SUMMARY.
| Precedents | Declaratory—evidence of old law. | |
| Original—sources of new law. | ||
| The declaratory theory of precedent. | ||
| Precedents | Authoritative. | |
| Foreign decisions. | ||
| Persuasive | Decisions in other parts of the Empire. | |
| Privy Council decisions. | ||
| Judicial dicta. | ||
| Precedents | Absolutely authoritative | Decisions of superior Court. |
| Decisions of House of Lords. | ||
| Decisions of Court of Appeal. | ||
| Conditionally authoritative—All others. | ||
| Conditions of the disregard of a precedent. | ||
| 1. Decisions erroneous | Contrary to law. | |
| Unreasonable. | ||
| 2. Rejection of it not mischievous as unsettling the law. | ||
| Effect of lapse of time on precedents. | ||
| Distinction between overruling and refusing to follow. | ||
| Precedents constitutive and not abrogative. | ||
| Qualifications of the rule. | ||
| Ground of the authority of precedent. | ||
| The progressive transformation of fact into law. | ||
| Rationes decidendi. | ||
| The determination of questions on principle and on authority. | ||
| Judicial dicta contrasted with judicial decisions. | ||
| Sources of judicial principles. | ||
| Respective functions of judge and jury. | ||
CHAPTER X.
LEGAL RIGHTS.
§ 70. Wrongs.
We have seen that the law consists of the principles in accordance with which justice is administered by the state, and that the administration of justice consists in the use of the physical force of the state in enforcing rights and punishing the violation of them. The conception of a right is accordingly one of fundamental significance in legal theory, and the purpose of this chapter is to analyse it, and to distinguish its various applications. Before attempting to define a right, however, it is necessary to define two other terms which are closely connected with it, namely, wrong and duty.
A wrong is simply a wrong act—an act contrary to the rule of right and justice. A synonym of it is injury, in its true and primary sense of injuria (that which is contrary to jus), though by a modern perversion of meaning this term has acquired the secondary sense of harm or damage (damnum) whether rightful or wrongful, and whether inflicted by human agency or not.
Wrongs or injuries are divisible for our present purpose into two kinds, being either moral or legal. A moral or natural wrong is an act which is morally or naturally wrong, being contrary to the rule of natural justice. A legal wrong is an act which is legally wrong, being contrary to the rule of legal justice and a violation of the law. It is an act which is authoritatively determined to be wrong by a rule of law, and is therefore treated as a wrong in and for the purposes of the administration of justice by the state. It may or may not be a wrong in deed and in truth, and conversely a moral wrong may or may not be a wrong in law. Natural and legal wrongs, like natural and legal justice, form intersecting circles, this discordance between law and fact being partly intentional and partly the result of imperfect historical development.
In all ordinary cases the legal recognition of an act as a wrong involves the suppression or punishment of it by the physical force of the state, this being the essential purpose for which the judicial action of the state is ordained. We shall see later, however, that such forcible constraint is not an invariable or essential incident, and that there are other possible forms of effective legal recognition. The essence of a legal wrong consists in its recognition as wrong by the law, not in the resulting suppression or punishment of it. A legal wrong is a violation of justice according to law.
§ 71. Duties.
A duty is an obligatory act, that is to say, it is an act the opposite of which would be a wrong. Duties and wrongs are correlatives. The commission of a wrong is the breach of a duty, and the performance of a duty is the avoidance of a wrong. A synonym of duty is obligation, in its widest sense, although in a special and technical application the latter term denotes one particular kind of duty only, as we shall see later.
Duties, like wrongs, are of two kinds, being either moral or legal. A moral or natural duty is an act the opposite of which would be a moral or natural wrong. A legal duty is an act the opposite of which would be a legal wrong. It is an act recognised as a duty by the law, and treated as such in and for the purposes of the administration of justice by the state. These two classes are partly coincident and partly distinct. A duty may be moral but not legal, or legal but not moral, or both at once.
When the law recognises an act as a duty, it commonly enforces the performance of it, or punishes the disregard of it. But this sanction of legal force is in exceptional cases absent. A duty is legal because it is legally recognised, not necessarily because it is legally enforced or sanctioned. There are legal duties of imperfect obligation, as they are called, which will be considered by us at a later stage of our inquiry.
§ 72. Rights.
A right is an interest recognised and protected by a rule of right. It is any interest, respect for which is a duty, and the disregard of which is a wrong.
All that is right or wrong, just or unjust, is so by reason of its effects upon the interests of mankind,[[170]] that is to say upon the various elements of human well-being, such as life, liberty, health, reputation, and the uses of material objects. If any act is right or just, it is so because and in so far as it promotes some form of human interest. If any act is wrong or unjust, it is because the interests of men are prejudicially affected by it. Conduct which has no influence upon the interests of any one has no significance either in law or morals.
Every wrong, therefore, involves some interest attacked by it, and every duty involves some interest to which it relates, and for whose protection it exists. The converse, however, is not true. Every attack upon an interest is not a wrong, either in fact or in law, nor is respect for every interest a duty, either legal or natural. Many interests exist de facto and not also de jure; they receive no recognition or protection from any rule of right. The violation of them is no wrong, and respect for them is no duty. For the interests of men conflict with each other, and it is impossible for all to receive rightful recognition. The rule of justice selects some for protection, and the others are rejected.
The interests which thus receive recognition and protection from the rules of right are called rights. Every man who has a right to any thing has an interest in it also, but he may have an interest without having a right. Whether his interest amounts to a right depends on whether there exists with respect to it a duty imposed upon any other person. In other words, a right is an interest the violation of which is a wrong.
Every right corresponds to a rule of right, from which it proceeds, and it is from this source that it derives its name. That I have a right to a thing means that it is right that I should have that thing. All right is the right of him for whose benefit it exists, just as all wrong is the wrong of him whose interests are affected by it. In the words of Windscheid,[[171]] “Das Recht ist sein Recht geworden.”
Rights, like wrongs and duties, are either moral or legal. A moral or natural right is an interest recognised and protected by a rule of natural justice—an interest the violation of which would be a moral wrong, and respect for which is a moral duty. A legal right, on the other hand, is an interest recognised and protected by a rule of legal justice—an interest the violation of which would be a legal wrong done to him whose interest it is, and respect for which is a legal duty. “Rights,” says Ihering,[[172]] “are legally protected interests.”
Bentham set the fashion, still followed by many, of denying that there are any such things as natural rights at all. All rights are legal rights and the creation of the law. “Natural law, natural rights,” he says,[[173]] “are two kinds of fictions or metaphors, which play so great a part in books of legislation, that they deserve to be examined by themselves.... Rights properly so called are the creatures of law properly so called; real laws give rise to real rights. Natural rights are the creatures of natural law; they are a metaphor which derives its origin from another metaphor.” “In many of the cultivated,” says Spencer,[[174]] criticising this opinion, “there has been produced a confirmed and indeed contemptuous denial of rights. There are no such things, say they, except such as are conferred by law. Following Bentham, they affirm that the state is the originator of rights, and that apart from it there are no rights.”
A complete examination of this opinion would lead us far into the regions of ethical rather than juridical conceptions, and would here be out of place. It is sufficient to make two observations with respect to the matter. In the first place, he who denies the existence of natural rights must be prepared at the same time to reject natural or moral duties also. Rights and duties are essentially correlative, and if a creditor has no natural right to receive his debt, the debtor is under no moral duty to pay it to him. In the second place, he who rejects natural rights must at the same time be prepared to reject natural right. He must say with the Greek Sceptics that the distinction between right and wrong, justice and injustice, is unknown in the nature of things, and a matter of human institution merely. If there are no rights save those which the state creates, it logically follows that nothing is right and nothing wrong save that which the state establishes and declares as such. If natural justice is a truth and not a delusion, the same must be admitted of natural rights.[[175]]
It is to be noticed that in order that an interest should become a legal right, it must obtain not merely legal protection, but also legal recognition. The interests of beasts are to some extent protected by the law, inasmuch as cruelty to animals is a criminal offence. But beasts are not for this reason possessed of legal rights. The duty of humanity so enforced is not conceived by the law as a duty towards beasts, but merely as a duty in respect of them. There is no bond of legal obligation between mankind and them. The only interest and the only right which the law recognises in such a case is the interest and right of society as a whole in the welfare of the animals belonging to it. He who ill-treats a child violates a duty which he owes to the child, and a right which is vested in him. But he who ill-treats a dog breaks no vinculum juris between him and it, though he disregards the obligation of humane conduct which he owes to society or the state, and the correlative right which society or the state possesses. Similarly a man’s interests may obtain legal protection as against himself, as when drunkenness or suicide is made a crime. But he has not for this reason a legal right against himself. The duty to refrain from drunkenness is not conceived by the law as a duty owing by a man to himself, but as one owing by him to the community. The only interest which receives legal recognition is that of the society in the sobriety of its members.
Although a legal right is commonly accompanied by the power of instituting legal proceedings for the enforcement of it, this is not invariably the case, and does not pertain to the essence of the conception. As we shall see, there are classes of legal rights which are not enforceable by any legal process; for example, debts barred by prescription or the lapse of time. Just as there are imperfect and unenforceable legal duties, so there are imperfect and unenforceable legal rights.
Rights and duties are necessarily correlative. There can be no right without a corresponding duty, or duty without a corresponding right, any more than there can be a husband without a wife, or a father without a child. For every duty must be a duty towards some person or persons, in whom, therefore, a correlative right is vested. And conversely every right must be a right against some person or persons, upon whom, therefore, a correlative duty is imposed. Every right or duty involves a vinculum juris or bond of legal obligation, by which two or more persons are bound together. There can be no duty unless there is some one to whom it is due; there can be no right unless there is some one from whom it is claimed; and there can be no wrong unless there is some one who is wronged, that is to say, whose right has been violated.
We must therefore reject the opinion of those writers who distinguish between relative and absolute duties, the former being those which have rights corresponding to them, and the latter being those which have none.[[176]] This opinion is held by those who conceive it to be of the essence of a right, that it should be vested in some determinate person, and be enforceable by some form of legal process instituted by him. On this view, duties towards the public at large or towards indeterminate portions of the public have no correlative rights; the duty, for example, to refrain from committing a public nuisance. There seems no sufficient reason, however, for defining a right in so exclusive a manner. All duties towards the public correspond to rights vested in the public, and a public wrong is necessarily the violation of a public right. All duties correspond to rights, though they do not all correspond to private rights vested in determinate individuals.
§ 73. The Elements of a Legal Right.
In every legal right the five following elements are involved:—
(1) A person in whom it is vested, and who may be distinguished as the owner of the right, the subject of it, or the person entitled.
(2) A person against whom the right avails, and upon whom the correlative duty lies. He may be distinguished as the person bound, or as the subject of the duty.
(3) An act or omission which is obligatory on the person bound in favour of the person entitled. This may be termed the content of the right.
(4) Some thing to which the act or omission relates, and which may be termed the object or subject-matter of the right.
(5) A title: that is to say, certain facts or events by reason of which the right has become vested in its owner.
Thus if A. buys a piece of land from B., A. is the subject or owner of the right so acquired. The persons bound by the correlative duty are persons in general, for a right of this kind avails against all the world. The content of the right consists in non-interference with the purchaser’s exclusive use of the land. The object or subject-matter of the right is the land. And finally the title of the right is the conveyance by which it was acquired from its former owner.[[177]]
Every right, therefore, involves a threefold relation in which the owner of it stands:—
(1) It is a right against some person or persons.
(2) It is a right to some act or omission of such person or persons.
(3) It is a right over or to some thing to which that act or omission relates.
An ownerless right is an impossibility. There cannot be a right without a subject in whom it inheres, any more than there can be weight without a heavy body; for rights are merely attributes of persons, and can have no independent existence. Yet although this is so, the ownership of a right may be merely contingent or uncertain. The owner of it may be a person indeterminate. He may even be a person who is not yet born, and may therefore never come into existence. Although every right has an owner, it need not have a vested and certain owner. Thus the fee simple of land may be left by will to a person unborn at the death of the testator. To whom does it belong in the meantime? We cannot say that it belongs to no one, for the reasons already indicated. We must say that it is presently owned by the unborn person, but that his ownership is contingent on his birth.
Who is the owner of a debt in the interval between the death of the creditor intestate and the vesting of his estate in an administrator? Roman law in such a case personified the inheritance itself, and regarded the rights contingently belonging to the heir as presently vested in the inheritance by virtue of its fictitious personality. According to English law before the Judicature Act, 1873, the personal property of an intestate, in the interval between death and the grant of letters of administration, was deemed to be vested in the Judge of the Court of Probate, and it may be assumed that it now vests either in the President of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division, or in the Judges of the High Court collectively. But neither the Roman nor the English fiction is essential. There is no difficulty in saying that the estate of an intestate is presently owned by an incerta persona, namely by him who is subsequently appointed the administrator of it. The law, however, abhors a temporary vacuum of vested ownership. It prefers to regard all rights as presently vested in some determinate person, subject, if need be, to be divested on the happening of the event on which the title of the contingent owner depends.[[178]]
Certain writers define the object of a right with such narrowness that they are forced to the conclusion that there are some rights which have no objects. They consider that the object of a right means some material thing to which it relates; and it is certainly true that in this sense an object is not an essential element in the conception. Others admit that a person, as well as a material thing, may be the object of a right; as in the case of a husband’s right in respect of his wife, or a father’s in respect of his children. But they go no further, and consequently deny that the right of reputation, for example, or that of personal liberty, or the right of a patentee, or a copyright, has any object at all.
The truth seems to be, however, that an object is an essential element in the idea of a right. A right without an object in respect of which it exists is as impossible as a right without a subject to whom it belongs. A right is, as we have said, a legally protected interest; and the object of the right is the thing in which the owner has this interest. It is the thing, material or immaterial, which he desires to keep or to obtain, and which he is enabled to keep or to obtain by means of the duty which the law imposes on other persons. We may illustrate this by classifying the chief kinds of rights by reference to their objects.
(1) Rights over material things.—In respect of their number and variety, and of the great mass of legal rules relating to them, these are by far the most important of legal rights. Their nature is too familiar to require illustration.
(2) Rights in respect of one’s own person.—I have a right not to be killed, and the object of this right is my life. I have a right not to be physically injured or assaulted, and the object of this right is my bodily health and integrity. I have a right not to be imprisoned save in due course of law; the object of this right is my personal liberty—that is to say, my power of going where I will. I have a right not to be coerced or deceived into acting contrary to my desires or interests; the object of this right is my ability to fulfil my desires and protect and promote my interests by my own activities.
(3) The right of reputation.—In a man’s reputation, that is to say, in the good opinion that other persons have of him, he has an interest, just as he has an interest in the money in his pockets. In each case the interest has obtained legal recognition and protection as a right, and in each case the right involves an object in respect of which it exists.
(4) Rights in respect of domestic relations.—Every man has an interest and a right in the society, affections, and security of his wife and children. Any person who without just cause interferes with this interest, as by the seduction of his wife or daughter, or by taking away his child, is guilty of a violation of his rights. The wrongdoer has deprived him of something which was his, no less than if he had robbed him of his purse.
(5) Rights in respect of other rights.—In many instances a right has another right as its subject-matter. I may have a right against A., that he shall transfer to me some right which is now vested in himself. If I contract with him for the sale of a piece of land to me, I acquire thereby a right against him, that he shall so act as to make me the owner of certain rights now belonging to himself. By the contract I acquire a right to the right of ownership, and when the conveyance has been executed, I acquire the right of ownership itself. Similarly a promise of marriage vests in the woman a right to the rights of a wife; but the marriage vests in her those rights themselves.[[179]]
It is commonly a question of importance, whether the right acquired by an agreement or other transaction is merely a right to a right, or is one having something else than another right as its immediate object. If I buy a ton of coal or a flock of sheep, the right which I thereby acquire may be of either of these kinds according to circumstances. I may become forthwith the owner of the coal or the sheep; that is to say, my right may have these material things as its immediate and direct object. On the other hand, I may acquire merely a right against the seller, that he by delivery or otherwise shall make me the owner of the things so purchased. In this case I acquire a right which has, as its immediate and direct object, nothing more than another right; though its mediate and indirect object may be said, truly enough, to be the material things purchased by me.
(6) Rights over immaterial property.—Examples of these are patent rights, copyrights, trade-marks, and commercial good-will. The object of a patent-right is an invention, that is to say, the idea of a new process, instrument, or manufacture. The patentee has a right to the exclusive use of this idea. Similarly the object of literary copyright is the form of literary expression produced by the author of a book. In this he has a valuable interest by reason of the disposition of the public to purchase copies of the book, and by the Copyright Act this interest has been raised to the level of a legal right.
(7) Rights to services.—Finally we have to take account of rights vested in one person to the services of another: the rights, for example, which are created by a contract between master and servant, physician and patient, or employer and workman. In all such cases the object of the right is the skill, knowledge, strength, time, and so forth, of the person bound. If I hire a physician, I obtain thereby a right to the use and benefit of his skill and knowledge, just as, when I hire a horse, I acquire a right to the use and benefit of his strength and speed.
Or we may say, if we prefer it, that the object of a right of personal service is the person of him who is bound to render it. A man may be the subject-matter of rights as well as the subject of them. His mind and body constitute an instrument which is capable of certain uses, just as a horse or a steam-engine is. In a law which recognises slavery, the man may be bought and sold, just as the horse or steam-engine may. But in our own law this is not so, and the only right that can be acquired over a human being is a temporary and limited right to the use of him, created by voluntary agreement with him—not a permanent and general right of ownership over him.
§ 74. Legal Rights in a wider sense of the term.
Hitherto we have confined our attention to legal rights in the strictest and most proper sense. It is in this sense only that we have regarded them as the correlatives of legal duties, and have defined them as the interests which the law protects by imposing duties with respect to them upon other persons. We have now to notice that the term is also used in a wider and laxer sense, to include any legally recognised interest, whether it corresponds to a legal duty or not. In this generic sense a legal right may be defined as any advantage or benefit which is in any manner conferred upon a person by a rule of law. Of rights in this sense there are at least three distinct kinds, sufficiently important to call for separate classification and discussion. These are (1) Rights (in the strict sense), (2) Liberties, and (3) Powers. Having already sufficiently considered the first of these, we shall now deal briefly with the others.
§ 75. Liberties.
Just as my legal rights (in the strict sense) are the benefits which I derive from legal duties imposed upon other persons, so my legal liberties are the benefits which I derive from the absence of legal duties imposed upon myself. They are the various forms assumed by the interest which I have in doing as I please. They are the things which I may do without being prevented by the law. The sphere of my legal liberty is that sphere of activity within which the law is content to leave me alone. It is clear that the term right is often used in a wide sense to include such liberty. I have a right (that is to say, I am at liberty) to do as I please with my own; but I have no right and am not at liberty to interfere with what is another’s. I have a right to express my opinions on public affairs, but I have no right to publish a defamatory or seditious libel. I have a right to defend myself against violence, but I have no right to take revenge upon him who has injured me.
The interests of unrestrained activity thus recognised and allowed by the law constitute a class of legal rights clearly distinguishable from those which we have already considered. Rights of the one class are concerned with those things which other persons ought to do for me; rights of the other class are concerned with those things which I may do for myself. The former pertain to the sphere of obligation or compulsion; the latter to that of liberty or free will. Both are legally recognised interests; both are advantages derived from the law by the subjects of the state; but they are two distinct species of one genus.
It is often said that all rights whatsoever correspond to duties; and by those who are of this opinion a different explanation is necessarily given of the class of rights which we have just considered. It is said that a legal liberty is in reality a legal right not to be interfered with by other persons in the exercise of one’s activities. It is alleged that the real meaning of the proposition that I have a legal right to express what opinions I please, is that other persons are under a legal duty not to prevent me from expressing them. So that even in this case the right is the correlative of a duty. Now there is no doubt that in most cases a legal liberty of acting is accompanied by a legal right not to be hindered in so acting. If the law allows me a sphere of lawful and innocent activity, it usually takes care at the same time to protect this sphere of activity from alien interference. But in such a case there are in reality two rights and not merely one; and there are instances in which liberties are not thus accompanied by protecting rights. I may have a legal liberty which involves no such duty of non-interference imposed on others. If a landowner gives me a licence to go upon his land, I have a right to do so, in the sense in which a right means a liberty; but I have no right to do so, in the sense in which a right vested in me is the correlative of a duty imposed upon him. Though I have a liberty or right to go on his land, he has an equal right or liberty to prevent me. The licence has no other effect than to make that lawful which would otherwise be unlawful. The right which I so acquire is nothing more than an extension of the sphere of my rightful activity. So a trustee has a right to receive from the beneficiaries remuneration for his trouble in administering the estate, in the sense that in doing so he does no wrong. But he has no right to receive remuneration, in the sense that the beneficiaries are under any duty to give it to him. So an alien has a right, in the sense of liberty, to enter British dominions, but the executive government has an equal right, in the same sense, to keep him out.[[180]] That I have a right to destroy my property does not mean that it is wrong for other persons to prevent me; it means that it is not wrong for me so to deal with that which is my own. That I have no right to commit theft does not mean that other persons may lawfully prevent me from committing such a crime, but that I myself act illegally in taking property which is not mine.[[181]]
§ 76. Powers.
Yet another class of legal rights consists of those which are termed powers. Examples of such are the following: the right to make a will, or to alienate property; the power of sale vested in a mortgagee; a landlord’s right of re-entry; the right to marry one’s deceased wife’s sister; that power of obtaining in one’s favour the judgment of a court of law, which is called a right of action; the right to rescind a contract for fraud; a power of appointment; the right of issuing execution on a judgment; the various powers vested in judges and other officials for the due fulfilment of their functions. All these are legal rights—they are legally recognised interests—they are advantages conferred by the law—but they are rights of a different species from the two classes which we have already considered. They resemble liberties, and differ from rights stricto sensu, inasmuch as they have no duties corresponding to them. My right to make a will corresponds to no duty in any one else. A mortgagee’s power of sale is not the correlative of any duty imposed upon the mortgagor; though it is otherwise with his right to receive payment of the mortgage debt. A debt is not the same thing as a right of action for its recovery. The former is a right in the strict and proper sense, corresponding to the duty of the debtor to pay; the latter is a legal power, corresponding to the liability of the debtor to be sued. That the two are distinct appears from the fact that the right of action may be destroyed (as by prescription) while the debt remains.
It is clear, therefore, that a power is not the same thing as a right of the first class. Neither is it identical with a right of the second class, namely, a liberty. That I have a right to make a will does not mean that in doing so I do no wrong. It does not mean that I may make a will innocently; it means that I can make a will effectively. That I have a right to marry my cousin does not mean that such a marriage is legally innocent, but that it is legally valid. It is not a liberty that I have, but a power. That a landlord has a right of re-entry on his tenant does not mean that in re-entering he does the tenant no wrong, but that by so doing he effectively terminates the lease.[[182]]
A power may be defined as ability conferred upon a person by the law to determine, by his own will directed to that end, the rights, duties, liabilities, or other legal relations, either of himself or of other persons. Powers are either public or private. The former are those which are vested in a person as an agent or instrument of the functions of the state; they comprise the various forms of legislative, judicial, and executive authority. Private powers, on the other hand, are those which are vested in persons to be exercised for their own purposes, and not as agents of the state. Power is either ability to determine the legal relations of other persons, or ability to determine one’s own. The first of these—power over other persons—is commonly called authority; the second—power over oneself—is usually termed capacity.[[183]]
These, then, are the three chief classes of benefits, privileges, or rights conferred by the law: liberty, when the law allows to my will a sphere of unrestrained activity; power, when the law actively assists me in making my will effective; right in the strict sense, when the law limits the liberty of others in my behalf. A liberty is that which I may do innocently; a power is that which I can do effectively; a right in the narrow sense is that which other persons ought to do on my behalf. I use my liberties with the acquiescence of the law; I use my powers with its active assistance in making itself the instrument of my will; I enjoy my rights through the control exercised by it over the acts of others on my behalf.[[184]][[185]]
§ 77. Duties, Disabilities, and Liabilities.
There is no generic term which is the correlative of right in the wide sense, and includes all the burdens imposed by the law, as a right includes all the benefits conferred by it. These legal burdens are of three kinds, being either Duties, Disabilities, or Liabilities. A duty is the absence of liberty; a disability is the absence of power; a liability is the presence either of liberty or of power vested in some one else as against the person liable. Examples of liabilities correlative to liberties are the liability of a trespasser to be forcibly ejected, that of a defaulting tenant to have his goods seized for rent, and that of the owner of a building to have his windows darkened or his foundations weakened by the building or excavations of his neighbours. Examples of liabilities correlative to powers are the liability of a tenant to have his lease determined by re-entry, that of a mortgagor to have the property sold by the mortgagee, that of a judgment debtor to have execution issued against him, and that of an unfaithful wife to be divorced.
The most important form of liability is that which corresponds to the various powers of action and prosecution arising from the different forms of wrongdoing. There is accordingly a narrow sense of the word liability, in which it covers this case exclusively. Liability in this sense is the correlative of a legal remedy. A synonym for it is responsibility. It is either civil or criminal according as it corresponds to a right of action or to a right of prosecution.[[186]][[187]]