Blacks Law Dict. 1st ed

CITIL ACTION

207

CIVIL LAW

At common law. As distinguished from a criminal action, it is one which seeks the establishment, recovery, or redress of private and civil rights. Civil suits relate to and affect, as to the parties against whom they are brought, only individual rights which are within their individual control, and which they may part with at their pleasure. The design of such suits is the enforcement of merely private obligations and duties. Criminal prosecutions, on the other hand, involve public wrongs, or a breach and violation of public rights and duties, which affect the whole community, considered as such in its social and aggregate ca pacity. The end they have in view is the preven tion of similar offenses, not atonement or expia tion for crime committed. 18 N. T. 128. Civil cases are those which involve disputes or contests between man and man, and which only terminate in the adjustment of the rights of plain tiffs and defendants. They include all cases which cannot legally be denominated "criminal cases." T. U. P. Charlt. 175. In code practice. A civil action is a proceeding in a court of justice in which one party, known as the "plaintiff," demands against another party, known as the "defend ant," the enforcement or protection of a pri vate right, or the prevention or ledress of a private wrong. It may also be brought for the recovery of a penalty or forfeiture. Eev. Code Iowa 1880, § 2505. The distinction between actions at law and suits in equity, and the forms of all such actions and suits, heretofore existing, is abol ished; and there shall be in this state, here after, but one form of action tor the enforce ment or protection of private rights and the redress of private wrongs, which shall be de nominated a "civil action." Code N.Y. §69. CIVIL BILL COURT. A tribunal in Ireland with a jurisdiction analogous to that of the county courts in England. The judge of it is also chairman of quarter sessions, (where the jurisdiction is more extensive than in England,) and performs the duty of revising barrister. Wharton. CIVIL COMMOTION. An insurrection •f the people for general purposes, though it may not amount to rebellion where there is a usurped power. 2 Marsh. Ins. 793. CIVIL CORPORATIONS. An old En glish term for all lay corporations which are not eleemosynary or charitable. Civil corporations are those which relate to temporal police; such are the corporations of the cities, the companies for the advance ment of commerce and agriculture, literary societies, colleges or universities founded for the instruction of youth, and the like. Re

ligious corporations are those whose estaV lishment relates only to religion; such are the congregations of the different religious per suasions. Civil Code La. art. 431. CIVIL DAMAGE ACTS. Acti passed in many of the United States which provide an action for damages against a vendor of in toxicating liquors, (and, in some cases, against his lessor,) on behalf of the wife or family of a person who has sustained injuries by rea son of his intoxication. CIVIL DEATH. That change in a per son's legal and civil condition which depiives him of civic rights and juridical capacities and qualifications, as natural death extinguishes his natural condition. It follows as a conse quence of being attainted of treason or fel ony, in English law, and anciently of enter ing a monastery or abjuring the realm. The person in this condition is said to be dviliter mortuus, civilly dead, or dead in law. CIVIL INJURY. Injuries to person or property, resulting from a breach of contract, delict, or criminal offense, which may be re dressed by means of a civil action. CIVIL LAW. The "Roman Law" and the "Civil Law" are convertible phrases, meaning the same system of jurisprudence; it is now frequently denominated the "Roman Civil Law." The word "civil," as applied to the laws in force in Louisiana, before the adoption of the Civil Code, is not used in contradistinction to the word " crim inal, " but must be restricted to the Roman law. It is used in contradistinction to the laws of England and those of the respective states. 5 La. 493. 1. The system of jurisprudence held and administered in the Roman empire, partic ularly as set forth in the compilation ot Justinian and his successors,—comprising the Institutes, Code, Digest, and Novels, and collectively denominated the "Corpus Juris Civilis, "—as distinguished from the common law of England and the canon law. 2. That rule of action which every par ticular nation, commonwealth, or city has es tablished peculiarly for itself; more properly called "municipal" law, to distinguish it from the "law of nature," and from interna tional law. The law which a people enacts is called the "civil law" of that people, but that law which natural reason appoints for all mankind is called the "law of nations," because all na tions use it. Bowyer, Mod. Civil Law, 19. 3. That division of municipal law which is occupied with the exposition and enforce

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