Quo Minus - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition quo-minus

Definition :

Quo minus, a writ which lay for him who had a grant of house-bote and hay-bote in another's woods against the grantor making such waste whereby the grantee could the less enjoy his grant, Old N.B. 148.

It also lay for the King's accountant in the Exchequer against any person against whom he had a right of action, and was called a quo minus because in it the plaintiff suggested that he was the King' farmer or debtor, and that the defendant had done him

the injury or damage complained of; quo minus sufficiens existit, by which he is less able to pay the King his debt or rent; see 3 Bl. Com. 45. Afterwards this suggestion of being debtor to the King was allowed to be inserted by any plaintiff who wished to proceed in that Court against any defendant, as a mere matter of form, and in this way the Court of Exchequer obtained a jurisdiction co-extensive with that of the Common Pleas in actions personal. The writ of quo minus was abolished by 2 Wm. 4, c. 39.