Also known as: legally operative fact · operative facts · operative fact
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
Statements or conduct that possess independent legal significance by virtue of their utterance or occurrence. They establish the legal act itself rather than proving the truth of any assertion they contain.
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Laura Lewis sued Linden Logistics in federal court for breach of a shipping contract seeking $90,000. She joined an additional plaintiff whose related indemnity claim fell below the amount-in-controversy threshold. The court exercised supplemental jurisdiction because the joined claim arose from the same transaction whose contract terms constituted the legally operative facts.
Lucy Liu brought a federal copyright claim against Lakewood Manufacturing. She added a state unfair-competition claim arising from the same unauthorized use of her design materials. The court heard the state claim because the design documents and licensing statements formed the common nucleus of operative fact.
Liam Larson was prosecuted for fraud. The government withheld witness statements that the defense could have used to impeach key testimony. Those statements qualified as legally operative facts whose suppression violated due process.
The words themselves are legally operative facts offered to prove formation of the contract rather than the truth of any assertion they contain.
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Entries in a transaction log can qualify as legally operative facts when offered to show the occurrence of the recorded transfers rather than to prove the truth of the details asserted.
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The phrase also appears in jurisdictional analysis to identify the shared factual nucleus that links claims for supplemental jurisdiction purposes.
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…from that which the Court attributes to it. Judge Weinstein, for example, defines as synonymous the words "ultimate fact," "operative fact," "material fact," and "consequential fact," each of which, he states, means "a fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action.' " 1 J. Weinstein & M. Berger, Weinstein's…