United States law The law of the United States comprises many levels of Codification (law), codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the supreme law is the nation's Constitution of the United States, Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the ...

, a stipulation is a formal legal acknowledgment and agreement made between opposing parties before a pending

hearing Hearing, or auditory perception, is the ability to perceive sounds through an organ, such as an ear, by detecting vibrations as periodic changes in the pressure of a surrounding medium. The academic field concerned with hearing is auditory sci ...

trial In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, w ...

. For example, both parties might stipulate to certain facts and so not have to argue them in court. After the stipulation is entered into, it is presented to the judge. The word is derived from the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

word ''stipula'' "straw." The

Ancient Roman In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

custom was that the negotiating parties, upon reaching an agreement, broke a straw as a sign of their agreement and wrote down the agreement's rules (''stipulationes'').Caesar and Christ, Will Durant, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1944

References

Legal terminology {{law-term-stub