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i.e.
prep. abbreviation for id est, which is Latin for "that is" or "that is to say." It is used to expand or explain a general term as in "his children (i.e. Matthew, Mark, Luke and Joan)." It should not be confused with "e.g.," which means "for example.
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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.
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illegal immigrant
n. an alien (non-citizen) who has entered the United States without government permission or stayed beyond the termination date of a visa.
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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.
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immaterial
adj. a commonly heard objection to introducing evidence in a trial on the ground that it had nothing substantial to do with the case or any issue in the case. It can also apply to any matter (such as an argument or complaint) in a lawsuit which has no bearing on the issues to be decided in a trial. The public is often surprised at what is immaterial, such as references to a person's character or bad deeds in other situations.
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immediately
adv. 1) at once. 2) in orders of the court or in contracts it means "as soon as can be done" without excuse.
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immunity
n. exemption from penalties, payments or legal requirements, granted by authorities or statutes. Generally there are three types of immunity at law: a) a promise not to prosecute for a crime in exchange for information or testimony in a criminal matter, granted by the prosecutors, a judge, a grand jury or an investigating legislative committee; b) public officials' protection from liability for their decisions (like a city manager or member of a public hospital board); c) governmental (or sovereign) immunity, which protects government agencies from lawsuits unless the government agreed to be sued; d) diplomatic immunity which excuses foreign ambassadors from most U.S. criminal laws.
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impanel
v. to select and install a jury.
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impaneling
n. the act of selecting a jury from the list of potential jurors, called the "panel" or "venire." The steps are 1) drawing names at random from a large number of jurors called; 2) seating 12 tentative jurors (or fewer where agreed to); 3) hearing individual juror requests for being excused, to be determined by the judge; 4) questions from judge and lawyers for both sides, called "voir dire"; 5) challenges of tentative jurors either for cause (decided by the judge) or peremptory (no reason given) by the lawyers; 6) swearing in the jurors who survive this process.
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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. One President, Andrew Johnson in 1868, was charged with violation of federal laws in a politically motivated impeachment, but was acquitted by the margin of one vote in a trial held by the Senate. President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 rather than face impending impeachment charges brought by the House of Representatives in the Watergate affair, in which he was accused of obstructing the investigation and lying to Congress about his participation. Several federal judges have been impeached and nine have been found guilty by the Senate.
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impeachment
n. 1) discrediting a witness by showing that he/she is not telling the truth or does not have the knowledge to testify as he/she did. 2) the trying of a public official for charges of illegal acts committed in the performance of public duty. It is not the conviction for the alleged crime nor the removal from office. It is only the trial itself.
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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.
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implied
adj., adv. referring to circumstances, conduct or statements of one or both parties which substitute for explicit language to prove authority to act, warranty, promise, trust, agreement, consent or easement, among other things. Thus circumstances "imply" something rather than spell it out.
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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.
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implied contract
n. an agreement which is found to exist based on the circumstances when to deny a contract would be unfair and/or result in unjust enrichment to one of the parties. An implied contract is distinguished from an "express contract.
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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.
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implied warranty
n. an assumption at law that products are "merchantable," meaning they work and are useable as normally expected by consumers, unless there is a warning that they are sold "as is" or second-hand without any warranty. A grant deed of real property carries the implied warranty of good title, meaning the grantor (seller) had a title (ownership) to transfer.
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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.
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impotence
n. the male's inability to copulate. Impotence can be grounds for annulment of a marriage if the condition existed at the time of the marriage and grounds for divorce whenever it occurs under the laws of 26 states. It should not be confused with sterility, which means inability to produce children.
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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.
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improvement
n. any permanent structure on real property, or any work on the property (such as planting trees) which increases its value.
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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, or, in the reverse, a mother drives her car and collides with a truck driven over the speed limit, and her baby in the front seat of the car is badly injured, in part due to not being put in a safety seat with a seat belt. The mother's negligence can be imputed to the child in any claim on behalf of the child against the truck driver. 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.
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in absentia
(in ab-sensh-ee-ah) adj. or adv. phrase. Latin for "in absence," or more fully, in one's absence. Occasionally a criminal trial is conducted without the defendant being present when he/she walks out or escapes after the trial has begun, since the accused has thus waived the constitutional right to face one's accusers. During the war crimes trials following World War II, it was employed against Nazis who had committed atrocities and then disappeared, the most famous being Martin Bormann, Hitler's closest aide.
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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.
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in chambers
adj. referring to discussions or hearings held in the judge's office, called his chambers. It is also called "in camera.
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in extremis
(in ex-tree-miss) adj. from Latin, facing imminent death.
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in fee simple
adj. referring to holding clear title to real property.
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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.
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in haec verba
(in hike verb-ah)prep. Latin for "in these words," which refers to stating the exact language of an agreement in a complaint or other pleading rather than attaching a copy of the agreement as an exhibit incorporated into the pleading.
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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. Example: Edward Doright dies with a will that leaves his estate equally to his two daughters and a son. He has a house worth $150,000, cash of $100,000, art works valued at $50,000, two cars at $10,000 each, $150,000 in stocks, and jewelry appraised at $25,000. Since the total value is $495,000, the executor can thus divide this up by giving each child things and money valued at $165,000. The one taking the house would then get a car and $5,000 cash, etc. In this way gifts can be distributed most appropriately to the needs of the recipients. The "in kind" provision may avoid the potential low value returns from estate sales and the cost of real estate commissions.
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