ERY

4 definitions found across Law Mind sources

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ERYAuthored
The Law Mind • 1035 words
Definition
Ery (also written fishery, from the Latin communia piscaria) is the right or liberty of fishing in another person's water, either in common with the owner or in common with other persons. It is a species of incorporeal hereditament — a right attached to land or held independently — that permits its holder to take fish from waters overlying another's soil or running through another's land. The term appears in historical legal sources primarily as a suffix form or abbreviated reference to "fishery" and encompasses several recognized forms of fishing rights recognized under the common law.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES Historical sources recognize four principal forms: 1. Free fishery (libera piscaria): An exclusive royal franchise granted to a subject, giving the sole right to fish in a public river. Distinguished from common of fishery by its exclusivity. 2. Several fishery: The right to fish in a particular water to the exclusion of all others, typically held by the owner of the soil beneath the water. The strongest possessory form. 3. Common of fishery (communia piscaria): The right to fish in another's waters in common with the owner and others. The form most directly referenced in the historical dictionary sources under this entry. 4. Free warren: Sometimes associated in historical sources with similar franchise rights, though technically distinct and covering game rather than fish.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering "ery" or "fishery" in historical legal materials should approach the term with care for several reasons. First, the label alone does not indicate exclusivity. Whether a fishery right is exclusive (several fishery), shared (common of fishery), or franchised (free fishery) is a critical distinction that older pleadings and conveyances do not always make explicit. Misreading a common of fishery as a several fishery — or vice versa — fundamentally changes the scope of the right at issue. Second, these rights were creatures of the common law of real property and were transferred, encumbered, and litigated as incorporeal hereditaments. They appear in conveyancing records, grant instruments, and manorial rolls, not in modern statutory frameworks. Researchers working in pre-twentieth-century American or English property records will find these rights embedded in deed chains and title abstracts where modern real property concepts offer little interpretive help. Third, American reception of English fishery doctrine was uneven. Kent's Commentaries treated common of fishery as a recognized American property right, but individual states varied significantly in how they adapted or displaced common law fishery doctrine — particularly as public trust doctrine over navigable waters developed through the nineteenth century. A right described as a common of fishery in an early American deed may be subject to state public trust claims that would not have applied under English common law. Fourth, the term's abbreviated or suffix form ("ery") appears in historical indices and digests as a catch-all that can also absorb related entries. Researchers using historical digests should check adjacent entries for "free fishery," "several fishery," and "piscary" (the Latin-derived synonym) to ensure complete coverage.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill and Black's agree on the core definition, both citing Blackstone (2 Bl. Comm. 34) for the proposition that a common of fishery is the right to fish in another's water in common with the owner or others. Burrill adds Kent (3 Kent's Com. 409) for the American reception, clarifying that the right attaches to waters covering another's soil or running through another's land — a formulation that accommodates both tidal and riparian contexts. Burrill explicitly flags that a common of fishery "is quite different" from a several fishery, a distinction the historical sources collectively treat as fundamental but which abbreviated entries can obscure. Rapalje & Lawrence's fragments in the source material address commonable rights more broadly (common of pasture, commonable beasts, commonable messuages), situating fishery within the wider category of common law rights appurtenant to land — a useful structural reminder that fishery rights share the same conceptual architecture as rights of common generally. The Bouvier excerpt, though addressing equitable jurisdiction rather than fishery directly, is relevant insofar as disputes over fishery rights — particularly involving trusts, imperfect grants, or forfeited franchises — historically fell within equity's exclusive jurisdiction when common law courts declined to recognize the underlying equitable claim. None of the historical dictionaries surveyed addresses the intersection of fishery rights with American public trust doctrine in any systematic way, which is the primary gap researchers will encounter when moving from historical sources to modern disputes.
Jurisdictional Note
American states diverged significantly from English common law on fishery rights as public trust doctrine developed. In many states, navigable and tidal waters are held in public trust, which can limit or displace private fishery rights that would have been valid under English common law. Researchers should not assume that a fishery right valid under Blackstone or Kent survives intact in any particular American jurisdiction without consulting state-specific case law and public trust doctrine.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Note: The encyclopedia entries matched to this term address the Erie doctrine (Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins and federal common law), which is an unrelated legal concept sharing only a phonetic similarity. Those entries — civpro_209, civpro_210, and civpro_211 in The Law Mind Civil Procedure & Evidence Encyclopedia — concern federal courts' obligation to apply state substantive law in diversity cases and are not relevant to fishery rights. No Law Mind Encyclopedia entry directly addresses common law fishery or incorporeal hereditaments in this corpus.
Related Terms
Fishery — the full-form term; used interchangeably in most sources Piscary — Latin-derived synonym; appears in older English and some American sources Several fishery — exclusive possessory form of fishery right Free fishery — royal franchise form; exclusive but not ownership-based Common of fishery — shared right; the form most discussed under this entry Incorporeal hereditament — the property category to which fishery belongs Right of common — parent concept; fishery as one species among several common law rights Public trust doctrine — modern American doctrine affecting the survivability of historical fishery rights Riparian rights — adjacent doctrine governing water use by landowners along watercourses Warren — analogous franchise right for game; historically paired with fishery in common law texts
ERYmain
Black's Law Dictionary • 1891
The right or liberty of fishing in another man's water, in common with the owner or with other persons. 2 Bl. Comm. 34. A liberty or right of fishing in the water 6. In a wider sense than any of the fore- covering the soil of another person, or in a
ERYmain
Black's Law Dictionary • 1891
In American law. A court of crim- It is held at the same time with the court of quarter sessions, as a general rule, and by the same judges. See Brightly's Purd. Dig. Pa. pp. 26, 382, 1201. ican law. Though this term is frequently inal jurisdiction in the state of Pennsylvania. used as a general designation of any court ex- ercising general, original jurisdiction in civil cases, (being used interchangeably with "trial-court,") it belonged as a legal title only to a court which formerly existed in the city and county of Philadelphia, and which was presided over by one of the judges of the supreme court of Pennsylvania. This court was abolished by the constitution of 1874. See COURTS of ASSIZE AND NISI PRIUS.
ERYmain
Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928
Second, where the courts of law do not, or did not, recognize any right, and there- fore could give no remedy, but where the courts of equity recognize equitable rights and, of course, give equitable relief. This has been denominated the exclusive juris- diction. In this class are trusts, charities, forfeited and imperfect mortgages, penalties and forfeitures, imperfect consideration. Uses and trusts have been supposed to have had their origin in the restrictions laid by parliament upon conveyances in mortmain, that is, to the church for chari- table, or rather for ecclesiastical, purposes. It may well be that the doctrine of equita- ble titles and estates, unknown to the com- mon law but which could be enforced in chancery, had its origin in conveyances to individuals for the use of the church in order to avoid the operation of these re- strictions, the conscience of the feofee being bound to permit the church to have the use according to the design and intent of the feoffment. But conveyances in trust for the use of the church were not by any means the only cases in which it was desirable to convey the legal title to one for the use of another. In many instances, such a conveyance offered a convenient mode of making pro- vision for those who, from any circum- stances, were unable to manage property advantageously for themselves, or to whom it was not desirable to give the control of it; and the propriety in all such cases of some protection to the beneficiary is quite apparent. The court of chancery, by rec- ognizing that he had an interest of an equitable character which could be pro- tected and enforced against the holder of the legal title, exercised a jurisdiction to give relief in cases which the courts of com- mon law could not reach, consistently with their principles and modes of procedure. Mortgages, which were originally estates conveyed upon condition, redeemable if the condition were performed at the day, but absolute on non-performance, the right to redeem being thereby forfeited, owe their origin, in the modern conception of

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