n. 1) a fee paid based on a percentage of the sale made by an employee or agent, as distinguished from regular payments of wages or salary. 2) a group appointed pursuant to law to conduct certain government business, especially regulation. These include from the local planning or zoning commission to the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Federal Trade Commission.
COMMISSION, contracts, civ. law. When one undertakes, without reward, to do
something for another in respect to a thing bailed. This term is frequently
used synonymously with mandate. (q.v.) Ruth. Inst. 105; Halifax, Analysis
of the Civil Law, 70. If the service the party undertakes to perform for
another is the custody of his goods, this particular sort of, commission is
called a charge.
2. In a commission, the obligation on his part who undertakes it, is to
transact the business without wages, or any other reward, and to use the
same care and diligence in it, as if it were his own.
3. By commission is also understood an act performed, opposed to
omission, which is the want of performance of such an act; is, when a
nuisance is created by an act of commission, it may be abated without
notice; but when it arises from omission, notice to remove it must be given
before it is abated. 1 Chit. Pr. 711. Vide Abatement of Nuisances; Branches;
Trees.
COMMISSION, office. Persons authorized to act in a certain matter; as, such a matter was submitted, to the commission; there were several meetings before the commission. 4 B. & Cr. 850; 10 E. C. L. R. 459.
COMMISSION, crim. law. The act of perpetrating an offence. There are crimes of commission and crimes of omission.
COMMISSION, practice. An instrument issued by a court of, justice, or other competent tribunal, to authorize a person to take depositions, or do any other act by authority of such court, or tribunal, is called a commission. For a form of a commission to take. depositions, see Gresley, Eq. Ev. 72.