broadening statement. Patents. Wording in a claim to the effect that the invention includes forms other than the details shown in the application. • A broadening statement is usu. taken as boilerplate and given little or no effect. — Also termed catch-all.
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nomen (noh-men or -m[schwa]n), n. [Latin] 1. Roman law. A personal name. • A Roman citizen generally had three names: a praenomen (“first name”), a nomen (“the name of the family group”), and cognomen (“a surname”). 2. Hist. A person’s first name. 3. More broadly, any name. Pl. nomina. See AGNOMEN. nomen collectivum (noh-men kol-[schwa]k-tI-v[schwa]m).
A tort committed by someone acting with general or specific intent. • Examples include battery, false imprisonment, and trespass to land. — Also termed willful tort. Cf. NEGLIGENCE. [Cases: Torts 4. C.J.S. Torts §§ 2, 23.]
menacing, n. An attempt to commit common-law assault. • The term is used esp. in jurisdictions that have defined assault to include battery. See ASSAULT. [Cases: Assault and Battery 61; Extortion and Threats 25. 1. C.J.S. Assault and Battery § 82; Threats and Unlawful Communications §§ 2–20.]
ethnic cleansing. The officially sanctioned forcible and systematic diminution or elimination of targeted ethnic minorities from a geographic area, usu. by confiscating real and personal property, ordering or condoning mass murders and mass rapes, and expelling the survivors. • In theory, the purpose of ethnic cleansing is to drive all members of the victimized group
opportunity to be heard. The chance to appear in a court or other tribunal and present evidence and argument before being deprived of a right by governmental authority. • The opportunity to be heard is a fundamental requirement of procedural due process. It ordinarily includes the right to receive fair notice of the hearing, to
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Consideration serially, whereby a deliberative assembly considers a long or complex motion in a series of readily divisible parts before voting on the entire motion. — Also termed consideration by paragraph (in which case a “paragraph” means not a literary paragraph but any readily divisible part of a motion, which may include more than one
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Homicide in which there is no intention to kill or do grievous bodily harm, but that is committed with criminal negligence or during the commission of a crime not included within the felony-murder rule. — Also termed negligent manslaughter; second-degree manslaughter; manslaughter in the second degree. Cf. ACCIDENTAL KILLING. [Cases: Homicide 659.]
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opening statement. At the outset of a trial, an advocate’s statement giving the fact-finder a preview of the case and of the evidence to be presented. • Although the opening statement is not supposed to be argumentative, lawyers — purposefully or not — often include some form of argument. The term is thus sometimes referred
A plan established and maintained by an employer primarily to provide systematically for the payment of definitely determinable benefits to employees over a period of years, usu. for life, after retirement; any pension plan that is not a defined-contribution plan. • Retirement benefits under a defined-benefit plan are generally based on a formula that included
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