Lat. In the Roman law. Any body of people living under the same laws; a state. Jus civitatis, the law of a state; civil law. Inst. 1, 2, 1, 2. Ciritates fœderata, towns in alliance with Rome, and considered to be free. Butl. Hor. Jur. 29. Citizenship; one of the three status, con- ditions, or qualifications of persons. keld. Rom. Law, § 131. Mac- Civitas et urbs in hoc differunt, quod incolæ dicuntur civitas, urbs vero com- plectitur ædificia. Co. Litt. 409. A city and a town differ, in this: that the inhabit- ants are called the "city," but town includes the buildings. CLAIM, . To demand as one's own; to assert a personal right to any property or any right; to demand the possession or en- joyment of something rightfully one's own, and wrongfully withheld. CLAIM, n. 1. A challenge of the property or ownership of a thing which is wrongfully withheld from the possession of the claim- ant. Plowd. 359. A claim is a right or title, actual or supposed, to a debt, privilege, or other thing in the possession of another; not the possession, but the means by or through which the claimant obtains the posses- sion or enjoyment. 2 N. Y. 245, 254. A claim is, in a just, juridical sense, a demand of some matter as of right made by one person upon another, to do or to forbear to do some act or thing as a matter of duty. A more limited, but at the same time an equally expressive, definition was given by Lord Dyer, that "a claim is a chal- lenge by a man of the propriety or ownership of a thing, which he has not in possession, but which is wrongfully detained from him." 16 Pet. 615. "Claim" has generally been defined as a demand for a thing, the ownership of which, or an inter- est in which, is in the claimant, but the possession of which is wrongfully withheld by another. But a broader meaning must be accorded to it. A de- mand for damages for criminal conversation with plaintiff's wife is a claim; but it would be doing violence to language to say that such damages are property of plaintiff which defendant withholds. In common parlance the noun "claim" means an assertion, a pretension; and the verb is often used (rot quite correctly) as a synonym for "state, "urge," "insist, or "assert." In a statute au- thorizing the courts to order a bill of particulars of the "claim" of either party, "claim" is co-extensive with "case," and embraces all causes of action and all grounds of defense, the pleas of both parties, and pleas in confession and avoidance, no less than complaints and counter-claims. It warrants the court in requiring a defendant who justifies AM.DICT.LAW-14 | CLAMEA ADMITTENDA, ETC. in a libel suit to furnish particulars of the facts relied upon in justification. 6 Daly, 446. 2. Under the mechanic's lien law of Penn- sylvania, a demand put on record by a me- chanic or material-man against a building for work or material contributed to its erec- tion is called a "claim." 3. Under the land laws of the United States, the tract of land taken up by a pre- emptioner or other settler (and also his pos- session of the same) is called a “claim.”