Recaption
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
Taking a second time; applied to an arrest of a person who has been before arrested for the same cause, but has escaped. Recaption, or reprisal, is a species of remedy by the mere act of the party injured, and is resorted to when any one has deprived another of his property in goods or personal chattels, or wrongfully detains one's wife, child, or servant; in which case, the owner of the goods, and the husband, parent, or master, may lawfully claim and retake them wherever he happens to find them, so that it be not in a riotous manner, or attended with a breach of the peace, which retaking is termed "recaption." There is also a writ of recaption to recover damages against a person who (pending a replevin for a former distress) distrains a man again for the same rent or service. Brown, Recaption signifies: 1. The taking a second distress of one formerly distrained during the plea grounded on the former distress.
2.
A writ to recover damages for him whose goods, being distrained for rent in service, &c., are distrained again for the same cause, pending the plea in the county court, or before the justice. (Fitzh. Nat. Brev. 71.) 3. A species of remedy by the mere act of the party injured, when any one has deprived another of his property in goods or chattels personal, or wrongfully detains one's wife, child, or servant, and the owner, husband, parent, or master, retakes them.
Wharton.