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Ab initio means “from the beginning” and can be used in legal cases to declare contracts or agreements null from the outset. It applies to divorce, annulment, insurance contracts, and property rights. It can also be used to declare law enforcement officials offenders and seek compensation. It is rarely used today.
Ab initio is a Latin term meaning “from the beginning”. This legal term can be applied to contracts, land deeds, and other documents. When this determination is made in the case of a written legal act, the act is declared null from the outset. Each of the parties who signed it is returned to the same position that they held before signing the document or entering into the agreement.
Rather than declaring a contract unenforceable on the date of the court order or judgment, an ab initio determination means that the contract never existed. A couple filing for divorce is seeking to have their marriage legally terminated, and the divorce decree date is the day they consider themselves finished. In the case of a couple applying to the court for annulment, the marriage is considered to have never existed. In the latter case, the ab initio provision applies.
This term also applies to other forms of contract. Anyone who applies for insurance coverage and lies on the application runs the risk that the company refuses to provide benefits in the event of an accident. In that case, the company will argue that it doesn’t have to pay because the claimant’s failure to tell the truth means that there never was a valid contract. Instead of having the contract declared null and void from the date the lie was discovered, the company will ask the judge to declare the policy null and void ab initio.
A person who has a legitimate reason to enter another person’s property, such as a meter reader for the gas or electric company, is not considered a trespasser. Instead, he or she is a licensee. A law enforcement officer who enters an owner’s home to seize a particular item is acting legally. If that person commits an act of misconduct while on the property, the owner can ask a judge to have the law enforcement officer declared an offender ab initio.
This statement can open the door for the property owner to seek compensation from the law enforcement official. Breaking and entering is considered a tort in some jurisdictions and may be the basis for a lawsuit. In the past, the ab initio doctrine was used as a way to ensure that public officials acted appropriately, but it is now rarely used.
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