Legal Term Dictionary

Search our free database of thousands of legal terms. The easiest-to-read, most user-friendly guide to legal terms.This dictionary is from the early 20th century and is not to be construed as legal advice.

Search
  • MISDELIVERY
    The delivery of property by a carrier or warehouseman to a person not authorized by the owner or person to whom the carrier or warehouseman is bound by his contract to deliver it. Cleveland, etc., R. Co. v. Potts, 33 Ind. App. 564, 71 N. E. 689; Forbes v. Boston More...
  • MISDEMEANANT
    A person guilty of a misdemeanor; one sentenced to punishment upon conviction of a misdemeanor. See FIRST-CLASS MISDEMEANANT.
  • MISDEMEANOR
    In criminal law. A general name for criminal offenses of every sort, punishable by indictment or special proceedings, which do not in law amount to the grade of felony. A misdemeanor1 is an act committed or omitted in violation of a public law either forbidding or commanding it. This general More...
  • MISDESCRIPTION
    An error or falsity In the description of the subject-matter of a contract which deceives one of the parties to his injury, or is misleading In a material or substantial point.
  • MISDIRECTION
    In practice. An error made by a judge in instructing the Jury upon the trial of a cause.
  • MISE
    The issue in a writ of right When the tenant in a writ of right pleads that his title is better than the demandant's, he is said to join the mise on the mere right Also expenses; costs; disbursements in an action. -Mise-money. Money paid by way of contract or More...
  • MISERABILE DEPOSITUM
    Lat. In the civil law. The name of an involuntary deposit, made under pressing necessity; as, for instance, shipwreck, fire, or other inevitable calamity. Poth. Proc. Civile, pt. 5, c. 1, | 1; Code La. 2935.
  • MISERERE
    The name and first word of one of the penitential psalms, being that which was commonly used to be given by the ordinary to such condemned malefactors as were allowed the benefit of clergy; whence it is also called the "psalm of mercy." Wharton.
  • MISERICORDIA
    Lat. Mercy; a fine or amerciament; an arbitrary or discretionary amercement -Misericordia communis. In old English law. A fine set on a whole county or hundred.
  • MISFEASANCE
    A misdeed or trespass. The doing what a party ought to do improperly. 1 Tidd, Pr. 4. The improper performance of some act which a man may lawfully do. 3 Steph. Comm. 460. And see Bell v. Josselyn, 3 Gray (Mass.) 309, 63 Am. Dec. 741; Illinois Cent. R. Co. More...
Showing 530 of 741