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EVICTION Definition & Legal Meaning

Definition & Citations:

Dispossession by process of law ; the act of depriving a person of thepossession of lands which he has held, in pursuance of the judgment of a court. Reasonerv. Edmundson, 5 Ind. 395; Cowdrey v. Coit, 44 N. Y. 392, 4 Am. Rep. 690; HomeLife Ins. Co. v. Sherman, 46 N. Y. 372.Technically, the dispossession must be by judgment of law; if otherwise, it is an ouster.Eviction implies an entry under paramount title, so as to interfere with the rights ofthe grantee. The object of the party making the entry is immaterial, whether it be totake all or a part of the land itself or merely an incorporeal right. Phrases equivalent inmeaning are “ouster by paramount title,” “entry and disturbance.” “possession under anelder title,” and the like. Mitchell v. Warner, 5 Conn. 497.Eviction is an actual expulsion of the lessee out of all or some part of the demisedpremises. Pendleton v. Dyett, 4 Cow. (N. Y.) 581, 585.In a more popular sense, the term denotes turning a tenant of land out ofpossession, either by re-entry or by legal proceedings, such as an action of ejectment.Sweet.By a loose extension, the term is sometimes applied to the ousting of a person fromthe possession of chattels; but, properly, it applies only to realty.In the civil law. The abandonment which one is obliged to make of a thing, inpursuance of a sentence by which he is condemned to do so. Poth. Contr. Sale. pt. 2, c.1,

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