class

n. in legal (not sociological) terms, all those persons in the same category, level of rights (e.g. heirs of dead person who are related by the same degree), or who have suffered from the same incident. Whether a person is part of a class is often crucial in determining who can sue on behalf of the people who have been similarly damaged or collect his/her share if a class action judgment is given. (See: class action)

CLASS. The order according to which are arranged or distributed, or are supposed to be arranged or distributed, divers persons or things; thus we say, a class of legatees.
     2. When a legacy is given to a class of individuals, all who answer the description at the time the will takes effect, are entitled; and though the expression be in the plural, yet if there be but one, he shall take the whole. 3 M'Cord, Ch. R. 440.
     3. When a bond is given to a class of persons, it is good, and all composing that class are entitled to sue upon it; but if the obligor be a member of such class, the bond is void, because a man cannot be obligor and obligee at the same time; as, if a bond be given to the justices of the county court, and at the time the obligor is himself one of said justices. 3 Dev. 284, 287,289; 4 Dev. 882.
     4. When a charge is made against a class of society, a profession, an order or body of men, and cannot possibly import a personal application to private injury, no action lies; but if any one of the class have sustained special damages in consequence of such charge, he may maintain an action. 17 Wend. 52, 23, 186. See 12 John. 475. When the charge is against one of a class, without designating which, no action lies; as, where three persons had been examined as witnesses, and the defendant said in addressing himself to them, "one of you three is perjured." 1 Roll. Ab. 81; Cro. Jac. 107; 16 Pick. 132.

A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States. By John Bouvier. Published 1856.

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References in periodicals archive

The amount of variation caused by paternal class is likely to be significantly lower, since one reason for parent and offspring social classes to be similar is similar intrinsic aptitudes.

Intelligence and class mobility in the British population

A wealth of detail from memoirs and regulations informs about how gifts reinforce obligations and expectations within and between social classes and genders.

The Gift in Sixteenth-Century France. (Reviews)

Data from the 1990 census indicated that less than 1% of African American men from all social classes earned more than $75,000 per year, except for college graduates.

Social class disparities contribute to heart disease deaths among blacks. (Disparity Greatest Among Young)

Fads differ among income groups and social classes. But they also change within a class.

Fads And Norms: Young Fogeys and Old Hep-Cats

The protagonists are four gay Brits, ranging from young to middle-aged and of varying social classes, who fall under the spell of love, romance, and sexual adventuring during the course of a beautiful English summer.

The Spell

The original respondents were divided into five social classes on the basis of Hollingshead's Two-Factor Index of Social Class position, based on their father's education and occupation (Hollingshead, 1956).

ACADEMIC VARIABLES: IMPLICATIONS FOR HEALTH CARE

We extend prior research, testing many of the suggestions put forth by Coleman (1983), especially whether class affects the use of income and whether differences in consumption continue to exist across the social classes.

A preliminary examination of the continuing significance of social class to marketing: a geodemographic replication

The measures of economic progress developed by Kuznets, Stone and the Development Programme are macroeconomic in scope and do not provide a clear picture of the events affecting a nation's social classes, a point which Kuznets made in National Income 1929-1932 [2, 5-8].

American Standards of Living: 1918-1988

But perhaps social classes are powerful dements in maintaining patterns of social inequality and domination precisely because they allow for so much atypicality, or in other words because they are never clear-cut and all-incorporating.

Patrick Joyce, Democratic Subjects: The Self and the Social in Nineteenth-Century England

Although the public sector is better developed, the upper social classes seek care in private hospitals at a rate seven time that of the lower classes.

Constitutional guarantees to health care in Spain

"By 1999-2000, the rates had equalized for emergency section, but babies born by elective surgery were more likely to belong to mothers from the higher of the social classes measured," she concludes.

'Too posh to push' mums fuelling caesarean birth epidemic

Around 19% of men from the lowest social classes, such as manual labourers, cleaners and packers, die before they reach 65, compared with just 7% of men from the highest social group, according to former Labour pensions minister Malcolm Wicks.

'Raising pension age would hit poorest workers' THOSE FROM LOWEST SOCIAL CLASS LIVE FOUR YEARS LESS