Definition
The dispossession of a person from real property, depriving them of possession they have held. Modern usage encompasses two distinct contexts:
1. ACTUAL EVICTION. The physical removal of a tenant or occupant from premises, typically following a court judgment and executed through legal process. A landlord who completes a lawful eviction obtains a court order, provides required notice, and—if the tenant does not vacate—has a law enforcement officer carry out physical removal. Self-help eviction (changing locks, removing belongings, shutting off utilities without court process) is unlawful in virtually all U.S. jurisdictions.
2. CONSTRUCTIVE EVICTION. A landlord's conduct that, while not physically removing the tenant, so substantially interferes with the tenant's use and enjoyment of the premises that the tenant is effectively forced to vacate. The tenant must actually abandon the premises for the doctrine to apply. Common triggers include failure to provide heat, habitability conditions, or persistent interference with quiet enjoyment.
A third usage survives from property law and real estate transactions: eviction by paramount title, meaning the loss a buyer suffers when a third party with superior title successfully claims the property or a portion of it. This sense grounds warranty covenants in deeds and is the predominant meaning in civil-law-influenced jurisdictions such as Louisiana.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The act of evicting, or the state of being evicted.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The recovery of lands or tenements from another's possession by due course of law; dispossession by paramount title; ejectment or ouster. Also, historically, "conclusive evidence" or "proof" (marked obsolete).
The common meaning captures the basic idea of forced removal but misses the legal architecture. Ordinary usage treats "eviction" as any forced departure; the law distinguishes sharply between lawful eviction through judicial process, constructive eviction through landlord interference, and eviction by paramount title in conveyancing. The Webster's 1913 entry is notably closer to the classical legal meaning—foregrounding paramount title and court process—than the modern common definition, which has drifted toward colloquial generality.
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Common Confusion
EVICTION vs. OUSTER. The classical distinction, preserved in Bouvier and Black's, is procedural: eviction is dispossession through legal judgment; ouster is dispossession by wrongful act without legal process. This line has substantially eroded—modern courts and statutes use "eviction" broadly, and the separate concept of ouster now functions mainly in the context of co-tenancy disputes (one co-tenant excluding another). Researchers reading 19th-century sources should not assume the modern broad usage applies.
EVICTION vs. EJECTMENT. Ejectment is the common-law action to recover possession of real property; eviction is the result or remedy. A landlord brings an unlawful detainer or summary possession action (not technically ejectment, which was historically between competing title claimants); a successful plaintiff obtains an eviction. The terms are sometimes used interchangeably in older sources and colloquially today, but they are procedurally distinct.
ACTUAL vs. CONSTRUCTIVE EVICTION. These are not merely two types of the same event—they have different elements, different triggers, and produce different legal consequences. Constructive eviction requires tenant abandonment; actual eviction does not. Conflating them causes errors in identifying what a plaintiff must prove and what remedies are available.
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Core Elements
For actual (physical) eviction in the landlord-tenant context, the following elements are generally required:
1. A valid tenancy or right of possession in the occupant.
2. A legal basis for termination (nonpayment of rent, lease violation, holdover, etc.).
3. Proper notice to the tenant as required by statute or lease.
4. A court judgment of possession in favor of the landlord (in jurisdictions requiring judicial process, which includes most U.S. states).
5. Execution of the judgment by authorized process, typically a writ of possession carried out by a sheriff or marshal.
For constructive eviction, the elements diverge significantly:
1. A landlord duty (arising from the lease or implied warranty of quiet enjoyment).
2. A substantial breach of that duty by the landlord.
3. Actual abandonment of the premises by the tenant within a reasonable time.
4. The breach, not the tenant's voluntary choice, must be the cause of departure.
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Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
ACTUAL EVICTION. Physical removal through court process. Includes both full and partial actual eviction; a partial actual eviction (landlord excludes tenant from a portion of the premises) may excuse the tenant from paying any rent at all under older common-law rules.
CONSTRUCTIVE EVICTION. Eviction by landlord conduct rendering the premises uninhabitable or substantially unusable, without physical removal.
RETALIATORY EVICTION. An eviction initiated in response to a tenant's exercise of legal rights (complaining to housing authorities, organizing tenants, withholding rent under repair-and-deduct statutes). Recognized as an affirmative defense in most U.S. jurisdictions.
EVICTION BY PARAMOUNT TITLE. The loss of possession or ownership caused by a third party's superior title claim, triggering warranty covenants in deeds and—in Louisiana and civil-law systems—the seller's warranty against eviction.
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Why It Matters in Research
The word "eviction" functions differently depending on the century and jurisdiction of the source. Pre-20th-century American and English sources frequently use "eviction" in its classical, narrower sense—dispossession by court judgment, with "ouster" reserved for wrongful extrajudicial dispossession. Modern sources, statutes, and cases use "eviction" expansively. A researcher reading an 1840s treatise or New York appellate opinion should not assume the modern broad meaning applies; Bouvier explicitly notes the transition, acknowledging that the requirement of legal process "was long ago abandoned in England" and "in this country also."
The civil-law meaning (eviction by paramount title as a warranty trigger) is most prominent in Louisiana materials but also appears in older general treatises on the law of sales following Pothier. Researchers working on deed warranties or title insurance will encounter this sense regularly in both primary sources and older secondary authorities.
The constructive eviction doctrine develops almost entirely in the 20th century and is largely absent from 19th-century dictionaries. Researchers should not expect meaningful treatment of constructive eviction in Bouvier, Burrill, or early Black's—the concept was nascent or unarticulated at the time of those publications.
Damages for eviction in the deed-warranty context follow a rule that Bouvier flags as anomalous: recovery is generally limited to the purchase price plus interest and costs (the "New York rule"), not the property's market value at eviction. This was controversial when Bouvier wrote and remains a specific, learnable trap for researchers assuming general damages principles apply.
Summary eviction proceedings—unlawful detainer, forcible entry and detainer, summary possession—are the procedural vehicle for most modern actual evictions. These are creatures of statute, vary significantly by jurisdiction, and are subject to separate procedural rules (typically expedited timelines and limited defenses at the summary stage). Researchers should move immediately from the substantive law of eviction to the applicable summary proceedings statute for the jurisdiction at issue.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries converge on the classical core—eviction as court-ordered dispossession—but diverge on details that matter for research.
Black's (both editions) and Bouvier agree that eviction technically requires a judgment of law, distinguishing it from ouster, but both acknowledge the requirement had been abandoned in practice by the time of writing. Bouvier is the most explicit on this transition and cites specific cases marking the shift. Anderson's is notably thinner on eviction as a standalone entry, largely noting the term in passing while acknowledging that older pleading language used "expelled, amoved, put out" rather than the term itself.
Burrill provides the most rigorous treatment of the civil-law dimension, grounding the definition in Pothier's analysis of the sale warranty—the buyer's compelled abandonment of a purchased thing pursuant to judicial sentence. This is analytically distinct from the landlord-tenant meaning and Burrill's treatment makes that distinction explicit in a way the other dictionaries do not.
The Louisiana Civil Code definition (quoted in Black's) is worth noting for its precision: eviction is "the loss suffered by the buyer of the totality of the thing sold, or of a part thereof, occasioned by the right or claims of a third person." This definition would be unrecognizable in a modern landlord-tenant context but is authoritative in Louisiana property and sales law.
None of the historical dictionaries address constructive eviction in a developed way, retaliatory eviction at all, or the modern statutory summary proceedings framework. Researchers relying on these sources alone will have an incomplete picture of how eviction actually operates in contemporary practice.
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Jurisdictional Note
Summary eviction procedures, notice requirements, and available tenant defenses (including retaliatory eviction) vary substantially by state and, within states, sometimes by municipality. Louisiana's civil-law tradition means eviction doctrine in that state draws on warranty-against-eviction principles that have no close analogue in common-law states. Federal law intersects primarily through the Fair Housing Act (discriminatory eviction) and, during periods of declared emergency, through federal eviction moratorium authority.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Property Law Encyclopedia, property_23: Landlord-Tenant — Constructive Eviction
Property Law Encyclopedia, property_28: Landlord-Tenant — Eviction — Summary Proceedings and Unlawful Detainer
Property Law Encyclopedia, property_29: Landlord-Tenant — Retaliatory Eviction Protections
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