Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A legal doctrine that bars a claimant from receiving relief where the claimant's delay in pursuing the claim has operated to the prejudice of the opposing party.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A genus of spiders: same as Lachesis, a name preoccupied in herpetology.
  • Negligence; remissness; inexcusable delay; neglect to do a thing at the proper time.
  • In law, remissness in asserting or enforcing a right, or neglect prejudicing some right of the person chargeable with it.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Law) Neglect; negligence; remissness; neglect to do a thing at the proper time; especially, a delay in asserting a claim, sufficient to cause a person to lose the right to adjuducation of the claim by a court.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun law Legal doctrine that a person who waits too long to bring a claim alleging a wrong shall not be permitted to seek an equitable remedy because the delay prejudiced the moving party. Sleeping on one's rights.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, slackness, negligence, from Anglo-Norman lachesse, laches, from Old French laschesse, from lasche, loose, remiss; see lush.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French lâches ("remissness, slackness").

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Examples

  • And finally, the en banc Sixth Circuit rejected Secretary Brunner's arguments that the GOP had been guilty of "laches" - an equitable doctrine which basically says that if you've been tardy in asserting your rights, you may have forfeited them.

    Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog 2008

  • Though there’s a public interest in avoiding false advertising, that can’t swallow the rule that laches is available in Lanham Act cases.

    Archive 2009-09-01 Rebecca Tushnet 2009

  • Though there’s a public interest in avoiding false advertising, that can’t swallow the rule that laches is available in Lanham Act cases.

    Out of joint: duelling supplements denied summary judgment Rebecca Tushnet 2009

  • Legally known as laches, things that are ignored on purpose.

    A New Year's Resolution for ALL Presidential Candidates 2006

  • This is a concept called "laches" in legalese; the team was established in 1967, the case brought in 1992, and it had dragged on until now, 2009, for 17 years.

    Would you take a stand? frankwu 2009

  • I found an interesting take at the Election Law website which said the legal term 'laches' should apply to this case, so looked up that term:

    Poll: Nevada Dems Value Change Over Experience 2009

  • By letting it continue to happen without litigation they are giving up their rights through equitable principles such as laches and perhaps even some statutes of limitations.

    A Shot Across the Bow 2005

  • It is likewise the subject of one of the smaller tales in Lane's _Arabian Nights_; but here I must remark, that the Eastern version is decidedly more ingenious than the later ones, inasmuch as it exculpates the keeper of the deposit from the "laches" of which in the other cases she was decidedly guilty.

    Notes and Queries, Number 39, July 27, 1850 Various

  • But most U.S. courts begin their "laches" analyses by looking to the most analogous statute of limitations, which probably just brings Russia back to civil RICO's four-year limit.

    FORTUNE Features 2008

  • But most U.S. courts begin their "laches" analyses by looking to the most analogous statute of limitations, which probably just brings Russia back to civil RICO's four-year limit.

    FORTUNE Features 2008

Comments

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  • from Middlemarch, of course, since it has to do with duty. Farebrother is the one suffering from laches. This is just a few paragraphs from the excellent sentence, "But Duty has a trick of behaving unexpectedly--something like a heavy friend whom we have amiably asked to visit us, and who breaks his leg within our gates."

    October 1, 2007