A marking indicating the extent to which the weight of a load may safely submerge a ship; also called Plimsoll line. The load line, or Plimsoll mark, is positioned amidships on both sides of a vessel. Its purpose is to indicate the legal limit to which a ship may be loaded for specific ocean areas and seasons of the year. The basic Load Line Certificate is issued after a complex calculation is mad…
The process of influencing public and government policy at all levels: federal, state, and local. The practice of lobbying provides a forum for the resolution of conflicts among often diverse and competing points of view; provides information, analysis, and opinion to legislators and government leaders to allow for informed and balanced decision making; and creates a system of checks and balances …
Locke was born in Wrington, Somerset, England, on August 29, 1632. His father, also John Locke, was an attorney, and a Calvinist with Puritan sympathies who supported the parliamentary side in England's struggle against King Charles I and fought on that side in the English Civil War of 1642. Despite this background Locke developed monarchist leanings while attending boarding school, which r…
Lockwood was born October 24, 1830, in Royalton, New York. A graduate of Genessee College in Lima, New York, in 1857, Lockwood received an honorary master of arts degree from Syracuse University in 1871 and a doctor of laws degree in 1908. Before her admission to the Washington, D.C., bar in 1873, Lockwood taught school from 1857 to 1868. She began her fight for women's rights with her work…
Henry Cabot Lodge. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS Lodge was born May 12, 1850, in Boston. The families of his father, John Ellerton Lodge, and mother, Anna Cabot Lodge, were wealthy and of high social standing. Lodge graduated from Harvard in 1871, and married Anna Cabot Mills ("Nannie") Davis the day after his graduation ceremony. He attended Harvard Law School from 1872 to 1874, and i…
The Logan Act (18 U.S.C.A. § 953 [1948]) is a single federal statute making it a crime for a citizen to confer with foreign governments against the interests of the United States. Specifically, it prohibits citizens from negotiating with other nations on behalf of the United States without authorization. In the late 1790s, a French trade embargo and jailing of U.S. seamen created animosity …
The cutting of, or commercial dealing in, tree trunks that have been cut down and stripped of all branches. The statutes in certain jurisdictions provide for the marking of logs for the purpose of identification. Once a log is marked, its mark must be recorded, as must any change in ownership of the marked logs. A purchaser of standing timber may enter onto the land for the purpose of cutting and …
A state law that allows the state to exercise jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant, provided that the prospective defendant has sufficient minimum contacts with the forum state. Since International Shoe, the Supreme Court has set forth several criteria to be used in analyzing whether jurisdiction over a nonresident is proper. These criteria require (1) that the defendant has purposefully av…
Damages for loss of services are recoverable by a parent whose child has been killed or injured; by a husband or wife whose spouse has been killed or injured; and, in some instances, by a father whose daughter has been a victim of seduction. A husband may sue for the loss of personal services of his wife, including the performance of various household duties as well as sexual relationships, compan…
Documents that cannot be located after a thorough, careful, and diligent search has been made for them. In some jurisdictions, documents that have been stolen are held to be lost. An instrument that the owner has voluntarily and intentionally destroyed in order to cancel its legal effects is not a lost instrument, nor is an instrument that has been mutilated. Generally the loss of a written instru…
Trent Lott has served the U.S. government for over three decades. He was elected to both houses of the U.S. Congress and served subsequent terms as a member from the state of Mississippi. Comments suggesting his endorsement of segregationist views resulted in an uproar that led to his resignation as the Senate Majority Leader in December 2002. As a U.S. Senator from Mississippi, Trent Lott has bee…
France originally claimed the Louisiana Territory in the seventeenth century. In 1763 it ceded to Spain the province of Louisiana, which was about where the state of Louisiana is today. By the 1790s U.S. farmers who lived west of the Appalachian Mountains were shipping their surplus produce by boat down rivers that flowed into the Gulf of Mexico. In 1795 the United States negotiated a treaty with …
An oath that declares an individual's allegiance to the government and its institutions and disclaims support of ideologies or associations that oppose or threaten the government. Requiring an employee to promise to support the government as a condition of employment is constitutional as long as the requirement is reasonably related to the employee's fitness for the particular positi…
Horace Harmon Lurton epitomized late-nineteenth-century judicial conservatism. Whether he was on the state or federal bench, restraint characterized Lurton's opinions. After a successful period in private practice in the 1860s and 1870s, Lurton won election to the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1886. He was its chief justice in 1893; a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Ci…
Violent punishment or execution, without due process, for real or alleged crimes. The concept of taking the law into one's own hands to punish a criminal almost certainly predates recorded history. Lynching (or "lynch law") is usually associated in the United States with punishment directed toward blacks, who made up a highly disproportionate number of its victims. (While the …
A test applied to determine whether a person accused of a crime was sane at the time of its commission and, therefore, criminally responsible for the wrongdoing. The M'Naghten rule is a test for criminal insanity. Under the M'Naghten rule, a criminal defendant is not guilty by reason of insanity if, at the time of the alleged criminal act, the defendant was so deranged that she did n…
Between 1979 and 1989, MacKinnon was a visiting professor at a number of prominent law schools, including her alma mater, Yale. Although she was a prolific writer and a popular teacher, her views and her actions concerning pornography made her a controversial public figure. Her radical feminist theories challenged the legitimacy of the legal system and mainstream liberal thought. She argued that m…
A famous 1916 New York Court of Appeals decision, MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co., 217 N.Y. 382, 111 N.E. 1050, expanded the classification of "inherently dangerous" products and thereby effectively eliminated the requirement of privity—a contractual relationship between the parties in cases that involve defective products that cause personal injury. …
MacVeagh was born on April 19, 1833, in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. He attended school in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, before entering Yale College, where he graduated in 1853. He studied law in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and was admitted to the bar in 1856. In 1859 he became district attorney of Chester County, Pennsylvania. President James Garfield appointed him attorney general on March 5, 1881, b…
Born March 16, 1751, in Port Conway, Virginia, Madison was the first of 11 children in his family. His father, James Madison Sr., was the wealthiest landowner in Orange County, Virginia, and provided Madison with a stable and comfortable upbringing. Eleanor Conway Madison, his mother, was an affectionate woman who gave the family emotional support throughout her ninety-eight years of life. Madison…
The various state judicial systems provide for judicial officers who are often called magistrates, justices of the peace, or police justices. The authority of these officials is restricted by statute, and jurisdiction is commonly limited to the county in which the official presides. The position may be elected or appointed, depending on the governing state statute. The exact role of the official v…
The Magna Charta is the product of three competing legal jurisdictions: royal, ecclesiastical, and baronial. The royal system of justice maintained jurisdiction over all matters that Part of the Magna Charta, signed by England's King John in 1215. The document became a model for written contracts between governed and governed, such as the U.S. Constitution. BRITISH MUSEUM COLLECTION. …
The Act does not require that manufacturers or sellers of consumer products provide written warranties. Instead, the act requires that manufacturers and sellers who do warrant their products to clearly disclose the terms of the warranty so that the consumer understands his or her rights under the warranty. In addition, according to the act, a written warranty on a consumer product that costs more …
The process governed by the U.S. Postal Regulations (39 C.F.R. § 233.3) that allows the recording of all the information that appears on the outside cover of mail in any class, and also allows the recording of the contents of second-, third-, and fourth-class mail, international parcel post mail, and mail on which the appropriate postage has not been paid. Mail covers may be granted by the …
A crime in which the perpetrator develops a scheme using the mails to defraud another of money or property. This crime specifically requires the intent to defraud, and is a federal offense governed by section 1341 of title 18 of the U.S. Code. The mail fraud statute was first enacted in 1872 to prohibit illicit mailings with the Postal Service (formerly the Post Office) for the purpose of executin…
Sir Henry James Sumner Maine was a leading nineteenth-century English jurist. Maine's writings on the social and historical bases of all legal Henry Maine. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS systems have been recognized for their clarity of thought and style, although modern commentators have criticized Maine for overgeneralization. Maine first achieved prominence with the publication of Ancient L…
Unauthorized intervention by a nonparty in a lawsuit, in the form of financial or other support and assistance to prosecute or defend the litigation. The preservation of an asset or of a condition of property by upkeep and necessary repairs. The term maintenance is also used to describe the expenses of preserving property, which may be deductible according to the applicable state or federal tax la…
Maitland's historiography was not based on ideology or theory. History, to Maitland, was not the product of impersonal social or economic forces, but something more complex. Therefore, in the world described in his writings, individual personalities, particular events, cultural traditions, and the peculiarity of language play significant roles. Running through his work is a deep respect for…
The fifth child in a family of eight children, Malcolm was born May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska. His father, Earl Little, was a Baptist minister and a local organizer for the Universal Negro Improvement Association, a black nationalist organization founded by Marcus M. Garvey in the early twentieth century. His mother, Louise Little, was of West Indian heritage. Malcom's father was killed …
The commission of an act that is unequivocally illegal or completely wrongful. The distinctions between malfeasance, misfeasance, and nonfeasance have little effect on tort law. Whether a claim of injury is for one or the other, the plaintiff must prove that the defendant owed a duty of care, that the duty was breached in some way, and that the breach caused injury to the plaintiff. The action…
The intentional commission of a wrongful act, absent justification, with the intent to cause harm to others; conscious violation of the law that injures another individual; a mental state indicating a disposition in disregard of social duty and a tendency toward malfeasance. When applied to the crime of murder, malice is the mental condition that motivates one individual to take the life of anothe…
An action for malicious prosecution is the remedy for baseless and malicious litigation. It is not limited to criminal prosecutions but may be brought in response to any baseless and malicious litigation or prosecution, whether criminal or civil. The criminal defendant or civil respondent in a baseless and malicious case may later file this claim in civil court against the parties who took an acti…
The breach by a member of a profession of either a standard of care or a standard of conduct. After the 1970s the number of malpractice suits filed against professionals greatly increased. Most malpractice suits involved doctors, especially surgeons and other specialists who performed medical procedures with a high degree of risk to their patients. Large damage awards against doctors resulted in h…
Under the man-in-the-house rule, a child who otherwise qualified for welfare benefits was denied those benefits if the child's mother was living with, or having relations with, any single or married able-bodied male. The man was considered a substitute father, even if the man was not supporting the child. Before 1968 administrative agencies in many states created and enforced the man-in-the…
A general term that refers to health plans that attempt to control the cost and quality of care by coordinating medical and other health-related services. Managed care is a new term for an old medical financing plan known as the HMO, or health maintenance organization. HMOs are not insured plans. They are prepaid health care systems, offering services to which the member is entitled, as opposed to…
A writ or order of mandamus is an extraordinary court order because it is made without the benefit of full judicial process, or before a case has concluded. It may be issued by a court at any time that it is appropriate, but it is usually issued in a case that has already begun. Generally, the decisions of a lower-court made in the course of a continuing case will not be reviewed by higher courts …
Representative Mann introduced the act in December 1909 at the request of Chicago prosecutors who claimed that girls and women were being forced into prostitution by unscrupulous pimps and procurers. The term white slavery became popular to describe the predicament these females faced. It was alleged that men were tricking, coercing, and drugging females to get them involved in prostitution and th…
Attorney, politician, and reformer of U.S. public education Horace Mann transformed the nation's schools. Mann was a gust of wind blowing through the doldrums of nineteenth-century teaching. In 1837, he left a promising career in law and politics to become Massachusetts's first secretary of education. In this capacity, he rebuilt shoddy schools, instituted teacher Horace Mann. A…
Mann was born October 20, 1856, in McLean County, Illinois. He graduated from the University of Illinois in 1876 and then attended the Union College of Law (now known as the James R. Mann. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS Northwestern University Law School). Following his admission to the Illinois bar in 1881, Mann joined a prominent Chicago law firm and achieved success as a business attorney. Mann be…
A house, a dwelling, or a residence. The word manor also meant the privilege of having a manor with the jurisdiction of a court baron and the right to receive rents and services from the copyholders. …
Mansfield's decision in Somerset's Case dealt a fatal blow to English slaveholding interests. In this 1772 case, a slave brought to England by his master had escaped and had been recaptured. Mansfield died March 20, 1793, in London. …
The unjustifiable, inexcusable, and intentional killing of a human being without deliberation, premeditation, and malice. The unlawful killing of a human being without any deliberation, which may be involuntary, in the commission of a lawful act without due caution and circumspection. Manslaughter is a distinct crime and is not considered a lesser degree of murder. The essential distinction betwee…
The defendant brought an unsuccessful action challenging the constitutionality of the search. An appeal was made to the Ohio Supreme Court, which affirmed the judgment. The defendant appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which reversed the decision on the ground that evidence obtained by an unconstitutional seizure was inadmissible. The Court was extremely critical of the actions of the police and h…
The edge or border; the edge of a body of water where it meets the land. As applied to a boundary line of land, the margin of a river, creek, or other watercourse means the center of the stream. But in the case of a lake, bay, or natural pond, the margin means the line where land and water meet. In finance, the difference between market value of loan collateral and face value of loan. In commercia…
Maris was born in Philadelphia on December 19, 1893. Descendants of Quaker colonists, Maris and his family were also members of the Society of Friends. Maris studied at the Friends Select School, and later the Westtown School, attended by his father and grandfather. Mindful of his responsibility to his widowed mother and younger siblings, Maris made no plans to attend college after graduating from…
The marital communications privilege is a right that only legally married persons have in court. Also called the husband-wife privilege, it protects the privacy of communications between spouses. The privilege allows them to refuse to testify about a conversation or a letter that they have privately exchanged as marital partners. The marital privilege is an exception to the general rule that all r…
The right of a particular individual to compel the sale of a ship because he or she has not been paid a debt owed to him or her on account of such vessel. A maritime lien is designed to furnish security to a creditor and to enable a person to obtain repairs and supplies even in the event that the ship is a distance away from its owners and no significant amount of money is on board to pay for the …
Ownership and possession of real property that is readily transferable since it is free from valid claims by outside parties. The concept of marketability of title refers to ownership of real estate. Under law, titles are evidence of ownership. Selling real estate (land and the property attached to it) involves transferring its title. A marketable title is one that can be transferred to a new owne…