Legal Capacity and Total Capacity
Seating capacity differs from total capacity (sometimes called public capacity), which describes the total number of people who can fit in a venue or in a vehicle either sitting or standing. Where seating capacity is a legal requirement, however – as it is in movie theaters and on aircraft – then the law reflects the fact that the number of people allowed in should not exceed the number who can be seated. Use of the term "public capacity" indicates that a venue can permissibly hold more people than it can actually seat. Again, this maximum total number of people can refer to the physical space available, or limitations set by law.
Read more about this topic: Seating Capacity
Famous quotes containing the words legal, capacity and/or total:
“We should stop looking to law to provide the final answer.... Law cannot save us from ourselves.... We have to go out and try to accomplish our goals and resolve disagreements by doing what we think is right. That energy and resourcefulness, not millions of legal cubicles, is what was great about America. Let judgment and personal conviction be important again.”
—Philip K. Howard, U.S. lawyer. The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America, pp. 186-87, Random House (1994)
“Just as we are learning to value and conserve the air we breathe, the water we drink, the energy we use, we must learn to value and conserve our capacity for nurture. Otherwise, in the name of human potential we will slowly but surely erode the source of our humanity.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize me senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant
A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality.”
—Sylvia Plath (1932–1963)