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''De minimis'' is a
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
expression meaning "pertaining to minimal things", normally in the terms ''de minimis non curat
praetor
Praetor ( , ), also pretor, was the title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to a man acting in one of two official capacities: (i) the commander of an army, and (ii) as an elected '' magistratus'' (magistrate), assigned to discharge vario ...
'' ("The praetor does not concern himself with trifles") or ''de minimis non curat lex'' ("The law does not concern itself with trifles"), a legal doctrine by which a court refuses to consider trifling matters.
Queen Christina of Sweden
Christina ( sv, Kristina, 18 December (New Style) 1626 – 19 April 1689), a member of the House of Vasa, was Queen of Sweden in her own right from 1632 until her abdication in 1654. She succeeded her father Gustavus Adolphus upon his death ...
(r. 1633–1654) favoured the similar Latin
adage
An adage (; Latin: adagium) is a memorable and usually philosophical aphorism that communicates an important truth derived from experience, custom, or both, and that many people consider true and credible because of its longeval tradition, i.e. ...
, ''aquila non
capit muscās'' (the eagle does not catch flies).
The legal history of ''de minimis'' dates back to the 15th century.
The general term has come to have a variety of specialised meanings in various contexts as shown below, which indicate that beneath a certain low level a quantity is regarded as trivial, and treated commensurately.
Examples of application of the ''de minimis'' rule
Taxation
Under
U.S. tax rules, the ''de minimis'' rule governs the treatment of small amounts of market discount. Under the rule, if a bond is purchased with a small amount of market discount (an amount less than 25% of the face value of: a bond times the number of complete years between the bond's acquisition date and its maturity date) the market discount is considered to be zero. If the market discount is less than the ''de minimis'' amount, the discount on the
bond
Bond or bonds may refer to:
Common meanings
* Bond (finance), a type of debt security
* Bail bond, a commercial third-party guarantor of surety bonds in the United States
* Chemical bond, the attraction of atoms, ions or molecules to form chemica ...
is generally treated as a
capital gain
Capital gain is an economic concept defined as the profit earned on the sale of an asset which has increased in value over the holding period. An asset may include tangible property, a car, a business, or intangible property such as shares.
...
upon disposition or redemption rather than as
ordinary income
Under the United States Internal Revenue Code, the ''type'' of income is defined by its character. Ordinary income is usually characterized as income other than long-term capital gains. Ordinary income can consist of income from wages, salar ...
. Under
Internal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory ta ...
guidelines, the ''de minimis'' rule can also apply to any benefit, property, or service provided to an employee that has so little value that reporting for it would be unreasonable or administratively impracticable; for example, use of a company photocopier to copy personal documents – see
''de minimis'' fringe benefit.
Cash
In economics, cash is money in the physical form of currency, such as banknotes and coins.
In bookkeeping and financial accounting, cash is current assets comprising currency or currency equivalents that can be accessed immediately or near-imm ...
is not excludable, regardless of the amount.
Specifically in U.S.
State income tax
In addition to federal income tax collected by the United States, most individual U.S. states collect a state income tax. Some local governments also impose an income tax, often based on state income tax calculations. Forty-two states and many ...
, ''de minimis'' refers to the point at which withholdings should be initiated for a
nonresident working in a state which taxes personal income. Not all U.S. states levy income taxes, and there's little consistency among nonresident ''de minimis'' standards for those that do. Some states base ''de minimis'' on the number of days worked (although the definition of what counts as a workday has been controversial), others on the dollars earned or a percentage of total income derived from work in the state, still others using a combination of methods. These inconsistencies have led to repeated attempts to pass the so-called Mobile Workforce State Income Tax Simplification Act without success.
European Union usage
According to European Union regulations, ''de minimis'' "state aid" is any amount of aid up to the ''de minimis'' ceiling of €200,000 provided from state funds to a
business
Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for pr ...
enterprise over a rolling three-year period. For businesses in the land transport sector, the ''de minimis'' ceiling is €100,000. If a business receives more than the ''de minimis'' ceiling amount of aid, it is subject to a different set of regulations.
Under
European Union competition law
European competition law is the competition law in use within the European Union. It promotes the maintenance of competition within the European Single Market by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies to ensure that they do not crea ...
, some agreements infringing
Article 101(1) of the
Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) is one of two treaties forming the Treaties of the European Union, constitutional basis of the European Union (EU), the other being the Treaty on European Union (TEU). It was previously ...
(formerly Article 81(1) of the
EC Treaty
The Treaty of Rome, or EEC Treaty (officially the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community), brought about the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC), the best known of the European Communities (EC). The treaty was signe ...
) are considered to be ''de minimis'' and therefore accepted. Horizontal agreement, that is one between competitors, will usually be ''de minimis'' where the parties' market share is 10% or less, and a vertical agreement, between undertakings operating at different levels of the market, where it is 15% or less.
Procurement
Procurement is the method of discovering and agreeing to terms and purchasing goods, Service (economics), services, or other works from an external source, often with the use of a tendering or competitive bidding process. When a government agenc ...
of low value contracts is subject to limited regulation when its value falls below certain low thresholds.
Criminology and crime
In
criminology
Criminology (from Latin , "accusation", and Ancient Greek , ''-logia'', from λόγος ''logos'' meaning: "word, reason") is the study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is an interdisciplinary field in both the behavioural and so ...
, the ''de minimis'' or ''minimalist'' approach is an addition to a general
harm principle
The harm principle holds that the actions of individuals should only be limited to prevent harm to other individuals. John Stuart Mill articulated this principle in ''On Liberty'', where he argued that "The only purpose for which power can be r ...
. The general harm principle fails to consider the possibility of other sanctions to prevent harm, and the effectiveness of
criminalization as a chosen option. Those other sanctions include civil courts, laws of
tort
A tort is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishable ...
and
regulation
Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. For ...
. Having criminal remedies in place is seen as a "last resort" since such actions often infringe personal liberties –
incarceration
Imprisonment is the restraint of a person's liberty, for any cause whatsoever, whether by authority of the government, or by a person acting without such authority. In the latter case it is "false imprisonment". Imprisonment does not necessari ...
, for example, prevents the freedom of movement. In this sense, law making that places a greater emphasis on
human rights
Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...
, such as the
European Convention on Human Rights
The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR; formally the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) is an international convention to protect human rights and political freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by t ...
, falls into the ''de minimis'' category. Most crimes of direct action (
murder
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...
,
rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ag ...
,
assault
An assault is the act of committing physical harm or unwanted physical contact upon a person or, in some specific legal definitions, a threat or attempt to commit such an action. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in crim ...
, for example) are generally not affected by such a stance, but do require greater justification in less clear cases.
The ''de minimis'' rule in North American
drug law
The prohibition of drugs through sumptuary legislation or religious law is a common means of attempting to prevent the recreational use of certain intoxicating substances.
While some drugs are illegal to possess, many governments regulate the ...
requires a ''usable'' quantity of the substance in question before charges can be brought, known as the ''minority rule''.
In Canada, ''de minimis'' is often used as a standard of whether a criminal offence is made out at a preliminary stage. For a charge of second degree murder, the test being: "could the jury reasonably conclude that accused actions were a contributing cause, beyond ''de minimis'', of the victim's death."
Risk assessment
In
risk assessment
Broadly speaking, a risk assessment is the combined effort of:
# identifying and analyzing potential (future) events that may negatively impact individuals, assets, and/or the environment (i.e. hazard analysis); and
# making judgments "on the to ...
, it refers to the highest level of risk that is still too small to be concerned with. Therefore, only risk levels above this de minimis level must be addressed and managed. Some refer to this as a "virtually safe" level.
It has application in the fields of auditing, modeling, and engineering, and may refer to situations of low (negligible) risk. It can be verified in ASA 1.
Copyright
![The Dark Knight movie poster - censored copyright](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/The_Dark_Knight_movie_poster_-_censored_copyright.jpg)
Courts will occasionally not uphold a claim to
copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
on modified
public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work
A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...
material if the changes are deemed to be ''de minimis''. Similarly, courts have dismissed
copyright infringement
Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, s ...
cases on the grounds that the alleged infringer's use of the copyrighted work (such as
sampling) was so insignificant as to be ''de minimis''. For example, the ''
NBA 2K
''NBA 2K'' is a series of basketball sports simulation video games developed by Visual Concepts and released annually since 1999. The premise of the series is to emulate the sport of basketball, and more specifically, the National Basketball A ...
'' video games that included copyrighted tattoos in the recreation of the players' likenesses were found to be in ''de minimis'' and not copyright-violating. However, in ''
Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Dimension Films
'' Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Dimension Films'', 410 F.3d 792 (6th Cir. 2005), is a 2005 court case that was important in defining American copyright law for recorded music. The case centered on the 1990 N.W.A. track "100 Miles and Runnin'", which ...
'', such a ruling was overturned on appeal, the US appeals court explicitly declining to recognize a ''de minimis'' standard for digital sampling.
"de minimis" was also invoked in the Trevor Newton vs Beastie Boys copyright infringement lawsuit where a 6-second sample of Newton's piece "Choir" was used in "Pass the Mic," Newton lost the case.
In India
The principle of ''de minimis non curat lex'' can be used as defense in India in cases of copyright infringement. The important issue is that whether de minimis principle could be used as separate defence than fair use under section 52 of Indian Copyright Act. In ''India TV Independent News Service Pvt. Ltd. and Ors. v Yashraj Films Pvt. Ltd.'', the court discussed the applicability of ''de mininims'' principle at length. Before this case the position was not very clear with regard to the applicability. The facts of the case were that five words were copied from a song of five stanzas. After applying the five well-known factors commonly considered by courts in applying ''de minimis'', the court reached the conclusion that the infraction is trivial and attracts the defence of ''de minimis''.
Planning
In environmental planning in New Zealand, the use of the term 'de minimis' is common in the legal and planning professions. While not defined under the Resource Management Act 1991, it is commonly used in case law in relation to an assessment of environmental effect, e.g. "the potential adverse effect of one additional road user on the crossing is considered to be de minimis". It is used when an actual or potential effect may exist, but is so minor it is close to negligible or zero in nature.
Education
In ''Endrew vs. Douglas County School District'', the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled, on March 22, 2017, that the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a piece of American legislation that ensures students with a disability are provided with a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) that is tailored to their individual needs. IDEA was ...
(IDEA) requires more than ''de minimis'' efforts to provide equivalent educational opportunity to students with disabilities. The decision reversed a previous decision by the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (in case citations, 10th Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:
* District of Colorado
* District of Kansas
* Distri ...
.
Logistics
A de minimis threshold is a value set by a country to apply customs duty and tax rates on imported goods. De minimis refers to the minimum value of the goods below which no duties and taxes are being collected by the Customs, and with minimal government review due to low-value items is simply too much hassle to put them through normal customs procedures. The threshold varies from country to country and each threshold is based on local currency. In addition, some countries don’t have a de minimis rule, so everything gets taxed; other countries don’t have customs duties, so nothing gets taxed.
Miscellaneous examples
Following
bus deregulation in Great Britain in 1986, small contracts for supplementary local bus services could be let by local authorities without competitive tendering. The Department for Transport's "Guidance on New De Minimis Rules for Bus Subsidy Contracts" (2005) notes that "The
Transport Act 1985
The Transport Act 1985 was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom. It introduced privatised and deregulated bus services throughout Great Britain and came into effect in October of 1986.
The Act was created as a response to growing concern ...
(as amended by the
2000 Transport Act) introduced the provisions which govern the duties of local passenger transport authorities to secure local bus services where these would not otherwise be met. In the majority of cases these services have to be secured through competitive tender. The Service Subsidy Agreements (Tendering) Regulations provided local authorities with the scope to let any individual bus subsidy contract in any one year up to a certain maximum value without the need to competitively tender (the ''de minimis'' limits). There was also a maximum value that ''de minimis'' contracts could be let with any one operator in any one year."
Under the ''de minimis'' provision of the
World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. With effective cooperation
in the United Nations System, governments use the organization to establish, revise, and e ...
's
Agreement on Agriculture
The Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) is an international treaty of the World Trade Organization. It was negotiated during the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and entered into force with the establishment of the WTO on J ...
there is no requirement to cap trade-distorting domestic support in any year during which the value of support does not exceed a certain percentage (5–10%) of the national production value per product or of all products taken together if the support is not attributable to any specific product category.
See also
*
List of Latin phrases
__NOTOC__
This is a list of Wikipedia articles of Latin phrases and their translation into English.
''To view all phrases on a single, lengthy document, see: List of Latin phrases (full)''
The list also is divided alphabetically into twenty page ...
*
Small claims court
Small-claims courts have limited jurisdiction to hear civil cases between private litigants. Courts authorized to try small claims may also have other judicial functions, and go by different names in different jurisdictions. For example, it may b ...
*
Sugar bowl (legal maxim)
In United States constitutional law and criminal procedure, the sugar bowl refers to a legal maxim relating to one of the restrictions on searches and seizures imposed by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It specifically refer ...
References
External links
*
*
* {{cite book, last=Wilde, first=Larry, author-link=Larry Wilde, title=The Official Lawyers Joke Book, page=20, publisher=Bantam, year=1982, isbn=9780553201116, quote=
Limerick
Limerick ( ; ga, Luimneach ) is a western city in Ireland situated within County Limerick. It is in the province of Munster and is located in the Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region. With a population of 94,192 at the 2016 ...
: There was a young lawyer named Rex / Who was sadly deficient in sex. / Arraigned for exposure / He said with composure, / 'De minimis non curat lex.'
Brocards (law)
Copyright law
Latin legal terminology