Legal validity

“ It is necessary, therefore, for us to understand correctly, and to understand with precision and accuracy, exactly what the law means by them, because they have a legal meaning; they have a meaning that is peculiar to the law ”

“ But if we take the view of our friend the bad man we shall find that he does not care two straws for the axioms or deductions, but that he does want to know what the Massachusetts or English courts are likely to do in fact. I am much of his mind. The prophecies of what the courts will do in fact, and nothing more pretentious, are what I mean by the law.
Take again a notion which as popularly understood is the widest conception which the law contains;—the notion of legal duty, to which already I have referred. We fill the word with all the content which we draw from morals. ”

“ When, therefore, in an ordinary trial in an action at law we speak of the common law we refer to the law of the state as it has been adopted by statute or recognized by the courts as the foundation of legal rights. It is in regard to decisions made by the state courts in reference to this law, and defining what is the law of the state as modified by the opinions of its own courts, by the statutes of the state, and the customs and habits of the people, that the trouble arises. ”

“ The validity of a statute is not drawn in question every time rights claimed under such statute are controverted, nor is the validity of an authority every time an act done by such authority is disputed. ”

“ It is true that, in every proceeding of a judicial nature, there are one or more facts which are strictly jurisdictional, the existence of which is necessary to the validity of the proceedings, and without which the act of the court is a mere nullity ”

“ Thus having established, as I hope, that the plain and natural meaning of the words “has reasonable cause” imports the existence of a fact or state of facts and not the mere belief by the person challenged that the fact or state of facts existed, I proceed to show that this meaning of the words has been accepted in innumerable legal decisions for many generations, that “reasonable cause” for a belief when the subject of legal dispute has been always treated as an objective fact to be proved by one or other party and to be determined by the appropriate tribunal. ”

“ Whatever might be the answer of a moralist to this question, a jurist must search for its legal solution, in those principles of action which are sanctioned by the usages, the national acts, and the general assent, of that portion of the world of which he considers himself as a part, and to whose law the appeal is made. ”

“ Rep. 503, the distinction between the denial of validity and the denial of a title, right, privilege, or immunity specially set up or claimed, is pointed out, as well as the distinction, between the construction of a statute or the extent of an authority and the validity of a statute or of an authority. ”

“ Wherever, by either the common law or the statute law of a State, a right of action has become fixed and a legal liability incurred, that liability may be enforced and the right of action pursued in any court which has jurisdiction of such matters and can obtain jurisdiction of the parties. ”

“ Conceding, or better realizing, this inherently fluctuating character or quality of public policy, we see that the enactment of statutes to declare or define it must of necessity be a dangerous business, because such statutes, however accurately they reflect the public policy of the moment of their enactment, must almost immediately begin to be wrong. The Common Law, reposing, according to the legal fiction, in the bosom of the court, is flexible, and can change or be changed, as we have seen, with the change of condition ”

“ But, while it is the duty of the courts to put a construction upon statutes which shall, so far as possible, be consonant with good morals, we know of no legal principle which would authorize us to pronounce a statute of this kind, which is plain and unambiguous upon its face, void, by reason of its failure to conform to our own standard of social and moral obligations. ”

“ Evidence of the kind may be admitted for the purpose of defining what is uncertain, but it is never properly admitted to alter a general rule of law, nor to make the legal rights or liabilities of the parties other or different from what they are by the common law. ”

“ The Constitution of the United States, in creating and defining the judicial power of the General Government, establishes this distinction between law and equity, and a party who claims a legal title must proceed at law, and may undoubtedly proceed according to the forms of practice in such cases in the State court. ”

“ It is only where rights, in themselves appropriate subjects of judicial cognizance, are being, or about to be, affected prejudicially by the application or enforcement of a statute that its validity may be called in question by a suitor and determined by an exertion of the judicial power. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is necessary it should be on behalf of right. There is another law of legal interpretation, which is, that the law is to be understood in the light of the objects sought for by the law, or sought in the law - that is, that the details of the law shall conform to the purpose declared to be sought to be attained by it. ”

“ Under matured systems of jurisprudence a great variety of agreements are denied legal recognition, on the ground that their performance would involve a violation of law, or would be incompatible with good morals or public policy. ”

“ Legal or equitable rights, acquired under either system of laws, may be enforced in any court of either sovereignty competent to hear and determine such kind of rights and not restrained by its constitution in the exercise of such jurisdiction. ”

“ As those rights which it is the duty of courts of justice to protect and enforce include equitable as well as legal rights, and as each of these classes of rights requires separate treatment, it will be convenient to begin with legal rights. ”

“ The act itself, with all the circumstances of the inhabitants before and at the time of its passage, have formed the subject of legal judgments and professional opinions upon which mighty interests have grown up and now repose. ”

“ Thus, as Justice STEVENS has explained, the "stron [g] presumption of validity" to which "recently decided cases" are entitled "is an essential thread in the mantle of protection that the law affords the individual. ”

“ They have the right to pass across, and the right to pass over the streets of the cities; and in estimating the proof for the plaintiff and the defendant in this case, it is your duty to look upon the relations of each to the other, and the rights of one citizen with another in a common enjoyment and a common right, and answer, yourselves, the question, Have these relative rights been offended in this case, as made manifest by the proof? ”

“ 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. ”

“ We are enquiring what the law is, not what it ought to be. Reason may be applied to shew the impropriety or expedience of a law, but we must have either statute or precedent to prove the existence of it. At the same time, I do not mean to admit that the late resolution of the house of commons is defensible on general principles of reason, any more than in law. ”

“ Any person, who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of any State, shall subject, or cause to be subjected, any person within the jurisdiction of the United States, to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities, secured by the Constitution of [Pg 126] the United States, shall, any such law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of the State to the contrary, notwithstanding, be liable to the party injured in any action at law, suit in equity, or other proceeding for redress ”

“ The justice of a claim, and its assignable properties, are totally distinct, both from the question of its present or future character, and from the nature and even existence of a remedy. The assignable character of a thing depends on nothing technical, or choses in action would not pass. But upon the existence of right, abstracted from the consideration of present or future enforcement, or the susceptibility of enforcement at all, from the possible want of a precise remedy. ”

“ In the absence of all positive authority, it might be proper to resort to these principles, in aid of the manifest purposes of the law. But there are express statuteable provisions, which directly apply to the present case. ”

“ Justice FIELD, that 'the courts of the United States only regard judgments of the state courts establishing personal demands as having validity or importing verity when they have been rendered upon personal citation of the party, or upon his voluntary appearance.' St. ”

“ And, to remove the question as to validity, we think that the statute should be so construed. Further, the act expressly requires that, if any of its provisions is found to be unconstitutional, 'or the applicability thereof to any person or circumstances' is held invalid, the validity of the remainder of the act and 'the applicability of such provision to other persons and circumstances' shall not be affected. ”

“ The argument that there is a distinction between claims 'arising under' (Judicial Code, § 24, first) and those 'founded upon' (id. § 24, twentieth) a law of the United States rests on the inadmissible premise that the great act of justice embodied in the jurisdiction of the court of claims is to be construed strictly and read with an adverse eye. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hitherto it has been assumed, in dealing with any special right or obligation, that the facts from which it sprung were true of the individual entitled or bound. But it often happens, especially in modern law, that a person acquires and is allowed to enforce a special right, although that facts which give rise to it are not true of him, or are true of him only in part. ”

“ Unless you can point to some other law which defines what shall be held to be reasonable or unreasonable, it must be, and is, a mere question, not of law, but of fact.'
'The lord chancellor there points out that the mere circumstance that there is an advantage does not, of itself, show that it is an undue preference, within the meaning of the act, and, further, that whether there be such undue preference or advantage is a question of fact, and of fact alone. No rule is given to guide the court or the tribunal in the determination of cases or applications made under this second section. ”

“ For the present we declare, as we have a perfect right to do, that the deduced conception, X, the reality whereof has been proven in our deduction, is to be called in this our investigation the conception of Law or Rights, holding ourselves responsible to prove by it whatever questions common sense may raise concerning Law. ”

“ When a statute alters the common law the meaning shall not be strained beyond the meaning of the words, except in cases of public utility, as when the end in view appears to be more comprehensive than the enacting words. ”

“ No doubt it is true that a legislative declaration of facts that are material only as the ground for enacting a rule of law, for instance, that a certain use is a public one, may not be held conclusive by the Courts. ”

“ When a law creates a classification but neither targets a suspect class nor burdens a fundamental right, the court presumes the law is valid and will uphold it as long as it is rationally related to some legitimate government interest. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If rights between litigants are once established by the final judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction those rights must be recognized in every way, and wherever the judgment is entitled to respect, by those who are bound by it. ”

“ No principle is better settled, or of more universal application, than that no court can reverse or annul its own final decrees or judgments, for errors of fact or law, after the term in which they have been rendered, unless for clerical mistakes ”

“ The statute, being general in its application, embracing all persons under substantially like circumstances, and not being an arbitrary exercise of power, does not deny to the defendant the equal protection of the laws. ”

“ We repeat and reaffirm this rule, noting its special applicability to cases where, as here, a statutory standard such as 'good faith' can have meaning only in its application to the particular facts of a particular case. ”