A common practice where a company accepts more reservations than it has accommodations for what is being sold, for example, seats on an airplane or rooms in a hotel. This practice is done on the presumption that a percentage of people will frequently cancel reservations or fail to show. Airlines may legally overbook but hotels and most other businesses do not. Airlines may be … [Read more...]

The name given to the great hall of the parliament house in Edinburgh, in which the lords ordinary of the court of session sit as single judges to hear causes. The term is used colloquially as expressive of the business done there in contradistinction to the "Inner House," the name given to the chambers in which the first and second divisions of the court of session hold their … [Read more...]

A grave injury; a serious wrong. This is a generic word which is applied to everything, which is injurious, in great degree, to the honor or rights of another. … [Read more...]

Excessively broad in scope and coverage, usually referring to a statute whose coverage in restricting something exceeds legal or constitutional limits. … [Read more...]

A liberty or privilege in the ancient common law, whereby a lord was enabled to call any man dwelling in his manor, and taken for felony in another place out of his fee, to judgment in his own court Dn Cange. … [Read more...]