|
SELECT A WORD TO VIEW THE COMPLETE DEFINITION:
administrative law
n. the procedures created by administrative agencies (governmental bodies of the city, county, state or federal government) involving rules, regulations, applications, licenses, permits, available information, hearings, appeals and decision-making. Federal agency procedures are governed by the Admin...
antitrust laws
n. acts adopted by Congress to outlaw or restrict business practices considered to be monopolistic or which restrain interstate commerce. The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 declared illegal "every contract, combination…or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce" between states or foreign countri...
blue sky laws
n. laws intended to protect the public from purchasing stock in fraudulent companies that lack substance, such as those selling swamp land, non-existent gold strikes and dry oil wells, or who have no assets besides a post office box. Blue sky laws require that corporations advertising and selling sh...
case law
n. reported decisions of appeals courts and other courts which make new interpretations of the law and, therefore, can be cited as precedents. These interpretations are distinguished from "statutory law," which is the statutes and codes (laws) enacted by legislative bodies; "regulatory law," which i...
conflict of law
n. a situation in which both state and federal laws or courts, or laws of more than one state, are applicable to a potential lawsuit or interpretation of a document and seem to be inconsistent or in conflict. The plaintiff's attorney's first problem is to decide in what state or federal court the la...
consumer protection laws
n. almost all states and the federal government have enacted laws and set up agencies to protect the consumer (the retail purchasers of goods and services) from inferior, adulterated, hazardous or deceptively advertised products, and deceptive or fraudulent sales practices. Federal statutes and regu...
court of law
n. any tribunal within a judicial system. Under English common law and in some states it was a court which heard only lawsuits in which damages were sought, as distinguished from a court of equity which could grant special remedies. That distinction has dissolved and every court (with the exception ...
criminal law
n. those statutes dealing with crimes against the public and members of the public, with penalties and all the procedures connected with charging, trying, sentencing and imprisoning defendants convicted of crimes.
law
n. 1) any system of regulations to govern the conduct of the people of a community, society or nation, in response to the need for regularity, consistency and justice based upon collective human experience. Custom or conduct governed by the force of the local king were replaced by laws almost as soo...
law book
n. any of numerous volumes dealing with law, including statutes, reports of cases, digests of cases, commentaries on particular topics, encyclopedias, textbooks, summaries of the law, dictionaries, legal forms and various combinations of these such as case reports with commentaries. Statutes of ever...
law of admiralty
n. statutes, customs and treaties dealing with actions on navigable waters. It is synonymous with maritime law.
law of the case
n. once a judge has decided a legal question during the conduct of a lawsuit, he/she is unlikely to change his/her views and will respond that the ruling is the "law of the case."
lawsuit
n. a common term for a legal action by one person or entity against another person or entity, to be decided in a court of law, sometimes just called a "suit." The legal claims within a lawsuit are called "causes of action."
mercantile law
n. that broad area of the law (also called commercial law), statutes, cases and customs which deal with trade, sales, buying, selling, transportation, contracts and all forms of business transactions. Much of the law of business transactions is covered by the Uniform Commercial Code, which has been ...
military law
n. regulations governing the conduct of men and women in the armed services in relation to their military (not civilian) activities.
positive law
n. statutory man-made law, as compared to "natural law," which is purportedly based on universally accepted moral principles, "God's law," and/or derived from nature and reason. The term "positive law" was first used by Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan (1651).
question of law
n. an issue arising in a lawsuit or criminal prosecution which only relates to determination of what the law is, how it is applied to the facts in the case, and other purely legal points in contention. All "questions of law" arising before, during and sometimes after a trial are to be determined sol...
unlawful detainer
n. 1) keeping possession of real property without a right, such as after a lease has expired, after being served with a notice to quit (vacate, leave) for non-payment of rent or other breach of lease, or being a "squatter" on the property. Such possession entitles the owner to file a lawsuit for "un...
|
|
My Account
Services & Resources
Legal Dictionary
Account Settings
Newsletter Subscriptions
Email Marketing
My Alerts
Help
Sign Out
Sign In