homestead law. A statute exempting a homestead from execution or judicial sale for debt, unless all owners, usu. a husband and wife, have jointly mortgaged the property or otherwise subjected it to creditors’ claims. — Also termed homestead exemption; homestead-exemption statute; homestead right. [Cases: Homestead 1, 118.] “Almost all states also have legislative provisions, commonly […]
Property. The rule that if — in a single grant — a freehold estate is given to a person and a remainder is given to the person’s heirs, the remainder belongs to the named person and not the heirs, so that the person is held to have a fee simple absolute. • The rule, which
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allodial ([schwa]-loh-dee-[schwa]l), adj. Held in absolute ownership; pertaining to an allodium. Cf. FEUDAL. — Also spelled alodial. — allodially, adv. “The term ‘alodial’ originally had no necessary reference to the mode in which the ownership of land had been conferred; it simply meant land held in absolute ownership, not in dependence upon any other body
proper means. Trade secrets. Any method of discovering trade secrets that does not violate property-protection statutes or standards of commercial ethics. • Proper means include independent invention, reverse engineering, observing the product in public, and studying published literature. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 757 cmt. f (1977). “Trade secrets are protected … in a manner
future interest. A property interest in which the privilege of possession or of other enjoyment is future and not present. • A future interest can exist in either the grantor (as with a reversion) or the grantee (as with a remainder or executory interest). Today, most future interests are equitable interests in stocks and debt
A provision in some commercial general liability policies, excluding coverage for bodily injury or property damages arising from the discharge, dispersal, release, or escape of chemicals, waste, acid, and other pollutants. • Pollution-exclusion clauses may take one of two forms: (1) sudden and accidental, and (2) absolute. The sudden-and-accidental clause, usu. limited to policies issued
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An auction in which the property will be sold to the highest bidder, no minimum price will limit bidding, the owner may not withdraw property after the first bid is received, the owner may not reject any bids, and the owner may not nullify the bidding by outbidding all other bidders. • In an auction
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