Definition
Of or relating to charity, alms, or charitable giving. In law, the term functions primarily as a modifier: an eleemosynary institution or eleemosynary corporation is one organized and operated for charitable purposes rather than for private gain. The word describes both the character of an organization (its charitable purpose) and the nature of a benefit (one given as charity rather than as a legal entitlement or commercial exchange).
The term appears most often in two contexts:
1. Eleemosynary corporations: Nonprofit or charitable corporations whose defining purpose is the relief of suffering, advancement of education, or promotion of public benefit — as distinguished from civil or business corporations organized for private profit.
2. Eleemosynary character of a benefit: Assistance, services, or funds given gratuitously out of benevolence, with no expectation of legal return — relevant in damages law when courts consider whether a plaintiff's receipt of charitable benefits should offset a defendant's liability.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Relating to charity, alms, or almsgiving; given in charity; supported by charity.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Relating to charity, alms, or almsgiving; intended for the distribution of charity; given in charity or alms; supported by charity.
The common and legal meanings are unusually close, but the legal significance of the term is structural rather than descriptive. In ordinary use, "eleemosynary" simply characterizes something as charitable. In law, it triggers a specific doctrinal category — the eleemosynary corporation — with historically distinct rules on governance, immunity from suit, and tax status. The word in a legal instrument is not mere description; it signals a legal classification with substantive consequences.
Common Confusion
Eleemosynary is sometimes used interchangeably with "charitable" or "nonprofit," but the terms are not identical. A nonprofit corporation may be organized for mutual benefit (a trade association, a social club) without being eleemosynary. An eleemosynary institution has an outward-facing charitable purpose — the relief or benefit of others, particularly the public or the poor — not merely the absence of profit distribution. Researchers should not assume that every nonprofit entity in historical sources qualifies as eleemosynary in the legal sense, nor that every eleemosynary institution was formally incorporated.
Why It Matters in Research
The primary research value of this term lies in the doctrine of eleemosynary corporations, which carries significant historical weight and sharp doctrinal evolution.
The landmark case anchoring the eleemosynary corporation in American law — Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819) — treated charitable corporations as a distinct category whose founding charters were protected contracts. Researchers working in early American corporate law, education law, or constitutional history will encounter the term repeatedly in this context. The Rapalje & Lawrence reference to 8 Wheaton 464 and 518 points directly to this line of authority.
Charitable immunity: Through much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, eleemosynary institutions in many American jurisdictions enjoyed immunity from tort liability on the theory that imposing damages would divert trust funds from their charitable purpose and punish donors' benevolence. This doctrine — eleemosynary immunity or charitable immunity — has been substantially abrogated in most modern jurisdictions, but it appears pervasively in older case law. Researchers reading pre-1960 decisions involving hospitals, universities, or relief organizations should flag eleemosynary immunity as a likely latent issue, whether or not the court names it.
The collateral source rule intersection: Modern tort research touches "eleemosynary" through the collateral source rule. Courts must determine whether charitable benefits received by a plaintiff (medical care from a charity hospital, disaster relief funds) reduce the defendant's damages obligation. Some jurisdictions apply a specific eleemosynary exception preserving the plaintiff's full recovery. The term thus bridges historical corporate law and contemporary damages doctrine.
Historical sources use the term broadly without always specifying whether they mean the organizational character, the immunity doctrine, or the nature of a particular benefit. Context is essential. Black's cross-reference to Kent's Commentaries and Bouvier's direction to CORPORATIONS both signal that the corporate classification is the primary doctrinal home.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries are in full agreement on the basic meaning — eleemosynary denotes a relationship to the distribution of alms, bounty, or charity — but they differ in depth and navigational utility.
Bouvier's is the most direct, defining the term as "relating to the distribution of alms, bounty or charity; charitable" and routing researchers immediately to CORPORATIONS, where the substantive doctrine lives. This reflects Bouvier's characteristic organization: the adjective entry is thin, but the cross-reference does real work.
Black's adds the reference to Kent's Commentaries (4 Kent, Comm. 431, 436) and to a Virginia reporter (10 Grattan 580), gesturing toward the Anglo-American common law treatment of charitable endowments and the almoner's office. The Cowell reference situates the historical root in ecclesiastical administration of alms — a reminder that eleemosynary institutions in English law included hospitals, colleges, and churches governed by visitorial rather than purely civil authority.
Rapalje & Lawrence is the most case-specific, pointing to Dartmouth College (8 Wheaton) and the New York authority at 8 N.Y. 525 for the definition of eleemosynary corporations and their distinction from civil corporations. The entry's structure — a directory of cases rather than a discursive definition — is typical of Rapalje's design and most useful to researchers tracing specific propositions.
Anderson's entry is minimal, cross-referencing only CHARITY. None of the historical sources addresses the charitable immunity doctrine directly under this heading, and none anticipates the modern collateral source intersection. Researchers should treat the historical entries as entry points to corporate classification doctrine, not as comprehensive treatments.
Jurisdictional Note
Charitable immunity — historically grounded in the eleemosynary character of institutions — has been abolished or substantially limited by statute or judicial decision in most American jurisdictions, but vestiges survive in some states through caps on liability or partial immunities for volunteer activity. The term's importance in active litigation is therefore jurisdiction-specific. In historical research, jurisdictional variation in how broadly courts defined eleemosynary corporations affects which institutions qualified for immunity and visitorial governance.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Charitable Corporations; Charitable Immunity; Nonprofit Organizations.