Lien

A qualified right of property which a creditor has in or over specific property of bis debtor, as security for the debt or charge or for perforimance of some act. In every case in which property, either real or personal, is charged with the payment of a debt or duby, every such charge may he denominated a lien onthe property.

Whitak.

Liens, p.

1.

A lien is a charge imposed upon specific property, by which it is made security for the performance of an act.

Code Civil Pree. Cal. § 1180.

Lien is the right of one man to retain property in his possession belonging to another, until cer tain demands of the party ia possession are satisfied.

26 Wend. 467. And sea i Hilt. 292.

Lien is familiarly understood te be a binding or attachment of the thing seoken of, for the benefit of him who is entitled thevets % Hawlks, 309. In the Scottish law, che doctrine of lien is known by the name of “retention,” and that of set-off by the name of “compensation.” Liens are either particular, as a right to retain a thing for some charge or claim growing ont of, or connected with, the identical thing; or general, as a right to retaina thing not only for such charges and claims, but also for a general balance of accounts between the parties in respect to other dealings of the like nature. Liens are also either conventional or by operation of law. The former is the ease where the lien is raised by the express agreement and stipulation of the parties, in circumstances where the law alone would not create a lien from the-mere relation of the parties or the details of their transaction. The latter is the case where the law itself, without the stipulation of the parties, raises a lien, a3 an implication or legal consequence from the relation of the parties or the circumstances of their dealings. Liens of this species may urise either under the rules of common law or of equity or under a statute. In the first case they are called “common-law liens;” in the second, “equitabie liens;” in the third, “statutory liens.” Liens are either possessory or charging; the former, where the creditor has the right the debt is a charge upon the specific property although it remains in the debtor’s possession. Equitable lions are such as exist in equity, and of which courts of equity alone take cognizance. A lien is neither a jus in re nor a jus ad rem. It is not property in the thing, nor does it constitute a right of action for the thing. It more properly constitutes a charge upon the thing. Lquitable liens most commonly grow ont of constructive trusts.

Story, Eq. Jur. § 1215.

Maritime liens

Maritime liens do not include or require possession. The word “lien” ig used in maritime law notin the strict legal sense in which we understand it in courts of common law, in which caso there could be no lien where there was no possession, actual or constructive, but to express, as if by analogy, the nature of claims which neither presuppose nor originate in possession.

22 Eng. Law & Kg. 62.

The civil law lien. The civil law embraces, under. the head of “mortgage and privilege,” the peculiar securities which, in the common and maritime law and equity, are termed “liens.” As to BAILEr’s Lien, Mecnanto’s Lren, and VENDOR’s LIEN, see those titles.