Proper
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
1.
That which conforms to the standard by which the thing mentioned ought to be judged; fit; suitable; sufficient; well adapted. The constitution, in declaring that congress shall have power to make all laws necessary and proper for executing the express powers conferred, uses the word in this sense.
2.
Individually appropriate; peculiarly one's own. The expressions, a proper name, one's proper goods and chattels, are examples of this sense. Proper books of account. It is an objection, under the bankrupt law, to an application for a discharge, that the applicant, being a trader, is shown not to have kept proper books of account. But the fact that a trader's books of account are not entirely accurate does not defeat his right to a discharge in bankruptcy. Keeping proper books of account, within the requirement of the bankrupt law, may be said to be keeping an intelligent record of the merchant's or trader's business a Sairs, with that reasonable degree of accuracy and care whifch is to be expected from a man in that business. Intentional omissions may be conclusive that proper books have not been kept; impair the value of the books as a record of the business.
See Re Winsor, 16 Bankr. Reg. 152.