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Once upon a time English law was strewn with Latin. A lot of it was formally thrown out around 1999 when Lord Wolff imposed an updated terminology; alongside plaintiffs becoming claimants, terms such as 'writ of mandamus' and 'subpoena duces tecum' being replaced with 'mandatory injunction' and 'summons to produce evidence'. But many terms have become helpful shorthand and we still commonly talk about someone having locus standi to bring a claim, or apply the ejusdem generis rule when trying to work out if X is included in a list of 'A, B, C and similar'. And I recently spent a good part of a morning arguing whether it was absolutely necessary for my clients to be able to give restitutio in integrum of a loan that we said was voidable for misrepresentation.
A slightly longer form of legal Latin is the legal maxim, a principle of law so well-worn that early commentators set in down in Latin (or even in some cases took it from Roman law). Some have become sufficiently established that they are part of legal jargon, e.g.:
ex turpi causa non oritur actio - no legal claim arises from an unlawful act (although this is a principle somewhat tempered by laws such as the Occupier's Liability Act 1984).
mutatis mutandis - a handily short term for 'having amended or reinterpreted this part of a document in light of new circumstances, make consequential amendments or reinterpretations throughout'.
res ipsa loquitur - 'the thing speaks for itself', used to mean 'the facts admit of no other explanation'. Put another way, it's lawyer-speak for Well, du'h.
volenti non fit injuria - sorry, it's your own damn stupid fault. Again, rather tempered by modern legal and public policy, but often applied in part via the doctrine of contributory negligence and sometimes still effective to completely throw out a claim, no matter what the Daily Fail would have you believe.
One less-commonly used one is cuius est solum, eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos. Literally, it translates as 'who owns the soil, also owns it to the heavens above and to the fires beneath'. It's used to denote the legal concept that ownership of a parcel of land extends vertically in both directions. As a strict doctrine of law it was questioned in terms of the ad coelum bit over two hundred years ago, when the legal questions arising from balloon flights started to come to court. (Yes, aviation law goes back to the Napoleonic era.) But it's still the case that a structure that protrudes over you land can be a trespass, and indeed I had to advise on such a dispute this week - which is what reminded me of this maxim.
If you want a really, really thorough examination of cuius est solum then you need only look to the very extensive discussion by Lord Hope at paragraphs 8 to 27 of the UK Supreme Court's decision in Star Energy Weald Basin Limited and another v Bocardo SA [2010] UKSC 35. I can't help but feel that His Lordship leapt at the chance to finally write his monograph on 'The Development of the Cuius est Solum Doctrine, 1250-2009'.
Incidentally, the Star Energy case concerned oil extraction from under land in Surrey (yes, we have oil where I come from). The oil field in question is Palmers Wood, but as this story notes part of it lies under the Oxted Estate, owned by... Mohamed Al Fayed. The exploration company was drilling from nearby but for maximum extraction it had to drill sideways to the apex of the oil field, and that was the bit under Mr Al Fayed's land. At this point, having seen There Will Be Blood, I have the image of Daniel-Day Lewis taunting Mohamed Al Fayed with "I drink your milkshake!".
I mentioned this case over on Facebook and my old university chum Simon Spero helpfully pointed me at 'The Great Onyx Cave Cases - A Micro-History' by Professor Bruce Ziff of the University of Alberta's Faculty of Law. One of many battles in the Kentucky Cave Wars, Edwards v Sims (1929) 24 S.W.2d 619 was a case on subterranean trespass, and a fascinating story it is too, not least in respect of the wonderfully-named Justice Marvel Logan. And, although it's not evident from the decision as posted on BAILLI, the fully-referenced report in the All England Law Reports confirms, as Prof Ziff notes, that the Kentucky case was indeed cited to the UK Supreme Court.
A slightly longer form of legal Latin is the legal maxim, a principle of law so well-worn that early commentators set in down in Latin (or even in some cases took it from Roman law). Some have become sufficiently established that they are part of legal jargon, e.g.:
ex turpi causa non oritur actio - no legal claim arises from an unlawful act (although this is a principle somewhat tempered by laws such as the Occupier's Liability Act 1984).
mutatis mutandis - a handily short term for 'having amended or reinterpreted this part of a document in light of new circumstances, make consequential amendments or reinterpretations throughout'.
res ipsa loquitur - 'the thing speaks for itself', used to mean 'the facts admit of no other explanation'. Put another way, it's lawyer-speak for Well, du'h.
volenti non fit injuria - sorry, it's your own damn stupid fault. Again, rather tempered by modern legal and public policy, but often applied in part via the doctrine of contributory negligence and sometimes still effective to completely throw out a claim, no matter what the Daily Fail would have you believe.
One less-commonly used one is cuius est solum, eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos. Literally, it translates as 'who owns the soil, also owns it to the heavens above and to the fires beneath'. It's used to denote the legal concept that ownership of a parcel of land extends vertically in both directions. As a strict doctrine of law it was questioned in terms of the ad coelum bit over two hundred years ago, when the legal questions arising from balloon flights started to come to court. (Yes, aviation law goes back to the Napoleonic era.) But it's still the case that a structure that protrudes over you land can be a trespass, and indeed I had to advise on such a dispute this week - which is what reminded me of this maxim.
If you want a really, really thorough examination of cuius est solum then you need only look to the very extensive discussion by Lord Hope at paragraphs 8 to 27 of the UK Supreme Court's decision in Star Energy Weald Basin Limited and another v Bocardo SA [2010] UKSC 35. I can't help but feel that His Lordship leapt at the chance to finally write his monograph on 'The Development of the Cuius est Solum Doctrine, 1250-2009'.
Incidentally, the Star Energy case concerned oil extraction from under land in Surrey (yes, we have oil where I come from). The oil field in question is Palmers Wood, but as this story notes part of it lies under the Oxted Estate, owned by... Mohamed Al Fayed. The exploration company was drilling from nearby but for maximum extraction it had to drill sideways to the apex of the oil field, and that was the bit under Mr Al Fayed's land. At this point, having seen There Will Be Blood, I have the image of Daniel-Day Lewis taunting Mohamed Al Fayed with "I drink your milkshake!".
I mentioned this case over on Facebook and my old university chum Simon Spero helpfully pointed me at 'The Great Onyx Cave Cases - A Micro-History' by Professor Bruce Ziff of the University of Alberta's Faculty of Law. One of many battles in the Kentucky Cave Wars, Edwards v Sims (1929) 24 S.W.2d 619 was a case on subterranean trespass, and a fascinating story it is too, not least in respect of the wonderfully-named Justice Marvel Logan. And, although it's not evident from the decision as posted on BAILLI, the fully-referenced report in the All England Law Reports confirms, as Prof Ziff notes, that the Kentucky case was indeed cited to the UK Supreme Court.
