private law

n.
The branch of law that deals with the legal rights and relationships of private individuals.

Law governing relationships between two or more private individuals, companies, or organizations. It has not been passed or ruled upon by a public authority. See also Public Law.

When Congress acts to aid a specific individual, family, or other small group, it passes a private law. Public laws, by comparison, deal with society as a whole. The first private bill, which was passed in September 1789, awarded 17 months' back pay to a military officer. Many other private bills that followed dealt with military pensions or claims of citizens whose property was damaged during wartime. Other private bills permitted specifically named foreigners to immigrate and become naturalized citizens of the United States. By 1900 private bills far outnumbered the public bills that Congress considered. Later, Congress turned settlement of most private claims over to the executive departments and enacted more comprehensive veterans' pensions and immigration laws that reduced the need to address them case by case. Legislation has also more narrowly defined the circumstances in which Congress will consider private claims. However, Congress continues to enact private laws to aid citizens who have been injured by government programs or who have appealed an executive agency ruling, such as one requiring the deportation of a noncitizen. Private laws are numbered separately from public laws. During the 102nd Congress, for example, they were numbered Private Law 102–1 and up.

See also Acts of Congress

This entry contains information applicable to United States law only.

That portion of the law that defines, regulates, enforces, and administers relationships among individuals, associations, and corporations. As used in distinction to public law, the term means that part of the law that is administered between citizen and citizen, or that is concerned with the definition, regulation, and enforcement of rights in cases where both the person in whom the right inheres and the person upon whom the obligation rests are private individuals.

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private security and the law