Fundamental Legal Concepts Flashcards
What scheme is used to analyse rights and other legal terms?
Wesley N Hohfeld ‘Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning’ (1913, 1917)
What will a complete statement of a legal position contain?
(a) the person holding the position
(b) the actual position
(c) the action that is the content of the position
(d) the other person relative to whom the position is held
‘Audrey has, towards Benedict, a duty to pay him £50’
Name what Audrey’s duty is relative to?
(a) Benedict
(b) the actin of paying him £50
‘Audrey has, towards Benedict, a duty to pay him £50’
Name the correlative side of this legal relation.
‘Benedict has, against Audrey, a right to be paid £50’
What is a claim right?
- right in the strict sense of the word
- always concerns an action or omission by someone else
- correlative of a further
‘Audrey has, towards Benedict, a duty to pay him £50’
Negate this sentence
‘It is not the case that Audrey has, towards Benedict, a duty to pay him £50’
The negation of a legal position is…
- a legal position itself
- known as liberty or privilege
How is the term liberty applied?
- the negation of a duty to do something is a liberty not to do it
- the negation of a duty not to do something is a liberty to do it
‘It is not the case that Audrey has, towards Benedict, a duty to pay him £50’
What could this be reworked as?
‘Audrey has, towards Benedict, a liberty not to pay him £50’
Whose action do ‘claim rights’ refer to?
Always refer to someone else’s action (the duty holder)
Whose action do ‘liberties’ refer to?
Always refer to the liberty holders own action
‘Audrey has, against Benedict, a liberty not not to assault him’
What is the correct formulation of this?
‘Audrey has, against Benedict, a liberty to assault Benedict’
What is the correlative position of a duty?
A right
What is the contradictory position of a duty?
A liberty not
What is the correlative position of a liberty not?
A no-right
What is the contradictory position of a no-right?
A right
‘A has, towards B, a duty not to hit B below the belt’
What is B’s correlative position?
‘B has, against A, a right not to be hit by A below the belt’
‘A has, against B, a right not to be hit by A below the belt’
What is B’s correlative position?
‘B has, towards A, a duty not to hit B below the belt’
‘A has, against B, a liberty to hit B according to the rules’
What is B’s correlative position?
‘B has, against A, a no-right not to be hit by A according to the rules’
‘A has, against B, a no-right not to be hit according to the rules’
What is B’s correlative position?
‘B has, against A, a liberty to hit A according to the rules’
What is the simple definition of a legal relation?
The relation that holds between two persons who occupy correlative positions
Is not having a legal position itself, a legal position?
- Yes
- so, when we deny that someone has a certain position, we assert that they have the contradictory position (it is not the case that)
Complete the sentence
If I have a right…
Someone else has a duty (vice versa)
Complete the sentence
If I have a liberty…
I don’t have a duty
According to Holfeldian ethics, what is a multital right?
When the class of duty-holders is indefinite (as in the idea of a right held against “everyone”), each one of the separate but indefinitely numerous rights is called by Hohfeld a “multital” right.
According to Holfeldian ethics, what is a paucital right?
When someone holds several similar rights against a definite class of duty-holders, each of those separate rights is called a “paucital” right
According to Holfeldian ethics, what is a unital right?
a unique right against a single,
definite person is called a “unital” right
Complete the sentence:
The negation of a duty to do something is a _____ to do it
liberty not
Complete the sentence:
The negation of a duty not to do something is a _____ to do it
liberty
