Legal technicality

“ Yet the fact is that the world does require legal documents. An interesting speculation would be to consider what proportion of the world's business affairs is conducted on a basis which could be provable or have the authority of enforcement in a court of law. ”

“ Practical legal exposition acknowledges no call to rise to first principles, or to proceed to ultimate analysis. From the point of view of law as an art, the importance of conceptions and principles varies inversely with their abstractness or generality. Practical jurisprudence proceeds from below upward, and ascends no further than the requirements of use and practice demand. Theoretical jurisprudence, on the contrary, attributes value to the abstract and the general, rather than to the concrete and the particular. ”

“ Legal tribunals have also powerfully assisted to shape and modify conceptions of proprietary right by means of the distinction between Law and Equity, which always makes its first appearance as a distinction between jurisdictions. ”

“ This formula, 'or his legal representatives,' embrace representatives of the original grantee in the land, by contract, such as assignees or grantees, as well as by operation of law, and leaves the question open to inquiry in a court of justice as to the party to whom the certificate, patent, or confirmation, should enure. ”

“ And in order that you may thoroughly carry out this principle, procure, if you can, a legal education; because there are a great many flaws in titles, agreements, and the like, the knowledge of which will often enable you to lay hands upon various kinds of property to which at first sight you might appear to have no claim. Should you ever be so circumstanced as to be beyond the control of the law, you will, of course, be able to take whatever you want ”

“ This sketch would, of course, have to be modified in many ways if we attempted to treat the unofficial fragments of customary law in the same way as the paragraphs of royal codes, and even more so if we were able to tabulate the indirect evidence as to legal rules. ”

“ The grounds upon which they proceed are, that a thing is to be regarded as certain which can be made certain; that evidence can be adduced to apply the contract to its subject; that where there is enough to put those concerned upon inquiry, the means of knowledge and knowledge itself are, in legal effect, the same thing. ”

“ Lawyers shall pay ten dollars for each license. Every person who, for fee or reward, shall prosecute or defend causes in any court of record or other judicial tribunal of the United States, or of any of the states, or give legal advice in relation to any cause or matter whatever, shall be deemed to be a lawyer within the meaning of this act. ”

“ Rules, that is, definite, detailed provisions for definite, detailed states of fact, are the main reliance of the beginnings of law. In the maturity of law they are employed chiefly in situations where there is exceptional need of certainty in order to uphold the economic order. With the advent of legal writing and juristic theory in the transition from the strict law to equity and natural law, a second [Pg 116] element develops and becomes a controlling factor in the administration of justice. ”

“ These capacities, attributes and rights, however, in order to possess a legal entity, and mach more to be susceptible of a legal perpetuity, must be invested in some natural or corporate body; for in no other way can they be exercised or vindicated. ”

“ Further, a great part of what I have written is sufficiently free from the technicalities and details of the concrete legal system to serve the purposes of those laymen who, with no desire to adventure themselves among the repellent mysteries of the law, are yet interested in those more general portions of legal theory which touch the problems of ethical and political science. ”

“ All legally recognized interests of substance in developed legal systems are normally individual interests. To the historical jurist of the nineteenth century, this fact, coupled with the development of ownership out of possession, served to show us the idea which was realizing in human experience of the administration of justice and to confirm the position reached by the metaphysical jurists. ”

“ Laws are framed to cover every possible case, but as often as not they fail to attain such success. Even so, how many ordinary folk can be bothered to wade through a legal document? What with the alternatives, and saving clauses, such publications are dull to a degree. ”

“ Justice Miller delivering its opinion, that 'of all legal instruments wills are the most inartificial, the least to be governed in their construction by the settled use of legal technical terms, the will itself being often the production of persons not only ignorant of law, but of the correct use of the language in which it is written. ”

“ It is in this tendency that we find the key to much that is otherwise unaccountably harsh, technical, or absurd in early judicial remedies and procedure. Whenever any recognized legal right came to be regarded as unconscionable or otherwise objectionable, rules adapted to hamper or imperil the complainant in the pursuit of his remedy were sure to spring up. ”

“ When we pass, then, from proved acts, and an inquiry as to the ends sought through them becomes necessary, the legal method is well established, though it has a duality of expression that is sometimes confusing. ”

“ Parties to a proceeding shall have an opportunity for review by a judicial authority of final administrative decisions and, subject to jurisdictional provisions in a Member's law concerning the importance of a case, of at least the legal aspects of initial judicial decisions on the merits of a case. ”

“ On condition that you protect my rights, I will protect your rights. How, then, does some party obtain the right to claim the protection of the other? Evidently, by actually protecting the rights of the other.
But if this is so, no party will ever obtain a strictly legal claim to the protection of the other. ”

“ These cases mark recognition of the fact that the authority of the states to act in any field is to be measured as much by vital state interests as by technical legal concepts. Cf. Hoopeston Canning Co. ”

“ For a long time those in protection of the legal and medical professions have been on the statute-books, if not always in force. But, as always happens, these bad precedents have been used as arguments in favor of the plumbers, barbers, dentists, druggists, and other trades and professions. ”

“ One doesn't have an agreement to that effect written down on parchment and sealed; but it is as well understood and ought to be as faithfully kept as any legal contract. ”

“ “Many words have no legal meaning. Others have a legal meaning very unlike their ordinary meaning. For example, the word ‘daffy-down-dilly.’ It is a criminal libel to call a lawyer a daffy-down-dilly. Ha! Yes, I advise you never to do such a thing. No, I certainly advise you never to do it. ”

“ The mental capacity of a person to make reasonable contracts, is the only criterion, by which to determine his legal capacity to make obligatory contracts. And his mental capacity to make reasonable contracts is certainly not to be determined by the fact that he is, or is not, twenty-one years of age. ”

“ But the bequest is involved in legal disputes, and pending them the work has stopped; so that like many other great undertakings in America, even this is rather going to be done one of these days, than doing now. ”

“ Finally, statute law is greatly superior to case-law in point of form. The product of legislation assumes the form of abstract propositions, but that of precedent is merged in the concrete details of the actual cases to which it owes its origin. Statute law, therefore is brief, clear, easily accessible and knowable, while case-law is buried from sight and knowledge in the huge and daily growing mass of the records of bygone litigation. Case-law is gold in the mine—a few grains of the precious metal to the ton of useless matter—while statute law is coin of the realm ready for immediate use. ”

“ All persons are charged with knowledge of the provisions of statutes and must take note of the procedure adopted by them and when that procedure is not unreasonable or arbitrary there are no constitutional limitations relieving them from conforming to it. ”

“ Where the language of a statute is plain, unambiguous, and well understood according to its natural and ordinary sense and meaning, the statute itself furnishes a rule of construction beyond which the court cannot go. ”

“ hence all parties are obliged to borrow the ideas, and even the language, usual in judicial proceedings in their daily controversies. As most public men are, or have been, legal practitioners, they introduce the customs and technicalities of their profession into the affairs of the country. The jury extends this habitude to all classes. The language of the law thus becomes, in some measure, a vulgar tongue; ”

“ But if the mere mental and invisible process of invention, apart from the specific, sensible, and individual structure, can be classed at all as property at law, it must partake of the character of a chose in action, much more so than an obligation or contract, the terms and conditions of which are defined and assented to by the contracting parties. ”

“ The words of the statute are to be taken in the sense in which they will be understood by that public in which they are to take effect. Science and skill are not required in their interpretation, except where scientific or technical terms are used. ”

“ We will first examine the correctness of the general position, that an action at law cannot be maintained upon a decree in equity; and will, in the next place, inquire how far the jurisdiction of the court pronouncing this decree, and the efficiency of its proceedings with reference to the parties before it, may be inferred or rightfully taken notice of, from its style or character, or from proper judicial knowledge of the subject-matter of its cognizance, independently of a particular special averment. ”

“ Inanimate objects are sometimes parties in litigation. A ship has a legal personality, a fiction found useful for maritime purposes. [2] The corporation sole — a creature of ecclesiastical law — is an acceptable adversary, and large fortunes ride on its cases. [3] The ordinary corporation is a "person" for purposes of the adjudicatory processes, [p743] whether it represents proprietary, spiritual, aesthetic, or charitable causes. [4]
So it should be as respects valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches, ridges, groves of trees, swampland, or even air that feels the destructive pressures of modern technology and modern life. ”

“ In the absence of specific provision in the law for renewal of term in unpublished works, the view that the grant of the statute is for protection under the common law rather than a statutory and limited grant of privilege, is defensible and may be upheld by the courts, should a case arise. ”

“ There shall be no privileged tribunal, except in such cases as, from their nature, belong to special courts. § 24. The free exercise of any profession, moral, intellectual, or industrial, is guarantied. § 25. Industrial inventions belong to their authors, to whom the law will grant a temporary privilege, or to whom the Congress will give a reasonable premium, when it is desirable to make the invention public property. ”

“ When we add the considerations that an attorney practices under a license from the State and that the subject-matter is a right created by statute it is obvious that the State may attach such conditions to the license in respect of such matters as it believes to be necessary in order to make it a public good. ”

“ The difficulty and duty of drawing the inference suitable to each case from all its circumstances cannot be avoided or supplied by affixing or ascribing to the business some general name, and deducing from that, as a matter of law, the rights of the public and the duties of the partners. ”

“ In construing a statute, penal as well as others, we must look to the object in view, and never adopt an interpretation that will defeat its own purpose, if it will admit of any other reasonable construction. ”

“ Wherever an act undertakes to determine a question of right or obligation, or of property, as the foundation upon which it proceeds, such act is to that extent a judicial one, and not the proper exercise of legislative functions. ”

“ Every case must depend on its own circumstances. Where the construction of the language of a statute is doubtful, courts will always prefer that which will confirm rather than destroy any bon a fide transaction or title. ”

“ This holding is adopted, says the Court, as a 'practical conception' of the matter, but it is precisely because it seems to me a too highly technical conception to find place in the world of practical business, that I dissent from such a conclusion. ”

“ It means only that we must not bring cases within the provisions of such a statute that are not clearly embraced it, nor by narrow, technical, or forced construction of words, exclude cases from it that are obviously within its provisions. What must be sought for always is the intention of the legislature, and the duty of the court is to give effect to that intention as disclosed by the words used. ”

“ To raise a Federal question the right must be one claimed under a particular statute of the United States, the validity, construction, or applicability of which was made the subject of dispute in the state court; and the decision upon such statute must have been adverse to the plaintiff in error. ”

“ No doubt he had acted in direct opposition to the spirit of the injunction, but legal orders are read by the letter, and not by the spirit. ”