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- Easement
- A right of passage over a neighbor's land or waterway. An easement is a
type of
servitude. For every easement, there is a
dominant and a
servient tenement. Easements are also classified as negative (which
prevents the servient land owner from doing certain things) or affirmative
easements (the most common, which allows the beneficiary of the easement to do
certain things, such as a right-of-way). Although right-of-ways are the most
common easements, there are many others such as rights to tunnel under
another's land, to use a washroom, to emit smoke or fumes, to pass over with
transmission towers, to access a dock and to access a well.
- Ecclesiastical law
- Synonymous to
canon law:
the body of church-made law which binds only those persons which recognize it,
usually only church officers, and based on aged precepts of
canon law.
- Emancipation
- Term used to describe the act of freeing a person who was under the legal
authority of another (such as a child before the age of majority) from that
control (such as child reaching the age of majority). The term was also used
when slavery was legal to describe a former slave that had bought or been
given freedom from his or her master. When Abraham Lincoln outlawed slavery he
did so in a law called the "emancipation proclamation".
- Embargo
- This is an act of international military aggression where an order is made
prohibiting ships or goods from leaving a certain port, city or territory and
may be enforced by military threat of destroying any vehicle that attempts to
break it or by trade penalties. The word has also come to refer to a legal
prohibition of trade with a certain nation or a prohibition towards the use of
goods or services produced by or within a certain nation.
- Embezzle
- The illegal transfer of money or property that, although possessed legally
by the embezzler, is diverted to the embezzler personally by his or her
fraudulent action. For example, an employee would embezzle money from the
employer or a public officer could embezzle money received during the course
of their public duties and secretly convert it to their personal use.
- Eminent domain
- USA: The legal power to expropriate private land for
the sake of public necessity.
- Emolument
- A legal word which refers to all wages, benefits or other benefit received
as compensation for holding some office or employment.
- Emphyteusis
- Civil law: a long-term (many years or in perpetuity) rental of land or
buildings including the exclusive enjoyment of all product of that land and
the exercise of all property rights typically reserved for the property owner
such as mortgaging the property for the term of the emphyteusis or permitting
a right of way.
- Emptio or emtio
- Latin for "purchase" or the contract in which something is bought.
- Enactment
- A law or a
statute; a document which is published as an enforceable set of written
rules is said to be "enacted".
- Endorsement
- Something written on the back of a document. An alternate spelling, in
some English jurisdictions, is "indorsement." In the laws of
bills
of exchange, an endorsement is a signature on the back of the
bill
of exchange by which the person to whom the note is payable transfers it
by thus making the note payable to the bearer or to a specific person. An
endorsement of claim means that if you want to ask a court to issue a
writ against
someone, you have to "endorse" your
writ with a
concise summary of the facts supporting the claim, sometimes called a
statement of claim.
- Endowment
- The transfer of money or property (usually as a gift) to a public
organization for a specific purpose, such as medical research or scholarships.
- Entrapment
- The inducement, by law enforcement officers or their agents, of another
person to commit a crime for the purposes of bringing charges for the
commission of that artificially-provoked crime. This technique, because it
involves abetting
the commission of a crime, which is itself a crime, is severely curtailed
under the constitutional law of many states.
- Equity
- A branch of English law which developed hundreds of years ago when
litigants would go to the King and complain of harsh or inflexible rules of
common law
which prevented "justice" from prevailing. For example, strict
common law
rules would not recognize
unjust
enrichment, which was a legal relief developed by the equity courts. The
typical Court of Equity decision would prevent a person from enforcing a
common law court judgment. The kings delegated this special judicial review
power over
common law court rulings to chancellors. A new branch of law developed
known as "equity", with their decisions eventually gaining precedence over
those of the
common law courts. A whole set of equity law principles were developed
based on the predominant "fairness" characteristic of equity such as "equity
will not suffer a wrong to be without a remedy" or "he who comes to equity
must come with clean hands". Many legal rules, in countries that originated
with English law, have equity-based law such as the law of trusts and
mortgages.
- Escheat
- Where property is returned to the government upon the death of the owner,
because there is nobody to inherit the property. Escheat is based on the Latin
principle of
dominion directum as was often used in the
feudal
system when a
tenant died
without heirs or if the
tenant was
convicted of a
felony.
- Escrow
- When the performance of something is outstanding and a third party holds
onto money or a written document (such as shares or a deed) until a certain
condition is met between the two contracting parties.
- Estate law
- A term used by the law to decribe that part of the law which regulates
wills,
probate and
other subjects related to the distribution of a deceased person's "estate".
- Estoppel
- A rule of law that when person A, by act or words, gives person B reason
to believe a certain set of facts upon which person B takes action, person A
cannot later, to his (or her) benefit, deny those facts or say that his (or
her) earlier act was improper. A 1891 English court decision summarized
estoppel as "a rule of evidence which precludes a person from denying the
truth of some statement previously made by himself".
- Euthanasia
- The putting to death, by painless method, of a terminally-ill or severely
debilitated person through the omission (intentionally withholding a
life-saving medical procedure, also known as "passive euthanasia") or
commission of an act ("active euthanasia'). See also
living will.
- Evidence
- Proof of fact(s) presented at a trial. The best and most common method is
by oral testimony; where you have an eye-witness swear to tell the truth and
to then relate to the court (or jury) their experience. Evidence is essential
in convincing the judge or jury of your facts as the judge (or jury) is
expected to start off with a blank slate; no preconceived idea or knowledge of
the facts. So it is up to the opposing parties to prove (by providing
evidence), to the satisfaction of the court (or jury), the facts needed to
support their case. Besides oral testimony, an object can be deposited with
the court (eg. a signed contract). This is sometimes called "real evidence."
In other rarer cases, evidence can be
circumstantial.
- Ex aequo et bono
- Latin for "in justice and fairness." Something to be decided ex aequo
et bono is something that is to be decided by principles of what is fair
and just. Most legal cases are decided on the strict rule of law. For example,
a contract will be normally upheld and enforced by the legal system no matter
how "unfair" it may prove to be. But a case to be decided ex aequo et bono,
overrides the strict rule of law and requires instead a decision based on what
is fair and just given the circumstances.
- Examination-in-chief
- The questioning of your own witness under oath. Witnesses are introduced
to a trial by their examination-in-chief, which is when they answer questions
asked by the lawyer representing the party which called them to the stand.
After their examination-in-chief, the other party's lawyer can question them
too; this is called "cross-examination".
- Exculpate
- Something that excuses or justifies a wrong action.
- Executor
- A person specifically appointed by a
testator
to administer the
will ensuring that final wishes are respected (i.e. that the will is
properly "executed"). An executor is a
personal representative.
- Exhibit
- A document or object shown to the court as evidence in a trial. They are
each given a number or letter by the court clerk as they are introduced for
future reference during the trial. For example, weapon are frequently given as
exhibits in criminal trials. Except with special permission of the court,
exhibits are locked up in court custody until the trial is over.
- Ex parte
- Latin: for one party only. Ex parte refers to those proceedings
where one of the parties has not received notice and, therefore, is neither
present nor represented. If a person received notice of a hearing and chose
not to attend, then the hearing would not be called ex parte. Some
jurisdictions expand the definition to include any proceeding that goes
undefended, even though proper notice has been given.
- Ex patriate
- A person who has abandoned his or her country of origin and citizenship
and has become a subject or citizen of another country.
- Ex post facto
- Latin: after the fact. Legislation is called ex post facto if the
law attempts to extend backwards in time and punish acts committed before the
date of the law's approval. Such laws are constitutionally prohibited in most
modern democracies. For example, the USA Constitution prohibits "any ex
post facto law".
- Expropriation
- Canada: the forced sale of land to a public authority. Synonymous to the
USA doctrine of "eminent domain".
- Express trust
- A trust
which is clearly created by the
settlor,
usually in the form of a document (eg. a
will),
although they can be oral. They are to be contrasted with
trusts which
come to being through the operation of the law and which do not result from
the clear intent or decision of any
settlor to
create a trust
(eg.
constructive trust).
- Expunge
- To physically erase; to white or strike out. To "expunge" something from a
court record means to remove every reference to it from the court file.
- Ex rel
- An abbreviation of "ex relatione", Latin for "on the relation of." Refers
to information or action taken that is not based on first-hand experience but
is based on the statement or account of another person. For example, a
criminal charge "ex rel" simply means that the attorney general of a state is
prosecuting on the basis of a statement of a person other than the attorney
general himself (or herself.)
- Extortion
- Forcing a person to give up property in a thing through the use of
violence, fear or under pretense of authority.
- Extradition
- The arrest and delivery of a
fugitive
wanted for a crime committed in another country, usually under the terms of a
extradition treaty.
- Ex turpi causa non oritur actio
- Latin: "Of an illegal cause there can be no lawsuit." In other words, if
one is engaged in illegal activity, one cannot sue another for damages that
arose out of that illegal activity. A example is an injury suffered by a
passenger in a stolen car, which that passenger knew to be stolen and was a
free participant in the joyriding. If vehicle crashes injuring the passenger,
there is no action in tort against the driver under the ex turpi causa non
oritur actio principle.
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