Blacks Law Dict. 1st ed

27

ACTIO

ACTION

breach of a penal statute, and which any man that will may sue on account of the king and himself, as the statute allows and the case requires. Because the action is not given to one especially, but generally to any that will prosecute, it is called "action popular;" and, from the words used in the process, (qui tarn pro domino rege sequitur quam pro se ipso, who sues as well for the king as for himself,) it is called a qui tarn action. Tomlins. Real, personal, mixed. Actions are di vided into real, personal, and mixed; real actions being those brought for the specific recovery of lands or other realty; personal actions, those for the recovery of a debt, per sonal chattel, or damages; and mixed actions, those for the recovery of real property, to gether with damages for a wrong connected with it. Litt. § 494; 3 BL Comm. 117. Local actions are those founded upon a cause of action which necessarily refers to, and could only arise in, some particular place, e. g., trespass to land. Transitory actions are those founded upon a cause of action not necessarily referring to or arising in any particular locality. Actions are called, in common-law practice, ex contractu, when they are founded on a contract; ex delicto, when they arise out of a wrong. "Action" and "Suit." The terms "ac tion" and "suit" are now nearly, if not en tirely synonymous. (3 Bl. Comm. 3, 116, et passim.) Or, if there be a distinction, it is that the term "action" is generally confined to proceedings in a court of law, while "suit" is equally applied to prosecutions at law or in equity. Formerly, however, there was a more substantial distinction between them. An action was considered as termi nating with the giving of judgment, and the execution formed no part of it. (Litt. § 504; Co. Litt. 289a.) A suit, on the other hand, included the execution. (Id. 291a.) So, an action is termed by Lord Coke, "the right of a mit. n (2 Inst. 40.) Burrill. In French commercial law. Stock in a company, or shares in a corporation. ACTION FOR POINDING OF THE GROUND. A term of the Scotch law. See POINDINO. ACTION OF A WRIT. A phrase used when a defendant pleads some matter by which he shows that the plaintiff had no cause to have the writ sued upon, although it may be that he is entitled to another writ or action for the same matter. Cowell.

&CTIO VIBONORTTM RAPTORTJM. In the civil law. An action for goods taken by force; a species of mixed action, which lay for a party whose goods or movables {bona) had been taken from him by force, {vi) to recover the things so taken, together with a penalty of triple the value. Inst. 4, 2; Id. 4, 6,19. Bracton describes it as lying de rebus mobilibus vi ablatis sive robbatis, (for movable things taken away by force, or robbed.) Bract, fol. 1036. ACTIO VTJLGARIS. In the civil law. A legal action; a common action. Some times used for actio directa. Mackeld. Bom. Law, § 207. ACTION. Conduct; behavior; some thing done; the condition of acting; an act or series of acts. In practice. The legal and formal de mand of one's right from another person or party made and insisted on in a court of jus tice. An action is an ordinary proceeding in a court of justice by which one party prose cutes another for the enforcement or protec tion of a right, the redress or prevention of a wrong, or the punishment of a public of fense. Code Civil Proc. Cal. § 22; Code N. Y. § 2; Code N. C. 1883, § 126. An action is merely the judicial means of enforcing a right. Code Ga. 1882, § 3151. Action is the form of a suit given by law for the recovery of that which is one's due; the lawful demand of one's right. Co. Litt. 2846,285a. Classification of actions. Civil actions are such as lie in behalf of persons to en force their rights or obtain redress of wrongs in their relation to individuals. Criminal actions are such as are instituted by the sovereign power, for the purpose of punishing or preventing offenses against the public. Penal actions are such as are brought, either by the state or by an individual under permission of a statute, to enforce a penalty imposed by law for the commission of a pro hibited act Common law actions are such as will lie, on the particular facts, at common law, with out the aid of a statute. Statutory actions are such as can only be based upon the particular statutes creating them. Popular actions, in English usage, are those actions which are given upon the

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