benefit

Advantage; profit; fruit; privilege; gain; interest. The receiving as the exchange for promise some performance or forbearance which promisor was not previously entitled to receive. Graphic Arts Finishers, Inc. v. Boston Redevelopment Authority, 357 Mass. 40, 255 N.E.2d 793, 795.

Benefits are something to advantage of, or profit to, recipient. Cheltenham Tp. v. Cheltenham Tp. Police Dept., 11 Pa.Cmwlth. 348, 312 A.2d 835, 838.

Financial assistance received in time of sickness, disability, unemployment, etc. either from insurance or public programs such as social security.

Contracts.

When it is said that a valuable consideration for a promise may consist of a benefit to the promisor, "benefit" means that the promisor has, in return for his promise, acquired some legal right to which he would not otherwise have been entitled. Woolum v. Sizemore, 267 Ky. 384, 102 S.W.2d 323, 324.

"Benefits" of contract are advantages which result to either party from performance by other. DeCarlo v. Gerryco, Inc., 46 N.C. App. 15, 264 S.E.2d 370, 375.

Eminent domain:

It is a rule that, in assessing damages for private property taken or injured for public use, "special benefits" may be set off against the amount of damage found, but not "general benefits." Within the meaning of this rule, general benefits are such as accrue to the community at large, to the vicinage, or to all property similarly situated with reference to the work or improvement in question; while special benefits are such as accrue directly and solely to the owner of the land in question and not to others. As respects eminent domain law, "general benefits" are those which arise from the fulfillment of the public object which justified taking, while "special benefits" are those which arise from the particular relation of the land in question to the public improvement. Morehead v. State Dept. of Roads, 195 Neb. 31, 236 N.W.2d 623, 627

@ benefit association

See benefit societies

@ benefit building society

The original name for what is now more commonly called a "building society" (q.v.)

@ benefit certificate

A written obligation to pay the person therein named the amount specified upon the conditions therein stipulated. Also a term usually applied to policies issued by fraternal and beneficiary societies. Chandler v. New York Life Ins. Co., 194 Ark. 6, 104 S.W.2d 1060, 1061

@ benefit-cost ratio

Such ratio is basically a comparison of anticipated benefits derived from particular public works project with anticipated costs over estimated life span of the project. Sierra Club v. Froehlke, D.C.Tex., 359 F.Supp. 1289, 1360

@ benefit of bargain rule

Under such rule a defrauded purchaser may recover the difference between the real and the represented value of the property purchased. Auffenberg v. Hafley, Mo.App., 457 S.W.2d 929, 337.

This rule of damages gives damaged party equivalent of what the party would have received if the representations relied upon had been true. Asleson v. West Branch Land Co., N.D., 311 N.W.2d 533, 543.

In an action for fraud, plaintiffs recovery is limited to that measured by "out-of-pocket" rule, by which damages are measured by difference between purchase price of property and fair market value of same property on date of sale, unless actionable misrepresentation was warranty of value, in which case plaintiff may recover under "benefit-of-the-bargain" rule by which damages are determined by difference between actual value of property received and its value had representations as made been true. Galego v. Knudsen, 573 P.2d 313, 318, 281 Or. 43

@ benefit of cession

In the civil law, the release of a debtor from future imprisonment for his debts, which the law operates in his favor upon the surrender of his property for the benefit of his creditors

@ benefit of clergy

In its original sense, the phrase denoted the exemption which was accorded to clergymen from the jurisdiction of the secular courts, or from arrest or attachment on criminal process issuing from those courts in certain particular cases.

Afterwards, it meant a privilege of exemption from the punishment of death accorded to such persons as were clerks, or who could read. This privilege of exemption from capital punishment was anciently allowed to clergymen only, but afterwards to all who were connected with the church, even to its most subordinate officers, and at a still later time to all persons who could read (then called "clerks"), whether ecclesiastics or laymen. It does not appear to have been extended to cases of high treason, nor did it apply to mere misdemeanors.

The privilege was claimed after the person's conviction, by a species of motion in arrest of judgment, technically called "praying his clergy." As a means of testing his clerical character, he was given a psalm to read (usually, or always, the fifty-first), and, upon his reading it correctly, he was turned over to the ecclesiastical courts, to be tried by the bishop or a jury of twelve clerks. These heard him on oath, with his witnesses and compurgators, who attested their belief in his innocence.

This privilege operated greatly to mitigate the extreme rigor of the criminal laws, but was found to involve such gross abuses that parliament began to enact that certain crimes should be felonies "without benefit of clergy," and finally, by the Criminal Law Act of 1827, it was altogether abolished. The act of congress of April 30, 1790, c. 9, No. 31, 1 Stat. 119, provided that there should be no benefit of clergy for any capital crime against the United States, and, if this privilege formed a part of the common law of the several states before the Revolution, it no longer exists. Sometimes used in negative sense, "without benefit of clergy", to describe status of man and woman who live together though not married to each other

@ benefit of counsel

See assistance of counsel

- counsel, right to

@ benefit of discussion

In the civil law, the right which a surety has to cause the property of the principal debtor to be applied in satisfaction of the obligation in the first instance. Civ.Code La. arts. 3045-3051

@ benefit of division

Same as beneficium divisionis (q.v.)

@ benefit of inventory

In the civil law, the privilege which the heir obtains of being liable for the charges and debts of the succession, only to the value of the effects of the succession, by causing an inventory of these effects within the time and manner prescribed by law. Civil Code La. art. 1032

@ benefit of order

See beneficium (beneficium ordinis)

@ benefit societies

Under this and several similar names, in various states, corporations which exist to receive periodical payments from members, and hold them as a fund to be loaned or given to members needing pecuniary relief

@ benefits rule

This rule provides that where a benefit, as well as a harm, is conferred by a tort-feasor, the benefits must be weighed against the elements of claimed damage. Clapham v. Yanga, 102 Mich.App. 47, 300 N.W.2d 727, 734

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