Look up seriatim in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
In law, seriatim (Latin for "in series") indicates that a court is addressing multiple issues in a certain order, such as the order in which the issues were originally presented to the court.
In law, seriatim (Latin for "in series") indicates that a court is addressing multiple issues in a certain order, such as the order in which the issues were originally presented to the court.
| Legal and judicial opinions |
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A seriatim opinion is an opinion delivered by a court with multiple judges, in which each judge reads his or her own opinion rather than a single judge writing an opinion on behalf of the entire court. Traditionally, judges read in order of reverse seniority, with the most junior judge speaking first. [1] In the United States, this practice was discontinued in favour of majority opinions contra the British tradition of separate opinions. [2]
Most frequently used in modern times (when used at all) pleadings as a shorthand for "one by one in sequence". For example, in English civil cases, defence statements generally used to conclude with the phrase "save as expressly admitted herein, each allegation of the plaintiffs is denied as if set out in full and traversed herein seriatim." This formulation is now superfluous under the English Civil Procedure Rules, especially rule 16.5 (3)–(5). [3]
Also sometimes seen in older deeds and contracts as a more traditional way of incorporating terms of reference. For example "the railway by-laws shall apply to the contract as if set out herein seriatim."
It is sometimes found as part of the longer phrase breviatim et seriatim, meaning "briefly and in series".
The term is also used when replying to a communication that contains a number of points, issues or questions to denote that the responses are in the same order in which they were raised in the original document: "To deal with your queries seriatim..."
In England, use of the word, and other Latin phrases, has become less frequent in legal discourse as a result of the Woolf Reforms and, among other factors, efforts by groups such as the Plain Language Movement to promote the use of "plain English" in legal discourse.[ citation needed ]
 | This article or section appears to contradict itself.(February 2022) |
During the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Marshall, 1801 to 1805, the practice of judicial opinions being delivered in seriatim was discontinued. It was restored by Justice William Johnson, who, from 1805 through 1833, wrote nearly half of the Supreme Court's dissenting opinions. [4] [5]
Outside of the Supreme Court's practice, the word is still occasionally used in the 21st-Century. For instance, the 2009, Title III, Rule 15(a)(1) of the U.S. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure regarding Amended and Supplemental Pleadings (part of pretrial procedure) was amended to allow three changes in the time previously allowed to make one change. [6] The change was described as follows:
This provision will force the pleader to consider carefully and promptly the wisdom of amending to meet the arguments in the motion... and will expedite determination of issues that otherwise might be raised seriatim.
The right to make changes now ends 21 days after service of a motion. [6]
Actuarial calculations made in respect of a database (such as insurance policies or asset holdings) may be referred to as seriatim. This implies calculation results are produced for each database record explicitly, i.e., without model compression (data grouping) and before summation.
In law as practiced in countries that follow the English models, a pleading is a formal written statement of one party's claims or defenses in response to another party's complaint(s) in a civil action. The parties' pleadings in a case define the issues to be adjudicated in the action.
The chief justice of the United States is the chief judge of the Supreme Court of the United States and is the highest-ranking officer of the U.S. federal judiciary. Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution grants plenary power to the president of the United States to nominate, and, with the advice and consent of the United States Senate, appoint "Judges of the supreme Court", who serve until they die, resign, retire, or are impeached and convicted. The existence of a chief justice is only explicit in Article I, Section 3, Clause 6 which states that the chief justice shall preside over the impeachment trial of the president; this has occurred three times, for Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and for Donald Trump’s first impeachment.
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility and arguments of the parties, and then issues a ruling in the case based on their interpretation of the law and their own personal judgment. A judge is expected to conduct the trial impartially and, typically, in an open court.
A writ of mandamus is a judicial remedy in the English and American common law system consisting of a court order that commands a government official or entity to perform an act it is legally required to perform as part of its official duties, or to refrain from performing an act the law forbids it from doing. Writs of mandamus are usually used in situations where a government official has failed to act as legally required or has taken a legally prohibited action. Decisions that fall within the discretionary power of public officials can not be controlled by the writ. For example, mandamus can not force a lower court to take a specific action on applications that have been made. If the court refuses to rule one way or the other, then a mandamus can be used to order the court to rule on the applications.
In law, certiorari is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. Certiorari comes from the name of an English prerogative writ, issued by a superior court to direct that the record of the lower court be sent to the superior court for review. The term is Latin for "to be made more certain", and comes from the opening line of such writs, which traditionally began with the Latin words "Certiorari volumus...".
In law, a judgment is a decision of a court regarding the rights and liabilities of parties in a legal action or proceeding. Judgments also generally provide the court's explanation of why it has chosen to make a particular court order.
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York is the intermediate appellate court in New York State. The state is geographically divided into four judicial departments of the Appellate Division. The full title of each is, using the "Fourth Department" as an example, the "Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, Fourth Judicial Department".
In law, a summary judgment, also referred to as judgment as a matter of law or summary disposition, is a judgment entered by a court for one party and against another party summarily, i.e., without a full trial. Summary judgments may be issued on the merits of an entire case, or on discrete issues in that case. The formulation of the summary judgment standard is stated in somewhat different ways by courts in different jurisdictions. In the United States, the presiding judge generally must find there is "no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." In England and Wales, the court rules for a party without a full trial when "the claim, defence or issue has no real prospect of success and there is no other compelling reason why the case or issue should be disposed of at a trial."
A demurrer is a pleading in a lawsuit that objects to or challenges a pleading filed by an opposing party. The word demur means "to object"; a demurrer is the document that makes the objection. Lawyers informally define a demurrer as a defendant saying "So what?" to the pleading.
The High Court of Justiciary is the supreme criminal court in Scotland. The High Court is both a trial court and a court of appeal. As a trial court, the High Court sits on circuit at Parliament House or in the adjacent former Sheriff Court building in the Old Town in Edinburgh, or in dedicated buildings in Glasgow and Aberdeen. The High Court sometimes sits in various smaller towns in Scotland, where it uses the local sheriff court building. As an appeal court, the High Court sits only in Edinburgh. On one occasion the High Court of Justiciary sat outside Scotland, at Zeist in the Netherlands during the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial, as the Scottish Court in the Netherlands. At Zeist the High Court sat both as a trial court, and an appeal court for the initial appeal by Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
In the history of the courts of England and Wales, the Judicature Acts were a series of acts of Parliament, beginning in the 1870s, which aimed to fuse the hitherto split system of courts of England and Wales. The first two acts were the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873 and the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1875, with a further series of amending acts.
A law clerk, judicial clerk, or judicial assistant is a person, often a lawyer, who provides direct counsel and assistance to a lawyer or judge by researching issues and drafting legal opinions for cases before the court. Judicial clerks often play significant roles in the formation of case law through their influence upon judges' decisions. Judicial clerks should not be confused with legal clerks, court clerks, or courtroom deputies who only provide secretarial and administrative support to attorneys and/or judges.
The Supreme Court of Georgia is the highest judicial authority of the U.S. state of Georgia. The court was established in 1845 as a three-member panel, increased in number to six, then to seven in 1945, and finally to nine in 2017. Since 1896, the justices have been elected by the people of the state. The justices are currently elected in statewide non-partisan elections for six-year terms, with any vacancies filled through an appointment by the Governor.
The judicial system of Israel consists of secular courts and religious courts. The law courts constitute a separate and independent unit of Israel's Ministry of Justice. The system is headed by the President of the Supreme Court and the Minister of Justice.
In law, a joinder is the joining of two or more legal issues together. Procedurally, a joinder allows multiple issues to be heard in one hearing or trial and occurs if the issues or parties involved overlap sufficiently to make the process more efficient or fairer. That helps courts avoid hearing the same facts multiple times or seeing the same parties return to court separately for each of their legal disputes. The term is also used in the realm of contracts to describe the joining of new parties to an existing agreement.
The Court of Cassation of Belgium is the supreme court of the Belgian judiciary. The court is composed of thirty judges with life tenure who are nominated by the High Council of Justice of Belgium and appointed by the Belgian federal government. The court handles cases in the two main languages of Belgium, Dutch and French, and provides certain facilities for cases in German. The court is assisted in its work by a public prosecutor's office and a bar association, which both function separately from other structures. The duty of the public prosecutor's office is to provide advisory opinions to the court on how the law ought to be interpreted and applied. The attorneys of the court's bar association assist litigants in proceedings before the court; in certain cases, their assistance is mandatory.
Subsidiary legislation in Hong Kong is law made with powers delegated by a law enacted by the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. According to the Department of Justice, Hong Kong has a large volume of subsidiary legislation. The making of subsidiary legislation is subject to the ambit of administrative law.
An Act of Sederunt is secondary legislation made by the Court of Session, the supreme civil court of Scotland, to regulate the proceedings of Scottish courts and tribunals hearing civil matters. Originally made under an Act of the Parliament of Scotland of 1532, the modern power to make Acts of Sederunt is largely derived from the Courts Reform (Scotland) Act 2014. Since 2013, draft Acts have also been prepared by the Scottish Civil Justice Council and submitted to the Court of Session for approval.
A certificate of division was a source of appellate jurisdiction from the circuit courts to the Supreme Court of the United States from 1802 to 1911. Created by the Judiciary Act of 1802, the certification procedure was available only where the circuit court sat with a full panel of two: both the resident district judge and the circuit-riding Supreme Court justice. As Chief Justice John Marshall wrote, he did not have "the privilege of dividing the court when alone."
Ralph Stanton Wettick Jr. is a retired United States judge who served on the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania's Fifth Judicial District, from 1976 to 2016. He was a leading authority on discovery under Pennsylvania's Rules of Civil Procedure, and was known for handling important and complex cases.