Necessity

That which makes the contrary of a thing impossible. Necessity is of three sorts: of conservation of life; see Duress; of obedience, as the obligation of civil subjection, and, in some cases, the coercion of a wife by her husband; and necessity of the act of God, or of a stranger. Jacob. Whatever is done through necessity is done without any intention; and as the act is done without will ( q. v.) and is compulsory, the agent is not legally responsible; Whart. Cr. L. § 95; Bacon, Max. Reg. 5. Hence the maxim, Necessity has no law; indeed, necessity is itself a law which cannot be avoided nor infringed.

Clef des Lois Rom.; Dig. 10. 3. 10. 1; Cornyns, Dig. Pleader (3 M 20, 3 M 30).

As to the circumstances which constitute necessity, see l Russ. Cr. 1G, 20; Morris v. State, 31 Ind. 189; Flagg v. Milibury, 4 Cush. (Mass.) 243. Either public ofiicers or private persons may raze bouses to prevent the spreading of a conflagration. But this right rests on public necessity, and no one is bound to compensate for or to contribute to the loss, unless the town or neighborhood is made liable by express statute; Rail! v. Troop, 157 U. S. 405, 15 Sup. Ct. G57, 39 L. Ed. 742, citing 2 Kent 33S; Bowditch v. Boston, 101 U. S. 16, 25 L. Ed. 980; The James P. Donaldson, 19 Fed. 269. See Eminent Domain; Fires. In 12 Rep. 63, it was held that in a tempest, and to save the lives of.the passengers, a passenger might cast out ponderous and valuable goods, without making himself liable to an action by their owner, cited in Ralli v. Troop, 157 U. S. 405, 15 Sup. Ct. 657, 39 L. Ed. 7 12. Wh<;rc a person goes to the house of another to buy cattle and there becomes ill and is turned out in the cold and injured thereby, it is an actionable breach of the duty to care for him in his necessity; Depue v. Flatau, 100 Minn. 299, 111 N. W. 1, 8 L. R. A. (N. S.) 485. To justify a trespass by a tenant on the ground that his intervention was necessary in order to prevent destruction of property (here a heath fire on land leased for shooting), it is sufficient to show that the intervention was, In the circumstances at the time it Tho law of necessity ( jus necessitatis) is the right of a man to do that from which he cannot be dissuaded by any terror of legal punishment. The test of necessity is the powerlessness of any possible, not that of any reasonable, punishment. Only the most limited scope can be given to the jus necessitatis; it is acknowledged as a reason for the reduction of the penalty, even to a nominal amount, but not for its total remission.

Salmond, Jurisprudence 420. See 2 Stephen, Hist. Cr. L. ch. 18; 1 L. Q. R. 51.

In the German Criminal Code, p. 51, the doctrine receives express recognition. See Eminent Domain; Fires. As to the meaning of the word under Sunday laws, see Sunday.