Legal Dictionary

illegal

1) adj. in violation of statute, regulation or ordinance, which may be criminal or merely not in conformity. Thus, an armed robbery is illegal, and so is an access road which is narrower than the county allows, but the violation is not criminal. 2) status of a person residing in a country of which he/she is not a citizen and who has no official permission to be there.

illusory promise

n. an agreement to do something that is so indefinite one cannot tell what is to be done or the performance is optional (usually because it is just a gesture and not a true agreement). Therefore, the other party need not perform or pay since he/she got nothing in what he/she may have thought was a contract.

immediately

adv. 1) at once. 2) in orders of the court or in contracts it means "as soon as can be done" without excuse.

impanel

v. to select and install a jury.

impeach

v. 1) to discredit the testimony of a witness by proving that he/she has not told the truth or has been inconsistent, by introducing contrary evidence, including statements made outside of the courtroom in depositions or in statements of the witness heard by another. 2) to charge a public official with a public crime for which the punishment is removal from office.

impleader

n. a procedural device before trial in which a party brings a third party into the lawsuit because that third party is the one who owes money to an original defendant, which money will be available to pay the original plaintiff. The theory is that two cases may be decided together and justice may be done more efficiently than having two suits in a series.

implied consent

n. consent when surrounding circumstances exist which would lead a reasonable person to believe that this consent had been given, although no direct, express or explicit words of agreement had been uttered. Examples: a) a "contract" based on the fact that one person has been doing a particular thing and the other person expects him/her to continue; b) the defense in a "date rape" case in which there is a claim of assumed consent due to absence of protest or a belief that "no" really meant "yes," "maybe" or "later."

implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing

n. a general assumption of the law of contracts, that people will act in good faith and deal fairly without breaking their word, using shifty means to avoid obligations or denying what the other party obviously understood. A lawsuit (or one of the causes of action in a lawsuit) based on the breach of this covenant is often brought when the other party has been claiming technical excuses for breaching the contract or using the specific words of the contract to refuse to perform when the surrounding circumstances or apparent understanding of the parties were to the contrary. Example: an employer fires a long-time employee without cause and says it can fire at whim because the employment contract states the employment is "at will." However, the employee was encouraged to join the company on the basis of retirement plans and other conduct which led him/her to believe the job was permanent barring misconduct or financial downturn. Thus, there could be a breach of the implied covenant, since the surrounding circumstances implied that there would be career-long employment.

impossibility

n. when an act cannot be performed due to nature, physical impediments or unforeseen events. It can be a legitimate basis to rescind (mutually cancel) a contract.

impound

v. 1) to collect funds, in addition to installment payments, from a person who owes a debt secured by property, and place them in a special account to pay property taxes and insurance when due. This protects the lender or seller from the borrower's possible failure to keep up the insurance or a mounting tax bill which is a lien on the property. 2) to take away records, money or property, such as an automobile or building, by government action pending the outcome of a criminal prosecution. The records may be essential evidence, or the money or property may be forfeit to the state as in illegal drug cases.

impute

v.(1) to attach to a person responsibility (and therefore financial liability) for acts or injuries to another, because of a particular relationship, such as mother to child, guardian to ward, employer to employee or business associates. Example: a 16-year-old boy drives his father's car without a license and runs someone down. The child's negligence may be imputed to the parent 2) to attribute knowledge and/or notice to a person only because of his/her relationship to the one actually possessing the information. Example: if a partner in a business is informed of something, that knowledge is imputed to his/her partner, and the partner is expected to have the information also

in camera

adj. or adv. phrase. Latin for "in chambers." This refers to a hearing or discussions with the judge in the privacy of his chambers (office rooms) or when spectators and jurors have been excluded from the courtroom.

in extremis

(in ex-tree-miss) adj. from Latin, facing imminent death.

in forma pauperis

(in form-ah paw-purr-iss) adj. or adv. Latin for "in the form of a pauper," referring to a party to a lawsuit who gets filing fees waived by filing a declaration of lack of funds (has no money to pay). These declarations are most often found in divorces by young marrieds or poor defendants who have been sued.

in kind

adj. referring to payment, distribution or substitution of things in lieu of money, a combination of goods and money, or money instead of an article. It is an expression often found in wills and trusts, which empowers the executor or trustee to make distribution to beneficiaries "in kind" according to his/her discretion as long as the value is equivalent to the value intended to be given to each beneficiary. This is important since it allows distribution of furniture, heirlooms, stocks and bonds, automobiles or even real property (as well as money) among the beneficiaries without selling assets to get cash.

in limine

(in lim-in-ay) from Latin for "at the threshold," referring to a motion before a trial begins. A motion to suppress illegally obtained evidence is such a motion.

in pari delicto

adv. (in pah-ree dee-lick-toe) Latin for "in equal fault," which means that two (or more) people are all at fault or are all guilty of a crime. In contract law, if the fault is more or less equal then neither party can claim breach of the contract by the other; in an accident, neither can collect damages, unless the fault is more on one than the other under the rule of "comparative negligence"; in defense of a criminal charge, one defendant will have a difficult time blaming the other for inducing him or her into the criminal acts if the proof is that both were involved.

in personam

adj. (in purr-soh-nam) from Latin for "directed toward a particular person." In a lawsuit in which the case is against a specific individual, that person must be served with a summons and complaint to give the court jurisdiction to try the case, and the judgment applies to that person and is called an "in personam judgment." In personam is distinguished from in rem, which applies to property or "all the world" instead of a specific person. This technical distinction is important to determine where to file a lawsuit and how to serve a defendant. In personam means that a judgment can be enforceable against the person wherever he/she is. On the other hand, if the lawsuit is to determine title to property (in rem) then the action must be filed where the property exists and is only enforceable there.

in propria persona

adj. from Latin "for one's self," acting on one's own behalf, generally used to identify a person who is acting as his/her own attorney in a lawsuit. The popular abbreviation is "in pro per." In the filed legal documents (pleadings), the party's name, address and telephone number are written where the name, address and telephone number of the attorney would normally be stated. The words "in propria persona" or "in pro per" are typed where normally it would say "attorney for plaintiff".

in rem

adj. from Latin "against or about a thing," referring to a lawsuit or other legal action directed toward property, rather than toward a particular person. Thus, if title to property is the issue, the action is "in rem." The term is important since the location of the property determines which court has jurisdiction and enforcement of a judgment must be upon the property and does not follow a person. "In rem" is different from "in personam," which is directed toward a particular person.

in toto

(in toe-toe)adj. Latin for "completely" or "in total," referring to the entire thing, as in "the goods were destroyed in toto," or "the case was dismissed in toto."

incest

n. sexual intercourse between close blood relatives, including brothers and sisters, parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren, or aunts or uncles with nephews or nieces. However, it is often co-existent with sexual abuse since usually the younger person is a victim of the predatory sexual activities of an older relative.

incidental beneficiary

n. someone who obtains a benefit as the result of the main purpose of the trust. Example: the co-owner of property with a named beneficiary may benefit from moneys provided to improve the building they jointly own, or a grandchild might benefit from his/her parent receiving a gift which could be used by the entire family, or which he/she may inherit from the parent.

income tax

n. a tax on an individual's net income, after deductions for various expenses and payments such as charitable gifts, calculated on a formula which takes into consideration whether it is paid jointly by a married couple, the number of dependents of the taxpayers, special breaks for disabilities and other factors.

incompatible

adj. 1) inconsistent. 2) unmatching. 3) unable to live together as husband and wife due to irreconcilable differences. In no-fault divorce states, if one of the spouses desires to end the marriage, that fact proves incompatibility, and a divorce (dissolution) will be granted even though the other spouse does not want a divorce. The term also has the general meaning that two people do not get along with each other.