INFIRM - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

INFIRMAuthored

The Law Mind • 866 words

Definition

In law, infirm means physically weak or feeble to a degree that affects a person's ability to participate in legal proceedings. The term appears most often in the context of witness testimony, where a witness's physical infirmity — particularly illness or advanced age threatening life or courtroom attendance — may justify the early or out-of-court preservation of that testimony. The legal usage does not require total incapacity; the standard is whether the infirmity is serious enough to create a genuine risk that the witness will be unavailable at trial.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Weak or ill, not in good health; irresolute or weak of mind or will; frail, unstable, or insecure.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not firm or sound; weak; feeble — applied to body, mind, or will. Also used to describe unstable ground or unsound foundations.

The everyday word "infirm" encompasses mental weakness, irresolution, and general instability. Legal usage narrows sharply to physical weakness or illness affecting a person's capacity to appear and testify. A witness whose judgment is poor or whose resolve is uncertain is not "infirm" in the legal sense. The law is concerned with the body, not the will.

Common Confusion

Anderson's Dictionary of Law entry filed under "INFIRM" in the source material is plainly a misattribution — the text discusses infamous crimes and the Fifth Amendment, which belongs under INFAMOUS. Researchers working from Anderson's should be alert to this error. The confusion between INFIRM and INFAMOUS is a source-level problem, not a conceptual one, but it illustrates the kind of indexing errors that can mislead in historical corpus research.

Why It Matters in Research

The legal significance of INFIRM is almost entirely procedural: it is the trigger condition for taking testimony de bene esse, the practice of preserving a witness's testimony before trial when there is risk the witness will not survive to testify or will be unable to attend. Researchers tracing the development of deposition practice, witness competency rules, or evidentiary preservation doctrines will encounter INFIRM as a threshold term in both equity and common law sources.

Several traps exist for historical researchers. First, the term's meaning in older sources is exclusively physical — mental infirmity, cognitive decline, or incompetency from mental illness traveled under different doctrinal categories (see INCOMPETENT, LUNATIC). Do not assume a source using "infirm" addresses mental capacity. Second, the threshold for what degree of infirmity sufficed varied by court and era; equity courts were generally more flexible than courts of law. Third, age alone was not infirmity — Bouvier makes clear that testimony may be taken at any age when the witness is infirm to an extent likely to destroy life or prevent attendance. A very young or very old witness who was otherwise healthy would not qualify.

Modern procedural rules have absorbed much of the old infirmity doctrine into codified deposition practice and unavailability standards under evidence codes. Researchers moving between historical and modern sources should note that the word "infirm" rarely appears in contemporary statutes or rules, which instead use "unavailable," "unable to attend," or specific medical criteria. The underlying concept survives; the vocabulary has changed.

The corpus connection to de bene esse is strong and direct. When INFIRM appears in older sources, it is almost always in proximity to that doctrine. Cross-referencing these terms will recover the relevant procedural history.

Historical Dictionary Support

Black's (1st and 2nd editions) are in precise agreement: infirm means weak or feeble, and the operative consequence is eligibility for de bene esse testimony. Both editions cite 1 P. Wms. 117 (Peere Williams's Reports), a standard equity authority, without elaboration. The brevity is telling — by the time Black's was compiled, the term's legal function was settled and narrow.

Bouvier adds the most useful precision of the historical sources, specifying that the infirmity must be of an extent "likely to destroy his life, or to prevent his attendance at the trial." This two-part formulation — mortal risk or attendance risk — reflects the underlying procedural rationale: the law's concern is not the witness's condition in the abstract but the realistic prospect of losing the testimony altogether. Bouvier also notes the de bene esse rule applies "at any age," which was a meaningful clarification against the assumption that only elderly witnesses qualified.

The Anderson's entry is unusable for this term due to the apparent indexing error noted above.

No historical source addresses mental infirmity under this heading, which confirms that the legal term of art was consistently limited to physical condition.

Jurisdictional Note

The concept of witness infirmity as grounds for pretrial testimony preservation is recognized across common law jurisdictions, but the procedural mechanisms differ. American federal practice now governs through the Federal Rules of Civil and Criminal Procedure and the Federal Rules of Evidence's unavailability provisions. State courts vary in how they define unavailability due to illness or infirmity. English and Commonwealth sources will use similar doctrine but under distinct procedural frameworks.

INFIRMmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

Weak, feeble. The testimony of an “infirm" witness may be taken de bene esse in some circumstances. See 1 P. Wms. 117.

INFIRMmain

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910

Weak, feeble. ‘The testimony of an “infirm” witness may be taken de bene €sse in some circumstances. See 1 P. Wms. 117.

INFIRMmain

Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890

disagreement among the authorities. A crime is not infamous, within the Fifth Amendment, unless it not only involves the charge of falsehood, but may also injuriously affect the public administration of justice by the introduction therein of falsehood and fraud.1 Under the Constitution and statutes there are no infamous crimes except those therein denounced as capital, or as felonies, or punished with disqualification as witnesses or jurors. If Congress makes a crime non-infamous, it can be pursued through information. Stealing from the mails has not been made infamous.2 In early times the character of the crime was deterinined by the punishment inflicted, but in modern times the act itself, its nature, purpose, and effect, are looked at in determining whether it is infamous or not. Passing counterfeit money is not an infamous crime.3 Infamous persons are such as may be challenged as jurors propter delictum; and, therefore, they shall never be admitted to give evidence to inform that jury with whom they are too scandalous to associate.4 See CRIMEN, Falsi; TURPITUDE. 1. Legally insufficient; lack2 United States v. Wynn, 3 McCrary, 276 (1882), Treat, ing legal efficacy; incomplete; invalid. See Judge. 3 United States v. Yates, 6 F. R. 866 (1881), Benedict, J.; United States v. Petit, 11 id. 58 (1882); United States v. Field, 16 id. 778 (1883); ib. 779-82, cases. 43 Bl. Com. 370. See also 59 Pa. 116; 17 Fla. 185; 1 Greenl. Ev. § 373; 1 Bish. Cr. L. § 972. 5 L. in, not; fans, speaking: fari, to speak. • Dexter v. Hall, 15 Wall. 21 (1872). 1 Bl. Com. 465. 84 Binn. 487; 5 id. 423; 30 Vt. 357. 2 Bl. Com. 497; 1 id. 463. 101 Bl. Com. 464. 11 4 Bl. Com. 22. FAITH, Good; NEGOTIABLE. 2. As to physical and mental infirmity, see INFLUENCE; INSANITY. 118 Cent. Law. J. 3-7 (1884), cases. 21 Bl. Com. 464. 3 Bl. Com. 141; L. R., 10 Eq. 530. 4 Morford v. Peck, 46 Conn. 385 (1878), Loomis, J. Gates v. Hughes, 44 Wis. 336 (1878). • Reiche v. Smythe, 13 Wall. 164 (1871); United States v. Mattock, 2 Saw. 149-51 (1872). 7 Gibson v. American Mut. Life Ins. Co., 37 N. Y. 584 12 See Commonwealth v. Lynes, 142 Mass. 570-80 (1868), Hunt, C. J.; Hale v. Everett, 53 N. H. 55 (1868); (1836), cases. Omichund v. Barker, 1 Sm. L. C. 739-54, cases.

INFIRMa.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

Not firm or sound; weak; feeble; as, an infirm body; an infirm constitution. A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man. Shak. Weak of mind or will; irresolute; vacillating. "An infirm judgment." Burke. Infirm of purpose! Shak. Not solid or stable; insecure; precarious. He who fixes on false principles treads or infirm ground. South.

INFIRMv.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

To weaken; to enfeeble. [Obs.] Sir W. Raleigh.

infirmadj

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

Weak or ill, not in good health. | Irresolute; weak of mind or will. | Frail; unstable; insecure.

infirmverb

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

To contradict, to provide proof that something is not.

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