Liability
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence · Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence
Amenability or responsibility to law; the condition of one who is subject to a charge or duty which may be judicially enforced. Liable: amenable or chargeable in some judicial proceeding. Liability may include punishment for crime as well as amenability to civil remedies.
United States v. Ulrici, 3 Dill. 5.32.
An act of congress declaring that, on commission of a certain act, the property involved shall be liable to forfeiture, does not mean that the property shall not vest in the government until after a seizure; but only expresses the contingency that government may not discover the forfeiture, or may not choose to prosecute.
The Mary Celeste, 2 Low. 354.