Fine - Definition and Overview

A fine is money paid as a financial punishment for the commission of minor crimes or as the settlement of a claim. A synonym, typically used in civil law actions, is mulct.

Common examples of fines are monies paid for violations of traffic laws. Currently in English law relatively small fines are used either in place of or alongside community service orders for low-level criminal offences. Larger fines are also given independently or alongside shorter prison sentences where the judge or magistrate considers a considerable amount of retribution is necessary but there is unlikely to be significant danger to the public. For instance, fraud is often punished by very large fines since fraudsters are typically debarred from the position or profession they abused to commit their crimes.

Fines can also be used as a form of tax. Money for bail may be applied toward a fine.

Early examples of fines include the blood money payable under Anglo-Saxon common law for causing a death. The murderer would be expected to pay a sum of money or good dependent on the social status of the victim.

A fine for alienation, in feudal law, is a sum of money paid to the lord by a tenant whenever he had occasion to make over his land to another. A fine of lands is a species of conveyance in the form of a fictitious suit compromised or terminated by the acknowledgment of the previous owner that such land was the right of the other party.