Real Action

In the Civil Law. One by which a person seeks to recover his property which is in the possession of another. Dig. 50. 16. 16. It is to be brought against the person who has possession. At Common Law. One brought for the specific recovery of lands, tenements, or hereditaments. Steph. PL 3. They are droitural when they are based upon the right of property, and possessory when based upon the right of possession. They are either writs of right; writs of entry, which lie in the per, the per et cm, or the post, upon disseisin, intrusion, or alienation; writs ancestral possessory, as mort d'ancestor, aiel, besaiel, cosinage, or nuper obiit. Comyn, Dig. "Actions" (D 2). These actions were always local, and were to be brought in the county where the land lay. Bracton, J89, 414. They are now pretty generally laid aside in practice, upon account of the great nicety required in their management, and the inconvenient length of their process, — a much more expeditious method of trying titles being since introduced by other actions, personal and mixed. See Stearns, Real Actions; Booth, Real Actions; Bac. Abr. "Actions;" Comyn, Dig. "Actions;" 3 Bl. Comm. 118.

In Civil Law. One by which a person seeks to recover his property which is in the possession of another. Dig. 50. 16. 16. It is to be brought against the person who has possession. At Common Law. One brought for the specific recovery of lands, tenements, or upon the right of property, and possessory when based upon the right of possession. They are either writs of right; writs of entry upon disseisin (which lie in the per, the per et cui, or the post), intrusion, or alienation; writs ancestral possessory, as mort d’ancestor, aiel, besaiel, cossinage, or nuper obiit Com. Dig. Actions (D 2). The former class was divided into droitural, founded upon demandant’s own seisin, and ancestral droitural upon the demandant’s claim in respect of a mere right descended to him from an ancestor. Possessory actions were divided in the same way — as to the demandant’s own seisin and as to that of his ancestor. These actions were always local, and were to be brought in the country where the land lay; Bracton 180, 414. They are now pretty generally laid aside in practice, upon account of the great nicety required in their management, and the inconvenient length of their process, — a much more expeditious method of trying titles being since introduced by other actions, personal and mixed. See Stearns; Booth, Real Act; Bac. Abr. Actions; Com. Dig. Actions; 3 Bla. Com. 118; Action’.

At the common law. One brought for the specific recovery 'of lands, tenements, or hereditaments. Steph. PI. 3; Crocker v. Black, 16 Mass. 448; Hall v. Decker, 48 Me. 256; Doe v. Waterloo Min. Co., 43 Fed. 220. Among the civilians, real actions, otherwise called "vindications," were those in which a man demanded something that was his own. They were founded on dominion, or jus in re. The real actions of the Roman law were not, like the real actions of the common law, confined to real estate, but they included personal, as well as real, property. Wharton.

In French commercial law. Stock in a company, or shares in a corporation.

In Scotch law. A suit or judicial proceeding.
Defined under Action in Black's Law Dictionary.