The Law Dictionary

Your Free Online Legal Dictionary • Featuring Black’s Law Dictionary, 2nd Ed.

NECESSARY Definition & Legal Meaning

Definition & Citations:

As used in jurisprudence, the word “necessary” does not always import an absolute physical necessity, so strong that one thing, to which another may be termed “necessary,” cannot exist without that other. It frequently imports no more than that one thing is convenient or useful or essential to another. To employ the means neccssanj to an end is generally understood as employing any means calculated to produce the end, and not as being confined to those single means without which the end would be entirely unattainable. McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 310, 413, 4 L. Ed. 579. As to necessary “Damages,” “Deposit,” “Domicile,” “Implication,” “Intromission,” “Parties,” “Repairs,” and “Way,” see those titles.

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