Damages: A cash compensation ordered by a court to offset losses or suffering caused by another’s fault or negligence. | Legal Definition of Damages

Damnum Absque Injuria: Latin: harm absent a wrong. | Legal Definition of Damnum Absque Injuria

Damnum Injuria Datum: Latin: wrongful injury to the property of another. | Legal Definition of Damnum Injuria Datum

Dance Hall: A public hall devoted to dancing and for which admission is not based on personal selection or invitation. | Legal Definition of Dance Hall

Danger to Society: Where an offender would engage in conduct, the consequences of which would be grave or serious for society. | Legal Definition of Danger to Society

Dangerous Driving: The operating of a motor vehicle in a manner which has as one of its inherent qualities the exposure of the public to harm or injury. | Legal Definition of Dangerous Driving

Dangerous Offender: A person convicted of serious crimes and who is likely to re-offend. | Legal Definition of Dangerous Offender

Day: A consecutive period of 24 hours. | Legal Definition of Day

De Bene Esse: To take something for what it is worth, such as evidence collected for the time being, in the absence of, but in anticipation of, litigation, admissibility to be determined when such thing is sought to be used against another at trial. | Legal Definition of De Bene Esse

De Bonis Non: Latin: assets not yet administered. | Legal Definition of De Bonis Non

De Facto: Latin: in fact. | Legal Definition of De Facto

De Jure: Latin: of the law. | Legal Definition of De Jure

De Minimis Non Curat Lex: Latin: a common law principle whereby judges will not sit in judgment of extremely minor transgressions of the law. | Legal Definition of De Minimis Non Curat Lex

De Novo: Latin: new. | Legal Definition of De Novo

Dead Donor Rule: A custom of medical-legal ethics that vital organs should only be transplanted from dead patients. | Legal Definition of Dead Donor Rule

Deadbeat Dad: A father who ignores a Court order to pay child support. | Legal Definition of Deadbeat Dad

Deadly Force: Force which creates a substantial risk of causing death or serious bodily injury. | Legal Definition of Deadly Force

Death: Irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions and of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem. | Legal Definition of Death

Death Duties: Tax payments due to the state, incurred and payable as a result of the death of the tax-payer. | Legal Definition of Death Duties

Death Penalty: Also known as capital punishment, this is the most severe form of corporal punishment as it is requires law enforcement officers to kill the convicted offender. | Legal Definition of Death Penalty

Debenture: A document which creates or acknowledges a debt or loan. | Legal Definition of Debenture

Debt: An amount of money due and payable, from one person to another. | Legal Definition of Debt

Debtor: A person who owes money, goods or services to another, the latter being referred to as the creditor. | Legal Definition of Debtor

Decapitation: The act of beheading a person, usually instantly such as with a large and heavy knife or by guillotine, as a form of capital punishment. | Legal Definition of Decapitation

Decedent: An individual who has died. | Legal Definition of Decedent

Deceit: Willful or reckless misrepresentation or concealment of material facts with an intent to mislead. | Legal Definition of Deceit

Deceptive Trade Practice: An intentional act or omission in the course of trade or commerce that has the tendency or capacity to mislead or create the likelihood of deception. | Legal Definition of Deceptive Trade Practice

Declaration of War: An explicit warning from one state to another, in the form either of a reasoned intent to commence hostilities or of an ultimatum which carries the same result. | Legal Definition of Declaration of War

Decree: A decision or order of government or judicial body. | Legal Definition of Decree

Decree Absolute: The name given to a final and conclusive court order after the condition of an interim or intervening order (decree nisi) is met. | Legal Definition of Decree Absolute

Decree Nisi: A provisional decision of a court which does not have force or effect until a certain condition is met such as another petition brought before the court or after the passage of a period time. | Legal Definition of Decree Nisi

Dedimus Potestatem de Attornato Faciendo: Latin: An ancient common law exemption from the requirement to attend any court summons in person allowing, instead, representation by an attorney. | Legal Definition of Dedimus Potestatem de Attornato Faciendo

Deed: A written and signed document which sets out the things that have to be done or recognitions of the parties towards a certain object. | Legal Definition of Deed

Deem: To accept a document or an event as conclusive of a certain status in the absence of evidence or facts which would normally be required to prove that status. | Legal Definition of Deem

Defalcation: 1. Defaulting on a debt or other obligation such to account for public or trust funds. Usually used in the context of public officials. 2. The setting-off of two debts owed between two people by the agreement to a new amount representing the balance. | Legal Definition of Defalcation

Defamation: An attack on the good reputation of a person, by slander or libel. | Legal Definition of Defamation

Defamatory Libel: Deliberate publication of defamatory lies which the publisher knows to be false. | Legal Definition of Defamatory Libel

Defeasance: A side-contract which contains a condition which, if realized, could defeat the main contract. | Legal Definition of Defeasance

Defence of Habitation: The right to use lethal force to prevent a felony committed within a person's home. | Legal Definition of Defence of Habitation

Defendant: The individual, company or organization who defends a legal action taken by a plaintiff and against whom the court has been asked to order damages or specific corrective action redress some type of unlawful or improper action alleged by the plaintiff. | Legal Definition of Defendant

Defense Attorney or Defence Counsel: Lawyers who represent persons facing criminal charges. | Legal Definition of Defense Attorney or Defence Counsel

Deficient: USA constitutional law: the substandard performance of an attorney. | Legal Definition of Deficient

Defile: To corrupt the integrity of a thing. | Legal Definition of Defile

Defunct Company: A corporation which has been cancelled by the jurisdiction which initially created it. | Legal Definition of Defunct Company

Dehors: French for outside. In the context of legal proceedings, it refers to that which is irrelevant or outside the scope of the debate. | Legal Definition of Dehors

Delegatus Non Potest Delegare: Latin: a delegate cannot delegate. | Legal Definition of Delegatus Non Potest Delegare

Deliberate: An act which is neither sudden nor rash and for which an individual considered the probable consequences beforehand. | Legal Definition of Deliberate

Deliberate Ignorance: Willful blindness to criminal activity. | Legal Definition of Deliberate Ignorance

Deliberate Indifference: Ignoring a situation known to exist. | Legal Definition of Deliberate Indifference

Deliberative: The private and candid give-and-take of a consultative or policy development process by a public agency. | Legal Definition of Deliberative

Deliberative Process Privilege: A freedom of information exemption as regards documents or records created during and within a government agency's internal decision-making process. | Legal Definition of Deliberative Process Privilege

Deliberative Secrecy: The intentional concealment of the process of cogitating, consulting or other private methods of arriving at a judicial decision. | Legal Definition of Deliberative Secrecy

Delict: A civil law term which imposes liability on a person who causes injury to another, or for injury caused by a person or thing under his custody. | Legal Definition of Delict

Delirium: A sudden onset of acute confusion and hyperactivity. | Legal Definition of Delirium

Delusion: A firm yet irrational belief and which may affect an individual's capacity to contract. | Legal Definition of Delusion

Demand Letter: A letter from a lawyer, on behalf of a client, that demands payment or some other action, which is allegedly due or in default. | Legal Definition of Demand Letter

Démarche: A word coined by the diplomatic community and referring to a strongly worded warning by one country to another and often, either explicitly or implicitly, with the threat of military consequence. | Legal Definition of Démarche

Dementia: A chronic impairment of cognitive and intellectual functioning including memory impairment, which interferes with the activities of daily living. | Legal Definition of Dementia

Demesne: Land held by a noble under the English feudal system, in absolute ownership. | Legal Definition of Demesne

Democracy: A form of government in which the people freely govern themselves; where the executive (or administrative) and law-making (or legislative) power is given to persons chosen by the population; the free people. | Legal Definition of Democracy

Demurrage: A term of transportation law which refers to the damages payable to a carrier as compensation for lost time. | Legal Definition of Demurrage

Demurrer: A mostly obsolete motion put to a trial judge after the plaintiff has completed his or her case, in which the defendant, while not objecting to the facts presented, and rather than responding by a full defence, asks the court to reject the petition right then and there because of a lack of basis in law or insufficiency of the evidence. | Legal Definition of Demurrer

Denunciation: A principle of sentencing in criminal law; that the sentence send a clear message to the general public that the offence is serious and the punishment just. | Legal Definition of Denunciation

Deodand: An object that has been involved in some personal injury, is forfeit to the government. | Legal Definition of Deodand

Depecage: (USA) The process of cutting up a case into individual issues, each subject to a separate choice-of-law analysis. | Legal Definition of Depecage

Dependent Indian Community: (USA) Any area validly set apart for the use of the Indians under the superintendence of the Government. | Legal Definition of Dependent Indian Community

Deponent: A person who gives evidence verified by oath, as within an affidavit. | Legal Definition of Deponent

Deportation: The removal of a foreign national under immigration laws for reasons such as illegal entry or conduct dangerous to the public welfare. | Legal Definition of Deportation

Deposition: The official statement by a witness taken in writing (as opposed to testimony which where a witnesses give their perception of the facts verbally). | Legal Definition of Deposition

Depraved Heart Murder: Where an individual under circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life, recklessly engaged in conduct which created a grave risk of death to another person, and thereby caused the death of another person. | Legal Definition of Depraved Heart Murder

Depravity of Mind: A degree of moral turpitude and psychical debasement associated with a crime such as repeated and excessive acts of physical abuse or unreasonably brutality or outrageously and wantonly vile, horrible, and inhuman. | Legal Definition of Depravity of Mind

Depreciation: An accounting procedure in which the cost or other recorded value of a fixed asset less estimated residual value (if any) is distributed over its estimated useful life in a systematic and rational manner. | Legal Definition of Depreciation

Derelict: Property that has been abandoned; especially in maritime law: a ship that is floundering or in peril and which the crew has been abandoned without hope for recovery or with no intention of saving the ship or of returning thereto. | Legal Definition of Derelict

Dereliction: The enlarging of land adjacent to water by the gradual retreat of the water line. | Legal Definition of Dereliction

Derivative Action: A class action brought for a wrong done to a corporation. | Legal Definition of Derivative Action

Derivative Work: Intellectual property (copyright): a work that builds on, or reassembles, with some degree of originality, existing works. | Legal Definition of Derivative Work

Descendant: Those person who are born of, or from children of, another are called that person’s descendants. | Legal Definition of Descendant

Design Patent: A patent on ornamental or aesthetic features of a device. | Legal Definition of Design Patent

Detention: The exercise of an element of physical constraint of an individual. | Legal Definition of Detention

Deterrence: A principle or objective of sentencing a person guilty of a crime which ensures that the punishment is sufficient to deter the guilty person, and others, from committing the same crime. | Legal Definition of Deterrence

Detinue: A common law action similar to conversion and also involving the possession of property by the plaintiff may also ask for damages for the duration of the possession. | Legal Definition of Detinue

Devastavit: Latin for 'he has wasted.' | Legal Definition of Devastavit

Devise: The transfer or conveyance of property by will, usually in reference to real property. | Legal Definition of Devise

Dhimmi: Muslim law: non-Muslims. | Legal Definition of Dhimmi

Dicta or Dictum: Latin: saying. | Legal Definition of Dicta or Dictum

Dictatorship: A form of government with a single person as decision-maker; a single ruler. | Legal Definition of Dictatorship

Dies Dominicus Non Est Juridicus: Latin: Sunday is not a day for judicial or legal proceedings. | Legal Definition of Dies Dominicus Non Est Juridicus

Diffused Surface Water: Water that is on the surface of land because of rain, melting snow or floods. | Legal Definition of Diffused Surface Water

Dilatory Plea: A formal challenge which questions not the cause of action, but the propriety of the suit, or the mode in which the remedy is sought. | Legal Definition of Dilatory Plea

Diligence: The degree of attention or care required of a person in a given situation. | Legal Definition of Diligence

Dillon's Rule: A rule of judicial interpretation that a municipality may exercise only those powers expressly conferred by statute, necessarily or fairly implied by the expressed power in the statute, or essential and not merely convenient. | Legal Definition of Dillon's Rule

Diploma: A certificate of completion of a college or university program of study. | Legal Definition of Diploma

Diplomacy: Peaceful representations between states. | Legal Definition of Diplomacy

Diplomat: An official representative of a state, present in another state for the purposes of general representation of the state-of-origin or for the purpose of specific international negotiations on behalf of the diplomat's state-of-origin. | Legal Definition of Diplomat

Diplomatic Immunity: Immunity extended to diplomat officers from criminal and civil jurisdiction of their host state. | Legal Definition of Diplomatic Immunity

Dipsomania: An irresistible impulse to indulge in intoxicants; chronic alcoholism. | Legal Definition of Dipsomania

Direct Contempt: Contempt of Court which is aimed expressly against the dignity or authority of the Court itself in the person of its Judges or officers. | Legal Definition of Direct Contempt

Direct Evidence: Evidence tendered in trial in the form of recounting of personal observations or a document which directly establishes a fact sought to be proven. | Legal Definition of Direct Evidence

Direct Tax: A tax demanded from the very persons who it is intended or desired should pay it. | Legal Definition of Direct Tax

Directed Verdict: When the Court stops a trial determining that an essential fact has not been proven. | Legal Definition of Directed Verdict

Director: Senior manager(s) selected by shareholders to manage a corporation. | Legal Definition of Director

Disability Insurance: An insurance contract in which the insurer agrees to pay money or to other benefits in the event that the person insured becomes disabled. | Legal Definition of Disability Insurance

Disbursement: Miscellaneous expenses other than lawyer fees and court costs (i.e. filing fees) which paid on behalf of another person and for which reimbursement will eventually be demanded of that person. | Legal Definition of Disbursement

Discharge: A sentence of a person found guilty of a crime in which that person does not receive a criminal record of conviction, either absolutely or conditionally. | Legal Definition of Discharge

Disclaimer: A renunciation or refusal of rights or liability which might otherwise fall upon the person. | Legal Definition of Disclaimer

Discontinuance: A formal notice filed with the Court and served on the defendant, ending active litigation. | Legal Definition of Discontinuance

Discovery: The making known to the other side of a law suit, of all relevant evidence. | Legal Definition of Discovery

Discretionary Trust: A trust in which the settlor has given the trustee full discretion to decide which (and when) members of a defined group of beneficiaries is to receive either the income or the capital of the trust. | Legal Definition of Discretionary Trust

Discrimination: A distinction based on the personal characteristics of an individual resulting in some disadvantage to that individual. | Legal Definition of Discrimination

Dismissal: An employer's decision to terminate a contract of employment. | Legal Definition of Dismissal

Dismissal Without Prejudice: A dismissal of an action before it is judges on the merits and leaves the parties as though the action had never been filed, subject to limitations in local Court rules. | Legal Definition of Dismissal Without Prejudice

Disorderly House: A place where acts prohibited by statute are habitually indulged in or permitted. | Legal Definition of Disorderly House

Disrate: A term of maritime law where an officer or other seaman is either demoted in rank or deprived of a promotion. | Legal Definition of Disrate

Dissent: To disagree. | Legal Definition of Dissent

Dissolution: The act of ending, terminating or winding-up a company or state of affairs. | Legal Definition of Dissolution

Distraint: The right of a landlord to seize the property of a tenant which is in the premises being rented, as collateral against a tenant that has not paid the rent or has otherwise defaulted on the lease, such as wanton disrepair or destruction of the premises. | Legal Definition of Distraint

Distress: A common law remedy available to landlords to hold the tenant's belongings while the tenant is behind on rent but continues to occupy the premises. | Legal Definition of Distress

District Attorney: A lawyer in the USA charged with prosecution of criminal charges on behalf of the government. | Legal Definition of District Attorney

Diversity Jurisdiction: Jurisdiction of a US federal court to dispose of a matter meeting a monetary threshold even though it involves residents of different states. | Legal Definition of Diversity Jurisdiction

Dividend: A proportionate distribution of profits made in the form of a money payment to shareholders, by a for-profit corporation. Dividends are declared by a company's board of directors. | Legal Definition of Dividend

Divine Right of Kings: A doctrine of absolute right of a monarch premised on the belief that an individual's tenure as monarch was an act of God, and thus the king can set the law, or to ignore or change the law as may have been set by a representational parliament. | Legal Definition of Divine Right of Kings

Divorce: The final, legal ending of a marriage, by Court order. | Legal Definition of Divorce

Divorce a Mensa et Thoro: An obselete form of divorce order which did not end the marriage but allowed the parties to reside separate; in effect, a legal or judicially-sanctioned separation of two married persons. | Legal Definition of Divorce a Mensa et Thoro

Diyya: Muslim law: the payment by an aggressor to his victim of a sum of money to thus avoid a retaliation punishment ("kisas"). | Legal Definition of Diyya

Djabr: Muslim law: a father's right to constrain his son or daughter into a marriage of the father’s choosing. | Legal Definition of Djabr

DNA: Abbreviation for deoxyribonucleic acid. A chromosome molecule which carries genetic coding unique to each person with the only exception of identical twins (that is why it is also called 'DNA fingerprinting'). | Legal Definition of DNA

Dock: An artificial basin or enclosure for the reception of vessels. | Legal Definition of Dock

Docket: An official court record book which lists all the cases before the court and which may also note the status or action required for each case. | Legal Definition of Docket

Doctrine: A rule or principle or the law established through the repeated application of legal precedents. | Legal Definition of Doctrine

Doctrine of Specialty: A typical requirement in extradition: that the receiving state not prosecute the individual being extradicted but for the offence for which extradition was sought. | Legal Definition of Doctrine of Specialty

Domestic Animal: A pet; dogs, cats or other tame animals or birds and which serve some purpose for its owner or others. | Legal Definition of Domestic Animal

Domestic Violence: An assault or battery upon another member of a family or, in some jurisdictions, threatening words. | Legal Definition of Domestic Violence

Domicile: The permanent residence of a person; a place to which, even if he or she were temporary absent, they intend to return. | Legal Definition of Domicile

Dominant Tenement: Used when referring to easements to specify that property (i.e. tenement) or piece of land that benefits from, or has the advantage of, an easement. | Legal Definition of Dominant Tenement

Dominion Utile: Latin: the property rights of a tenant; exclusive right to use a thing | Legal Definition of Dominion Utile

Dominium Directum: Latin: qualified ownership of a land: not having possession or use of property but retaining ownership. | Legal Definition of Dominium Directum

Domitae Naturae: Animals which are of a nature easily tamed and may be readily domesticated. | Legal Definition of Domitae Naturae

Donatio Mortis Causa: A death-bed gift, made by a dying person, with the intent that the person receiving the gift shall keep the thing if death ensues. | Legal Definition of Donatio Mortis Causa

Donee: The recipient of a trust; either the trustee or the beneficiary. | Legal Definition of Donee

Donor: The person who donates property to the benefit of another, usually through the legal mechanism of a trust. | Legal Definition of Donor

Double Costs: A punitive measure against a litigant for that party’s failure, in all of the circumstances, to have accepted an offer to settle that should have been accepted. | Legal Definition of Double Costs

Double Dipping: Double recovery of funds or property through two different sources effectively or potentially doubling the entitlement. | Legal Definition of Double Dipping

Double Escrow: The secret use of escrow funds with those of another escrow fund, for the purposes of financial gain by the holder of the escrow funds, and without the knowledge of the owners of the two funds. | Legal Definition of Double Escrow

Double Hearsay: Recitals of statements of others within a statement that is itself hearsay; an out-of-court declaration containing another out-of-court declaration. | Legal Definition of Double Hearsay

Double Jeopardy: A prohibition against being tried or sentenced twice for the same offense. | Legal Definition of Double Jeopardy

Double Patenting: An attempt by a patentee to receive two consecutive patents on essentially the same invention thus extending the term of exclusivity. | Legal Definition of Double Patenting

Double Recovery: Double dipping; accessing funds or property through two different sources effectively or potentially doubling the entitlement. | Legal Definition of Double Recovery

Double Ticketing: A sales strategy in which a merchant puts two price tags on a product to lure the consumer to the till where he/she is asked to pay the higher of the two ticketed prices. | Legal Definition of Double Ticketing

Double-Blind Photographic Identification: The presentation of an array of photos to a crime victim for the purposes of identifying the perpetrator, by an officer neither involved in the investigation nor aware of who the suspect is. | Legal Definition of Double-Blind Photographic Identification

Dower: A widow's life estate interest in her husband's real property if he died intestate. | Legal Definition of Dower

Doyle Rule: (USA) A rule of criminal process that the use for impeachment purposes of a defendant's silence, at the time of arrest and after receiving Miranda warnings, violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. | Legal Definition of Doyle Rule

Dragnet Clause: A clause in a credit agreement which purports to secure future liabilities. | Legal Definition of Dragnet Clause

Drawee: The bank which has the drawer's checking account from which a check is to be paid. | Legal Definition of Drawee

Drawer: The person who signs a check to his or her bank ordering the latter to pay the face amount of the check to the payee. | Legal Definition of Drawer

Drawn and Quartered: A horrific and barbaric punishment imposed upon traitors pursuant to ancient common law: partial hanging, disembowelling and cutting of body into quarters. | Legal Definition of Drawn and Quartered

Droit d'aubaine: French: an ancient right to keep the property of any deceased foreign subject. | Legal Definition of Droit d'aubaine

Droit de naufrage: French: an ancient right of any land-owner to claim the wreck and men (as slaves) of any ship which wrecked upon waters adjacent to his land. | Legal Definition of Droit de naufrage

DSM-IV: The American Psychiatric Association mental disorder manual and classification. | Legal Definition of DSM-IV

Dual Criminality: A typical requirement of extradition treaties: that the conduct alleged constitute a crime in both the demanding and the delivering state. | Legal Definition of Dual Criminality

Dual Sovereignty Doctrine: A maxim of law which allows the double prosecution of a person by more than one state for the same crime, where both states have jurisdiction for the prosecution, and notwithstanding the double jeopardy rule. | Legal Definition of Dual Sovereignty Doctrine

Duces Tecum: Latin: bring with you. | Legal Definition of Duces Tecum

Ducking Stool: A contraption of medieval English justice comprised of a chair in which a convict was affixed and then immersed repeatedly into a body of water. | Legal Definition of Ducking Stool

Due Care: The degree of care which a person of ordinary prudence would exercise under the same or similar circumstances. | Legal Definition of Due Care

Due Diligence: Reasonable verifications and precautions taken to identify or prevent foreseeable risks. | Legal Definition of Due Diligence

Due Process: Fundamental procedural legal safeguards of which every citizen has an absolute right when a state or court purports to take a decision that could affect any right of that citizen. | Legal Definition of Due Process

Dum Casta: Latin: for so long as she remains chaste. | Legal Definition of Dum Casta

Dum Sola: Latin: for so long as she remains unmarried. | Legal Definition of Dum Sola

Dum Sola et Casta Vixerit: Latin: for so long as she remains single (unmarried) and chaste. | Legal Definition of Dum Sola et Casta Vixerit

Dum Vidua: Latin: for so long as she remains a widow. | Legal Definition of Dum Vidua

Dummy Corporation: A corporation created solely for the purpose of insulating an individual or another corporation from liability in either contract or import. | Legal Definition of Dummy Corporation

Dunnage: Materials used by ships to secure and protect cargo. | Legal Definition of Dunnage

Duplex: A house which has separate but complete facilities to accommodate two families as either adjacent units or one on top of the other. | Legal Definition of Duplex

Duress: Where a person is prevented from acting (or not acting) according to their free will, by threats or force of another, it is said to be 'under duress'. | Legal Definition of Duress

Duty: A legal obligation for a person to conduct himself to a certain standard failing which he could be liable for negligence if damages occur in the result. | Legal Definition of Duty

Duty of Care: An obligation to conform to a certain standard of conduct for the protection of another against an unreasonable risk of harm. | Legal Definition of Duty of Care

Duty of Fair Representation: A union's duty to be free of arbitrary judgment or discrimination or bad faith towards one it its members. | Legal Definition of Duty of Fair Representation

Dwelling: A place to live in. | Legal Definition of Dwelling

Dying Declaration: Exception to the hearsay rule: a statement of fact made by a dying victim relating to the cause and circumstances of a homicide. | Legal Definition of Dying Declaration