Law
In law, it is a term of art used to identify a legal classification that exists independently of other categorizations because of its singularity or due to the specific creation of an entitlement or obligation. For example, a court's contempt powers arise sui generis and not from statute or rule. The New York Court of Appeals has used the term in describing cooperative apartment corporations, mostly because this form of housing is considered real property for some purposes and personal property for other purposes.
When citing cases and other authorities, lawyers and judges may say a sui generis case, or a sui generis authority, meaning it is a special one confined to its own facts, and therefore may not be of broader application. This is the modern view courts are holding when deciding judgments based on oil and gas leases.
Read more about this topic: Sui Generis
Famous quotes containing the word law:
“The law is equal before all of us; but we are not all equal before the law. Virtually there is one law for the rich and another for the poor, one law for the cunning and another for the simple, one law for the forceful and another for the feeble, one law for the ignorant and another for the learned, one law for the brave and another for the timid, and within family limits one law for the parent and no law at all for the child.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“You’ve just fulfilled the first role of law enforcement. Make sure when your shift is over you go home alive.”
—David Mamet, U.S. screenwriter, and Brian DePlama. Jimmy Malone (Sean Connery)
“These, having not the law, are a law unto themselves.”
—Bible: New Testament St. Paul, in Romans, 2:14.