Avowry

In pleading. The answer of the defendant in an action of replevin brought to recover property taken in distress, in which he acknowledges the taking, and, setting forth the cause thereof, claims a right in himself or his wife to do so.

4 Bouv. Inst, note 3571; 3 Bl. Comm. 149.

A justification is made where the defendant shows that the plaintiff had no property, by showing either that it was the defendant's or some third person's, or where he shows that he took it by a right which was sufficient at the time of taking, though not subsisting at the time of answer. The avowry admits the property to have been the plaintiff's, and shows a right which had then accrued, and still subsists, to