Somersett's Case

A celebrated decision of the English king's bench, in 1771- 72, affirming the extinction of villeinage, and the nonexistence of any other form of slavery in England. SON ASSAULT DEMESNE (Law Fr. his own first assault).

In pleading. A form of a plea to justify an assault and battery, by which the defendant asserts that the plaintiff committed an assault upon him, and the defendant merely defended himself. When the plea is supported by evidence, it is a sufficient justification, unless the retaliation by the defendant were excessive, and bore no proportion to the necessity, or to the provocation received. 1 East, P. C. 406; 1 Chit. Prac. 595.

A celebrated decision of the English king's bench, in 1771, (20 How. St. Tr. It) that slavery no longer existed in England in any form, and could not for the future exist on English soil, and that any person brought into England as a slave could not be thence removed except by the legal means applicable in the case of any free-born person.