Writ

A general term for a variety of judicial instruments by which a court commands something to be done by a person to whom the instrument is addres.sed. Burrill describes a writ as being an instrument in writing, in an epistolary form, running in the name of the sovereign of a state, and issued out of a court of justice, under seal, either as the commencement of an action or during its progress, directed to a sherifE or other ministerial officer, or to the party intended to be bound by it, and commanding some act therein mentioned to be done at or within a certain time specified. Former common-law practice allowed a great variety of writs specially adapted to different causes of action. These have been described, so far as they possess interest, under their various names, excluding the word writ from the name; thus the writ de lunatico inquirendo is mentioned under de lunatico inquirendo; and so with others. The writs particularly mentioned below are those of a general character, employed in modern practice. In general, a writ is the king's precept in Ttriting, under seal, issuing out of some court, and commanding something to be done touching a suit or action, or giving commission to have it done. (Termes de la Ley.) Writs in civil actions were cither original or judicial. Original writs issued out of the court of chancery for summoning a defendant to appear, and were granted before the suit was begun, to begin the same, whence the name; judicial writs issued out of the court where the original was returned after the suit was begun. The original bore date in the name of the king, the judicial in the name of the judge. Another division of writs was into real, personal, and mixed: the real conpersonal concerning goods, chattels, and personal injuries; and the mixed partaking of the nature of both. Again, writs concerning the possession of land were either possessory, of a man's own possession; or ancestral, of the seisin and possession of his ancestor as well. Writs also commonly bore some special name or addition descriptive of their particular purpose; e.g., writ of assistance, of inquiry, of capias, &c.

Brown. The Stat. 3 & 4 Wm. IV. ch.

27, abolished a great number of writs. It enacted that " no writ of right patent, writ of right quia dominus remisit curiam, writ of right in capite, writ of right in London, writ of right close, writ of right de rationabili parte, writ of right of advowson, writ of right upon disclaimer, writ de rationabilibus dioisis, writ of right of ward, writ de consuetudinibus el servitiis, writ of cessnvit, writ of escheat, writ of quo jure, writ of secta demolendinum, writ de essendo quietum de theolonio, writ of ne injuste vexes, writ of mesne, writ of quod permitlat, writ of formedon in descender in remainder, or in reverter, writ of assise of novel disseisin, nuisance, darrein presentment, juris utrum, or mort d'ancestor, writ of entry sur disseisin in the quibus, in the per, in the per and cui, or in the post, writ of entry sur intrusion, writ of entry sur alienation, dum fuit non compos mentis, dum fuit infra cetatem, dum fuit in prisona, ad communem legem, in casu proriso, in consimili casu, cui in vita, sur cui in vita, cui ante dicortium, or sur cui ante divortium, writ of entry sur abatement, writ of entry quare ejecit infra terminum, or ad terminum qui prateriit, or causa matrimonii prcelocuti, writ of aiel, besaiel, tresaiel, cosinage, or nuper obiit, writ of waste, writ of partition, writ of disceit, writ of qjiod ei deforceat, writ of covenant real, writ of warrantia chartce, writ of curia claudenda, or writ per qwB servitia, and no other action real or mixed (except a writ of right of dower, or writ of dower unde nihil habet, or a quare impedit, or an ejectment), and no plaint in the nature of any such writ or action, except a plaint for freebench or dower, — shall be brought after the 31st day of December, 1834." (Trouh. %■ H. Prac.) Wharton. The common-law definition of a writ includes a seal.

Baird v. Pridmore, 29 How. Pr. 253.

The term writ includes execution and attachment.

Bank of Rutland v. Parsons, 21 Vt. 199.

Also, a capias.

Tyler v. Canaday, 2 Barb. 160.

Also, a summons in a justice's court.

Cole v. Bell, 48 Barb. 194.

Writ of assistance. A writ issuing out of chancery to aid or assist the sheriff in giving possession of lands pursuant to an execution upon a judgment at law for recovery of possessfcn. the record of the proceedings had in a cause which has been adjudged in a court helow, to review what has been there done, and correct errors, if any. Whether " writ of error " includes a certiorari, see King c.

Wright, 2 Harr. (Del.) 135; Carman v. Carman, 3 N. J. L. 470.

Writ of inquiry. A writ used in an action at common law, by which, after judgment by default for the plaintiff, the sheriff inquires, by the oaths of twelve honest and lawful men, what amount of damages the plaintiff hath really sustained. The inquiry is usually had by the under-sheriff before a jury. Writ of right. This was a writ which lay for a man who had the right of property, against another man who had the right of possession and was in possession under such right. This severance of the two rights arose in three cases, chiefly: Upon discontinuance by tenant in tail; After judgment in a possessory action; and After the possessory action was barred by the statute of limitations. The writ of right properly lay only to recover corporeal hereditaments for an. estate in fee-simple; but there were other writs, said to be " in the nature of a writ of right," available for the recovery of incorporeal hereditaments or of lands for a less estate than a fee-simple. In this action, the demandant alleged some seisin of the lands in himself, or else in some one under whom he claimed; and usually the tenant in possession denied the demandant's right, which the latter was thereupon required to prove; and, failing such proof, the demandant and his heirs were perpetually barred of his claim, otherwise he recovered the lands against the tenant and his heirs for ever. There was a limit to the seisin which the demandant might allege; and such limit was fixed by the Statute of Westminster the First (3 Edw. I.), ch. 39, from the time of Eichard I.; and afterwards by the Stat. 32 Hen. VIII. ch. 2, seisin in a writ of right was to be alleged within sixty years.

By the Stats. 3 & 4 Wm. IV. ch.

27, § 36, and the common-law procedure act, 1860, § 26, all writs of right and writs in the nature thereof have been abolished.

Braum

Writ of Bummons. The writ by which, under the English judicature acts, actions are commenced. It corresponds to the writ in use in the New England states for commencing an action, and to the summons employed under the codes of reformed procedure.