Analogia legis, also known as statutory analogy or analogy from statute, is a method of

statutory interpretation Statutory interpretation is the process by which courts interpret and apply legislation. Some amount of interpretation is often necessary when a case involves a statute. Sometimes the words of a statute have a plain and a straightforward meani ...

in which the legal principle applicable to a fact pattern not covered by a legal norm is determined by

analogy Analogy is a comparison or correspondence between two things (or two groups of things) because of a third element that they are considered to share. In logic, it is an inference or an argument from one particular to another particular, as oppose ...

to a norm that governs a comparable situation. The analogy is typically governed by the '' ratio legis'', or underlying purpose of the statute. For example, in a 2010 decision, the

Italian Constitutional Court The Constitutional Court of the Italian Republic () is the highest court of Italy in matters of constitutional law. Sometimes, the name ''Consulta'' is used as a metonym for it, because its sessions are held in Palazzo della Consulta in Rome. ...

determined that a statute allowing drivers of public transport vehicles to carry only an authenticated photocopy of the

vehicle registration Motor vehicle registration is the registration of a motor vehicle with a government authority, either compulsory or otherwise. The purpose of motor vehicle registration is to establish a link between a vehicle and an owner or user of the vehicle. ...

, rather than the originals, also extended to waste haulers, even though they were not expressly covered by the statute, because the same legislative purpose applied in both cases. In

common law Common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law primarily developed through judicial decisions rather than statutes. Although common law may incorporate certain statutes, it is largely based on prece ...

jurisdictions, ''analogia legis'' may also be applied to the interpretation of

precedent Precedent is a judicial decision that serves as an authority for courts when deciding subsequent identical or similar cases. Fundamental to common law legal systems, precedent operates under the principle of ''stare decisis'' ("to stand by thin ...

. For example, in '' Popov v. Hayashi'', which involved a baseball that was caught by two different people, the

California Superior Court Superior courts in California are the State court (United States), state trial courts with general jurisdiction to hear and decide any civil or criminal action which is not specially designated to be heard in some other court or before a governm ...

was faced with a fact pattern not governed by established legal standards for

possession Possession may refer to: Law *Dependent territory, an area of land over which another country exercises sovereignty, but which does not have the full right of participation in that country's governance *Drug possession, a crime *Ownership *Pe ...

. The court reasoned by analogy with a New Jersey case involving children tossing an abandoned sock that turned out to contain money in determining that possession required both physical control and intent, and that under the circumstances it was appropriate to order an

equitable division Equitable (EQ) cake-cutting is a kind of a fair cake-cutting problem, in which the fairness criterion is equitability. It is a cake-allocation in which the subjective value of all partners is the same, i.e., each partner is equally happy with his/he ...

among the two people who caught the baseball. ''Analogia legis'' is formally recognized in the

civil code A civil code is a codification of private law relating to property law, property, family law, family, and law of obligations, obligations. A jurisdiction that has a civil code generally also has a code of civil procedure. In some jurisdiction ...

s of some jurisdictions, including that of Portugal, which provides that "cases for which the law does not provide shall be governed by the norm applicable to similar cases". When ''analogia legis'' is not possible then '' analogia iuris'' may apply, in which the analogy is derived not from a statute but from fundamental legal or constitutional principles. However, although the distinction between ''analogia legis'' and ''analogia juris'' is traditional, some authorities have argued that there is no tenable distinction between them, as both involve the same interpretive techniques.

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{{Reflist Legal interpretation Analogy

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