BERS - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

BERSAuthored

The Law Mind • 479 words

Definition

"Bers" has no recognized independent legal meaning. It appears in legal source material only as an artifact of indexing, pagination, or alphabetical sequencing — specifically, as a partial word fragment or cross-reference stub that precedes or follows an unrelated entry in a historical dictionary. The term does not function as a legal term of art in any common law or civil law tradition.

In ordinary English, "bers" is the plural of "ber," a variant term for a species of jujube fruit (Ziziphus mauritiana), used in botanical and agricultural contexts. This meaning has no legal significance.

Common Confusion

Researchers should not conflate this fragment with any of the following, which are genuine legal terms: MEMBERS (as in members of a corporation, partnership, or legislative body), CHAMBERS (judicial or legislative), or any Latin suffix construction. If a search returned this entry when another was intended, the target term likely ends in "-bers" or was entered incompletely.

Why It Matters in Research

Researchers encountering "BERS" in historical legal dictionaries — including Bouvier's — should treat it as a navigation artifact rather than a substantive entry. Historical legal dictionaries were typeset and indexed by hand; stub entries, truncated words, and sequencing remnants appear at the edges of alphabetical sections and at page breaks. "BERS" most likely represents the tail end of a longer term (such as "CHAMBERS," "MEMBERS," or a Latin phrase ending in "-bers") cut off by a column or page boundary, or a compositor's error.

If you have arrived at this entry through a search or index lookup, the following corrective steps are recommended: (1) examine the surrounding entries in the source document for context; (2) consider whether you are searching for a term ending in "-bers" rather than the standalone word; and (3) consult the original page image of the historical dictionary rather than relying on a transcribed or digitized version, which may have introduced the fragment as a discrete headword.

Historical Dictionary Support

Bouvier's Law Dictionary contains no substantive entry under "BERS." The source material associated with this term in the Law Mind corpus is the entry for SITUS — a well-developed Latin legal term covering the situation or location of property, with particular importance in conflict of laws analysis. The appearance of "BERS" in proximity to that entry is consistent with a page-break artifact or running-header fragment in the original typesetting, not a deliberate headword.

No other historical legal dictionary in the standard reference shelf — including Black's, Stroud's, or Wharton's — carries a substantive entry under "BERS."

BERSmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

SITUS (Lat.). Situation; location. 5 Pet. 524. Real estate has always a fixed situs, while personal estate has no such fixed situs: the law rei sitæ regulates real but not personal estate; Story, Confi. Laws, 8th ed. §§ 363-365. See PROPERTY; LEX LOCI; TAX; Waples, Debtor and Creditor, where the subject of the location of prop- erty is treated. The popular title SIX ACTS, THE. of the group of English acts 60 Geo. 3, and 1 Geo. 4, cc. 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9: portions of c. 1 (the Unlawful Drilling Act, 1819), c. 4 (the Pleading in Misdemeanor Act, 1819), and e. 8 (the Criminal Libel Act, 1819), are still unrepealed. The "Gagging Acts" was another popular title. The six acts in effect prohibited the train- ing of persons to arms; authorized general scarches and seizure of arms; prohibited meetings of more than fifty persons for the discussion of public grievances; repressed with heavy penalties and confiscation sedi- tious and blasphemous libels; and checked pamphleteering by extending the newspaper stamp duty to political pamphlets. Byrne. SIX ARTICLES, LAWS OF. A celebrated act entitled " An act for abolish- ing diversity of opinion," 31 Hen. VIIL c. 14; enforcing conformity to six of the strongest points in the Roman Catholic re- ligion, under the severest penalties; re pealed by 1 Eliz. c. 1; 4 Reeve, Eng. L. 378.