Trover - Law Dictionary Search Results
Home Dictionary Name: troverTrover
Trover [fr. trouver, Fr., to find]. This was a special action upon the case, properly called the action of trover and conversion (see that title), which might be maintained by any person who had either an absolute or special property in goods, for recovering the value of such goods against another, who, having or being supposed to have obtained possession of such goods by lawful means, had wrongfully converted them to his own use. It originally lay only where the goods had been lost by the plaintiff and 'found' (whence the name) by the defendant, but it was in course of time allowed to be brought as above upon a fictitious allegation of the finding not required to be proved, but not formally abolished until 1852, by the C.L.P. Act, 1852, s. 49.The action was also termed one of conversion, but 'wrongfully depriving' is the term now more frequently used. Under the old common law there were four different remedies for the wrongful deprivation of goods-viz., the actions of trespass to good...
trover
trover [short for action of trover and conversion; Anglo-French trover act of finding (alluding to goods lost by the plaintiff and found by the defendant), from trover to find, from Old French] : an action at common law to recover the value of chattels or goods wrongfully converted by another to his or her own use compare detinue ...
detinue
detinue [Anglo-French detenue, from feminine past participle of detenir to detain see detainer ] : a common-law action for the recovery of personal property belonging to the plaintiff that is wrongfully detained by the defendant compare trover ...
Action
Action, conduct, something done; also the form prescribed by Law for the recovery of one's due, or the lawful demand of one's right. Bracton (Bk. 3, cap. 1) defines it:-Actio nihil aliud est quam jus prosequendi in judicio quod alicui debetur.-(An action is nothing else than the right of suing in a court of justice for that which is due to some one.) Actions are divided into criminal and civil: criminal actions are more properly called prosecutions, and perhaps actions penal, to recover some penalty under statute, are properly criminal actions. There were formerly three classes of actions in England: personal actions, in which the plaintiff sought to recover a debt or damages from the defendant; real actions, in which he sought to establish his title to land or other hereditaments; mixed actions, in which he sought only to establish his right to possession of land. All forms of action are now abolished, but there still inevitably remains the distinction between actions in personam brou...
Chattels or catals
Chattels or catals [fr. Catalla, Lat.; chatel, Fr.; chaptel, Old Fr.]. The word 'catalla' among the Normans primarily signified only beasts of husbandry or, as they are still called, cattle, but in a secondary sense the term was extended to all movables and not only to these but to whatsoever was not a fief or feud or, at a later date, in the nature of freehold or parcel of it. The distinction in the class of chattels survives in the legal meaning of the terms, 'personal chattels,' denoting movable property and 'chattels real,' which concern the realty, such as terms of years of lands or tenements, wardships, the interest of tenant by statute staple, by statute merchant, by elegit, and such like, Co. Litt., 118 b.Chattels personal or in a more narrow and more modern sense, 'chattels' (cf. 'goods and chattels' in the writ of fieri facias) (q.v.), means movable property or effects which belong personally to the owner and for which if they are injuriously withheld from him he has, in gene...
Conversion
Conversion, with its grammatical variations, includes alteration or change of whatever nature. [Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 (42 of 1991), s. 2 (b)]--Where a man who is, lawfully or unlawfully, in possession of the goods of another deals with them in a manner which is inconsistent with the dominion of the owner over them, he is guilty of a conversion. It must be 'an unauthorized act which deprives another of his property permanently or for an indefinite time', Hiort v. Bott, (1874) LR 9 Ex 89. The taking possession of the goods of another is a trespass, as distinct from a conversion, though the latter term is often used to include both. Refusal to restore the goods is prima facie sufficient evidence of a conversion, though it does not amount to a conversion, 10 Rep. 56. See Fouldes v. Willoughby, (1841) 8 M&W 540; Hollins v. Fowler, (1875) LR 7 HL 757; Union Credit Bank Cases, (1899) 2 QB 205; Clerk and Lindsell on Torts, 7th ed., ch. xi.; and TROVER....
Droits of admiralty
Droits of admiralty, the perquisites attached to the office of Admiral of England (or Lord High Admiral). Prince George of Denmark, the husband of Queen Anne and Lord High Admiral, resigned the rights to these droits to the Crown for a salary, as Lord High Admiral, of 7,000l. a year. When the office was vacant, they belonged to the Crown. Of these perquisites, the most valuable is the right to the property of an enemy seized on the breaking out of hostilities. In the arrangement of the Civil List during the recent reigns, it was settled that whatever droits of Admiralty accrued were to be paid into the Exchequer for the use of the public. The Lord High Admiral's right to the tenth part of the property captured on the seas has been relinquished in favour of the captors. Droits of Admiralty also included all unclaimed wreck, flotsam, jetsam, ligan and derelict, which are now dealt with by the (English) Receiver of Wreck for the District, Merchant Shipping Act, 1894 (57 & 58 Vict. c. 60),...
Ex delicto
Ex delicto (from a tort or offence). the actions which arose from torts were: (1) trespass on the case; (2) trespass; (3) trover; (4) replevin. Consult Addison, or Clerk and Lindsell, or Pollock on Torts....
Fiction
Fiction. Fictions are 'those things that have no real essence in their own body but are so accepted in law for a special purpose.' 'Fictio' in old Roman law was properly a term of pleading, and signified a false averment on the part of the plaintiff which the defendant was not allowed to traverse; e.g., an averment that the plaintiff was a Roman citizen, when in truth he was a foreigner, the object of these 'fictiones' being of course to give jurisdiction; see Maine's Anc. Law, ch. II.The English law has always abounded in fictions, and thre is a maxim that in fictione juris semper 'quitas existit. See, e.g., EJECTMENT; FINE; FRACTION OF A DAY; LATITAT; QUOMINUS; TROVER....
Forcible detainer
Forcible detainer, refusing to restore another's goods, after sufficient amends tendered, the original taking having been lawful; for which injury the remedy usually resorted to was trover (q.v.). But if the original taking were unlawful it is a criminal offence against the public peace, and a misdemeanour, punishable by imprisonment and ransom at the pleasure of the Crown, 4 Bl. Com. 148.The wrongful retention of possession of property by one originally in lawful possession, often with threats or actual use of violence, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn....
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