Definition
Interruptio (Latin: interruption) is a term of art in the law of prescription referring to an interruption of the continuous use, possession, or exercise of a right that may affect whether a prescriptive title or easement has been acquired. Derived from Roman civil law and carried into the common law tradition, the concept addresses how breaks in continuity of possession or enjoyment bear on the running of a prescriptive period.
The term operates in two distinct contexts:
1. Civil law prescription: An interruptio could prevent a prescriptive period from being completed or, if it occurred after prescription had already been secured, might or might not defeat the acquired right depending on its nature and timing.
2. Common law prescription: Similar principles govern whether an interruption of use or possession defeats a claim of prescriptive easement or title. The maxim embedded in the historical sources — interruptio multiplex non tollit praescriptionem semel obtentam — establishes a critical limiting rule: repeated or frequent interruptions do not destroy a prescription once it has already been obtained.
Common Confusion
Interruptio is sometimes loosely equated with any break in possession or use, but the term carries a more precise doctrinal weight. A mere interruption in the ordinary sense — a pause, a gap, or even a physical obstruction — does not automatically defeat prescription. The legal question is whether the interruption was of a character and duration sufficient to break the continuity required for prescription to run, and separately, whether prescription had already been secured before the interruption occurred. The maxim semel obtentam (once obtained) is crucial: an interruption that would have prevented prescription from ripening does not unwind a right that has already vested.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in prescription, adverse possession, easement by prescription, or limitation-of-actions doctrine will encounter interruptio as the Latin shorthand for a concept that remains substantively active even where the Latin label has been dropped in modern sources.
Several research traps are worth flagging:
First, the historical dictionaries reproduce the maxim interruptio multiplex non tollit praescriptionem semel obtentam with attribution to 2 Inst. 654 — Coke's Second Institutes. Researchers tracing this principle should go to Coke directly rather than relying on dictionary paraphrase, since the dictionary entries offer no surrounding context about what types of interruptions Coke was addressing or whether the principle applies to both civil and natural possession.
Second, the civil law and common law treatments of interruptio diverge in ways the historical dictionaries do not adequately flag. In civil law systems (and in the ecclesiastical and equity courts that drew on civil law), interruption doctrine was more elaborately categorized — distinguishing, for example, between natural interruption (actual loss of possession) and civil interruption (a legal act, such as filing suit, that interrupted the prescriptive period). Common law sources tend to be less systematic. Researchers moving between equity and common law materials, or between English and Scots law sources, should not assume these categories translate cleanly.
Third, in American law, the functional equivalent of interruptio appears in adverse possession and prescriptive easement doctrine under phrases like "continuity of possession" and "interruption of the prescriptive period" without use of the Latin term. Colonial-era and early republic materials may use interruptio; later nineteenth-century American cases typically do not. A corpus search limited to the Latin form will undercount the relevant doctrine substantially.
Fourth, the question of what acts constitute a sufficient interruptio — whether a licensor's oral objection, a physical obstruction, or a legal proceeding is required — is jurisdiction- and period-specific. The dictionaries give no guidance here, treating the term as definitional rather than doctrinal.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries — Black's (1st ed.), Black's (2nd ed.), and Burrill — are in close agreement, functioning essentially as translating glossaries rather than analytical entries. Each confirms that interruptio was used in both civil and common law contexts and each reproduces the same maxim with the same citation to Coke's Second Institutes.
Burrill adds slight value by providing the Latin root (interrumpere, to break through or apart) and rendering "multiplex" as "manifold or repeated" rather than simply "frequent," which is a marginally more precise translation and better captures the idea that the maxim covers not just one kind of repeated interruption but any variety of it.
None of the three dictionaries addresses the civil law distinction between natural and civil interruption, nor do they discuss what legal effect interruptio produces at different stages of the prescriptive period — before completion, at the moment of completion, or after. For substantive doctrine, researchers must go to primary sources: Coke's Institutes, Bracton, and for civil law background, the Digest and the glossators.
Jurisdictional Note
The term itself is encountered primarily in English common law and civil law sources and in early American materials drawing on those traditions. Modern American adverse possession and prescriptive easement doctrine addresses the same underlying concepts through statutory and case law that does not use the Latin label. Scots law, which blends civil and common law, has its own developed interruption doctrine that may not correspond precisely to English common law treatment.