Factors¶

Facts¶

class authorityspoke.facts.Fact(**data)¶

An assertion accepted as factual by a court.

Often based on factfinding by a judge or jury.

Facts may be “alleged” by a pleading, “supported” by evidence, or “found” to be factual by a jury verdict or a judge’s finding of fact.

Parameters

predicate – a natural-language clause with zero or more slots to insert terms that are typically the subject and objects of the clause.
terms – a series of Factor objects that fill in the blank spaces in the predicate statement.
name – an identifier for this object, often used if the object needs to be referred to multiple times in the process of composing other Factor objects.
standard_of_proof – a descriptor for the degree of certainty associated with the assertion in the predicate.
absent – whether the absence, rather than the presence, of the legal fact described above is being asserted.
generic – whether this object could be replaced by another generic object of the same class without changing the truth of the Rule in which it is mentioned.

Attr standards_of_proof

a tuple with every allowable name for a standard of proof, in order from weakest to strongest.

class authorityspoke.facts.Exhibit(**data)¶

A source of information for use in litigation.

Parameters

form – a term describing the category of exhibit. For example: testimony, declaration, document, or recording.
statement – a fact assertion made via the exhibit. For instance, if the exhibit is a document, this parameter could refer to a statement printed on the document.
statement_attribution – the Entity that the exhibit imputes the statement to. For instance, for a signed declaration, this would refer to the person whose signature appears on the declaration, regardless of any authentication concerns. The statement_attribution parameter may appear without the statement parameter, especially if the content of the statement is irrelevant.
name – a string identifier for the exhibit
absent – if True, indicates that no exhibit meeting the description exists in the litigation. If the exhibit has merely been rejected as evidence, use the absent attribute on an Evidence object instead.
generic – if True, indicates that the specific attributes of the exhibit are irrelevant in the context of the Holding where the exhibit is being referenced.

class authorityspoke.facts.Evidence(**data)¶

An Exhibit admitted by a court to aid a factual determination.

Parameters

exhibit – the thing that is being used to aid a factual determination
to_effect – the Fact finding that would be supported by the evidence. If the Fact object includes a non-null standard_of_proof attribute, it indicates that that the evidence would support a factual finding by that standard of proof.
name – a string identifier
absent – if True, indicates that no evidence meeting the description has been admitted, regardless of whether a corresponding Exhibit has been presented
generic – if True, indicates that the specific attributes of the evidence are irrelevant in the context of the Holding where the evidence is being referenced.

class authorityspoke.facts.Pleading(**data)¶

A document filed by a party to make Allegations.

Parameters

filer – the Entity that the pleading references as having filed it, regardless of any questions about the identification of the filer.
name –
absent –
generic –

class authorityspoke.facts.Allegation(**data)¶

A formal assertion of a Fact.

May be included by a party in a Pleading to establish a cause of action.

Parameters