Blacks Law Dict. 1st ed

ACQUISITION

20

ACT

which one acquires or procures the property in anything. Used also of the thing ac quired. Original acquisition is where the title to the thing accrues through occupancy or ac cession, (q. v.,) or by the creative labor of the Individual, as in the case of patents and copyrights. Derivative acquisition is where property in a thing passes from one person to another. It may transpire by the act of the law, as in cases of forfeiture, insolvency, intestacy, judgment, marriage, or succession, or by the act of the parties, as in cases of gift, sale, or exchange. ACQUIT. To release, absolve, or dis charge one from an obligation or a liability; or to legally certify the innocence of one charged with crime. ACQUIT A CAUTION. In French law. Certain goods pay higher export duties when exported to a foreign country than when they are destined for another French port. In or der to prevent fraud, the administration com pels the shipper of goods sent from one French port to another to give security that such goods shall not be sent to a foreign country. The certificate which proves the receipt of the security is called "acquit a cau tion." Argles, Fr. Merc. Law, 543. ACQUITTAL. In contracts. A release, absolution, or discharge from an obligation, liability, or engagement. In criminal practice. The legal and formal certification of the innocence of a per son who has been charged with crime; a de liverance or setting free a person from a charge of guilt. The absolution of a party accused on a trial before a traverse jury. 1 Nott & McC. 36; 3 McCord, 461. Acquittals in fact are those which take place when the jury, upon trial, finds a verdict of not guilty. Acquittals in law are those which take place by mere operation of law; as where a man has been charged merely as an accessary, and the principal has been acquitted. 2 Co. Inst. 364. In feudal law. The obligation on the part of a mesne lord to protect his tenant from any claims, entries, or molestations by lords paramount arising out of the services due to them by the mesne lord. See Co. Iitt. 100a. ACQUITTANCE. Incontracts. A written discharge, whereby one is freed from

an obligation to pay money or perform a duty. It differs from a release in not requiring to be under seal. This word, though perhaps not strictly speaking synonymous with "receipt," in cludes it. A receipt is one form of an acquit tance; a discharge is another. A receipt in full is an acquittance, and a receipt for a part of a demand or obligation is an acquittance pro tanto. 51 Vt. 104. A C Q U I T T E D . Released; absolved; purged of an accusation; judicially dis charged from accusation; released from debt, etc. Includes both civil and criminal prose cutions. 26 Wend. 383,399. ACRE. A quantity of land containing 160 square rods of land, in whatever shape. Serg. Land Laws Pa. 185; Cro. Eliz. 476,665; 6 Coke, 67; Poph. 55; Co. Litt. 56. Originally the word "acre" (acer, aker, or Sax. acer) was not used as a measure of land, or to signify any determinate quantity of land, but to denote any open ground, (latum quan tumvis agrum,) wide champaign, or field; which is still the meaning of the German acker, derived probably from the same source, and is preserved in the names of some places in England, as Castle Acre, South Acre, etc. Burrill. ACREFIGHT, or ACRE. A camp or field fight; a sort of duel, or judicial combat, anciently fought by single combatants, En glish and Scotch, between the frontiers of the two kingdoms with sword and lance. Called "campfight," and the combatants "cham pions, " from the openfield that was the stage of trial. Cowell. ACROSS. Under a grant of a right of way across the plaintiff's lot of land, the grantee has not a right to enter at one place, go partly across, and then come out at another place on the same side of the lot. 5 Pick. 163. See 10 Me. 391. ACT, n. In its most general sense, this noun signifies something done voluntarily by a person; the exercise of an individual's pow er; an effect produced in the external world by an exercise of the power of a person ob jectively, prompted by intention, and proxi mately caused by a motion of the will. In a more technical sense, it means something done voluntarily by a person, and of such a nature that certain legal consequences attach to it. Thus a grantor acknowledges the conveyance to be his "act and deed," the terms being syn onymous.

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