Propinquity Definition:

Ballentine's Law Dictionary uses these words:

"Propinquity: Relationship; consanguinity; nearness in point of time or place.""

Also used to describe proximate relationships; synonymous with kin.

Samples of judicial use of the term:

• "A person's mere propinquity to others independently suspected of criminal activity does not, without more, give rise to probable cause to search that person."¹


• "A number of competing irrelevant affidavits set forth which deponent had the most or highest degree of love, affection, respect or propinquity for or to the deceased."²


• "Both engineers produced photographs of the glass panel with which the Plaintiff is alleged to have collided showing its propinquity to the door of the office in which the Plaintiff had been carrying out his security duties."³


• "The duty of care was that owed to a claimant whose property was in such physical propinquity to the place where the negligent acts or omissions had their physical effect so that a physical effect on the property of the claimant was foreseeable as a result of the defendant's negligent acts or omissions."⁴

REFERENCES:

• Ballentine, James, Ballentine's Law Dictionary (Rochester: Lawyers Co-op Publishing Co., 1969), page 1011
• Daly v. Guinness Peat Aviation Ltd., [1998] IEHC 25 (NOTE 3)
• Davison v Estate of Raymond Davison, 2010 MBQB 274 (NOTE 2)
• Fortuna Seafoods P/L as trustee for The Rowley Family Trust v. The Ship "Eternal Wind", [2005] QCA 405 (NOTE 4)
• Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 US 85 (NOTE 1, 1979)