Proviso

A proviso is a limitation or exception to a grant made or authority conferred, the effect of which is to declare that the one shall not operate or the other be exercised unless in Case provi(fed. 187 Mich. 516, 525. The name of a clause Inserted in an act of the legislature, a deed, a written agreement, or other instrument, which generally contains a condition that a certain thing shall or shall not be done, in order that an agreement contained in another clause shall take effect. "This word hath divers operations. Sometimes it worketh a qualification or limitation, sometimes a condition, and sometimes a covenant." Co. Litt. 146b, 203b. vhen a proviso contains the mutual words of the parties to a deed, it amounts to a covenant. 2 Coke, 72; Cro. Eliz. 242; Moore, 707. A proviso differs from an exception. 1 Barn. & Aid. 99. An exception exempts, absolutely, from the operation of an engagement or an enactment; a proviso defeats their operation conditionally. An exception takes out of an engagement or enactment something which would otherwise be part of the subject matter of it; a proviso avoids them by way of defeasance or excuse. 8 Am. Jur. 242; Plowd. 361; Garth. 99; 1 Saund. 234a, note; Lilly, Reg., and the cases there cited. See, generally, Am. Jur. No. 16, art. 1; Bac. Abr. "Conditions" (A); Comyn, Dig. "Condition" (A 1), (A 2); Dwarr. St. 660. PROVISO EST PROVIDERE PRAESENtia et futura, non praeterita. A proviso is to provide for the present and the future, not the past. 2 Coke, 72; Vaughan, 279; Broom, Leg. Max. (3d London Ed.) 275.