MENT FOR TORTS

2 definitions found across Law Mind sources

MENT FOR TORTSAuthored
The Law Mind • 647 words
Definition
"Ment for torts" does not appear to be a recognized legal term of art. The source material provided under this heading — drawn from Bouvier's Law Dictionary — contains text relating to salvage law and abandonment of public highways, neither of which corresponds to a discrete legal concept called "ment for torts." The most likely explanation is one of the following: 1. TYPOGRAPHICAL OR SCANNING ERROR: The term as submitted appears to be a fragment or corruption of a longer term. Likely candidates include "ABATEMENT FOR TORTS," "JUDGMENT FOR TORTS," "ASSESSMENT FOR TORTS," or "AMERCEMENT FOR TORTS." Digitization of historical legal dictionaries frequently produces truncated or garbled headwords, particularly at the opening letters of an entry. 2. FRAGMENT OF A COMPOUND TERM: "Ment" is a common suffix in legal terms (abatement, judgment, amercement, assessment, arraignment). Without the leading syllable(s), the term cannot be defined with confidence. 3. CROSS-REFERENCE STUB: Some historical dictionary entries are placeholder cross-references rather than substantive definitions. The Bouvier's source text provided does not define any coherent legal concept under this heading. ---
Common Confusion
This apparent term should not be confused with: - AMERCEMENT: A fine or penalty imposed by a court at its discretion, historically distinguished from a fixed statutory penalty. Amercements had application in contexts involving wrongful acts and appear in early common law sources connected to tortious conduct. - ABATEMENT OF ACTION: A procedural doctrine that historically terminated a tort action upon the death of either party; subsequently modified by survival statutes in most jurisdictions. - JUDGMENT IN TORT: The final court order following a successful tort claim, awarding damages or other relief to the plaintiff. ---
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus — particularly those mining digitized versions of Bouvier's Law Dictionary or other 19th-century legal references — will frequently encounter garbled headwords produced by optical character recognition (OCR) errors. This is one such instance. The source text appended to this entry is plainly misattributed: the salvage and public highway abandonment language belongs to a different Bouvier's entry (likely ABANDONMENT) and has been concatenated here in error. If you encountered this term in a primary source document, consider the following: - Check the surrounding context for the full word. "Ment" at the start of a line almost certainly represents the tail end of a word broken across a page or column. - The most historically plausible legal compound is AMERCEMENT, which referred to a monetary penalty for a wrong, and which has a long history in English common law connecting it loosely to tortious liability. - ABATEMENT has relevance in tort contexts as a defense or procedural bar to a tort action. - JUDGMENT FOR TORTS is self-explanatory procedurally but not a defined term of art. Do not cite this entry as authority for any substantive legal proposition. The dictionary source material does not support a definition here. ---
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary, the sole source provided, offers no definition corresponding to "ment for torts." The text reproduced under this heading — concerning a stranded schooner, salvage service, and non-user of a public alley — is excerpted from Bouvier's treatment of ABANDONMENT, not from any entry on tortious liability. This misattribution is consistent with OCR pipeline errors in which text from adjacent or nearby columns is assigned to the wrong headword. No other historical dictionaries in the Law Mind shelf — including Black's Law Dictionary, Wharton's Law Lexicon, or Burrill's Law Dictionary — contain a standalone entry for "ment for torts" as a discrete legal term. ---
Jurisdictional Note
Not applicable. No coherent legal rule can be assigned jurisdictional variation when the term itself cannot be established. ---
Related Terms
Abandonment; Abatement of Action; Amercement; Judgment; Salvage; Tort; Tortfeasor; Survival Statute; Wrongful Act
MENT FOR TORTSmain
Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928
A schooner was stranded and crew taken off by life-saving crew. the master expecting to return on board, and with no intention of abandoning her: a tug took schooner in tow to New York, and it was held that salvage service should be allowed; 39 Fed. Rep. 331. Of Public Highway. Non-user of pub- lic alley for over 40 years in connection with affirmative acts of abandonment, justifies a finding that it cease to be a public high- way; 130 N. Y. 618; 56 Hun 288. En- croachment on public highway outside of travelled track and use thereof by a private party for 10 years did not necessarily show abandonment of the highway; 84 Mich. 54. Of Public Lands. Failure to pay in- terest on school lands for 15 years with no assertion of ownership will prevent asser- tion of title as against subsequent purchaser from the state who has been in possession of property for 10 years; 25 Neb. 420. Of Public Use. Discontinuance of the use of property for public purposes, as the abandonment of a railroad, public highway, or public land. Just what constitutes such an abandonment is a question to be deter- mined from the circumstances of each par- ticular case. Lewis, Eminent Domain (3rd ed.). § 862. Of R. R. Station. To move the stop- ping place of interurban cars three or four hundred feet, the better to serve the public, is not an "abandonment" of the station. 143 Ky. 520, 136 S. W. 1018. Of Rights. The relinquishment of a right. It implies some act of relinquish- ment done by the owner without regard to any future possession by himself, or by any other person, but with an intention to abandon; 14 M. & W. 789; 9 Metc. 395; 2 Flip. 309. Mere non-user does not neces- sarily or usually constitute an abandon- ment; 10 Pick. 310; 3 Strobh. 224; 5 Rich. 405; 16 Barb. 150; see Tud. Lead. Cas. 130; 2 Washb. R. P. 83. Abandonment is properly confined to in- corporeal hereditaments, as legal rights once vested must be divested according to law, though equitable rights may be aban- doned; 2 Wash. C. C. 106; 25 Pa. 259; 32 id. 401; 15 N. H. 412; see 1 Hen. & M. 429; and an abandonment combined with suffi- ciently long possession by another party destroys the right of the original owner; 10 Watts 192; 2 Metc. Mass. 32; 31 Me. 381; see also 8 Wend. 480; 3 Ohio 107;3 Pa. 141. There may be an abandonment of an easement; 5 Gray 409; 6 Conn. 298; 10 Humphr. 165; 16 Wend. 531; 16 Barb. 184; 3 B. & C. 332; of a mill site: 23 Pick. 216; 34 Me. 394; 4 M'Cord 96; 7 Bingh. 682; an application for land; 2 S. & R. 378; of an improvement; 3 S. & R. 319; of a trust fund; 3 Yerg. Tenn. 258; of an invention or discovery; 1 Stor. 280; 4 Mas. 111; prop- erty sunk in a steamboat and unclaimed; 18 La. An. 745; a mining claim; 6 Cal. 510; a right under a land warrant; 23 Pa. 271. An easement acquired by grant is not lost by non-user; 160 Mass. 361. The burden of proof rests on the party claiming abandonment of an easement; 137 Ν. Υ. 317. ine question of abandonment is one of fact for the jury; 2 Washb. R. P. 82; 49 Ν. Υ. 346; 77 N. C. 186; 16 Pa. 320. The effect of abandonment when acted. upon by another party is to divest all the owner's rights: 6 Cal. 510; 11 Ill. 588. Con- sult 2 Washb. R. P. 56, 82, 85, 253. See also Curtis, Pat. §381; Walk. Patents § 87; Ewell, Fixt.; Thomp. Homest.; Dicey, Dom. 90.

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