law school vocab

• something (act, forebearance, or return promise) bargained for and received by a promisor from promisee
• that which motivates a person to do something

to offer/put forward for consideration (something) as evidence/authority

• offer of performance
• unconditional offer (money/performance) to satisfy debt/obligation

contract

• formed when the parties exchange promises of performance to take place in the future
• each party is both a promisor and a promisee; the offeree's communicated acceptance also constitutes in effect his/her promise to perform

• "contract by which the owner agrees to give another the exclusive right to buy property at a fixed price within a specified time"
• "in effect, an owner of propert agrees to hold his offer open for a specified period of time" (G. THompson, supra, Section 4443)

The doctrine that an appropriate forum — even though competent under the law — may divest itself of jurisdiction if, for the convenience of the litigants and the witnesses, it appears that the action should proceed in another forum in which the action might also have been properly brought in the first place.

• "without which not"
• something on which something else necessarily depends

bar that prevents one from asserting a claim or right that contradicts what one has said or done before or what has been legally established as true

• promise made without consideration may otherwise be enforced to prevent injuctice if promisor should have reasonably expected promisee to rely on a promise
• and if promisee relied on a promise to her detriment

• at first sight
• on first appearance but subject to further evidence/info
• sufficient to establish a fact or raise presumption unless disproved/rebutted

• "he understood"
• an express/implied promise not under seal, by which one person undertakes to do some act or pay something to another
• action based on defendant's breach of implied promise to pay debt to plaintiff

holding a person in custody

voluntary transfer of a right or property

person who has made a will

one who has died without a proper will

deprived heir of would be expectancy to inherit the state

one who has died without a proper will

involving exercise of judgment and choice; not implementation of hard-and-fast rule

act of refraining from enforcing a right, obligation, or debt/tolerating or abstaining

• disagreement with the majority opinion, especially among judges
• withholding of assent/approval

process of compiling, arranging, and systematizing the laws of a given jurisdiction, or a discrete branch of the law into codes

• judge conducts trial, determines questions
• defines scope/extent of inquiry

meriting esteem/reward; having legal worth

• disagreement/dispute
• justiciable dispute

obtain information from opposing party/witness(es)

"under penalty"

before defense makes case assert that plaintiff failed to establish case

parties cannot relitigate

territorial reach of a court's authority

on or from one party only, usually without notice to or argument from the adverse party

• legally sanctioned seizure and sale or property; money obtained from this sale
• (if the property was sold before it was seized, the judgment is not binding)

• person's legal condition whether personal or proprietary
• sum total of person's legal rights, duties, liability, and other legal relations

involving status of a thing

• act of transferring something to another's care/possession
• relinquishing of property; abandonment

• "as if against a thing"
• involving/determining rights of person having interest in property without the court's jurisdiction
• settles claims to property of which jurisdiction is based
• seeks to obtain a personal judgment on a claim unrelated to the property on which the jusridiction is based

attack on a judgment in a proceeding other than direct appeal

appearance without substance of a legal right

appeal that occurs before trial court's final ruling on the entire case

attach on a judgment in a proceeding other than a direct appeal

all true knowledge - derived from observation - NOT speculatory reasoning

unreasonable delay in pursuing right

fairness; impartiality supercedes common and statute law when they conflict

final determination

commercially interchangeable with other property of the same kind <corn and wheat are fungible goods, whereas land is not>