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ESTRAY Definition & Legal Meaning

Definition & Citations:

Cattle whose owner is unknown. 2 Kent. Comm. 359; Spelman ; 20 Iowa,437. Any beast, not wild, found within any lordship, and not owned by any man.Cowell; 1 Bl. Comm. 297.Estray must be understood as denoting a wandering beast whose owner is unknownto the person who takes it up. An estray is an animal that has escaped from its owner,and wanders or strays about; usually defined, at common law, as a wandering animalwhose owner is unknown. An animal cannot be an estray when on the range where itwas raised, and permitted by its owner to run, and especially when the owner is known to the party who takes itup. The fact of its being breachy or vicious does not make it an estray. Walters v. Glatz,2!) Iowa, 430; Roberts v. Barnes, 27 Wis. 425; Kinney v. Roe, 70 Iowa, 500. 30 N. W.770; Shepherd v. Ilawley, 4 Or. 20S.

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