Daniel Oran - Oran's Dictionary of the Law

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500 Ultimate facts

Ultimate facts Facts essential to a plaintiff’s or a defendant’s case. Often facts that must be inferred from other facts and evidence.

Ultimate purchaser A consumer or business purchaser who intends a product for use, not resale.

Ultra (Latin) Beyond; outside of; in excess of. For example, ultra vires actions are things a corporation does that are outside the scope of powers or activities permitted by its charter or articles of incorporation.

Ultrahazardous activity An activity so dangerous that the possibility of serious harm cannot be eliminated by exercising extreme caution. These activities, such as blasting, result in strict liability (see that word).

Umbrella policy An insurance policy that provides liability coverage, to a set limit, of claims that exceed the limits of one or more other policies (such as a person’s automobile and home owner’s policies).

Umpire Generally, a person chosen to decide a dispute such as a labor dispute. More often, a person chosen to decide a dispute when the arbitrators (or the experts) chosen by each side disagree.

Un Not. Many compound words beginning with un are here, but some are defined at the root word only. For example, for unvalued policy, see valued policy.

Unauthorized practice of law Nonlawyers doing things that only lawyers are permitted to do. Who and what fits into this definition is constantly changing and the subject of dispute. If, however, a clear case comes up (for example, a nonlawyer pretending to be a lawyer and setting up a law office), the practice may be prohibited and the person punished under the state’s criminal laws.

Unavailable Unable to testify as a witness because the person is dead, insane, or sometimes beyond the reach of the court’s subpoena, or beyond the ability of the person who wants to use the witness’s testimony to bring the witness to court. Once the witness’s unavailability is shown, past testimony, dying declarations, and certain other types of hearsay by that witness may sometimes be used as evidence in court under a hearsay exception (see that word).

Unavoidable accident (or casualty, cause, danger, etc.) An accident in which everyone was careful, yet it happened. In some states this could result in a lawsuit with no damages awarded, in the reopening of a lawsuit because the defendant was prevented by an accident from answering the court papers or showing up in court, etc.

Unclean hands See clean hands.

Undivided right 501

Unconscionability Sales practices that are so greatly unfair that a court will not permit them. For example, a sales contract between a large company and a poorly educated person that contains unfair terms in small print and technical language, and involves an unfairly high sales price, is unconscionable. The Uniform Commercial Code permits rescission (“unmaking”) of unconscionable contracts.

Unconscionable Grossly unfair. See unconscionability. [pronounce: un-con-shun-a-bul]

Unconstitutional Describes laws or actions that conflict with the U.S.

Constitution (see that word). An unconstitutional condition is a requirement that a person give up a constitutional right to get a government benefit.

Under advisement (or submission) See advisement.

Under color (or cover) of law See color. Under protest See protest.

Undercapitalization Lacking enough cash or short-term profit to stay in business.

Undersigned The person (or persons) whose name is signed at the end of a document.

Understanding A vague word meaning anything from “silent agreement” to “a written contract.”

Undertaking 1. A promise. 2. A promise made in the course of a lawsuit to the judge or to the other side. 3. Bonds or other financial securities; the process of putting out these bonds. 4. A venture of any kind.

Underwrite 1. Insure. An underwriter is an insurer. 2. Guarantee to purchase any stock or bonds that remain unsold after a public sale, or to sell an issue of stock or bonds for a company or purchased from a company. The person (or organization) who does this is an underwriter.

Undistributed (or undivided) profits tax A tax on that portion of a company’s profits that are kept (rather than paid to stockholders) in excess of reasonable needs (paying bills, expansion, contingencies, etc.). The federal tax on undistributed profits is called the accumulated earnings tax.

Undivided right (or interest or title) A right to an entire property that is shared with one or more others. For example, two joint owners of a parcel of land each own an undivided half interest in the entire land, meaning that each can use the whole parcel.

502 Undue

Undue 1. Improper or illegal. For example, undue influence is pressure that takes away a person’s free will to make decisions. Undue influence involves misusing a position of trust or improperly taking advantage of a person’s weakness to change that person’s actions or decisions. 2. More than necessary.

Unearned income 1. Income received before it is earned; for example, a landlord’s getting a January rent payment in December. 2. Income from investments, rather than from salary, wages, or self-earned income. Social Security tax (F.I.C.A.) is not paid on unearned income.

Unemployment benefits (or compensation or insurance) State payments to persons who have worked a certain minimum length of time, made to them when they are laid off or have lost their jobs. Plans have varying payment rates and different qualification rules, which often include the requirement that the person be “available for work.”

Unethical conduct Actions that violate professional standards such as the lawyers’ Rules of Professional Conduct.

Unfair competition 1. Too closely imitating the name, product, or advertising of another company in order to take away its business. This is called “passing off.” 2. Certain dishonest trade practices, such as using someone else’s work unfairly. 3. Unfair methods of competition is a broad phrase, used by the Federal Trade Commission, which includes many forms of unfair trade practices.

Unfair labor practice An action by a union or by an employer that is prohibited by law; for example, an employer’s attempt to force an employee to give up union organizing activities.

Unified bar See integrated bar.

Unified transfer tax A combined federal tax on transfers by gift or death. It replaced the separate federal gift and estate taxes. The unified transfer credit is a credit (see that word) against the unified transfer tax. It replaced the lifetime gift and estate tax exemptions.

Uniform Regular; even. Applying generally, equally, and evenhandedly.

Uniform acts (or uniform laws) Laws in various subject areas, proposed by the Commission on Uniform State Laws and the American Law Institute, adopted in whole or in part by many states. Some of these are the Uniform Anatomical Gifts Act, the Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act, and the Uniform Commercial Code.

Uniform Code of Military Justice See Code of Military Justice.

Uniform Commercial Code A comprehensive set of laws on every major type of business law, including contract law as it applies to the sale of goods, banking law, and negotiable instruments law. It has

Unit ownership acts 503

been adopted by every state, in whole or in major part. It replaced many older uniform laws, such as the Uniform Negotiable Instruments Act and the Uniform Sales Act.

Uniform Consumer Credit Code A uniform act adopted by some states to regulate the way merchants and lending institutions give credit to consumers.

Unilateral One-sided. For unilateral contract, see contract. A unilateral mistake about a contract’s terms usually will not get a person out of the contract unless the other side knew about the mistaken idea when the contract was made.

Union 1. Any joining together of persons, organizations, or things for a particular purpose. 2. An organization of workers, formed to negotiate with employers on wages, working conditions, etc. Labor unions include: closed (highly restricted in number of members, long apprenticeships, high fees, etc.; compare with closed shop); company (sponsored by an employer; now usually forbidden by labor laws); craft or horizontal (persons in the same craft, no matter where they work); independent (persons working for one employer who form a union with no affiliations); industrial or vertical (working in one industry, regardless of job type); local (workers in one company or place who affiliate their union with a larger one); open (easy to get into; see also open shop); and trade (refers to either a labor union generally or a craft union).

Union certification See certification proceeding.

Union security clause The provision in a contract between a union and an employer that sets out the union’s status and explains which types of employees must belong to the union.

Union shop A business in which all workers must join a particular union. This violates federal law. Compare with closed shop, agency shop, and open shop.

Unit investment trust A fixed portfolio of bonds, held to maturity, and sold by financial institutions to investors in units of one thousand dollars.

Unit of production One barrel of oil (or an equivalent measure of a different natural resource) out of the estimated number that will be produced from a particular well, lease, or property. The “unit” is each barrel’s fractional part of the whole estimated production. The total costs and profits of each venture are divided among each barrel for tax purposes.

Unit ownership acts State laws on condominiums.

504 Unit pricing

Unit pricing Pricing by item and not by a flat contract price on a total deal involving many items. Unit pricing may also mean pricing by each unit of weight (per ounce of peanut butter rather than per jar), by length (by board-foot, rather than by board), etc.

Unit rule 1. A way of valuing a block of stocks (or other securities) by taking the sale price of one share sold on an exchange, multiplying it by the number of shares in the block, and ignoring all other facts and assumptions about value. 2. A rule binding every member of a group to vote the way the majority of the group votes.

United States attorney A lawyer appointed by the president to handle U.S. civil and criminal legal matters in a U.S. judicial district (all or part of a state). Also called district attorney (see that word).

United States Code The official lawbooks containing federal laws organized by subject. They are recompiled every six years, and supplements are published when needed.

United States Code Annotated The United States Code with explanations and annotations to cases for each set of laws.

United States Code Congressional and Administrative News A series of books with the texts of, and cross-references to, all federal laws and some congressional committee reports and federal administrative regulations.

United States commissioner (or magistrate) See magistrate.

United States Courts Federal courts (as opposed to state courts) created by the U.S. Constitution and by Congress. U.S. courts are all part of one system with federal jurisdiction (based on such things as diversity of citizenship, federal question, appellate jurisdiction, and certiorari). These courts, from the top down, are the: Supreme Court (hears appeals from state courts and lower federal courts); Courts of Appeals (hear appeals from lower federal courts and administrative agencies; there is one court for each of twelve geographical circuits plus the Federal Circuit, which hears appeals nationwide from specialized federal courts and other appeals such as patent cases); District Courts (the U.S. trial courts; there are about one hundred around the country); and specialized courts such as Federal Claims (contract claims against the U.S.), International Trade (tariff-related claims),

Armed Forces Appeals, Veterans Appeals, Tax Court, and Territorial Courts (in the U.S. territories).

United States Department of Commerce v. United States House of Representatives (119 S.Ct. 765) The 1999 U.S. Supreme Court decision that statistical sampling techniques may not be used to sup-

Unlawful detainer 505

plement direct headcounts in federal census taking for the purpose of setting House districts.

United States Government Organizational Manual An annual U.S. publication that summarizes most information on the branches, agencies, and persons running the U.S. government.

United States Reports The official volumes in which decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court are collected.

United States Statutes at Large See statutes at large.

United States v. ___________ Case names that begin with “United States” are listed in this dictionary by the “versus” name, as in Nixon v. United States.

Unitrust A trust (see that word) in which a fixed percentage of the trust property is paid out each year to the beneficiaries, after which the trust property is paid to a charity. To qualify for special tax benefits, a unitrust must comply with several I.R.S. requirements.

Unity 1. An identical interest in property held jointly. There are the unities of: time (the property was acquired by all joint owners at the same time), title (the property was acquired by all through the same deed or event), interest (each person got the same ownership rights), and possession (each has the same right to possess the whole property). In addition, unity of person refers to the way property is held “as one person” by tenants by the entireties because they are married. 2. Unity of possession also refers to the merger (see that word) of rights in land.

Univ. of Calif. Regents v. Bakke (438 U.S. 265) The 1978 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down fixed affirmative action quotas, but allowed race to be taken into account in making public college admissions decisions that remedy past discrimination.

Universal Applying to everything or everyone.

Unjust enrichment Obtaining money or property unfairly and at another’s expense. This does not include merely driving a hard bargain or being lucky in a deal. The law provides several ways to avoid unjust enrichment, such as by imposition of quasi contract (see that word).

Unlawful Contrary to law; unauthorized by law. Not necessarily a crime, but at least either a tort or disapproved of by the law.

Unlawful assembly Three or more people gathered to commit a violent crime or a breach of the peace (see that word).

Unlawful detainer Holding on to land or buildings beyond the time you have a right to them.

506 Unliquidated

Unliquidated See liquidated. Unmarketable title See marketable title.

Unnatural act 1. See sodomy. 2. Describes making a will that gives away most of a person’s property, without apparent reason, to other than immediate relatives.

Unprofessional conduct 1. Conduct that violates a profession’s ethical code, such as the lawyer’s Rules of Professional Conduct (see that word). 2. Conduct that is generally considered immoral, unethical, or dishonorable. (This conduct must generally relate to the performance of the person’s duties for it to be included in no. 1.)

Unrealized profit Paper profit.

Unreasonable See reasonable.

Unrelated business income Money made by a tax-exempt nonprofit organization that comes from its business activity, which has little to do with the purposes or activities that give the organization tax-ex- empt status. This income is usually taxed.

Unrelated offenses Crimes or other wrongdoings not related to the subject of a prosecution. These unrelated offenses may not be used to show a person’s general character.

Unwritten law 1. A “law” of decent behavior that most people follow because it is considered right, just, or usual to do so. 2. Any one of several commonly held assumptions about the law that are not laws and will not be enforced by a court; for example, the “law” that a husband will not be punished if he kills his wife’s lover. 3. Common law or judge-made law as opposed to statutes, regulations, etc. 4. Enforceable informal rules such as trade usage.

Upset price A reserve price.

Urban easement The right of most streetside property to get light, air, and free entrance from the street side. See also ancient lights.

Ursery v. U.S. (518 U.S. 267) A 1996 U.S. Supreme Court decision permitting the imposition of a criminal punishment and a civil forfeiture for the same crime because it was not double jeopardy.

Usage A general, uniform, well-known course of conduct followed in a particular geographic area or type of business or trade. Usage is important in interpreting ambiguous contracts.

Use An old method of holding land, similar to a trust, in which one person got legal ownership, but another person got the use of the land. The statute of uses was a law in England that converted most uses into full ownership interests in property.

Uxor 507

Use immunity See immunity.

Use tax Tax on some products brought into a state without paying the state’s sales tax.

Useful 1. In patent law, something is useful if it actually does something (as opposed to merely existing for its own sake or conveying information) that can be “applied to some practical use beneficial to society.” This is a prerequisite for something to be patentable. 2. In tax law, useful life is one measure of the time period for the depreciation of business property. It need not be the actual length of time something will be used or how long it will last.

Useless gesture exception See knock and announce.

Usufruct An old word for the right to use something as long as it is not changed or used up.

Usurious Involving usury.

Usury Charging an illegally high rate of interest.

Utility A requirement for a device or process to be patented. See useful. A utility patent is the most common type of patent: for an invention such as a machine, a new drug, or a new process.

Utter 1. Put into circulation. Issue or put out a check. 2. Say. 3. Enough so that it will be considered complete, total, or absolute.

Uxor (Latin) Wife. Abbreviated ux.