Willis: Anglo-American Law 39 
An act is an exertion of the human will manifested in the external 
world. Pound. 
An act is a voluntary physical movement of a human being. 
The greater number of acts and events are of no legal im- 
port, but almost any act or event is liable to have legal im- 
port. An apple falling from a tree on a man’s own land has 
no legal import, but if such apple should fall from a branch 
projecting over his neighbor’s land on to his neighbor’s ground 
it would cause all sorts of legal questions to arise. Proximate 
consequences are reckoned as part of an act. When acts have 
legal consequences because such was the intention of the per- 
sons who performed them and the law gives effect thereto, 
they are called legal transactions. Examples of such legal 
transactions are contracts, conveyances, and declarations of 
trust. 
Facts are also operative and evidential. An operative fact 
is one which causes new legal capacities or legal liabilities. 
An operative fact is one which causes new legal relations. Corbin. 
An evidential fact is one which tends to prove the existence of some 
other fact. Corbin. 
An act may also be an element of a right, a matter already 
discussed. 
Legal Relation. An important fact is the fact of legal re- 
lation. A legal relation is a sort of permanent fact, and there- 
fore, either alone or in connection with other operative facts, 
gives fairly permanent legal capacities and liabilities. 
A legal relation is where stated consequences follow to persons from 
operative facts. Corbin. 
Some of the most important legal relations are the domestic 
relations of parent and child, guardian and ward, master and 
servant, and husband and wife; the fiduciary relations of 
attorney and client, physician and patient, spiritual advisers 
and those advised, and trustee and beneficiary, in addition to 
the domestic relations; the contract relations of offerer and 
offeree, promisor and promisee, promisor and third party 
beneficiary, assignor and assignee, and principal and agent; 
the property relations of vendor and vendee, lessor and 
lessee, licensor and licensee, donor and donee, bailor and bailee, 
and trustee and cestui qui trust; and the relations caused by 
wrong-doers in the case of breaches of obligations, torts, 
and crimes. 
