Also known as: subtract · subtracts · subtracted · subtracting · deduction
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
An arithmetic process by which one quantity is deducted from another to produce a difference or remainder. In legal contexts the process reduces an obligation, award, or devise by the amount of a prior payment or benefit when specified conditions are met.
Sabrina Shah's will left her son Sean Steele a $200,000 cash devise. Two years before her death Sabrina transferred $150,000 from a joint account into Sean's personal account and left a note stating the transfer should count against what he would receive. After Sabrina's death the personal representative subtracted the lifetime transfer from the devise, leaving Sean entitled to only $50,000 from the estate.
Simon Stern sued a publisher for defamation and obtained a $500,000 verdict. The court subtracted the $75,000 the publisher had already paid in a pretrial settlement from the total award, entering judgment for the remaining balance.
After the President issued an order seizing steel mills, the companies calculated lost production value at $10 million per day. They subtracted the amount of government compensation already received from that daily figure to determine the net daily loss for the injunction hearing.
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Samantha Stone challenged a state ban on assisted suicide. In measuring the state's asserted interest, the court subtracted the narrow class of competent, terminally ill patients from the broader population affected by the statute to evaluate the scope of the claimed right.
Stonehaven Properties challenged a cable company's permanent installation on its building. The court subtracted the nominal rental value the company had offered from the fair market value of the occupied space to determine the compensation owed for the physical occupation.
Silverline Industries was ordered to pay $300,000 in damages for distributing obscene materials. The court subtracted the $40,000 already recovered in a parallel state proceeding from the federal judgment to prevent double recovery.
A lifetime gift reduces a devise only if the will provides for the deduction, the testator declared in a contemporaneous writing that the gift satisfies the devise or its value is to be deducted, or the devisee acknowledged the same in writing. Without one of these writings the gift does not operate as a subtraction from the devise.
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The deficiency is computed by subtracting the foreclosure sale price or, if requested, the fair market value from the amount owed on the obligation. Senior liens are also subtracted from fair market value before the final deficiency figure is reached.
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Yes. When a breach allows the non-breaching party to avoid certain expenses, those saved costs are subtracted from the recovery so that the award places the party in the position it would have occupied had the contract been performed.
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…A distinguished private study group put it this way: "Accountability, like subjection to law, is not necessarily a net subtraction from liberty." "The First Amendment was intended to guarantee free expression, not to create a privileged industry." Commission on Freedom of the Press, A Free and Responsible Press 130, 81…