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acquired surplus The surplus gained by the purchase of another business.

acquiredfederal land (usu. pI.) Federal land that was never in the public domain. See federal land.

acquired-rights doctrine The principle that once a right has vested, it may not be reduced by later legislation. The Universal Copyright Convention applies the doctrine to copyright protections, esp. terms, that controlled before the Convention took effect. Also termed doctrine of acquired rights.

acquirenda n. pl. [Latin] Hist. Things to be gained by purchase.

acquisita et acquirenda (a-kwiz-i-ta et ak-wa-ren-da). [taw Latin] Scots law. Things acquired and to be acquired. Certain legal actions (such as inhibition) affected both acquired property and property to be acqUired while some actions (such as seizure) affected only property that had already been acquired.

acquisition 1. The gaining of possession or control over something <acquisition of the target company's assets>. 2. Something acquired <a valuable acquisition>.

acquisition cost See COST (1).

acquisition cost- 1. An asset's net price; the original cost of an asset. - Also termed historical cost; original cost. 2. See LOAD.

acquisitive offense An offense characterized by the unlawful appropriation of anothers property. This is a generic term that refers to a variety of crimes (such as larceny) rather than a particular one.

acquisitive offense See OFFENSE (1).

acquisitive prescription (a-kwiz-a-tiv). 1. PRESCRIP¬TION (5). 2. Civil law. A mode of acquiring ownership or other legal rights through possession for a specified period of time.

acquisitive prescription See PRESCRIPTION (5).

acquist (a-kwist), n. Hist. The act ofobtaining (a thing); acquisition. The idiomatic tendency is to use acquist for the action and acquet for the result. Cf. ACQUET.

acquit 1. To clear (a person) of a criminal charge. 2. To payor discharge (a debt or claim).

acquittal 1.The legal certification, usu. by jury verdict, that an accused person is not guilty of the charged offense.

acquittal in fact An acquittal by a jury verdict of not guilty.

acquittal in law An acquittal by operation of law, as of someone who has been charged merely as an accessory after the principal has been acquitted.

acquittance A document by which one is discharged from a debt or other obligation; a receipt or release indicating payment in full. - acquit, vb.

acquitted adj. 1. Judicially discharged from an accusation; absolved. 2. Released from a debt.

acre 1. An area of land measuring 43,560 square feet. Cf. COMMERCIAL ACRE.

acre foot A volume measurement in irrigation, equal to the amount of water that will cover one acre of land in one foot of water (325,850 gallons).

acre right Hist. In New England,a citizen's share in the common lands.The value of the acre right varied among towns but was fixed in each town. A 10-acre lot in a certain town was equivalent to 113 acres of upland and 12 acres of meadow, and an exact proportion was maintained between the acre right and salable land.

acreage contribution agreement Oil & gas. A support agreement under which one party promises to grant leases or interest in leases in the area of a test well to the party who drills the test well in exchange for drilling or geological information if the test well is drilled to a certain depth. See SUPPORT AGREEMENT.

across the board adj. Applying to all classes, categories, or groups <an across-the-board tax cut>.

acrs abbr. ACCELERATED COST-RECOVERY SYSTEM.

act 1. Something done or performed, esp. voluntarily; a deed. Also termed action. "'[A]ct' or 'action' means a bodily movement whether voluntary or involuntary ...." Model Penal Code § 1.13. 2. The process of doing or performing; an occurrence that results from a person's will being exerted on the external world; ACTION (2). - Also termed positive act; act of commission. "The term act is one of ambiguous import, being used in various senses of different degrees of generality. When it is said, however, that an act is one of the essential conditions of liability, we use the term in the widest sense of which it is capable. We mean by it any event which is subject to the control of the human will. Such a definition is, indeed, not ultimate, but it is sufficient for the purpose of the law:' John Salmond. jurisprudence 367 (Glanville L. Williams ed., 10th ed. 1947). 'The word 'act' is used throughout the Restatement of this Subject to denote an external manifestation of the actor's will and does not include any of its results, even the most direct, immediate, and intended." Restatement (Second) of Torts § 2 (1965).

act and deed 1. A formally delivered written instrument that memorializes a bargain or transaction. 2. Hist. Words in a traditional spoken formula used when signing a legal instrument. Immediately after signing, the party would touch the seal and declare, "I deliver this as my act and deed."

act and warrant Scots law. A sheriff's order appointing a trustee in bankruptcy, upon which the trustee assumes office and becomes vested with the bankruptcy estate.

act in pais (in pay). [Law French] An act performed out of court, such as a deed made between two parties on the land being transferred. See IN PAIS.

act in the law An act that is intended to create, transfer, or extinguish a right and that is effective in law for that purpose; the exercise of a legal power. Also termed juristic act; act of the party; legal act.

act of adjournal Scots law. A regulation issued by the High Court ofJusticiary to regulate procedure both in that court and in the lower criminal courts.

Act of Assembly Scots law. A piece oflegislation passed by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland for governing the affairs of that church and its members.

act of attainder See BILL OF ATTAINDER.

act of bankruptcy An event, such as a debtor's fraudulent conveyance of property, that an involuntary bankruptcy proceeding against a debtor . The 1978 Bankruptcy Reform Act abolished this requirement as a condition to an involuntary bankruptcy proceeding.

act of commission See ACT (2).

act of Congress A law that is formally enacted in accordance with the legislative power granted to Congress by the U.S. Constitution.To become a law, or an act of Congress, a bill or resolution must be passed by a majority of the members ofboth the House of Representatives and the Senate. Bills or resolutions may generally be introduced in either chamber, except that bills for generating revenue must be introduced in the House of Representatives. When a bill or resolution is introduced in a chamber, it is usu. assigned to a committee. If it is passed by the committee, it is reported to the full chamber. If it passes in the full chamber, it is reported to the other chamber, which then usu. assigns it to a committee in that chamber. If it passes by majority votes of the committee and full body in that chamber, it is reported back to the originating chamber. If its terms have changed in the second chamber, it is submitted to a conference committee, consisting of members from both chambers, to work out a compromise. When the bill or resolution is passed, with the same terms, by both chambers, it is signed by the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate (usu. the President Pro Tempore), and is presented to the President of the United States for signature. Ifthe President signs it or fails to return it to Congress within ten days, the bill or resolution becomes law. But if the President vetoes the bill or resolution, it must be passed by a two-thirds majority of the House of Representatives and the Senate to become law. U.S. Const. art. I, § 7; 3 The Guide to American Law 165-66 (West 1983).

act of court See JUDICIAL ACT.

act of court- 1. See judicial act under ACT. 2. Scots law. A memorandum setting forth the proceedings in a lawsuit. 3. Scots law. A rule made by a sheriff regulating proceedings within the sheriffalty.

act of God An overwhelming, unpreventable event caused exclusively by forces of nature, such as an earthquake, flood, or tornado. The definition has been statutorily broadened to include all natural phenomena that are exceptional, inevitable. and irresistible, the effects of which could not be prevented or avoided by the exercise of due care or foresight. 42 USCA § 9601(1). Also termed act of nature; act of providence; superiorforce; vis major; irresistible superhuman force; vis divina. Cf. FORCE MAJEURE; unavoidable accident under ACCIDENT. "Act of God may be defined as an operation of natural forces so unexpected that no human foresight or skill could reasonably be expected to anticipate it. It has been suggested that it also has the wider meaning of 'any event which could not have been prevented by reasonable care on the part of anyone.' This nearly identifies it with inevitable accident, but. however desirable this may be for SCientific arrangement of the law, there is no sufficient authority to back this View." P.H. Winfield, A Textbook of the Law of Tort § 16, at 45-46 (5th ed. 1950). "As a technical term, 'act of God' is untheological and infelicitous. It is an operation of 'natural forces' and this is apt to be confusing in that it might imply positive intervention of the deity. This (at any rate in common understanding) is apparent in exceptionally severe snowfalls, thunderstorms and gales. But a layman would hardly describe the gnawing of a rat as an act of God, and yet the lawyer may, in some circumstances, style it such. The fact is that in law the essence of an act of God is not so much a positive intervention of the deity as a process of nature not due to the act of man, and it is this negative side which needs emphasis." P.H. Winfield, A Textbook of the Law of Tort § 16, at 47 (5th ed. 1950).

act of God. See ACT OF GOD.

act of grace An act of clemency; esp., such an act performed at the beginning of a monarch's reign or at some other Significant occasion.

act of honor Commercial law. A transaction, memorialized in an instrument prepared by a notary public, evidencing a third person's agreement to accept, for the credit of one or more of the parties, a bill that has been protested. The UCC eliminated this type of transaction.

act of hostility An event that may be considered an adequate cause for war; CASUS BELLI. Also termed hostile act.

act of hostility. See ACT OF HOSTILITY.

act of indemnity 1. A statute that relieves specified persons, esp. government officials, from some penalty to which they might be subject as a result of haVing exceeded their powers or having otherwise acted illegally. 2. A statute that compensates persons for damage incurred as a result of either some public measure or government service.

act of law See act of the law.

act of -law 1. See act of the law under ACT. 2. See LEGAL ACT.

act of legislation 1. A formal change in the law that existed previously. 2. A statute.

act of nature 1. See ACT OF GOD. 2. See VIS MAJOR.

act of omission See negative act under ACT.

act of omission. \See negative act.

act of Parliament A law made bv the British sovereign, with the advice and consent of the Lords and the Commons; a British statute.

act of Parliament of Scotland 1. A statute passed by the Parliament of Scotland between its creation in the 14th century and 1707. 2. ACT OF THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT.

act of petition A summary proceeding in which litigants provide brief statements supported by affidavit. This procedure was used in the English High Court of Admiralty.

act of possession 1. The exercise of physical control over a corporeal thing, movable or immovable, with the intent to own it. 2. Conduct indicating an intent to claim property as one's own; esp., conduct that supports a claim of adverse possession.

act of providence 1. See ACT OF GOD. 2. See VIS MAJOR.

act of sale An official record of a sale of property; esp., a document drawn up by a notary, signed by the parties, and attested by witnesses.

act of sederunt (sa-deer-ant). Scots law. A regulation issued by the Court of Session to regulate procedure in that court or in the lower civil courts.

Act of Settlement An act of Parliament (12 & 13 Will. 3, ch. 2, 1701) that resolved the question of royal succession unsettled after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The question was resolved by limiting the Crown to Protestant members of the House of Hanover. The Act also provided that the sovereign must be a member of the Church of England, and it established that judges would hold office during good behavior rather than at the will of the sovereign.

Act of Supremacy A statute that named the English sovereign as supreme head of the Church of England (26 Hen. 8, ch. 1). The Act was passed in 1534 during Henry VIII's reign and confirmed in 1559 (1 Eliz., ch. 1) to counteract pro Catholic legislation enacted during the reign of Mary Tudor. In addition to making the monarch both head of state and head of the church, the Act defined some of the monarch's powers as head of the church, such as the power to issue injunctions relating to ecclesiastical affairs.

act of the law The creation, extinction, or transfer of a right by the operation of the law itself, without any consent on the part of the persons concerned. Also termed legal act; act of law. Cf. LEGAL ACT.

act of the law- See ACT.

act of the party See act in the law.

act of- the party See act in the law under ACT.

act of the Scottish Parliament A statute passed by the Parliament of Scotland created by the Scotland Act of 1998. It is typically cited by year, the letters ASP, and a serial number. Also termed act of Parliament of Scotland.

Act of Uniformity Any of several 16th- and 17th century acts mandating uniform religious practices in England and Ireland; specif., an act requiring the use of the Book of Common Prayer.

Act of Union Any of several acts of Parliament uniting various parts of Great Britain . The term applies to (1) the Laws in Wales Act (1535), which united Wales with England and made that principality subject to English law, and (2) the Union with Ireland Act (1800), which abolished the Irish Parliament and incorporated Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It is used loosely in reference to the Union with Scotland in 1707, which was made not by statute but by treaty, approved by separate acts of the parliaments of Scotland and England. The treaty dissolved each parliament and created the new state of Great Britain with one parliament, the Parliament of Great Britain.

acta diurna (ak-ta dl-ar-na). [Latin" daily proceedings"] Roman law. A public register of the daily proceedings of the senate, assemblies of the people, or the courts.

acta publica (ak-ta pab-li-ka), n. pl. [Latin] Roman & civil law. Things of general knowledge and concern; matters transacted before certain public officers.

acte- (akt), n. [French], French law. 1. An instrument; a proof in writing, such as a deed, bill of sale, or birth certificate.

acte authentique (akt oh-tawn-teek). A deed executed with certain prescribed formalities, in the presence of a notary or other official.

acte de deces (akt da day-say). A death certificate.

acte de francisation (akt da frangk-a-za-syawn). A certificate confirming that a ship is of French nationality.

acte de mariage (akt da mar-yahzh). A marriage certificate.

acte de naissance (akt da nay-sants). A birth certificate.

acte de notoriete A deposition made before a notary to record and preserve a claim, usu. to property . Historically, most actes de notoriete were conducted to establish the identity and genealogy of a purported heir. The depositions were subject to exclusion as hearsay. But an acte de notoriete may also appear in a chain of title. See United States v. Repentigny, 72 U.S. 211 (1866).

acte d'heritier (akt day-ri-tyay). [French "act of an heir"] Conduct by an heir indicating an intent to accept the succession.

acte extrajudiciaire (akt eks-tra-zhuu-dee-syair). A document served by a huissier at the request of one party on another party without legal proceedings. See HUISSIER (1).

acting adj. Holding an interim position; serving temporarily <an acting director>.

acting charge d'affaires See CHARGE D'AFFAIRES.

acting charge d'affaires- A charge d'affaires who performs mission functions when the leader of the mission is not available to do so or when the position is vacant. Also termed charges d'affaires ad interim.

acting executor See EXECUTOR.

acting executor- One who assumes the role of executor usu. temporarily but is not the legally appointed executor or the executor-in-fact. Also termed temporary executor.

acting officer See OFFICER (1).

acting officer One performing the duties of an office usu. temporarily - but who has no claim of title to the office.

act-in-pais See ACT.

actio (ak-shee-oh also ak-tee-oh), n. [Latin] 1. Roman & civil law. An action; a right or claim. 2. A right of action. 3. Hist. At common law, a lawsuit. PI. actiones (ak-shee-oh-neez).

actio de communi dividundo (ak-shee-oh dee ka-myoo-ni di-vi-dan-doh). [Latin "for dividing a thing held in common"] Roman & civil law. An action to partition common property. Sometimes shortened to de communi dividundo. See ADJUDICATIO. PI. actiones de communi dividundo.

actio exercitoria (ak-shee-oh eg-zar-si-tor-ee-a). Roman law. An action against the owner or lessee (exercitor) of a vessel, esp. for contracts made by the master. PI. actiones exercitoriae.

actio redhibitoria (ak-shee-oh red-i-bi-tor-ee-a). Roman & civil law. An action for restoration to cancel a sale because of defects in the thing sold. Cf. actio quanti minoris. PI. actiones redhibitoriae.

actio vulgaris (ak-shee-oh val-gair-is). Hist. An ordinary action, as opposed to one granted in special circumstances. PI. actiones vulgares.

actio ad exhibendum (ak-shee-oh ad ek-si-ben-dam). Roman law. An action to compel a defendant to produce property so as to establish that it is in the defendant's possession. PI. actiones ad exhibendum.

actio aestimatoria (ak-shee-oh es-ti-ma-tor-ee-a). See DE AESTIMATO.

actio arbitraria (ak-shee-oh ahr-bi-trair-ee-a). Roman law. An action in which a judex issued an interlocutory decree ordering the defendant to do something (such as restoring property to the plaintiff) on pain of a monetary judgment payable to the plaintiff. This action was so called because the judex could assess the damage at a high figure if the defendant failed to comply with the interlocutory order. PI. actiones arbitrariae (ak-shee-oh-neez ahr-bi-trair-ee-I).

actio auctoritas (ak-shee-oh awk-tor-i-tas). Roman law. A seller's guarantee against eviction from mancipated land coupled with a promise to pay twice the sale price as damages if the buyer is evicted. The guarantee was implicit in the mancipation process. See MANCIPATION.

actio bonae fidei (ak-shee-oh boh-nee fI-dee-I). Roman law. One of a class of actions in which a judge could take equitable considerations into account in rendering a decision. PI. actiones bonae fidei.

actio calumniae (ak-shee-oh ka-lam-nee-ee). Roman law. An action to restrain, or collect damages for, a malicious civil suit. The victim could also pursue criminal charges. PI. actiones calumniae. See CALUMNIA.

actio civilis (ak-shee-oh sa-vI-lis). [Latin "a civil action"] Roman law. An action founded on the traditional Roman law, rather than the innovations of magistrates. Cf. actio honoraria. PI. actiones civiles.

actio commodati (ak-shee-oh kom-a-day-ti). [Latin "action on loan"] Roman law. An action for the recovery ofa thing gratuitously lent but not returned to the lender. Also termed commodati actio. See COMMODATUM. Pi. actiones commodati.

actio commodati contraria (ak-shee-oh kom-a-day-tI kan-trair-ee-a). Roman law. An action by a gratuitous borrower against a lender for extraordinary expenses or damage caused by the lender'S default. PI. actiones commodati contrariae.