Adverse or adverse interest, in

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

, is anything that functions contrary to a

party A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a Hospitality, host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will oft ...

interest In finance and economics, interest is payment from a debtor or deposit-taking financial institution to a lender or depositor of an amount above repayment of the principal sum (that is, the amount borrowed), at a particular rate. It is distinct f ...

. This word should not be confused with averse. The most common use of the term is "an interest, claim , or right that is against another’s interest." This occurs not only in the law; examples also pop up in

accounting Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the process of recording and processing information about economic entity, economic entities, such as businesses and corporations. Accounting measures the results of an organization's economic activit ...

. Furthermore, an adverse interest is an exception to

agency law The law of agency is an area of commercial law dealing with a set of contractual, quasi-contractual and non-contractual fiduciary relationships that involve a person, called the agent, who is authorized to act on behalf of another (called the p ...

. The law regarding this exception is narrowly defined, so a judge will instruct a trial jury on the specific law. A second use of the phrase is when some "witness with adverse interest means the witness is hostile. A

hostile witness A hostile witness, also known as an adverse witness or an unfavorable witness, is a witness at trial whose testimony on direct examination is either openly antagonistic or appears to be contrary to the legal position of the party who called th ...

wants different results of the lawsuit than the party who calls them."

Adverse possession

A third use of the word "adverse" is "In real property, adverse interest means a person who is not the owner of the land or house owns an interest in the property." In

property Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, re ...

law,

adverse possession Adverse possession in common law, and the related civil law (legal system), civil law concept of usucaption (also ''acquisitive prescription'' or ''prescriptive acquisition''), are legal mechanisms under which a person who does not have title (p ...

refers to an interest in real property which is contrary to the in-fact owner of the property. For example, an

easement An easement is a Nonpossessory interest in land, nonpossessory right to use or enter onto the real property of another without possessing it. It is "best typified in the right of way which one landowner, A, may enjoy over the land of another, B" ...

may permit some amount of access to property which might otherwise constitute a

trespass Trespass is an area of tort law broadly divided into three groups: trespass to the person (see below), trespass to chattels, and trespass to land. Trespass to the person historically involved six separate trespasses: threats, assault, battery ...

References

Legal terminology {{Law-term-stub

Adverse possession

See also

References