RUINA

4 definitions found across Law Mind sources

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RUINAAuthored
The Law Mind • 788 words
Definition
A Latin term from Roman civil law meaning ruin or the falling of a house. In its legal context, ruina referred specifically to the collapse or structural failure of a building, and to the legal consequences that flowed from such an event — particularly liability for damage caused by a structure falling upon persons or property below or adjacent to it. The term appears in the Digest of Justinian at Title 47.9 (De incendio, ruina, naufragio, rate, nave expugnata), which addressed a cluster of extraordinary harms — fire, ruin, shipwreck, and similar catastrophes — and established the civil law framework for recovery when such events caused injury or loss. ---
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Ruina" is not a standard English word; in Spanish and Italian it means ruin, destruction, or collapse of a structure or enterprise. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not separately defined; the English derivative "ruin" is defined as the act of falling or tumbling down; the destruction of a building; remains of a destroyed or decayed structure. The gap between the ordinary sense and the legal term is meaningful in one specific direction: in common usage, "ruin" is broad — financial ruin, moral ruin, the ruin of a city. In Roman civil law, ruina was a technical term of art limited to the physical collapse of a structure and the liability regime that attached to it. Researchers encountering ruina in legal sources should not read it expansively as general destruction. ---
Why It Matters in Research
Ruina is a narrow but recurring term in Roman law source materials and in civil law scholarship derived from them. Researchers working with the Corpus Juris Civilis, treatises on Roman property law, or later civilian commentaries on tortious liability will encounter it in its technical sense. The critical anchor is Digest 47.9, which grouped ruina with fire and shipwreck under a heading addressing harms that were in some sense overwhelming or caused by circumstance — important context for understanding the liability framework being invoked. In the historical common law tradition, ruina has no direct counterpart as a term of art; common law courts developed liability for dangerous structures through separate doctrines (nuisance, negligence) without adopting the Roman nomenclature. Researchers comparing civil law and common law approaches to structural collapse liability should not assume terminological equivalence. The term also appears in discussions of the actio de posito et suspenso (action for things placed or hung out likely to cause harm) and the actio de effusis et deiectis (action for things thrown or poured from a building), both of which are closely related to the ruina liability scheme in Digest 47.9. Understanding ruina as a context often means reading it alongside those adjacent actions. For corpus researchers: ruina may appear without translation in older Anglo-American treatises drawing on Roman law foundations, particularly in works on property, nuisance, or the law of buildings. Its appearance is a signal that the author is working from civilian sources and that the conceptual framework may differ from common law equivalents. ---
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries — Black's (1st ed.), Black's (2nd ed.), and Burrill's — define ruina identically and briefly: "Ruin; the falling of a house," each citing Digest 47.9. There is complete agreement and no meaningful divergence among the sources. What the historical dictionaries do not do is explain the liability framework that ruina anchored in Roman law, or situate the term within the broader structure of Digest 47.9. The entries function as translational glosses rather than substantive legal explanations. This is a limitation researchers should note: the dictionary definitions confirm the term's meaning and source but do not illuminate how the concept operated doctrinally. Burrill's entry is the most spare; Black's entries in both editions are essentially identical and equally brief, truncated in the source material by the transition to the entry for RULE. None of the historical dictionaries connects ruina to the related actiones or to later civilian commentary. ---
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Roman Law; Law of Nuisance (Historical Development); Civil Law Tort Liability. ---
Related Terms
Actio de posito et suspenso — Roman law action for things dangerously placed or suspended from a building Actio de effusis et deiectis — Roman law action for things thrown or poured from a building Nuisance — common law functional counterpart for structural dangers Corpus Juris Civilis — the source collection in which ruina appears as a legal term Digest (Digesta) — specifically Title 47.9the primary locus of the term in Roman legal texts Civil law — the legal tradition in which ruina operates as a term of art
RUINAmain
Black's Law Dictionary • 1891
Lat. In the civil law. Ruin, the falling of a house. Dig. 47, 9. RULE, v. This verb has two significa- tions: (1) to command or require by a rule of court; as, to rule the sheriff to return the writ, to rule the defendant to plead. (2) To settle or decide a point of law arising up- on a trial at nisi prius; and, when it is said of a judge presiding at such a trial that he "ruled" so and so, it is meant that he laid down, settled, or decided such and such to be the law. RULE, n. 1. An established standard, guide, or regulation; a principle or regula- tion set up by authority, prescribing or di- recting action or forbearance; as, the rules of a legislative body, of a company, court, public office, of the law, of ethics. 2. A regulation made by a court of justice or public office with reference to the conduct of business therein. 3. An order made by a court, at the instance of one of the parties to a suit, commanding a ministerial officer, or the opposite party, to do some act, or to show cause why some act should not be done. It is usually upon some interlocutory matter, and has not the force or solemnity of a decree or judgment. 4. "Rule" sometimes means a rule of law. Thus, we speak of the rule against perpetui- ties; the rule in Shelley's Case, etc.
RUINAmain
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910
Lat. In the civil law. Ruin, the falling of a house. Dig. 47, 9. RULE, v. This verb has two significations: (1) to command or require by a rule of court; as, to rule the sheriff to return the writ, to rule the defendant to plead. (2) To settle or decide a point of law arising upon a trial at nisi prius; and, when it is said of a judge presiding at such a trial that he “ruled” so and so, it is meant that he laid down, settled, or decided such and such to be the law. : " RULE, nn. 1. An established standard, guide, or regulation; a principle or regulation set up by authority, prescribing. or directing action or forbearance; as, the rules of a legislative body, of a company, coart, public office, of the law, of ethics. 2. A regulation made by a court of justice or public office with reference to the conduct of business therein. 3. An order made by a court, at the instance of one of the parties to a suit, commanding a ministerial officer, or the opposite party, to do some act, or to show cause why some act should not be done. It is usually upon some interlocutory matter, and has not the force or solemnity of a decree or judgment. Oo 4. “Rule” sometimes means a rule of law. Thus, we speak of the rule against perpetuaities; the rule in Shelley’s Case, etc. —Cross-rules. These were rules where each of the opposite litigants obtained a rule sist, as the plaintiff to increase the damages, and the defendant to enter‘a nonsuit. Wharton. ~ eral rules. General or standing orders ofa
RUINAmain
Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1870
Lat. In the civil law. Ruin; the falling of a house. Dig. 47. 9.

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