Verdict - Law Dictionary Search Results
Home Dictionary Name: verdict Page: 5remittitur
remittitur [Latin, it is sent back, remitted, third person singular present indicative passive of remittere to send back, remit] 1 a : a procedure under which a court may order the reduction of an excessive verdict ;esp : a procedure in which the court requires the plaintiff to remit the portion of the verdict deemed excessive in lieu of a grant of a defendant's motion for a new trial or of a reversal if the court is an appellate court b : a remission to a defendant by a plaintiff of the portion of a verdict considered excessive by the court c : the formal agreement or stipulation of a plaintiff waiving or releasing the right to receive the portion of a verdict considered excessive compare additur 2 : a sending back of a case and its record from an appellate or superior court to a trial or inferior court for further proceedings (as additional findings of fact) or for entry of a judgment in accordance with instructions or the decision of the higher court ...
Weight of evidence
Weight of evidence, such superiority in the evidence for one side over that for the other as calls for a verdict for the first. When a new trial is asked for on the ground that the verdict is against the weight of the evidence, the judge who tried the cause is consulted, and it does not very often happen that a new trial is ordered if he reports that he is satisfied with the verdict (R.S.C. Ord. XXXIX., r. 6, and notes thereto in Annual Practice).The persuasiveness of some evidence in comparison with other evidence, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 1588....
Meeting
Meeting, an assembly of persons whose consent is required for anything to decide, by a proper majority of votes, whether or not that thing shall be done; e.g., the meeting of the town council under s. 22 of the (English) Municipal Corporations Acts, 1882 (45 & 46 Vict. c. 50), or (English) Local Government Act, 1933 (23 & 24 Geo.5, c. 51), s. 75.By Common Law in the absence of other provisions a corporation is bound by the majority present at a regular corporate meeting and not only by an absolute majority of the corporation (this does not apply to companies), Perrott and Perrott Ltd. v. Stephenson, (1934) 1 Ch 171; and see Kyd on Corporations, Vol. 1, p. 400; or of the parish or parish council: see PARISH COUNCIL; PARISHMEETING. Also a meeting of the shareholders of a company under ss. 66-80 of the (English) Companies Clauses Act, 1845 (8 & 9 Vict. c. 16). As to meetings of creditors, see (English) Bankruptcy Act, 1914, ss. 13, 79 and 95. A company formed under the Companies Act, 1929...
Mansfield rule
Mansfield rule, the doctrine that a Juror's testimony or affidavit about juror misconduct may not be used to challenge the verdict. This Mansfield rule as intended to ensure that jurors are heard through their verdict, not through their post verdict testimony. In practice the rule lessons the possibility that losing parties will seek to penetrate the secrets of the jury room. The rule of first announced in Vaise v. Delaval, 99 Eng Rep 944 (KB 1785), in an opinion by William Murray, first Earl of Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 976....
Inquisition
Inquisition, inquiry, inquest; the finding of a tribunal charged to inquire. The three best known inquisitions are:-1. A coroner's inquisition, which is [see (English) Coroners Act,1887, s. 4, sub-s. 3] a certificate of the verdict of the jury, 'setting forth, so far as such particulars have been proved to them, who the deceased was, and how, when, and where the deceased came by his death; and if he came by his death by murder or manslaughter, the persons, if any, whom the jury find to have been guilty of such murder or manslaughter, or of being accessories before the fact to such murder.' The inquisition must be signed by the jurors. A form is given in the Third Schedule of the (English) Coroners Rules, 1927 (S.R. & O. 1927, No. 344/L. 13). See also CORONER.2. Inquisition as to lunacy, which is an inquiry directed by the judge in lunacy, as to whether a person is of unsound mind and incapable of managing his affairs. It is held before a jury, if the person alleged to be of unsound min...
High Steward, Court of the Lord
High Steward, Court of the Lord, a tribunal instituted for the trial of peers or peeresses indicted for treason or felony, or for misprision of either, but not for any other offence. The office of Lord High Steward is very ancient, and was formerly hereditary, or held for life, or dum bene se gesserit; but it has been for many centuries granted pro hac vice only, and always to a lord of Parliament. When, therefore, such an indictment is found by a grand jury of freeholders in the King's Bench, or at the assizes before a judge of oyer and terminer, it is removed by a writ of certiorari into the Court of the Lord High Steward, which alone has power to determine it.The sovereign, in case a peer be indicted for treason, felony, or misprision, appoints a Lord High Ste-ward pro vice, by commission under the Great Seal, which, reciting the indictment so found, gives him power to receive and try it secundum legem et consuetudinem Angli'. When the indictment is regularly removed by certiorari, ...
Bill of exceptions
Bill of exceptions. Prior to the Judicature Acts, if a judge, at the trial of a cause at Nisi Prius, mistook the law, either in directing a judgment of nonsuit or in refusing or admitting evidence or challenges, and other matters, the counsel for the party dissatisfied with the ruling of the judge might tender a bill of exceptions at any time before verdict, and require the judge to seal it.By the Judicature Act, 1875, Ord. LVIII., r. 1, bills of exception are abolished. But it is provided by s. 22, 'that nothing in the said Act, nor in any rule, etc., shall prejudice the right of any party to any action to have the issues for trial by jury submitted and left by the judge to the jury, etc.: Provided also, that the said right may be enforced either by motion in the High Court of Justice or by motion in the Court of Appeal, founded upon an exception entered upon or annexed to the record.' It is believed that this section has never been acted upon. The present mode of proceeding is by mot...
Entrenched clause
Entrenched clause, is a section in the Constitution of some of the Commonwealth countries which can only be repealed or altered by special process and which deals with matters like the liberties of the subject, fundamental institutions of government etc., a number of the newer Commonwealth countries have included entrenched clauses in their Constitutions. The process of amending entrenched clauses varies with each Constitution and may involve a popular referendum, a fixed Parliamentary majority of two-thirds or more a system of delayed legislation or a combination of two or more such factors, Office of Speaker in the Parliaments of Commonwealth, Wilding and Philip Laundry, p. 250.Any amendment of the Constitution necessitated by a legislation by Parliament to: (a) admit or establish a new State; (b) form a new State by separation of territories from any State or by uniting two or more States etc., and (c) abolish or create the legislative Council of State, is not deemed to be an amendm...
Acquittal
Acquittal, The legal certification usually by jury verdict that an accused person is not guilty of the charged offence. [fr. acquitter, Fr.; quietus, Lat., to free, acquit, or discharged], a deliverance and setting free of a person from the suspicion or guilt of an offence; also to be free from entries and molestations by a superior lord, for services issuing out of lands, Cowel. Acquittal is of two kinds--(1) Acquittal in deed, as when a person is cleared by verdict; and (2) Acquittal in law, as if two be indicted for a felony, the one as principal and the other as accessory, and the jury acquit the principal, by law the accessory is also acquitted, 2 Inst. 384.Means the legal certification, usually by jury verdict, that an accused person is not guilty of the charged offence, Black Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 24.If person is acquitted and ordered to be discharged it is illegal any longer to detain him, and the duty of seeing that he is at once discharged is upon the governor of the p...
not guilty by reason of insanity
not guilty by reason of insanity 1 : a plea by a criminal defendant who intends to raise an insanity defense used in jurisdictions that require such a plea in order for an insanity defense to be presented 2 : a verdict rendered by a jury in a criminal case that finds that the defendant was insane at the time of committing the crime as determined by application of the test for insanity used in the jurisdiction compare guilty but mentally ill NOTE: A verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity usually results in the commitment of the defendant to a mental institution. Such a verdict, however, may allow the defendant to be released, sometimes into the custody or care of another (as a family member). ...
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