Also known as: loci in quo · place where · scene of the event
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
The place where an event, condition, or item is located or alleged to have occurred. In property disputes this identifies the land or premises on which a chattel is found, determining whether the finder or the owner of that place holds superior possessory rights against all but the true owner.
Leonard Lowe owned a vacant lot containing an unfenced excavation. A neighborhood child entered the lot and fell into the hole. The court examined whether the locus in quo was a place where Lowe knew or had reason to know children were likely to trespass, which determined whether he owed a duty to the child.
Lance Lee sued Lumen Capital in state court located in the county where the contract was performed. Lumen Capital removed the case to the federal district court embracing that same county. The removal statute directed the case to the district and division that included the locus in quo of the pending action.
Luis Lopez was charged with theft at a warehouse. His attorney served notice listing three specific addresses where Lopez claimed to have been during the hours of the offense. Each listed address constituted a distinct locus in quo that the government could investigate to test the alibi.
Lillian Locke executed her will in a foreign country while maintaining a residence there. After her death in another state, the probate court applied the law of the place of execution because the statute validated a will executed in compliance with the law of the locus in quo at the time of signing.
Levi Lowe operated a chemical storage facility in a residential neighborhood. When a spill injured neighboring property, the court weighed the inappropriateness of the activity to the locus in quo as one factor in deciding whether the operation constituted an abnormally dangerous activity.
Lucy Liu obtained a judgment in state court. The opposing party sought review in federal court. The federal court examined whether it had authority over the state proceeding that arose in the locus in quo, determining the scope of its appellate jurisdiction.
The present case arises from proceedings in the Quarterly Session Court for the Borough of Norfolk, in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The defendants there set up a defence under an act of Congress authorizing the Corporation of Washington to conduct lotteries. The Norfolk court overruled that defence. A writ of error was brought to the Supreme Court of the United States following an earlier decision denying a motion to dismiss for want of jurisdiction. The act in question provides that the Corporation shall have full power to authorize the drawing of lotteries for effecting any important improvement in the City. The ordinary funds or revenue thereof will not accomplish the improvement. The sum to be raised in each year shall not exceed ten thousand dollars. The object shall be submitted to and approved by the President of the United States. In the course of the argument, counsel read resolutions adopted by the Virginia legislature in January 1810. Those resolutions, passed unanimously by both the Senate and the House of Delegates, disapproved a proposed amendment to the Constitution for the appointment of an impartial tribunal to decide disputes between the state and federal judiciary. The resolutions instead affirmed the Supreme Court as the proper tribunal for such disputes and requested transmission of the resolutions to Congress and other states.
View caseWhen an item is mislaid, the owner of the locus in quo holds superior possessory rights against all but the true owner. Courts award the item to the possessor of the premises rather than the finder because the premises owner is better positioned to return the item to its owner.
No. A trespasser who finds property on another's land acquires no rights superior to the owner of the locus in quo. The owner of the premises prevails because rewarding trespass would encourage unlawful entry.
The owner of the locus in quo becomes a bailee for the true owner when property is intentionally placed on the premises and then forgotten. This classification gives the premises owner the duty to safeguard the item until the true owner reclaims it.
…legally in Texas and, consequently, the prospect of obtaining an illegal abortion there or of going outside Texas to some place where the procedure could be obtained legally and competently. We thus have as plaintiffs a married couple who have, as their asserted immediate and present injury, only an alleged "detrimental…