Definition
In law, advantage refers to a benefit, gain, or superior position obtained or held by a party, typically in relation to another party or to a transaction. The term appears across multiple legal contexts rather than carrying a single fixed technical meaning:
1. Contractual and transactional contexts: A benefit or favorable condition that one party holds or receives, sometimes bearing on whether a transaction is fair or unconscionable. Courts examining undue influence or unconscionability ask whether one party occupied a position of advantage over another.
2. Priority and preference: In older American case law and equity practice, advantage was used as a synonym for preference or priority — particularly in the context of creditor rights, distribution of assets, or competing claims. Bouvier cites this usage directly, equating advantage with "preference and priority."
3. Tort law: Advantage appears in the doctrine of intentional interference with prospective economic advantage, where a plaintiff must show that a defendant intentionally disrupted a reasonable expectation of future economic benefit. Here advantage is a technical element of a recognized tort cause of action.
4. Procedural and strategic contexts: Courts occasionally use advantage to describe a party's superior litigation position, though this usage is largely descriptive rather than doctrinal.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Any condition, circumstance, opportunity, or means particularly favorable to success or a desired end; superiority of state or position; benefit or gain.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Any condition, circumstance, opportunity, or means particularly favorable to success or any desired end; benefit; also superiority or mastery, used with "of" or "over."
The common meaning tracks closely to the legal meaning in most instances, which is why advantage rarely functions as a precisely defined legal term of art. The meaningful gap appears in specific doctrines — particularly the tort of intentional interference with prospective economic advantage — where advantage is a term of art carrying a defined legal weight that ordinary usage does not convey.
Common Confusion
Advantage, benefit, and interest are frequently used interchangeably in legal documents and older decisions, but they are not identical in doctrinal contexts. Benefit often refers to a received good or enforceable consideration. Interest implies a recognized legal stake or right in property or an outcome. Advantage is broader and more relational — it describes a favorable position relative to another party or a situation, not necessarily a vested right or received value. Anderson's Dictionary explicitly redirects readers from advantage to BENEFIT, COMMODUM, and INTEREST, signaling this overlap while implying they are distinguishable.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers face two main challenges with this term. First, advantage is a floating term — it appears across contracts, equity, torts, and procedural law without a uniform doctrinal definition. Searching for "advantage" in historical corpus materials without context will return a wide range of unrelated usages. Narrowing searches to specific doctrines (e.g., "prospective economic advantage," "undue advantage," "advantage and priority") will yield more usable results.
Second, the priority-and-preference usage documented in Bouvier reflects 19th-century equity and creditor law usage that has substantially faded from modern practice. Encountering advantage in this sense in historical documents — particularly those dealing with assignments, insolvency, or distribution of estates — requires recognizing the term as carrying a priority meaning, not simply a general benefit meaning.
For tort researchers, the doctrine of intentional interference with prospective economic advantage is the primary modern legal context where advantage carries real doctrinal weight. The elements of that claim, including the requirement that the plaintiff demonstrate a reasonable expectation of future advantage, are carefully defined in the case law and should be consulted directly rather than inferred from the general meaning of the term.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's treatment is brief but substantive: it equates advantage with preference and priority in the creditor-rights context, citing early American authority. This confirms that the term once served a specific technical function in equity and creditor law, now largely superseded by more precise vocabulary such as priority and preference themselves.
Anderson's Dictionary offers no independent definition, redirecting readers to BENEFIT, COMMODUM, and INTEREST. This approach signals that advantage was understood by Anderson as derivative — a general term subsumed within more precise legal concepts — rather than a freestanding term of art.
Neither historical dictionary anticipates the tort law usage that would develop into the modern doctrine of intentional interference with prospective economic advantage. Researchers should not expect historical dictionary sources to illuminate that doctrine's elements.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Intentional Interference with Prospective Economic Advantage — Law Mind Torts & Personal Injury Encyclopedia, Torts § 111