Popular Action
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
An action authorized by statute, to be prosecuted by any person who will sue for the enforcement or recovery of the penalty incurred by transgressing some penal law. It is called a popular action because it is a proceeding which may be taken not by any one person in particular, but by any of the people who think proper to prosecute it.
Cowel.