Owner

lie who lias dominion of a thing, real or personal, corporeal or incorporeal, which he has a right to enjoy and do with as he pleases, — even to spoil or destroy it, as far as the law permits, unless he be prevented by some agreement or covenant which restrains liis right. See Turner v. Cross, 83 Tex. 218, IS 8.

W. 578, 15 L. R. A. 202; Johnson v. Crookshanks, 21 Or. 339, 28 Fac. 78.

Although there can be but one absolute owner of a thing, there may be a qualified ownership of the same thing by many. Thus, a bailor has the general ownership of the thing bailed, the bailee the special ownership.

See Park v. Willis, 2 Cra. C. C. 83, Fed. Cas. No. 10717.

The right of the absolute owner is more* extended than that of him who has only a qualitied ownership: as, for example, the use of the thing. Thus, the absolute owner of an estate, that is, an owner in fee, may cut the wood, demolish the buildings, build new ones, and dig wherever he may deem proper for minerals, stone, plaster, and similar things, which would be considered waste and would not be allowed in a qualified owner of the estate, as a lesbut it has been held in Ohio that the word owner, in the mechanic’s lien law of that state, includes the, owner of the leasehold as well as of the reversion, on the ground that any other construction would be subversive of the policy and intent of the statute.

Choteau v. Thompson, 2 Ohio St. 123.

The owner continues to have the same right although he perform no acts of ownership or be disabled from performing them, and although another perform such acts without the knowledge or against the will of the owner. But the owner may lose his right in a thing if he permit it to remain in the possession of a third person for a sufficient time to enable the latter to acquire a title to it by prescription or under the statute of limitations. See La. Civ. Code, b.

2, tit. 2, c. 1; Encyclopticlie d’ Alembert, Fropnetaire.

When there are several joint owners of a thing, — as, for example, of a ship, — the majority of them have the right to make contracts in respect of such thing in the usual course of business or repair, and the like, and the minority will be bound by such contracts; Holt 586; Schott v. Harvey, 105 Pa. 222, 51 Am. Rep. 201.

See Part-owner.