Blacks Law Dict. 1st ed

LITIS CONTESTATIO

726

LITERARY

tia. n No money was, in fact, paid to con stitute the contract. If ever money was paid, then the nomen was arcarium, (i. e., a real contract, re contractus,) and not a nomen proprium. Brown. LITIGANT. A party to a lawsuit; one engaged in litigation; usually spoken of act ive parties, not of nominal ones. LITIGARE. Lat. To litigate; to carry on a suit, (litem agere,) either as plaintiff or defendant; to claim or dispute by action; to test or try the validity of a claim by action. LITIGATE. To dispute or contend in form of law; to carry on a suit LITIGATION. A judicial controversy. A contest in a court of justice, for the pur pose of enforcing a right. LITIGIOSITY. In Scotch law. Tha pendency of a suit; it is a tacit legal prohi bition of alienation, to the disappointment of an action, or of diligence, the direct object of which is to obtain possession, or to acquire the property of a particular subject. The ef fect of it is analogous to that of inhibition. Bell. LITIGIOUS. That which is the subject of a suit or action: that which is contested in a court of justice. In another sense, "litig ious" signifies fond of litigation; prone to engage in suits. LITIGIOUS CHURCH. In ecclesias tical law, a church is said to be litigious where two presentations are offered to the bishop upon the same avoidance. Jenk. Cent. 11. LITIGIOUS RIGHT. In the civil law. A right which cannot be exercised without undergoing a lawsuit. Civil Code La. arts. 918, 3556. LITIS JESTIMATIO. The measure of damages. LITIS CONTESTATIO. In the civil and canon law. Contestation of suit; the process of contesting a suit by the opposing statements of the respective parties; the pro cess of coming to an issue; the attainment of an issue; the issue itself. In the practice of the ecclesiastioal courts. The general answer made by th« defendant, in which he denies the matter charged against him in the libeL Hallifax, Civil Law, b. 3, c. 11, no. 9.

LITERARY. Pertaining to polite learn ing; connected with the study or use of books and writings. The word "literary,"having no legal significa tion, is to be taken in its ordinary and usual mean ing. We speak of literary persons as learned, erudite; of literary property, as the productions of ripe scholars, or, at least, of professional writ ers; of literary institutions, as those where the positive sciences are taught, or persons eminent for learning associate, for purposes connected with their professions. This we think the popular meaning of the word; and that it would not be properly used as descriptive of a school for the in struction of youth. 8 Ind. 332. LITERARY PROPERTY may be de scribed as the right which entitles an author and his assigns to all the use and profit of his composition, to which no independent right is, through any act or omission on his or their part, vested in another person. 9 Amer. Law Reg. 44. A distinction is to be taken between "literary property" (which is the natural, common-law right which a person has in the form of written expres sion to which he has, by labor and skill, reduced his thoughts) and " copyright," (which is a stat utory monopoly, above and beyond natural prop erty, conferred upon an author to encourage and reward a dedication of his literary property to the public.) Abbott. LITERATE. In English ecclesiastical law. One who qualifies himself for holy or ders by presenting himself as a person ac complished in classical learning, etc., not as a graduate of Oxford, Cambridge, etc. LITERATURA. "Ad literaturam po nere" means to put children to school. This liberty was anciently denied to those parents who were servile tenants, without the lord's consent. The prohibition against the education of sons arose from the fear that the son, being bred to letters, might .enter into holy orders, and so stop or divert the services which he might otherwise do as heir to his father. Paroch. Antiq. 401. L I T E R I S OBLIGATIO. In Roman law. The contract of nomen, which was con stituted by writing, (scriptura.) It was of two kinds, viz.: (1) A re in personam, when a transaction was transferred from the day book (adversaria) into the ledger (codex) in the form of a debt under the name or heading of the purchaser or debtor, (nomen;) and (2) a persona in personam, where a debt already standing under one nomen or heading was transferred in the usual course of novatio from that nomen to another and substituted nomen. By reason of this transferring, these obligations were called "nomina transcripti

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