Occupy

To hold in possession; to hold or keep for use: as, to occupy an apartment. Missionary Society v. Dalles, 107 U. S. 343, 2 Sup. Ct. G72, 27 L. Ed. 545.

In legal acceptation, actual use, possession, and cultivation. Jackson v. Sill, 11 Johns. (N. Y.) 202, 6 Am. Dec. 303; Inhabitants of Phillipsburgh v. Bruch’s Ex’r, 37 N. J. Eq. 480.

To hold in possession; to hold or keep for use. 107 U.S. 843, 2 Sup. Ct. Rep. 677; 11 Johns, 214.

To possess, applied to tangible property; to control, actually, for purposes of enjoyment. Occupancy: possession, actual control, of corporeal property. Occupant; occupier: one who has possession or controls things actual. In the vernacular, these words are used with a shade of meaning of being within the thing spoken of: one is said to occupy a house or a tract of land, but not often to occupy ordinary chattels. In law, such a distinction is less noticed: occupy may be used like "possess," in respect to chattels; especially in the expression title by occupancy. Most of the definitions of " occupancy " are narrower than that we give, in this respect, that they limit it to possession of things having no previous owner. Thus Blackstone and most of the dictionaries say, it is the taking possession of those things which before belonged to nobody. We suggest that this limitation arises from confounding "occupancy" with "title by occupancy." The true view seems to be, that occupy and its inflexions may well enough be used in the sense of possess; there cannot, however, well be a title by occupancy, that is, one founded in mere possession, except of things without a prior owner. There is, indeed, fair warrant in the older books, and in those which merely repeat the older books, for giving "occupancy" a very technical meaning as a mode of acquiring property by assuming possession of something which belongs to nobody. And, on the other hand, there is a use of the words in public-land laws, homestead laws, " occupying-claimant " laws, cases on landlord and tenant, and like connections, which seems to require the broader sense of possession, although there is, in most of these uses, a shade of meaning discarding any prior title as a foundation of right. Perhaps both uses or views may be harmonized, by saying that in jurisprudence occupancy or occupation is possession, presented independent of the idea of a chain of title; " suming property which has no owner, and " occupation " and " occupier " for the more general idea of possession. Judge Bouvier's definitions seem partly founded on such a distinction, and thei-e are indications of it in English usage. It does not appear generally drawn in American books. In international law, occupancy, and still oftener occupation, are used of the possession of and rule over a territoiy, obtained by conquest or by discovery. Occupant is he who first gets possession of a thing. An island in the sea, precious stones on the sea-shore, treasure discovered in the ground that has no particular owner, — belong to him who first gets occupation of them. This law of occupancy is founded upon the law of nature, according to which, on the coming of inhabitants to a new country, he who first enters on part of it, and manures it, gains the property; so that it is the actual possession and manurance of the land which was the first cause of occupancy, and, consequently, is to be gained by actual entry. By the ancient law, where a man finds a piece of land which no other possesses, or hath title unto, and enters upon the same, this gains a property, and a title by occupancy: but this manner of gaining property of lands has long since been of no use in England; for lands now possessed without any title are In the crown, and not in him who first enters. But the mere prior occupancy of land, however recent, gives a good title to the occupier, whereupon he may recover as plaintiff against all the world, except such as can prove an older and better title in themselves. A man could not, however, be an occupant, but of a void possession; and it was not every possession of a person entering that could make an occupancy, for it must be such as would maintain trespass without farther entry; and there could be no occupancy by any person of what another had a present right to possess; and occupancy must be of things which have natural existence, as of land, &c., and not of rents, advowsons, fairs, markets, tithes, &c., which lie in grant, and are incorporeal rights and estates; and there could not be an occupant of a copyhold estate. Moreover, no right of occupancy was allowed where the king had the reversion of the lands; for the reversioner has an equal right with any other man to enter upon the vacant possession; and where the king's title and a subject's concur, the king's Is preferred: against the king, therefore, there could be no prior occupant. The. true ground of occupancy is, that anciently all trials of titles were by real actions; therefore, he who had the freehold was one to whom the law had a special regard. Other and, that the lord might know how to avow for his services, he ought to know who was his tenant; therefore, the law provided there should be a person on whom he should avow. And the subject and object of the occupant are only such things as are capable of occupancy, and not the freehold at all, into which he neither doth nor can enter; but the law casts the freehold immediately upon him who hath made himself occupant of the land, or other real tiling whereof he is occupant. Tl)e title by general occupancy of, estates pur autre rie is now universally prevented by 29 Car. II. ch. 3, § 12; 14 Geo. II. ch. 20, § 9; but that of special occupancy by the heir at law continues to this day; such heir being held to succeed to the ancestor's estate, not by descent, for then he must take an estate of inheritance, but as an occupant specially marked out and appointed by the original grant. Jacob; Tomlins. Occupancy is defined to be the " taking possession of those things which before belonged to nobody; " hence the title which a person so acquires in things is called title by occupancy. Occupancy is frequently divided into general and special occupancy. General occupancy occurred where a person was tenant pur autre vie, and died during the life of the cestui que vie, in which case the person who first entered on the land after his death might lawfully retain possession thereof, as long as the cestui que vie lived by right of occupancy, because it belonged to nobody. Special occupancy occurred where an estate was limited to a man and his heirs, or the heirs of his body, during the life of another person, by which the heir or heirs of the body of such grantee might enter on the death of the ancestor, and hold possession as special occupant, having an exclusive right, by the terms of the original contract, to occupy the lands during the residue of the estate granted. General occupancy, in the sense before described, was abolished by the statute of frauds, and the remnant of the estate was made distributable among the creditors (if any), and the surplus remaining over was (after Stat. 14 Geo. II. ch. 20) to be distributed among the next of kin of the deceased grantee. The whole law is now regulated by the Stat. 1 Vict. ch. 26, which re-enacts the provisions of both the lastmentioned statutes relative to occupancy. Brown. " Possession " and " occupancy,'' when applied to land, are nearly synonymous terms, and may exist through a tenancy. Thus, occupancy of a homestead, such as will satisfy the statute, may be by means other than that of actual residence on the premises, by the widow or child. Walters v. People, 21