maintain

To sustain or keep up; to assist or promote.

To maintain an action or suit is to commence or institute it; the term imports the existence of a cause of action. 8 Minn. 105, (Gil. 80, 81.)

' 1. To keep up, sustain, preserve. To maintain a partition fence is to keep it in repair, and, if destroyed, to rebuild it.^ A building is not maintained, but a nuisance may be, by prosecuting it in the building." To maintain a railroad implies no j)0wer to change the location after construction,* It is difficult to define what are " works of maintenance " toward a railway. "Maintenance" is a very large term, and useful or reasonable ameliorations are not excluded. You may maintain by keeping in the same state, or by keeping the same state and improving the state, always bearing in mind that it must be maintenance as distinguished from alteration of pur- ^ pose.' See Prohibition, 1. 2._ In pleading, to support what has already been brought into existence.* 3. To assist in, to promote. See Maintenance, 1. 4. To provide for the support of a person. See Maintenance, 2. Maintenance. Support; preservation, continuance. Has two special applications: 1. An unlawful taking in hand, or upholding of quarrels or sides, to the disturbance or hinderance of common right.' An officious intermeddling in a suit that no way belongs to one, by maintaining or assisting either party, with money or otherwne, to prosecute or defend it.' Assisting another person in a lawsuit, without having any privity or concern in the subject.^ The intermeddling of a stranger in a suit for the purpose of stirring up and continuing the litigation.!"' Maintainor. One chargeable with maintenance. • At common law, maintenance is an offense against public justice: it keeps alive strife and contention, and perverts the remedial process of the law into an ' F. maintenir: L. manu tenere, to hold by the hand, to uphold. ' Rhodes v. Mummery, 48 Ind. 218 (1874). ' Commonwealth i). Kimball, 103 Mass. 467 (1670), eases. See also State v. Main, 31 Conn. 574 (1863). * Moorhead v. Little Miami R. Co., 17 Ohio, 340, 353 (1848). ' Sevenoaks, &c. R. Co. v. London, &c. R. Co., L. E., 11 Ch. D. 625 (1879), Jessel, M. R, "Moon V. Burden, 2 Excheq. *30 (1848); Louisville, &c. R. Co. V. Godman, 104 Ind. 492 (1886). ' Coke, Litt. 368 b; 51 Me. 63. s 4 Bl. Com. 135; 44 N. H. 303; 30 Wis. 233. engine of oppression. " Champerty " and "barratry" are species.^ But a master may maintain, that is, abet and assist, his servant, and a parent uphold his child, in a lawsuit.= The ancient English doctrine respecting maintenance has found little favor here." See Champerty. 2. Provision for the sustenance of a person — a minor, wife, widow, parent. Separate maintenance. An allowance made for a wife by her husband. If a husband, without just cause, deserts his wife, leaving her without adequate means of support, a court of equity will compel him to provide a reasonable amount for her.* See Necessaeies.