The Law Dictionary

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BUSINESS Definition & Legal Meaning

Definition & Citations:

This word embraces everything about which a person can be employed. People v. Com’rs of Taxes, 23 N. Y. 242, 244. That which occupies the time, attention, and labor of men for the purpose of a livelihood or profit. The doing of a single act pertaining to a particular business will not be considered engaging in or carrying on the business; yet a series of such acts would be so considered. Goddard v. Chaffee, 2 Allen (Mass.) 305, 79 Am. Dec. 796; Sterne v. State, 20 Ala. 46. Labor, business, and work are not synonyms. Labor may be business, but it is not necessarily so; and business is not always labor. Making an agreement for the sale of a chattel is not within a prohibition of labor upon Sunday, though it is (if by a merchant in his calling) within a prohibition upon business. Bloom v. Richards, 2 Ohio St. 387.

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