2 CLASSIFICATIONS OF PROPERTY 



other, there gradually developed in the common law a 

 division of the same rights along an entirely different line 

 of cleavage. This distinction appears to have had its 

 origin in the pleadings, or procedure, by which property 

 rights were enforced. Thus there were certain actions in 

 which a tangible, specific thing, or right, which formed the 

 subject matter of a legal contest could be recovered and 

 there were other actions in which the complainant could 

 demand, only, either the restitution of the thing of which 

 he was deprived or money damages sufficient to redress the 

 wrong which gave rise to the action at law. The first 

 class of actions were called "real actions"; the second class 

 "personal actions." Real actions were allowed only in 

 those instances in which the subject matter of the dispute 

 was considered of such importance that its value could not 

 be measured in money, where the character of the property 

 right was such that the restoration of the thing, or right, 

 to its true owner was the only just solution of the contro- 

 versy. When the subject matter of the dispute was not 

 something which was considered by the administrators of 

 the law to have this peculiar character the complainant 

 was not permitted to bring a "real" action. The things 

 held in highest estimation at the time of the development 

 of this distinction were land and the rights or privileges 

 which were incident to, or sprang from, land ownership. 



Thus things which could be recovered in a "real" action 

 came to be called "realty" instead of "lands, tenements 

 and hereditaments," while all things which were not con- 

 sidered to be of such a character as to support a "real" 

 action for specific recovery came to receive the appellation, 

 "personalty." In a further development of the law, it 

 was recognized that there were certain interests in land which 

 could not consistently be held to form the basis of "real" 

 actions, and gradually such intersts in land assumed the 

 full character of personal property. Thus descendible 

 rights in land, an interest in land during the life of the one 

 holding the interest, and, except where modified by statute, 

 an interest in land during the lifetime of another person 

 (an estate pur autre vie) and a few other special interests 

 in land were considered realty, while leaseholds of lands, 

 hens on land in the form of mortgages, and the interest 



