PROPERT

1 definition found

From Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) [bouvier]:

  PROPERTY. The right and interest which a man has in lands and chattels to 
  the exclusion of others. 6 Binn. 98; 4 Pet. 511; 17 Johns. 283; 14 East, 
  370; 11 East, 290, 518. It is the right to enjoy and to dispose of certain 
  things in the most absolute manner as he pleases, provided he makes no use 
  of them prohibited by law. See Things. 
       2. All things are not the subject of property the sea, the air, and the 


  like, cannot be appropriated; every one may enjoy them, but he has no 
  exclusive right in them. When things are fully our own, or when all others 
  are excluded from meddling with them, or from interfering about them, it is 
  plain that no person besides the proprietor, who has this exclusive right, 
  can have any, claim either to use them, or to hinder him from disposing of 
  them as, he pleases; so that property, considered as an exclusive right to 
  things, contains not only a right to use those things, but a right to 
  dispose of them, either by exchanging them for other things, or by giving 
  them away to any other person, without any consideration, or even throwing 
  them away. Rutherf. Inst. 20; Domat, liv. prel. tit. 3; Poth. Des Choses; 18 
  Vin. Ab. 63; 7 Com. Dig. 175; Com. Dig. Biens. See also 2 B. & C. 281; S. C. 
  9 E. C. L. R. 87; 3 D. & R. 394; 9 B. & C. 396; S. C. 17 E. C. L. R. 404; 1 
  C. & M. 39; 4 Call, 472; 18 Ves. 193; 6 Bing. 630. 
       3. Property is divided into real property, (q.v.) and personal 
  property. (q.v.) Vide Estate; Things. 
       4. Property is also divided, when it consists of goods and chattels, 
  into absolute and qualified. Absolute property is that which is our own, 
  without any qualification whatever; as when a man is the owner of a watch, a 
  book, or other inanimate thing: or of a horse, a sheep, or other animal, 
  which never had its natural liberty in a wild state. 
       5. Qualified property consists in the right which men have over wild 
  animals which they have reduced to their own possession, and which are kept 
  subject to their power; as a deer, a buffalo, and the like, which are his 
  own while he has possession of them, but as soon as his possession is lost, 
  his property is gone, unless the animals, go animo revertendi. 2 Bl. Com. 
  396; 3 Binn. 546. 
       6. But property in personal goods may be absolute or qualified without 
  ally relation to the nature of the subject-matter, but simply because more 
  persons than one have an interest in it, or because the right of property is 
  separated from the possession. A bailee of goods, though not the owner, has 
  a qualified property in them; while the owner has the absolute property. 
  Vide, Bailee; Bailment. 
       7. Personal property is further divided into property in possession, 
  and property or choses in action. (q.v.) 
       8. Property is again divided into corporeal and incorporeal. The former 
  comprehends such property as is perceptible to the senses, as lands, houses, 
  goods, merchandise and the like; the latter consists in legal rights, as 
  choses in action, easements, and the like. 
       9. Property is lost, in general, in three ways, by the act of man, by 
  the act of law, and by the act of God. 
      10.-1. It is lost by the act of man by, 1st. Alienation; but in order to 
  do this, the owner must have a legal capacity to make a contract. 2d. By the 
  voluntary abandonment of the thing; but unless the abandonment be purely 
  voluntary, the title to the property is not lost; as, if things be thrown 
  into the sea to save the ship, the right is not lost. Poth. h.t., n. 270; 3 
  Toull. ii. 346. But even a voluntary abandonment does not deprive the former 
  owner from taking possession of the thing abandoned, at any time before 
  another takes possession of it. 
      11.-2. The title to property is lost by operation of law. 1st. By the 
  forced sale, under a lawful process, of the property of a debtor to satisfy 
  a judgment, sentence, or decree rendered against him, to compel him to 
  fulfill his obligations. 2d. By confiscation, or sentence of a criminal 
  court. 3d. By prescription. 4th. By civil death. 6th. By capture of a public 
  enemy. 
      12.-3. The title to property is lost by the act of God, as in the case 
  of the death of slaves or animals, or in the total destruction of a thing; 
  for example, if a house be swallowed up by an opening in the earth during an 
  earthquake. 
      13. It is proper to observe that in some cases, the moment that the 
  owner loses his possession, he also loses his property or right in the 
  thing: animals ferae naturae, as mentioned above, belong to the owner only 
  while he retains the possession of them. But, in general,' the loss of 
  possession does not impair the right of property, for the owner may recover 
  it within a certain time allowed by law. Vide, generally, Bouv. Inst. Index, 
  b. t.