Civil Law Defenses
See also: Category:Equitable defensesIn common law, a defendant may raise any of the numerous defenses to limit or avoid liability. These include:
- Lack of personal or subject matter jurisdiction of the court, such as diplomatic immunity.
- Failure to state a cause of action or other insufficiencies of pleading.
- Any of the affirmative defenses.
- Defenses conferred by statute - such as a statute of limitations or the statute of frauds.
- Ex turpi causa non oritur actio - the action against the defendant arises from an illegality.
- Volenti non fit injuria - consent by the victim or plaintiff.
In addition to defenses against prosecution and liability, a defendant may also raise a defense of justification - such as self-defense and defense of others or defense of property.
Read more about this topic: Defense (legal)
Famous quotes containing the words civil law, civil, law and/or defenses:
“Just what is the civil law? What neither influence can affect, nor power break, nor money corrupt: were it to be suppressed or even merely ignored or inadequately observed, no one would feel safe about anything, whether his own possessions, the inheritance he expects from his father, or the bequests he makes to his children.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (10643 B.C.)
“Colonel Shaw
and his bell-cheeked Negro infantry
on St. Gaudens shaking Civil War relief,
propped by a plank splint against the garages earthquake.”
—Robert Lowell (19171977)
“I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one state, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.”
—Andrew Jackson (17671845)
“We are a nation of politicians, concerned about the outmost defenses only of freedom. It is our childrens children who may perchance be really free.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)