Also known as:inheres · inhered · inhering · inherency · inherencies · inherent
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
To exist as a permanent, inseparable, or essential attribute of a person or thing.
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Cases
Restatements
How its tested
Common Examples
6
Privacy Right Attaches to Individual
Ingrid Innes, an unmarried resident, sought to purchase contraceptives from a pharmacy. State law barred sales to unmarried persons. The court recognized that the right of privacy inheres in Ingrid as an individual rather than only in married couples, so the restriction violated equal protection.
Inherent Agency Power Binds Principal
Imran Iyer, a network engineer for Inertia Dynamics, promised discounted service terms to Island Manufacturing. The company later refused the terms as unauthorized. The court held that inherent agency power derived solely from Imran's agency relation protected the third party even without actual or apparent authority.
Ivy Ibarra vacated leased premises and stopped paying rent. Island Manufacturing, the landlord, accepted the surrender. The court treated the offer of surrender as inherent in the abandonment, terminating the lease and limiting Ivy's liability to accrued rent and damages.
Fundamental Rights Inhere in Persons
Ian Iverson and his partner sought state recognition of their marriage. The court held that the right to marry inheres in individuals as a fundamental liberty protected by due process, requiring the state to extend the status equally.
Obergefell v. Hodges576 U.S. 644 (2015)
The petitioners were fourteen same-sex couples and two men whose same-sex partners were deceased. They lived in Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee. Those states defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman under their constitutions and statutes.
The petitioners filed suits in federal district courts in their home states. They sought marriage licenses or recognition of marriages lawfully performed elsewhere. James Obergefell and John Arthur traveled from Ohio to Maryland to marry aboard a medical transport plane because Arthur suffered from ALS; Obergefell later sought to be listed as surviving spouse on Arthur's death certificate. April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, Michigan nurses, adopted three children but could not both serve as legal parents under state adoption rules. Army Reserve Sergeant Ijpe DeKoe and Thomas Kostura married in New York before DeKoe's deployment to Afghanistan and later settled in Tennessee.
Each district court ruled in the petitioners' favor. The respondents appealed. The Sixth Circuit consolidated the cases and reversed the district court judgments. The petitioners sought certiorari, which the Supreme Court granted.
Same-sex couples had begun establishing families after substantial cultural and political developments in the late twentieth century. Earlier litigation had addressed the legal status of gays and lesbians, including challenges that reached the Supreme Court in Bowers v. Hardwick and Lawrence v. Texas.
Ike Ingram alleged parallel pricing by competitors but supplied only conclusory assertions. The court held that the requirement of plausible conspiracy facts inheres in the Sherman Act claim itself, so the complaint failed to state a claim.
Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly550 U.S. 544, 556, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L. Ed. 2d 929 (2007)
In 1984 the divestiture of AT&T's local telephone business created seven regional service monopolies known as Regional Bell Operating Companies or Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers. More than a decade later Congress enacted the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which restructured local telephone markets and imposed duties on the ILECs to facilitate entry by competitive local exchange carriers through resale of services at wholesale rates, leasing of unbundled network elements, or interconnection of facilities.
William Twombly and Lawrence Marcus filed suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of a putative class of all subscribers of local telephone and high-speed internet services from February 8, 1996 to the present. They named as defendants four consolidated ILECs: BellSouth Corporation, Qwest Communications International Inc., SBC Communications Inc., and Verizon Communications Inc.
The complaint alleged that these ILECs conspired to restrain trade by engaging in parallel conduct to inhibit CLECs, including unfair agreements for network access, inferior connections, overcharging, and billing practices designed to sabotage CLEC customer relations. The complaint further alleged that the ILECs agreed not to compete against one another in their respective territories.
This agreement was inferred from their common failure to pursue business opportunities in contiguous markets and from a statement by Qwest CEO Richard Notebaert that competing in another ILEC's territory might be a good way to turn a quick dollar but that does not make it right. The complaint asserted that in light of the absence of meaningful competition among the ILECs and their parallel course of conduct the defendants had entered into a contract combination or conspiracy to prevent competitive entry and to allocate customers and markets.
The district court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim. It concluded that the alleged parallel behavior was fully explained by each ILEC's independent interest in defending its own territory and that the complaint did not allege facts suggesting the decision to refrain from competing elsewhere was contrary to the ILECs' apparent economic interests. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed, holding that plus factors need not be pleaded and that allegations of parallel conduct suffice if they leave open the possibility of collusion.
The Supreme Court granted certiorari to address the proper standard for pleading an antitrust conspiracy through allegations of parallel conduct.
Isabelle Inman challenged a state ban on early abortions. The court held that the woman's privacy interest inheres in her decision whether to terminate a pregnancy before viability, rendering the ban unconstitutional.
Roe v. Wade410 U.S. 113 (1973)
In March 1970, Jane Roe, a single woman residing in Dallas County, Texas, instituted a federal action against the District Attorney of the county. She sought a declaratory judgment that the Texas criminal abortion statutes were unconstitutional on their face. She also sought an injunction restraining enforcement of the statutes.
Roe alleged that she was unmarried and pregnant. She wished to terminate her pregnancy by an abortion performed by a competent licensed physician under safe clinical conditions. She was unable to obtain a legal abortion in Texas because her life did not appear to be threatened by continuation of the pregnancy. She could not afford to travel to another jurisdiction to secure a legal abortion.
James Hubert Hallford, a licensed physician, sought and was granted leave to intervene in Roe's action. In his complaint he alleged that he had been arrested previously for violations of the Texas abortion statutes. Two such prosecutions were pending against him in the Criminal District Court of Dallas County. He described conditions of patients who came to him seeking abortions. He claimed that for many cases he was unable to determine whether they fell within or outside the exception recognized by Article 1196 of the Texas Penal Code.
John and Mary Doe, a married couple, filed a companion complaint also naming the District Attorney as defendant. The Does alleged that they were a childless couple. Mrs. Doe was suffering from a neural-chemical disorder. Her physician had advised her to avoid pregnancy until her condition materially improved. She had discontinued use of birth control pills pursuant to medical advice. If she should become pregnant she would want to terminate the pregnancy by an abortion performed by a competent licensed physician under safe clinical conditions.
The two actions were consolidated and heard together by a duly convened three-judge district court for the Northern District of Texas. Upon the filing of affidavits, motions were made for dismissal and for summary judgment. The court held that Roe and members of her class and Dr. Hallford had standing to sue and presented justiciable controversies. The Does had failed to allege facts sufficient to state a present controversy and did not have standing. It concluded that the Texas criminal abortion statutes were void on their face. The court dismissed the Does' complaint while denying injunctive relief.
The plaintiffs Roe and Doe and the intervenor Hallford appealed to the Supreme Court from that part of the District Court's judgment denying the injunction. The defendant District Attorney cross-appealed from the grant of declaratory relief. Both sides also took protective appeals to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. That court ordered the appeals held in abeyance pending decision by the Supreme Court.
How does inherent agency power differ from actual or apparent authority?
Inherent agency power arises solely from the agency relation and protects third parties harmed by or dealing with the agent. It does not depend on the principal's manifestations or the agent's actual privilege.
Does the right of privacy inhere only in married couples?
No. The constitutionally protected right of privacy inheres in the individual, married or single, and protects personal decisions about bearing or begetting a child from unwarranted governmental intrusion.
What legal consequence follows when an offer of surrender is inherent in a tenant's abandonment?
The landlord may accept the offer and terminate the lease, leaving the tenant liable only for rent accrued before acceptance and damage caused by the abandonment.
410 U.S. 113 (1973)
…upon mistaken and exploded medical dogmas. With strange inconsistency, the law fully acknowledges the foetus in utero and its inherent rights, for civil purposes; while personally and as criminally affected, it fails to recognize it, and to its life as yet denies all protection." Id. , at 75-76. The Committee then…