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

Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld (August 9, 1879 October 21, 1918) was an American jurist. He was the author of the seminal ''Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning and Other Legal Essays'' (1919). During his brief life, he publish ...

to describe the philosophical relationships between fundamental legal concepts in

jurisprudence Jurisprudence, also known as theory of law or philosophy of law, is the examination in a general perspective of what law is and what it ought to be. It investigates issues such as the definition of law; legal validity; legal norms and values ...

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 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 correlative and its opposite:

In practice

Jurists such as Mickey Dias 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'' (1991) to disapprove

Lord Denning Alfred Thompson Denning, Baron Denning, (23 January 1899 – 5 March 1999), was an English barrister 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 he w ...

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 Concepts in political philosophy

Hohfeldian analysis

In practice

See also

References