Devastavit

A mismanagement and waste by an executor, administrator, or other trustee, of the estate and effects trusted to him as such, by which a loss occurs.

— Devastavit may be: (1) By direct abuse, as when the executor, administrator, or trustee sells, embezzles, or converts to his own use the goods intrusted to him (Comyn, Dig. "Administration" [I 1]), releases a claim due to the estate (8 Bac Abr. 700; Hob. 266; Cro. (2 Johns. Cas. [N. Y.] 376; S P. Wms. 330). (2) By maladministration, as by the payment of claims which were not due nor owing, or by paying others out of the order in which they ought to be paid, or by the payment of legacies before all the debts are satisfied. 4 Serg. & R. (Pa.) 394; 5 Rawle (Pa.) 266. (3) By neglect, as by neglect to sell the goods at a fair price within a reasonable time, or, if they are perishable goods, before they are wasted;

— or a neglect to collect a doubtful debt which, by proper exertion, might have been collected. Bac. Abr. "Executors" (L). DEVENERUNT (Lat. devenire, to come to). A writ directed to the king's escheators when any of the king's tenants in capite dies, and when his son and heir dies within age, and in the king's custody, commanding the escheat, or that by the oaths of twelve good and lawful men they shall inquire what lands or tenements by the death of the tenant have come to the king. Dyer, 360; Termes de la Ley; Keilw. 199a; Blount; Cowell. DEVEST (Law Pr. devester, descester; Law Lat. devestire). In Old English Law. To take away;

— to deprive of, as a possession, title, or estate; the opposite of "invest." Termes de la Ley; Cowell. Sometimes written "divest," but "devest" has the support of the best authority. Co. Litt. 15a, 15b; Hale, Anal. § 32. See "Invest." In Modern Law. To take or draw away. "The whose estate was devested and drawn out of the feoffees." 4 Kent, Comm. 240. "The feoffment made by the feoffees devested all the estates." Id. To strip or deprive. "The statute devested the feoffees of all the estate." Id. 239.

See Vest.