ACTU'N \T I.AW 



\TTTE OF. 







most fruitful source of litigation. From the nicety and inconvenient 

 length of the process, they were almost discontinued, when the action 

 of ejectment was by statute made the only mode of trying title, except 

 in the em of dower to a wife, and a disputed right to the exercise of 

 eocleiMticl patronage. (3 ft 4 Wm. IV. c. 27.) 



PrrtoHal Afiioxi are by far the most numerous claw of actions. It 

 is by them that difference! respecting debts, promises, and contract*, 

 are settled ; and that compensation in sought for personal insult* ami 

 injuries of nlnrrtt every description, including even Home of the minor 

 crimes and misdemeanour*, which are punishable both aa crimes and as 

 civil injuries. 



iliml Artium partook uf the nature of both, being brought fur the 

 recovery of lands, and also for damages, either for some injury done 

 to the land, or suiue other wrong, such as the illegal detention of it 

 from the owner. 



All real and mixed actions were abolished by 3 & 4 Win. IV. c. 27, 

 except Right of Dower, Dower, O, narc impedit, and Ejectment The 

 two former are brought by a wife for recovery of her dower ; by the 

 third, the right to present to a benefice U tried ; and by the fourth, 

 the title to real property is ascertained. The action of Ejectment thus 

 preserved was, however, strictly an Action of Trespass. By the 

 Common Law Procedure Act, 1852,' Ejectment, the forms of which 

 have been reconstructed, regains the appearance of a real action. 



Personal actions are founded either on contract* or on torts (a term 

 used to signify such wrongs as are distinguishable from breauhe of 

 contract), and these torts are usually considered as of three kind.- : 

 nonfeazance, or the omission of some act which one is bound to do : 

 misfeasance, or the improper performance of some act which he may 

 do ; malfeasance, or the commission of some act which id unlawful. 

 Actions founded on contract are sometimes described an actions r.c 

 cviitmctii, and those on tort as actions ex delicto ; a division which, as 

 well as the terms used to express it, is derived from the Roman law 

 (' obligationes ex contractu,' ' obligationes ex delicto : ' Gains, iii. 182). 



Actions are either local or transitory : local actions are founded on 

 huch causes of action an refer to some particular locality, a* in the case 

 of trespass to land ; transitory action* are such causes of action cut may 

 be supposed to take place any where, as in the case of trespass to goods, 

 assaults, and the like. Real actions are in their nature local ; personal 

 actions for the most part transitory. Local actions must be tried in 

 the county where the cause of action arose, and by a jury of that 

 county : transitory actions may be tried in any county, (in general at 

 the pleasure of the plaintiff). When an injury is committed out of 

 England, and its nature in such as to make the action local, no action 

 will lie for its redress in any English court ; but if the nature of the 

 injury is such that the action is transitory, such action will lie in the 

 English courts. When the cause of action arose abroad, in a transitory 

 action it was formerly necessary to have recourse to a legal fiction, 

 and to allege that it arose in an English county. This was necessary, 

 because every action must be tried theurriiciill*/ by a jury of the 

 county where the cause of it arose ; and hence the fiction, alleging, for 

 instance, an assault in Majorca, " to inl . in thr Want uf Cl<m/i. in //.< 

 City of London." This fiction is now aliolished, but the plaintiff 

 in every declaration must specify in the margin, some English county 

 an that in which he intends that the cause should be tried. 



As to actions generally, it is to be observed as generally true that 

 the right of action in not assignable, so as to enable the assignee to -u.> 

 at law in his own name ; but in certain cases it is transferred by 

 operation of law. Thus the rights of action of a bankrupt or in.-, .h cut 

 pass (with certain exceptions) to the assignee* : and upon tin- death of 

 cither f the parties between whom there is a cause of 

 the right of maintaining such action survives in general to or against 

 the executors or administrators. 



In respect to suits which are more strictly personal, that is. affect 

 only the person, as in the case of an action i.., -l.indci . tin- maxim is 

 that they die with the person. By the Common Law this extended to 

 every cue of tort ; but it is now no longer the rule an regards torts 

 committed in respect of property. The 4 Edw. III. c. 7, eni].wrrs 

 executors or administrators to maintain an action for trespass to the 

 goods of the testator or intestate; ami by 3 A 4 Wm. IV. c. 42, ex- 

 ecutors or administrators may maintain an action of trcs|ass 

 injury to the real estate of the deceased, which was committed six 

 calendar months before his death, provided the action is brought 

 within one year after his death. The same action may also be main- 

 tained against executors or administrators for any injury done by the 

 deceased to the real < r personal property of another, if it was done 

 within six calendar months before his death, and the action is brought 

 within six calendar months after the executors and administrators have 

 asnuned office. The 9 & 10 Viet. c. 03, also allows on action for 

 damages to be brought by the executor or administrator of a person 

 whose death has been caused by the wrongful act, neglect, or default 

 of another, if the act, neglect, or default would have intitlnd the party 

 injured to maintain sn action if death had not ensued. At Common 

 Law, no such mil was maintainable. By the statute, it is to be for the 

 benefit of the husband, wife, parent, or child of the deceased. 



The regular part* of an action at law, that is to say of .1 p. 

 action, are : 1. the Truces*, or those proceedings which have for their 

 object QMeCOtpeOmgof the defendant to appear ; that is, to admit that 

 he has a general intimation of the suit, and is ready to receive more 



particular notice of its ground and object This is done by 

 summons served personally on the defendant 2. the Pleadings, consisting 

 of the dttiaralioK, in which the plaintiff fully sets out his grievances, 

 the pleat on which the defendant answers the declaration by contra- 

 dicting the allegations contained in it; asserting his own ri^lit. > 

 justifying his conduct : to this the plaintiff may reply ; and limn de- 

 parties may continue to altercate, in legal language, until material 

 questions are distinctly asserted by one party and denied by tin 

 3. the Trial, where the questions for decision which are called the 

 itna are tried by the jury (or in some rare cases by a judge or tin 

 court), who after healing the fii<liurr uf lioth parties, give their tcntirt 

 either for the plaintiff or defendant 4. the Judgment, which in pm 

 suance of this verdict is pronounce,! by the court to which t)i 

 ceeding belongs. 5. the Execution, issued by the court against th> 

 person or goods of the unsuccessful litigant, unless there lie, '!. an 

 Appeal, by error being brought on the judgment, which ends only in 

 the judgment of the House of I 1-. 



It ought to be mentioned, that formerly, in all action- of dcl>t. the 

 plaintiff might commence liy arresting the defendant whci. 

 am- muted to '2(<l. Arrest on uiesne process is now abolished. (An: 



(For further particulars see Rln<-L>t<iii<'t t'niHiiitiitnrii>. Mr. Km', 

 ed. v. iii. / XT aim ; Jacob's Late /H<-ti"ii<irii. See also as to real 

 DOWER ; EJECTMENT ; QI-ARE IXIPEIMT.) 



ACTION Kl'ON THi: CASK. [CASK, ACTION t-rox TI 



ACTION AND ItE ACTION. [MOTION, LAWS OF.] 



ACTION, LEAST PRINCIPLE OF, is a name given by Lagnmge 



to a law of motion which he has thus enunciated : In a system of 



moving bodies, the sum of the products of the masses of the bodies by 



the integral of the products of the velocities and the element* of tbw 



- passed over, is constantly a maximum or a minimum. 



The principle, in a limited sense, originated with Maupertuis, who, 

 in the 'Memoires de 1'Academie des Sciences de Paris,' fur 171. 

 designating it the ' Law of Rest,' states that when bodies iu mot , 

 upon one another, the sum of the products of the masses by tin 

 velocities, and by the sjwces descnlied, is a minimum ; and from thi- 

 principle he deduced the laws of the reflexion and refraction of light, 

 and of the collision of bodies. Elder also, in his ' Traitc' des Isopo'ri- 

 i. I^ausanne. 1744), showed that when isolated bodies describe 

 curvilinear paths by the action of central forces, the integral of the 

 product arising from the multiplication of the element of the curve by 

 the velocity is always a maximum or a minimum. But the gen 

 of the principle was established by lyjigrange, who has extended it to 

 the motion of a .-y.-tem of rigid bodies acting upon one another in any 

 manner whatever ; and his first applications of it to the solution of 

 dynamical propositions are contained in the second volume of the 

 ' Memoires de I'Acadduiie, &c., de Turin.' 



The analytical expression of the principle is that 2-y< 

 f^ninh, is a maximum or a minimum, and i 'onseqttently that the 

 infinitely small variation of that tjiiautity is zero. It would be ni"ie 

 correct to say that the variation is zero, \\li> jn |-ciihii 



cases, the formula called the arUnn is a maximum " T a minimum. 

 (Here m in the mass of a body, r its velocity, and </.< the element of tile 

 space passed over.) But rf=r</< (<ll being the element of time:i 

 therefore,/" Sin nfr is equivalent ti>fSiin"<ll. Now, Sn- is the ex- 

 pression for the active or living force of a finite number of rigid bodies 

 or molecules [Vis VIVA); and it follows that the principle .if li ' t 

 action' is the equivalent of the expression that the integral of 

 the product, of the vis viva of a system l>y the element of time, is in 

 general a minimum. 



The truth of the ' Piinciple of least action' may be readily ) 

 from the general dynamical equation (VIKTI'AI. VKM>< rm>], the .-urn 

 of the term.- containing X. V, and '/.. Wing made equivalent to 

 StJZw.i-t, or to 3mrSr, conformably to what is shown in the article 

 just quoted : and the whole Wing transformed agreeably t.. the process 

 usi-d in the ' MeVnnique Analytique' (sect iii. No. Sy). It will l 

 needless, however, to give the details, since, as i- observed by Poisson, 

 the use of the principle Li only to serve as a rule for forming the 

 differential equations of motion, and these may IK* obtained : 

 from the (ieiieral Equation to which leferenee has been made 

 We have thus given what is sutlicicut, with reference to the in- 

 this principle. But we warn the ^indent that he must look for further 

 explanation in full treatises : all that w c -ay in so brief a space abound - 

 with possibilities of misconception. On the physical view of the prin- 

 ciple there are some instructive remark < in Xichol's <''i'-//ia!'lia of tin: 

 Pkyrira 



ACTIVE OH I.IVINi; KoliCKS. [Vis VIVA.] 



ACTON I'.riiNKI,. STA'ITTE OF. This statute m 

 Acton lluiiiel, in Shropshire, at a Parliament held by Edward I. .on 

 his return from Wales, Acton liumcl was never even a market town, 

 and I .eland says (' Kin.' vii. 19), that the Parliament w.-.., held in a 

 great barn. The truth is. howevi -i. that, it was held in the great, hall 

 ..f the castle of the Lord Chancellor Ilnrael, the author, no doubt, of 

 this statute, and also of the ' Statute oj U . 'minuter the First.' , 

 in 1^75. lUdat. 12, 1283. 



The preamble reciting that merchants "be greatly im)>vcn-li"l 

 because there U no speedy law provided for them to liave recovery of 

 their debts at the day uf ]nymcnt assigned ; " enables a creditor to bring 



