ipso facto

Ipso facto is a Latin term meaning “by the fact itself” “by that very fact or act” or “for this fact alone”. The following are some examples of ipso facto used in a legal context:

1. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Supreme Court of the United States stated in its opinion, “As our jurisprudence relating to all liberties save perhaps abortion has recognized, not every law which makes a right more difficult to exercise is, ipso facto, an infringement of that right.”
2. In Shapiro v. United States, Justice Frankfurter stated in his dissent, “If records merely because required to be kept by law ipso facto become public records, we are indeed living in glass houses.”

[Last updated in February of 2023 by the Wex Definitions Team]

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