Correlative ("corelative," UK spelling) is the term adopted by

Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld (August 9, 1879, Oakland, CaliforniaOctober 21, 1918, Alameda, California) was an American jurist. He was the author of the seminal ''Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning and Other Legal Essays'' (19 ...

to describe the philosophical relationships between fundamental legal concepts in

jurisprudence Jurisprudence, or legal theory, is the theoretical study of the propriety of law. Scholars of jurisprudence seek to explain the nature of law in its most general form and they also seek to achieve a deeper understanding of legal reasoning a ...

Hohfeldian analysis

Hohfeld was concerned that there was some ambiguity in the explanation of the similarities and differences between concepts in law. Hence, with the focus on the nature of ''rights'', he proposed a system of analysis based on "jural correlatives" and "jural opposites". A correlative is where two concepts are

logically consistent In classical deductive logic, a consistent theory is one that does not lead to a logical contradiction. The lack of contradiction can be defined in either semantic or syntactic terms. The semantic definition states that a theory is consistent ...

and the one necessarily implies the other. When two concepts are Hohfeldian opposites (technically, logical contradictions), they are mutually exclusive. Thus, if A has a right with regard to B, an analysis of their relationship from B's point of view must imply that B has a duty to A. An owner of land may hold four distinct entitlements: rights, privileges, powers, and immunities. Hohfeld linked each entitlement to a corelative and its opposite:

In practice

Jurists such as

Mickey Dias Reginald Walter Michael "Mickey" Dias Bandaranaike QC (3 March 1921 – 17 November 2009) was a barrister, academic and author of leading works on jurisprudence and the law of tort. He was the first Law Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, ...

and Hohfeld have declared that rights and duties are ''jural corelatives'', which means that if someone has a right, ''someone else'' owes a duty to him. This reasoning of Dias' was used in ''

Murphy v Brentwood District Council was a judicial decision of the House of Lords in relation to recovery for pure economic loss in tort. The court overruled the decision ''Anns v Merton London Borough Council'' with respect to duty of care in English law. Facts A builder fa ...

'' (1991) to disapprove

Lord Denning Alfred Thompson "Tom" Denning, Baron Denning (23 January 1899 – 5 March 1999) was an English lawyer and judge. He was called to the bar of England and Wales in 1923 and became a King's Counsel in 1938. Denning became a judge in 1944 when ...

MR's judgment in '' Dutton v Bognor Regis Urban District Council'' (1972).Denning had argued, wrongly, that when a local council has a right to inspect a building under construction, the council has a corresponding duty of care to "inspect properly".

References

{{Reflist * Hohfeld, W. N. ''Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning'', ed. by W.W. Cook (1919); reprint, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, (1964). Philosophy of law Human rights

Hohfeldian analysis

In practice

See also

References