Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

Real Right

The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary · Walter A. Shumaker and George Foster Longsdorf; ed. James C. Cahill · 1922

The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary

In Scotch law

That which entitles him who is vested vrith it to possess the subject as his own, and, if in the possession of another, to demand from him its actual possession. It is distinguished from a personal right, which is that of action against a debtor, but without any right in the subject which the debtor is obliged to transfer to him. Real rights affect the subject itself; personal rights are founded in obligation. Ersk. Inst. 479. common law would be a real one, while the compensation which a plaintiff seeks in an action of assumpsit or of trover, being a pecuniary one, would be personal.