Layman E. Allen’s research while affiliated with University of Michigan and other places

Deontic LEGAL RELATIONS are quantified OBLIGATION or PERMISSION statements in the Logic of LEGAL RELATIONS. Such LEGAL RELATIONS stem from Hohfeld's right-duty-privilege-no-right set of fundamental legal conceptions. The four Hohfeldian roots are enriched by more detailed specification in terms of quantifier, deontic, action and temporal logics. The 1600 enriched deontic LEGAL RELATIONS defined in the Logic of LEGAL RELATIONS are both more specific and more discriminating than their Hohfeldian predecessors. A brief summary is presented of the 800 active enriched deontic LEGAL RELATIONS along with other parts of the LEGAL RELATIONS Language involved in the analysis of the important Rule 7(a) of the Federal Rules of Civic Procedure dealing with pleadings.

A significant refinement has been made in the AHOHFELD representation language, linlciig it realistically to decisions being made in the legal system, and it has been renamed to become the LEGAL RELATIONS Language. Similar changes have been made in the underlying AHOHFELD logic, which has become the Logic of LEGAL RELATIONS. A series of 27 puzzles and games, designed to enable legal problem solvers to become fluent in the LEGAL RELATIONS Language, are described and illustrated briefly in this article. More detailed presentation of the Play-A-Round puzzles and the Clever Plaintiff and the Legal Argument games are available at Internet site: http://thinkers.law.umich.edu.

The Hohfeldian fundamental legal conceptions that deal with solely deontic LEGAL RELATIONS, the duty/privilege and right/no-right pairs, require not only an adequate definition of agency for the person who is obligated or permitted to act, but also the same of patiency for the person to-or-for whom that action is directed. Person-i’s DUTY to see-to-it-that that state-of-affairs-s is so for the benefit of person-j is defined here in terms of a deontic OBLIGATION operation and DONE-BY (D2) and DONE-FOR (D4) relations between a state of affairs and persons. This paper is a refinement of the author’s earlier efforts to modify, extend, and enrich Hohfeld’s fundamental legal conceptions into a more general notion of LEGAL RELATIONS (defined concepts are expressed in all capital letters.) In particular, the agency concept of DONE-BY is being brought into closer conformity with Belnap’s emerging stit logic, with the modifications of deontic logic accompanying such changes. The S4–D2 action modal logic considered here is intended to be a part of the A-HOHFELD logic in which LEGAL RELATIONS are defined and from which a representation language called the A-HOHFELD language is derived. The A-HOHFELD language is being used as a representation language for constructing MINT (Multiple INTerpretation) interpretation-assistance systems for helping lawyers to detect alternative structural interpretations of sets of legal rules.

An abstract is not available.

Different legal expert systems may be incompatible with each other: A user in characterizing the same situation by answering the questions presented in a consultation can be led to contradictory inferences. Such systems can be “synthesized” to help users avoid such contradictions by alerting them that other relevant systems are available to be consulted as they are responding to questions. An example of potentially incompatible, related legal expert systems is presented here - ones for the New Jersey murder statute and the celebrated Quinlan case, along with one way of synthesizing them to avoid such incompatibility.