STATION - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

STATIONAuthored

The Law Mind • 1058 words

Definition

STATION carries several distinct legal meanings across civil law, military law, and transportation law. Researchers should determine which sense applies to their source before relying on any definition.

Civil law (maritime): A place where ships may ride safely at anchor. This is the oldest legal usage and appears in the Roman law sources compiled in the Digest.

Transportation law: A place where railroad trains regularly stop for the convenience of passengers, for taking on fuel, discharging freight, or similar operational purposes. In this sense, station generates a body of law around the duties of railroad companies to persons present on the premises—including who may be admitted or excluded and on what terms. A railroad carrier may exclude from its station all persons except those using or seeking to use the railway, subject to reasonable conditions as to others.

Military law: A place where troops are assembled or military stores maintained; synonymous in U.S. army usage with "military post." More broadly, wherever a servicemember is ordered to remain, that location becomes their station. The concept anchors obligations of duty, pay entitlements, allowances, and jurisdictional questions in military law.

Social station (civil and family law, historical): A person's rank, condition, or position in society. This meaning underpins older legal rules about support obligations, damages for loss of consortium, and the measure of alimony—all of which were calibrated to the parties' "station in life."

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A stopping place; a depot or regular stopping point for ground transportation; a place where one is assigned to stand or work; an official building from which services are provided (police station, fire station).

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The act of standing; an attitude or posture in standing; a state of standing or rest.

The legal meanings diverge from common usage in two important directions. First, the maritime civil-law meaning—a safe anchorage—has no analog in ordinary modern English, where "station" almost never refers to water. Second, the social-rank meaning (station in life) is now archaic in common speech but remained operative in legal doctrines well into the twentieth century, particularly in domestic-relations and damages law. A researcher encountering "station" in a nineteenth-century domestic case will find it refers to the parties' class position, not to a building or a stopping point.

Recognized Forms

/SUBTYPES

Military station: Synonymous with military post; a place of permanent or semi-permanent troop assembly. Distinct from a mere temporary encampment.

Railroad station: The physical premises of a carrier's stopping point, giving rise to premises liability and carrier-duty questions. Distinct from a mere flag stop or siding.

Station in life: The social-rank meaning; appears primarily in alimony, support, and damages contexts in older authorities.

Why It Matters in Research

The multi-valence of "station" is a trap in historical legal research. A pre-1900 case or treatise using the word without qualification may intend any of the four meanings above, and context does not always resolve the ambiguity immediately.

For transportation-law researchers: the railroad-station cases form a distinct body of law governing carrier duties, right of exclusion, and premises liability. This body predates modern antidiscrimination statutes and was later substantially altered by civil rights legislation. Sources from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries reflect a legal environment in which carrier exclusion rules were broad; those authorities carry limited weight in post-civil-rights research contexts.

For domestic-relations researchers: "station in life" appears throughout alimony and support calculations in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century opinions and treatises. The concept has largely been replaced by more precise statutory factors (income, earning capacity, standard of living during marriage), but older precedents may still be cited and must be read against this background.

For military-law researchers: "station" governs a wide range of administrative consequences—pay, quarters allowances, leave accrual, and court-martial jurisdiction all turn on where a servicemember is officially stationed. The civilian legal dictionaries handle this usage superficially; military regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice are the operative sources.

For admiralty and civil-law researchers: the Digest citation (Dig. 50, 16, 59) is the anchor for the maritime meaning. This usage rarely surfaces in American common-law courts but appears in admiralty practice and in civilian-jurisdiction scholarship.

Historical Dictionary Support

The historical dictionaries agree on the civil-law maritime meaning and uniformly cite Digest 50, 16, 59. Black's (both editions) and Bouvier's present this as the primary legal definition, which reflects the dictionaries' debt to civilian sources and their tendency to lead with Roman law antecedents even where American practice had moved on.

Bouvier's is notably more expansive, adding the railroad-station meaning and the carrier-exclusion rule, which reflects the dictionary's later revision dates and the emergence of railroad law as a dominant field by the mid-nineteenth century. Anderson's is the most practically useful of the historical sources here: it distinguishes the general sense ("a place, position, or post") from the specific military usage and flags the equivalence of "military station" and "military post" in army law—a distinction the other dictionaries elide.

Rapalje & Lawrence's entry as captured in the source material appears to be a fragment from a different headword (likely relating to a statutory court or historical English jurisdiction), and does not contribute usable content for this term.

What the historical dictionaries collectively miss: the social-rank meaning (station in life) is embedded throughout nineteenth-century case law but is not given a standalone definition in any of these sources. Researchers relying only on the dictionary shelf would not anticipate how frequently the term appears in that sense in domestic-relations and damages opinions.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Carrier Law; Military Law and Jurisdiction; Roman Civil Law in American Courts

STATIONmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

In the civil law. A place | variously determined to certain classes. where ships may ride in safety. Dig. 50, 16, 59.

STATIONmain

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

In the civil law. A place where ships may ride in safety. Dig. 50, 16, 59. STATIONERS’ HALL. Ih English law. The hall of the stationers’ company, at which every person claiming copyright in a hook must register his title, in order to be able to bring actions against persons infringing it. 2 Steph. Comm. 37-39,

STATIONmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1883

(1217) for offenses against the State and others partaking in some degree of that character, from the 9 Hen. II. to the 1 Geo. IV.

STATIONn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

The act of standing; also, attitude or pose in standing; posture. [R.] A station like the herald, Mercury. Shak. Their manner was to stand at prayer, whereupon their meetings unto that purpose . . . had the names of stations given them. Hooker. A state of standing or rest; equilibrium. [Obs.] All progression is performed by drawing on or impelling forward some part which was before in station, or at quiet. Sir T. Browne. The spot or place where anything stands, especially where a person or thing habitually stands, or is appointed to remain for a time; as, the station of a sentinel. Specifically: A regular stopping place in a stage road or route; a place where railroad trains regularly come to a stand, for the convenience of passengers, taking in fuel, moving freight, etc. The headquarters of the police force of any precinct. The place at which an instrument is planted, or observations are made, as in surveying. (d) (Biol.) The particular place, or kind of situation, in which a species naturally occurs; a habitat. (e) (Naut.) A place to which ships may resort, and where they may anchor safely. A place or region to which a government ship or fleet is assigned for duty. Post assigned; office; the part or department of public duty which a person is appointed to perform; sphere of duty or occupation; employment. By spending this day [Sunday] in religious exercises, we acquire new strength and resolution to perform God's will in our several stations the week following. R. Nelson. Situation; position; location. The fig and date -- why love they to remain In middle station, and an even plain Prior. State; rank; condition of life; social status. The greater part have kept, I see, Their station. Milton. They in France of the best rank and station. Shak. The fast of the fourth and sixth days of the week, Wednesday and Friday, in memory of the council which condemned Christ, and of his passion. One of the places at which ecclesiastical processions pause for the performance of an act of devotion; formerly, the tomb of a martyr, or some similarly consecrated spot; now, especially, one of those representations of the successive stages of our Lord's passion which are often placed round the naves of large churches and by the side of the way leading to sacred edifices or shrines, and which are visited in rotation, stated services being performed at each; -- called also Station of the cross. Fairholt. Station bill. (Naut.) Same as Quarter bill, under Quarter.  -- Station house. (a) The house serving for the headquarters of the police assigned to a certain district, and as a place of temporary confinement. (b) The house used as a shelter at a railway station.  -- Station master, one who has charge of a station, esp. of a railway station.  -- Station pointer (Surv.), an instrument for locating on a chart the position of a place from which the angles subtended by three distant objects, whose positions are known, have been observed.  -- Station staff (Surv.), an instrument for taking angles in surveying. Craig.

STATIONv.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

To place; to set; to appoint or assign to the occupation of a post, place, or office; as, to station troops on the right of an army; to station a sentinel on a rampart; to station ships on the coasts of Africa. He gained the brow of the hill, where the English phalanx was stationed. Lyttelton.

stationnoun

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.

A stopping place. | A regular stopping place for ground transportation. | A stopping place. | A ground transportation depot. | A stopping place. | A place where one stands or stays or is assigned to stand or stay. | A stopping place. | A place where some object is provided. | A stopping place. | A gas station, service station. | A place where workers are stationed. | An official building from which police or firefighters operate. | A place where workers are stationed. | A place where one performs a task or where one is on call to perform a task. | A place where workers are stationed. | A military base. | A place where workers are stationed. | A place used for broadcasting radio or television; the broadcasting entity itself. | A place where workers are stationed. | A device communicating over a network; a host. | A place where workers are stationed. | A very large sheep or cattle farm. | A place where workers are stationed. | In British India, the place where the English officials of a district, or the officers of a garrison (not in a fortress) reside. | Any of the Stations of the Cross. | The Roman Catholic fast of the fourth and sixth days of the week, Wednesday and Friday, in memory of the council which condemned Christ, and of his passion. | A church in which the procession of the clergy halts on stated days to say stated prayers. | Standing; rank; position. | A harbour or cove with a foreshore suitable for a facility to support nearby fishing. | Any of a sequence of equally spaced points along a path. | The particular place, or kind of situation, in which a species naturally occurs; a habitat. | An enlargement in a shaft or galley, used as a landing, or passing place, or for the accommodation of a pump, tank, etc. | Post assigned; office; the part or department of public duty which a person is appointed to perform; sphere of duty or occupation; employment. | The position of the foetal head in relation to the distance from the ischial spines, measured in centimetres. | The fact of standing still; motionlessness, stasis. | The apparent standing still of a superior planet just before it begins or ends its retrograde motion.

stationverb

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

To put in place to perform a task. | To put in place to perform military duty.

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