KFLCC Kingdom Law 2nd Ed.

170

CAPUT

OARS

CAPUT. A head; the head of a person; the whole person; the life of a person; one's personality; status; civil condition. At common law. A head. Caput comitatis, the head of the county; the sheriff; the king. Spelman. A person; a life. The upper part of a town. Cowell. A castle. Spelman. In the civil law. It signified a person's civil condition or status, and among the Ro mans consisted of three component parts or elements,— Ubertas, liberty; civitas, citizen ship; and familia, family. — Capitis sestimatio. In Saxon law. The estimation or value of the head, that is, the price or value of a man's life.— Capnt anni. The first day of the year.—Capnt baroniae. The castle or chief seat of a baron.— Capnt jejnnii. The beginning of the Lent fast, •. «., Ash Wednesday.— Capnt loci. The head or upper part of a place.— Capnt lnpinnm. In old English law. A wolf's head. An outlawed felon was said to be caput lupinum, and might be knocked on the head, like a wolf.— Capnt mortmun. A dead head; dead; obsolete.— Capnt portns. In old Etoglish law. The head of a port. The town to which a port be longs, and which gives the denomination to the port, and is the head of it. Hale de Jure Mar. pt. 2, (de portubus nucvris,) c. 2.— Cannt, prin- «ipinm, et finis. The head, beginning, and end. A term applied in English law to the king, as head of parliament. 4 Inst 3 ; 1 Bl. Comm. 188. CAPUTAGIUM. In old English law. Head or poll money, or the payment of it. Cowell; Blount CARAT. A measure of weight for dia monds and other precious stones, equivalent to three and one-sixth grains Troy, though divided by jewelers into four parts called "diamond grains." Also a standard of fine ness of gold, twenty-four carats being con ventionally taken as expressing absolute purity, and the proportion of gold to alloy in a mixture being represented as so many carats. In French law. An instru ment of punishment, somewhat resembling a pillory. It sometimes signifies the punish ment itself. Biret, Vocab. CARCAN. CAPUTIUM. In old English law. A head of land; a headland. Cowell. CARABUS. In old English law. A kind of raft or boat. Spelman.

CARCER. A prison or gaol. Strictly, a place of detention and safe-keeping, and not of punishment Co. Litt 620. Career ad homines enstodiendos, non ad pnniendos, dari debet. A prison should be used for keeping persons, not for punish ing them. Co. Litt. 260a. Career non snpplicii eansa sed ens todise constitntns. A prison is ordained not for the sake of punishment, but of de tention and guarding. Lofft, 119. In ecclesiastical law. A. dignitary of the court of Rome, next in rank to the pope. In criminal law. Small papers or pasteboards of an oblong or rectangular shape, on which are printed figures or points, used in playing certain games. See Estes v. State, 2 Humph. (Tenn.) 496; Common wealth v. Arnold, 4 Pick. (Mass.) 251; State v. Herryford, 19 Mo. 377; State v. Lewis, 12 Wis. 434. As a legal term, this word means diligence, prudence, discretion, attentiveness, watchfulness, vigilance. It is the opposite of negligence or carelessness. There are three degrees of care in the law, corresponding (inversely) to the three de grees of negligence, viz.: slight care, ordinary care, and great care. The exact boundaries between the several de grees of care, and their correlative degrees of carelessness, or negligence, are not always clear ly defined or easily pointed out. We think, however, that by "ordinary care" is meant that degree of care which may reasonably be expect ed from a person in* the party's situation,—that is, "reasonable care;" and that "gross neg ligence" imports not a malicious intention or design to produce a particular injury, but a thoughtless disregard of consequences, the ab sence, rather than the actual exercise, of voli tion with reference to results. Neal v. Gillett, 23 Conn. 443. Slight care is such as persons of ordinary, prudence usually exercise about their own af fairs of slight importance. Rev. Codes N. D. 1899, § 5109; Rev. St. Okl. 1903, § 2782. Or it is that degree of care which a person exer cises about his own concerns, though he may be a person of less than common prudence or of careless and inattentive disposition. Litch field v. White, 7 N. Y. 442, 57 Am. Dec. 534; Bank v. Guilmartin, 93 Ga. 503, 21 S. E. 55, 44 Am. St. Rep. 182. Ordinary care is that degree of care which persons of ordinary care and prudence are ac customed to use and employ, under the same or similar circumstances, in order to conduct the enterprise in which they are engaged to a safe and successful termination having due re gard to the rights of others and the objects to be accomplished. Gunn v. Railroad Co.. 36 W. Va. 165, 14 S. E. 465, 32 Am. St Rep. 842; Sullivan v. Scripture, 3 Allen (Mass.) 566; Osborn v. Woodford, 31 Kan. 290, 1 Pac. 548; Railroad Co. v. Terry, 8 Ohio St. 570; Railroad Co. v. McCoy. 81 Ky. 403; Railroad Co. v. Howard, 79 Ga. 44, 3 S. EL 426; Paden v. Van Blarcom, 100 Mo. App. 185, 74 S. W. 124. Great care is such as person's of ordinary prudence usually exercise about affairs of their CARDINAL. CARDS. CARE.

CARCANUM.

A gaol; a prison.

CARCARE.

In old English law.

To

load; to load a vessel; to freight

CARCATUS.

Loaded; freighted, as a

ship.

CARCEL-AGE.

Gaol-dues; prison-fees.