Option
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence · Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence
1.
In reference to contracts, a choice between alternatives; a right of election.
2.
In ecclesiastical law, the archbishop has a customary prerogative, when a bishop is consecrated by him, to name a clerk pr chaplain of his own to be provided for by such bishop; in lieu of which the bishop used to make over by deed to the archbishop, his executors and assigns, the next presentation of such dignity or benefice, in the diocese witliln the bishop's disposal, as the archbishop himself should choose; which, therefore, was called his option.
Cowel; 1 Bl. Com. 381; 2 Steph. Com. 689.
Optional -writ
Original writs were either optional or peremptory. An optional writ, otherwise called a prcecipe, was a writ commanding a defendant to do a thing reant his choice, either to redress the injury or to stand the suit. Mozley ^ W.