Law

"I know of no duty of the Court which it is more important to observe, and no powers of the Court which it is more important to enforce, than its power of keeping public bodies within their rights. The moment public bodies exceed their rights] they do so to the injury and oppression of private individuals, and those persons are entitled to be protected from injury arising from such operations of public bodies."

"None shall take advantage of his own wrong."

"He whose dirt it is must keep it that it may not trespass."

"Better that an individual should suffer an injury than that the public should suffer an inconvenience."

"The public can have no rights springing from injustice to others."

"It is our duty to take care that persons in pursuing their own particular interests do not transgress those laws which were made for the benefit of the whole community."

"Every man that is injured ought to have his recompence."

"To say that whenever the world grows wiser it convicts those that came before of negligence."

"Actual perceptible damage is not indispensable as the foundation of an action; it is sufficient to show the violation of a right, in which case the law will presume damage."

"I am not able to understand how it can be correctly said in a legal sense, that an action will not lie even in the case of a wrong or a violation of a right, unless it is followed by some perceptible damage which can be established as a matter of fact; in other words, that injuria sine damno is not actionable. On the contrary, from my earliest reading I have considered it laid up among the very elements of the common law, that wherever there is a wrong there is a remedy to redress it; and that every injury imports damage in the nature of it; and if no other damage is established, the party injured is entitled to a verdict for nominal damages."

"If a man who makes to another person, upon a solemn occasion, an assertion, upon which that person acts, he lies under an obligation to make good his assertion."

"I am by no means sure that if a man kept a tiger, and lightning broke his chain, and he got loose and did mischief, that the man who kept him would not be liable."

"La ley est un egal dispenser de Justice, et ne relinque aucun sans remedy sur son droit, sans son propre laches: The law is an equal dispenser of Justice, and leaves none without a remedy, for his right, without his own laches."

"Personal injury is a more serious matter than damage to property."

"An injured party may proceed in Westminster Hall notwithstanding any order of the House."

"Surely every injury imports a damage, though it does not cost the party one farthing, and it is impossible to prove the contrary; for a damage is not merely pecuniary, but an injury imports a damage, when a man is hereby hindered of his right."

"If a man sustains damage by the wrongful act of another, he is entitled to a remedy, but to give that title two things must concur, damage to himself and a wrong committed by the other. That he has sustained damage is not of itself sufficient."

"The well-known maxim that you must not, when you have the choice, elect to use your property so as to cause injury to your neighbour.1—"

"Ex dolo main non oritur actio."

"A nuisance may be merely a right thing in the wrong place — like a pig in the parlor instead of the barnyard."

"The general principle is, that in order that an action may be maintained in this country in respect of a tort committed outside the jurisdiction, the act complained of must be a wrongful act, both by the law of this country and by the law of the country where it was committed; but it is not necessary that it should be the subject of civil proceedings in the foreign country."

"To entitle a plaintiff to maintain an action, it is necessary to shew a breach of some legal duty due from the defendant to the plaintiff."

"That great principle of the common law which declares that it is your duty so to use and exercise your own rights as not to cause injury to other people."

"The intention of the testator is the polar star by which we must be guided."

"The Court is to pronounce according to the apparent intent of the testator, but that intent must be found in the words of the will, and is not to be collected by conjecture dehors the will."

"It is from the words, and from the context, not from the punctuation, that the sense must be collected."

"We must find out the meaning of the testator as well as we can."

"Technical rules are not to be relied upon in explaining the intention of testators: and yet cases of intention are much embarrassed by authorities."

"Courts of justice ought to carry into effect the intentions of testators as far as they can consistently with the rules of law."

"Every will stands on its own bottom and is various as anything whatsoever, and therefore it is hard to cite a case that can quadrate. I have mean thoughts of my own opinion. I may say in this case, diffieilius est invenire quam vincere, as Caesar said when he and his army ran about the Alps to find out a way."

"Men should not sin in their graves."

"I do not intend to encumber myself with cases. Decisions upon other words something like those in question, in other wills, where the whole context of those other wills must be gone into, can afford very little assistance."

"My distinction is, that in incorrect wills the Court may take liberties, but that if the words are correct they have no power to make any alteration."

"No previous will can be treated properly as a precedent for another which is expressed in different language, and no decision on the precise words of a former will can as a general rule be of the least service in guiding the Court as to the construction of other words. Unless you can get a principle from a case which is applicable generally to other cases, the precedent is of little use."

"Let a will be ever so fair, a slip in form is fatal: which is a certain mischief. But if a will be fraudulent, though it is allowed to be formal, it may be set aside upon evidence and circumstances."

"I do not see why, if we can tell what a man intends, and can give effect to his intention as expressed, we should be driven out of it by other cases or decisions in other cases. I always protest against anything of the sort."

"I regret exceedingly that, not only ordinary laymen, but, as it seems to me, professional men, do not understand the great difficulty there is in drawing wills, and do not bestow a little more care and pains in endeavouring to draw them in such a way as that the numerous questions which often arise on them should be avoided. I regret to say that these questions often throw a great deal of expense on parties interested under the wills, and are the cause of great heartburnings and most bitter animosities."

"I quite admit that on the question of the construction of wills relating to real property the cases have always had greater attention given to them than in the case of personalty, because land in England passes by title, and it has always been the habit of the lawyers and Judges to look with greater strictness to the reported cases where it is a question of land than where it is a question of personalty."

"Speaking for myself, I do not look upon wills as Chinese puzzles; they no doubt do present great difficulties, but I do not feel myself the serious difficulty which other learned Judges have."

"The law has ever been watchful and jealous of wills made under religious influences, and especially so when those influences connect themselves with any individual who is the object of the testator's bounty."

"This seems to me to be one of those cases in which the Court is bound to arrive at a conclusion without having any satisfactory means of arriving at it. The only guide I have is this. I am entitled to sit in the testator's chair as he wrote his own will."

"A will is often executed suddenly in a last sickness, and sometimes in the article of death . . . consequently the time of the execution is the critical moment which requires guard and protection."

"The Court is at liberty to transpose and mould clauses and words in a will so as to make the whole take effect."

"As lawyers we must construe the will like any other document."

"Let's choose executors and talk of wills: And yet not so, for what can we bequeath Save our deposed bodies to the ground?"

"There is no instance where men are so easily imposed upon, as at the time of their dying under the pretence of charity."

"If we find from a will, as we do here, that a testator has used a word in a particular sense, we must give it that meaning wherever it occurs in the will. It is the same thing as if a foreign word were used—a case of which I have known. In such a case we have to get at the meaning of the word in English from an ordinary dictionary, and then whenever it occurs give it that English meaning. Of course, the dictionary must be clear; and if we cannot make out what the testator meant, then we have not got the dictionary."

"Of all the cases which come before the Court for its decision, none can be more embarrassing and more unsatisfactory than those which arise upon the construction of wills. The Court has no real guide to enable it to arrive at a conclusion. The only things which can be called guides are certain rules which the Court has laid down, and which may be extracted from the decisions. Beyond that, the decisions are not of the slightest use. Except by adherence to those rules, there is nothing but what may, not irreverently, be called guessing as to what the words of the document can be held to mean."

"In the state of languor in which dying persons generally are, their assent could be easily got to statements which they never intended to make, if they were but ingeniously interwoven with statements which were actually true by an artful person. ** R. v. Fitzgerald, Ir. Cir. R. 168, 169."

"One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established."