Legal Definitions - concur

To concur means to agree or consent to something. In legal contexts, this term has several specific applications:

• General Agreement: It can simply mean to agree with a decision, opinion, or proposal.

• Judicial Opinions: When a judge concurs in a judicial opinion, they agree with the final outcome or judgment of the case reached by the majority of the court. However, they may have arrived at that conclusion through a different legal reasoning or interpretation than the other judges, and they might write a separate "concurring opinion" to explain their distinct rationale.

• Legislative Process: In a legislature with two chambers (like a House of Representatives and a Senate), if one chamber passes a bill and the other chamber amends it, the first chamber must then concur with the amendment. This means they formally accept the changes made by the second chamber for the bill to proceed.

• Civil Law Claims: In civil law, particularly when dealing with an insolvent estate (an estate that doesn't have enough assets to pay all its debts), to concur means that multiple creditors or claimants formally join together to present their demands against the limited assets.

Here are some examples illustrating the use of "concur":

• Example 1 (Judicial Opinion): In a landmark appellate court case concerning digital privacy rights, the majority of judges ruled that a new government surveillance program was unconstitutional. Justice Anya Sharma wrote a separate opinion stating she concurred with the judgment to strike down the program, but she based her decision on a different constitutional amendment than the one cited by the majority opinion.

  Explanation: This illustrates the judicial meaning of concur. Justice Sharma agreed with the final outcome (the program being unconstitutional) but reached that conclusion using a distinct legal argument, which she outlined in her concurring opinion.

• Example 2 (Legislative Process): The State House of Representatives passed a bill to increase funding for public parks. When the bill moved to the State Senate, the Senate added an amendment specifying that a portion of the funds must be used to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. For the bill to become law, it was sent back to the House, which then had to vote to concur with the Senate's amendment.

  Explanation: Here, concur refers to one legislative body (the House) formally agreeing to the changes or amendments made by the other body (the Senate) to a piece of legislation.

• Example 3 (Civil Law Claims): After a local construction company declared bankruptcy, several subcontractors who were owed money for their work decided to concur by submitting a joint claim to the bankruptcy court. They hoped that by presenting a unified demand, they would have a stronger position to recover a portion of their outstanding payments from the company's remaining assets.

  Explanation: In this scenario, concur means that multiple parties (the subcontractors) formally joined forces to present their collective financial demands against an entity that was unable to pay all its debts.