Resignation

See Officer; Club. with his creditors and obtains from them time or delay for the payment of the sums

The act by which an officer renounces the further exercise of his offico and returns the same into the hands of those from whom he received it In ecclesiastical law. Resignation is where a parson, vicar, or other beneficed clergyman voluntarily gives up and surrenders his charge and preferment to those from whom he received the same. It is usually done by an instrument attested by a notary. Phillim. Ecc. Law, 517.

In Scotch law. The return of a fee into the hands of the superior. Bell.

— Resignation bond. A bond or other engagement in writing taken by a patron from the clergyman presented by him to a living, to resign the benefice at a future period. This is allowable in certain cases under St. 9 Geo. IV. c. 94, passed in 1828. 2 Steph. Comm. 721.

Of an office: the act of igiving it up; surrender, relinquishment, renunciation. Need not be in writing, unless required by statute; and may be either express or implied. The question is one of intention. Non-user may indicate absolute relinquishment. ^ At common law, an office was regarded as a burden which the appointee was bound, in the interest of the community and of good government, to bear. From this it followed that after an office was assumed It could not be laid down without the consent of the appointing power. This was required that public interests might suffer no inconvenience for the want of servants to execute the laws. Acceptance may be manifested either Ijy a formal declaration or by the appointment of a successor. In this country, a contrary doctrine may have obtained; but it will be assumed that the common-law rule prevails unless the contrary is shown.* See Office, 1.

Relinquishment or surrender, by an officer, representar tive, or trustee, of his authority or trust; or by a beneficed clergyman, of his living; and so in other cases of a personal privilege or power. In ecclesiastical law, resignation is the yielding up a benefice into the hands of the ordinary, called, by the canonists, renunciation; and though it is all one in nature with the word surrender, yet it is, by use, restrained to yielding up a spiritual living to the bishop, as surrender is the giving up of temporal land into the hands of the lord. Jacob. Resignation bond. A "bond or other engagement in writing taken by a patron from the clergyman presented by him to a living, to resign the benefice at a future period. This is allowable in certain cases under Stat. 9 Geo. IV. ch. 94, passed in 1828. 2 Steph. Com. 721.

The act an officer by which he declines his office, and renounces the further right to use it. It differs from abdication, (q.- v.)