Amicable Action in United Kingdom

Meaning of Amicable Action

The following is an old definition of Amicable Action [1]: An action entered of record by agreement and without the service of process, to obtain the judgment of the court in a matter of common interest. Opposed, adversary action. Civil action. Recovers a private right or compensation for deprivation thereof. Criminal action. Is instituted by the state for an offense to the community or to society. Civil actions include actions at law, suits in chancery, proceedings in admiralty, and all other judicial controversies in which rights of properly are involved. Civil action is used in contradistinction to criminal action; as, in the act of July 2, 1864, relating to parties as witnesses. Common-law action. An action maintainable at common law. Statutory action. Such form of action as is given by legislative enactment. See Remedy, Cumulative. Cross action. An action brought by the defendant in a suit against the plaintiff upon the same subject-matter, the particular cause of action not being available as set-off in the first suit. See Set-off. Equitable action. An action for money had and received is sometimes so called. Yet, in the absence of special circumstances, courts of equity refuse jurisdiction, because the remedy at law is complete. See Assumpsit, Implied. Fictitious action. A suit upon a wager, and under pretense of a controversy, to obtain a judicial opinion upon a question of law. See Fictitious; Issue, 3, Feigned. In action. That for which a suit will lie or is pending. See Chose. Joint action. A suit in which all persons obligated or interested on one side of a controversy appear as co-plaintiffs, and all obligated or interested on the other side are made co-defendants. Joint and several action. A suit by either one or all persons on one side as plaintiff or co-plaintiffs, and against either one or all on the other side as defendant or co-defendants. Separate action. Such action as each person must bring when several complainants cannot pursue a joint remedy. See further Joint. Local action. A suit maintainable in some one iurisdiction exclusively. Transitory action. A suit maintainable wlierever the defendant can be found. In ” local actions,” where tlie possession of land or damages for an actual trespass or waste, etc., affecting land, is to be recovered, the plaintiff must declare his injury to have happened in the very place where it happened; but in ” transitory actions,” for an injury that might have happened anywhere, as in debt, detinue, slander, the plaintiff may declare in what county he pleases. . . Transitory actions follow the person of the defendant; territorial suits must be discussed in the territorial tribunal. Actions are deemed ” transitory ” when the transactions on which they are founded might have taken place anywhere; and “local,” when their cause is, in its nature, necessarily local. Actions which do not seek the recovery of land may be ” local ” by common law because they arise out of some local subject or from the violation of some local right or interest; as, waste, trespass quare clausum, actions on the case for nuisances to houses, for disturbance of a right of way, for the diversion of a water-course, and the like; also, replevin. These actions .are personal andlocal. When the action by which a remedy is to be enforced is personal and transitory the defendant may be held liable in any court to whose jurisdiction he can be subjected by personal process or by voluntaiy appearance. Thus, as an action in the nature of trespass to the person is transitory, the venue is immaterial. See Actor, 1, Sequitur, etc. Penal action. A suit brought by an officer of government to recover a penalty imposed by statute. Popular action. An action also for a penalty, maintainable by any person. Compare Qui tam action. See Forfeiture; Penalty. Qui tam action. Qui tarn: who as well. The emphatic words in the Latin form of a declaration in an action by an informer for a penalty. Civil in form, but designed to recover a penalty imposed by a penal statute; therefore, partially at least, criminal in nature. Sometimes one part of a forfeiture, for which a ‘ popular action will lie, is given to the king, to the poor, or to some public use, and the other part to the informer or prosecutor: and then the suit is called a qui tam action, because brought by a person ‘” qui tam pro domino rege quam pro se ipso “- as much for his lord the king, as for his own self. If the king commences the suit he has the whole forfeiture. If any one has begun such action, no other person then can pursue it; and the verdict in the first suit bars other actions. This, caused offenders to induce their friends to begin suit, in order to forestall and prevent other actions: which practice is prevented by 4 Hen. VH (1488), c. 20, enacting that no recovery, otherwise than by verdict, obtained by collusion, shall be a bar to any other action prosecuted bona fide That being the law in England in 1776, such action cannot be prosecuted in the name of an informer imless the right is distinctly given by statute. Real action. An action whereby the plaintiff claims title to lands or tenements, rents, commons, or other hereditaments, in fee-simple, fee-tail, or for term of life. Personal action. Such action whereby a man claims a debt, or a personal duty or damages in lieu thereof, or damages for some injury to his person or property. Mixed action. Partakes of the nature of both of the former – by it real property is demanded, with personal damages for a wrong sustained. A “real action” is brought for the specific recovery of lands, tenements, or hereditaments. It includes every form of action where the judgment is for the title and possession of the land demanded; as, ejectment. A ” mixed action ” is brought for the specific recovery of land, as in a real action, but has joined with this claim one for damages in respect to such property; as, actions of waste and dower. A “personal action ” is brought for the specific recovery of chattels, or for damages or other redress for breach of contract and other injuries of every description, the specific recovery of lands and tenements only excepted. See Actio,’ Personalis, etc. Right of action. Eight to bring, a suit; such right as will sustain a suit; in particular, a right of remedy or recovery at law.5 See Actio; Book- Account, Action of; Circuity; Commence; Consolidate; Discontinuance: Form; Gist; Issue, 3; Multiplicity; Party; Pend; Proceeding; Process; Res.

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Notes and References

1. Concept of Amicable Action provided by the Anderson Dictionary of Law (1889) (Dictionary of Law consisting of Judicial Definitions and Explanations of Words, Phrases and Maxims and an Exposition of the Principles of Law: Comprising a Dictionary and Compendium of American and English Jurisprudence; William C. Anderson; T. H. Flood and Company, Law Publishers, Chicago, United States)