Blacks Law Dict. 1st ed

CONFESSION

249

CONFIRMAT, ETC.

a magistrate or in court in the due course of legal proceedings. Extra-judicial confessions are those made by the party elsewhere than before a magis trate or in open court. 1 Greenl. Ev. § 216. CONFESSION AND AVOIDANCE. A plea in confession and avoidance is one which avows and confesses the truth of the averments of fact in the declaration, either expressly or by implication, but then proceeds to allege new matter which tends to deprive the facts admitted of their ordinary legal effect, or to obviate, neutralize, or avoid them. CONFESSION OF DEFENSE. In English practice. Where defendant alleges a ground of defense arising since the com mencement of the action, the plaintiff may deliver confession of such defense and sign judgment for his costs up to the time of such pleading, unless it be otherwise ordered. Jud Act 1875, Ord. XX. r. 3. CONFESSION OF JUDGMENT. The act of a debtor in permitting j udgment to be entered against him by his creditor, for a stipulated sum, by a written statement to that effect or by warrant of attorney, with out the institution of legal proceedings of any kind. CONFESSO, BILL TAKEN PRO. In equity practice. An order which the court of chancery makes when the defendant does not file an answer, that the plaintiff may take such a decree as the case made by his bill war rants. CONFESSOR An ecclesiastic who re ceives auricular confessions of sins from per sons under his spiritual charge, and pro nounces absolution upon them. The secrets of the confessional are not privileged com munications at common law, but this has been changed by statute in some states. See 1 Greenl. Ev. §§ 247, 248. CONFESSORIA ACTIO. Lat. In the eivil law. An action for enforcing a servi tude Mackeld. Eom. Law, § 324. Confessus in judicio pro judicato habetur, et quodammodo sua sententia* damnatur. 11 Coke, 30. A person con fessing his guilt when arraigned is deemed to have been found guilty, and is, as it were, oondemned by bis own sentence. CONFIDENCE. Trust; reliance; ground of trust. In the construction of wills, this word is considered peculiarly ap

propriate to create a trust. "It is as appli cable to the subject of a trust, as nearly a synonym, as the English language is capable of. Trust is a confidence which one man re poses in another, and confidence is a trust." 2 Pa. St. 133. CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNI CATIONS. These are certain classes of communications, passing between persons who stand in a confidential or fiduciary rela tion to each other, (or who, on account of their relative situation, are under a special duty of secrecy and fidelity,) which the law will not permit to be divulged, or allow them to be inquired into in a court of justice, for the sake of public policy and the good order of society. Examples of such privileged re lations are those of husband and wife and attorney and client. CONFIDENTIAL RELATION. A fiduciary relation. These phrases are used as convertible terms. It is a peculiar rela tion which exists between client and attor ney, principal and agent, principal and surety, landlord and tenant, parent and child, guardian and ward, ancestor and heir, hus band and wife, trustee and cestui que trust, executors or administrators and creditors, legatees, or distributees, appointer and ap pointee under powers, and partners and part owners. In these and like cases, the law, in order to prevent undue advantage from the unlimited confidence or sense of duty which the relation naturally creates, requires the utmost degree of good faith in all transac tions between the parties. 57 Cal. 497; 1 Story, Eq. Jur. 218. CONFINEMENT. Confinement may be by either a moral or a physical restraint, by threats of violence with a present force, or by physical restraint of the person. 1 Sum. 171. CONFIRM. To complete or establish that which was imperfect or uncertain; to ratify what has been done without authority or insufficiently. Confirmare est id firmum facere quod prius infirmum fuit. Co. Litt. 295. To confirm is to make firm that which was be fore infirm. Confirmare nemo potest prius quam jus ei accident. No one can confirm be fore the right accrues to him. 10 Coke, 48. Confirmat usum qui tollit abusum. He confirms the use [of a thing] who re moves the abuse, [of it.] Moore, 764.

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