Dictionary Search: "Penalty" - Pakistan Law Portal

Penalty

1. Punishment imposed on a wrongdoer, esp. in the form of imprisonment or fine. ( Though usu. for crimes, penalties are also sometimes imposed for civil wrongs. 2. Excessive liquidated damages that a contract purports to impose on a party that breaches. ( If the damages are excessive enough to be considered a penalty, a court will usu. not enforce that particular provision of the contract. Some contracts specify that a given sum of damages is intended "as liquidated damages and not as a penalty" - but even that language is not foolproof. "A penalty is a sum which a party . . . agrees to pay or forfeit in the event of a breach, but which is fixed, not as a pre-estimate of probable actual damages, but as a punishment, the threat of which is designed to prevent the breach, or as security, where the sum is deposited or the covenant to pay is joined in by one or more sureties, to insure that the person injured shall collect his actual damages. Penalties are not recoverable or retainable as such by the person in whose favor they are framed

civil penalty

A fine assessed for a violation of a statute or regulation <the EPA levied a civil penalty of $10,000 on the manufacturer for exceeding its pollution limits>.

death penalty

1 State-imposed death as punishment for a serious crime. - Also termed capital punishment. 2. A penalty that makes a person or entity ineligible to participate in an activity that the person or entity previously participated in. ( The penalty is usu. imposed because of some type of gross misconduct.

death penalty sanction. Civil procedure.

A court's order dismissing the suit or entering a default judgment in favor of the plaintiff because of extreme discovery abuses by a party or because of a party's action or inaction that shows an unwillingness to participate in the case. ( Such a sanction is rarely ordered, and is usu. preceded by orders of lesser sanctions that have not been complied with or that have not remedied the problem.

death-penalty sanction

See SANCTION.

declaration under penalty of perjury

See DECLARATION (8).

mandatory penalty

See mandatory sentence under SENTENCE.

penalty clause

A contractual provision that assesses an excessive monetary charge against a defaulting party. ( Penalty clauses are generally unenforceable. - Often shortened to penalty. - Also termed penal clause. Cf. LIQUIDATED-DAMAGES CLAUSE; LIMITATION-OF-REMEDIES CLAUSE. "It not infrequently happens that contracts provide for what is to happen in the event of a breach by the parties, or by one of them. Such provisions may be perfectly simple attempts to avoid future disputes, and to quantify the probable amount of any loss. That is unobjectionable. But sometimes clauses of this kind are not designed to quantify the amount of the probable loss, but are designed to terrorize, or frighten, the party into performance. For example, a contract may provide that the promisor is to pay £5 on a certain event, but if he fails to do so, he must then pay £500. Now a clause of that kind is called a penalty clause by lawyers, and for several hundred years it has been the law that such promises cannot be enforced. The standard justification for the law here is that it is unfair and unconscionable to enforce clauses which are designed to act in terrorem." P.S. Atiyah, Promises, Morals, and Law 57-58 (1981).

prepayment penalty

A charge assessed against a borrower who elects to pay off a loan before it is due.

statutory penalty

A penalty imposed for a statutory violation; esp., a penalty imposing automatic liability on a wrongdoer for violation of a statute's terms without reference to any actual damages suffered.

unsworn declaration under penalty of perjury