debetur.-(An action is nothing else than the right of suing in a court of justice for that which is due to some one.) Actions are divided into criminal and civil: criminal actions are more properly called prosecutions, and perhaps actions penal, to recover some penalty under statute, are properly criminal actions. There were formerly three classes of actions in England: personal actions, in which the plaintiff sought to recover a debt or damages from the defendant; real actions, in which he sought to establish his title to land or other hereditaments; mixed actions, in which he sought only to establish his right to possession of land. All forms of action are now abolished, but there still inevitably remains the distinction between actions in personam brou...
Alibi
Alibi (elsewhere). It is a defence restored to where the party accused, in order to prove that he could not have committed the crime with which he is charged, offers evidence that he was in a different place at the time the offence was committed.Else ware, in law this term is used to express that defence in a criminal prosecution, where the party-accused, in order to prove that he could not have committed the crime charged against him, offers evidence that he was in a different place at that time. The plea taken should be capable of meaning that having regard to the time and place when and where he is alleged to have committed the offence, he could not have been present. The plea of alibi postulates the physical impossibility of the presence of the accused to the scene of offence by reason of his presence at another place. Denial by an accused of an assertion made by his employer that the accused was on leave of absence from duty on the date of offence does not, by any stretch of reaso...
Libel
Libel [fr. libellus, Lat.; libelle, Fr.]. False defamatory words, if written and published, constitute a libel: Odgers on libel, p. 1. 'Everything printed or written, which reflects on the character of another, and is published without lawful justification or excuse, is a libel whatever the intention may have been', O'Brien v. Clement, (1846) 15 M & W 435, per Parke, B. A statement in a talking film is a libel and not merely a slander, Yossopoff v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Picture Corporation, 78 Sol Jo 617. As to publication by dictation, etc., to a typist, see Osborn v. Boulter & Son, (1930) 2 KB 226. All contumelious matter that tends to degrade a man in the opinion of his neighbours, or to make him ridiculous, will amount (when conveyed in writing, or by picture, effigy, or the like, Monson v. Tussauds, Ltd., (1894)1 QB 671, to libel. A writing of fictitious character which incidentally contains the name of a real person may be a libel: see Jones v. Hulton & Co., 1910 AC 20, where Lord ...
Non-tenure
Non-tenure, a plea in bar to a real action, by saying that he (the defendant) held not the land mentioned in the plaintiff's count or declaration, or at least some part thereof. It was either general, where one denied ever to have been tenant of the land in question, or special, where it was alleged he was not tenant on the day whereon the writ was sued out, 1 Mod. 181.The distinction between real and personal actions has now practically ceased to exist. See ACTION....
Unclaimed property
Unclaimed property. This devolves on the Crown at Common Law. Unclaimed property may be dealt with under the heads of (1) Government Stock, (2) Chancery Funds, (3) Stock in Public Companies, (4) Bankers' Balances, (5) Deposits with Bankers for Safe Custody, and (6) Found Property.(1) Government Stock.-The National Debt Act, 1870 (33 & 34 Vict. c. 71), ss. 51 et seq., as extended by 20 & 21 Geo. 5, c. 28, s. 49 provides that stock on which no dividend has been claimed for ten years must be transferred to the National Debt Commissioners. Lists of names in which the stock stood, with residence, description and amount of stock and date of transfer, are to be kept at the Bank of England [or Ireland, but see 13 Geo. 5, c. 2, s. 6 (d)] and at the National Debt Office, open to inspection, and also kept in duplicate at the National Debt Office. The stock may be re-transferred to persons showing title after, in the case of stock exceeding 20l., three months' public notice by advertisement. A sec...
Supreme Court of Judicature
Supreme Court of Judicature. By Judicature Act, 1925, s. 1, there shall be a Supreme Court of Judicature in England consisting of His Majesty's High Court of Justice (referred to as the High Court), and His Majesty's Court of Appeal (referred to as the Court of Appeal).Formerly, by the (English) Supreme Court of Judicature Act, 1873, ss. 3 and 4 (amended by (English) Jud. Act, 1875, s. 9), it was enacted that from the commencement of that Act (November 1, 1875: see Judicature Act, 1875, s. 2) the court of Chancery of England, the Court of Queen's Bench, the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster, the Court of Exchequer, the High Court of Admiralty, the Court of Probate, and the Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, should be united and consolidated together, and should constitute one Supreme Court of Judicature in England; the said Supreme Court to consist of two permanent Divisions, being 'Her (now His) Majesty's High Court of Justice' and 'Her (now His) Majesty's Court of Appeal.'S...
Stipendiary Magistrates
Stipendiary Magistrates, paid magistrates ap-pointed in the Metropolis under the (English) Metropolitan Police Courts Act, 1839; in municipal boroughs, on petition by the council to the Secretary of State, under the (English) Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, s. 161, reproducing s. 99 of the repealed (English) Municipal Corporations Act, 1835; in places of 25,000 inhabitants or more, on like representation by the local board, etc.; under (English) the Stipendiary Magistrates Act, 1863; and in some other places, e.g., Manchester, by special Act of Parliament. They must be barristers of at least seven years' standing in the metropolis and municipal boroughs; under the (English) Stipendiary Magistrates Act, 1863, they may be of five years' standing. By the (English) Stipendiary Magistrates Act, 1858, they may do alone all acts authorized to be done by two justices of the peace. a stipendiary magistrate cannot sit at general or quarter sessions. As to deputies, see 32 & 33 Vict. c. 34 and ...
Reeve
Reeve [fr. gerefa, Sax.], a steward or bailiff. See DYKE-REEVE; FIELD-REEVE.A ministerial officer of high rank having local jurisdiction, the chief magistrate of a hundred, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 1284.Reeve, means a ministerial officer of high rank having local jurisdiction; the Chief Magistrate of a hundred. The reeve executed process, kept the peace and enforced the law by holding court within the hundred. - 'All the freeholders, unless relieved by special exemption 'owed suit' at the hundred-moot and the reeve of the hundred presided over it. In Anglo-Saxon times, the reeve was an indepen-dent official, and the hundred-moot was not a preliminary stage to the shire-moot at all.....But after the conquest the hundred assembly, now called a court as all the others were, lost its importance very quickly. Pleas of land were taken from it, and its criminal jurisdiction limited to one of holding suspects in temporary detention. The reeve of the hundred became the deputy of the...
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