Definitions from Black's Law Dictionary: 2nd Edition and Ballentine's Law Dictionary as are available for each term in each dictionary.
  • Ballentine's Law Dictionary

    Presumed; inferred; imputed.

  • Black's Law Dictionary: 2nd Edition

    That which is established by the mind of the law in its act of construing facts, conduct, circumstances or instruments; that which has not the character assigned to it in its own essential nature, but acquires such character in consequence of the way in which it ls regarded by a ruie or policy of law; hence, inferred, implied, made out by legal interpretation. Middleton v. Parke, 3 App. D. O. 160.
    —Constructive assent. An assent or consent imputed to a party from a construction or interpretation of his conduct; as distinguished from one which he actually expresses.
    —Constructive authority. Authority inferred or assumed to have been given because of the grant of some other antecedent authority. Middleton v. Parke, 3 App. D. C. 160.
    —Constructive breaking into a house. A breaking made out by construction of law. As where a burglar gains an entry into a house by threats, fraud, or conspiracy. 2 Russ. Crimes, 9, 10.
    — Constructive crime. Where, by a strained construction of a penal statute, it is made to include an act not otherwise punishable, it is said to be a "constructive crime," that is, one built up by the court with the aid of inference and implication. Ex parte McNulty, 77 Cal. 164, 19 Pac. 237, 11 Am. St. Ren. 257.
    —Constructive taking. A phrase used in the law to characterize an act not amounting to an acfual appropriation of chattels, but which shows an intention to convert them to his use; as if a person intrusted with the possession of goods denis with them contrary to the orders of the owner. As to constructive "Breaking," "Contempt," "Contracts," "Conversion," "Delivery," "Eviction," "Fraud," "Larceny," "Malice," "Notice," "Possession," "Seisin," "Service of Process," "Total Loss," "Treason," and "Trusts," see those titles.