PERSONALIS - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

PERSONALISAuthored

The Law Mind • 1032 words

Definition

A Latin adjective used in historical English and civil law meaning "personal" — that which relates to, belongs to, or attaches to a person rather than to property or to a legal status held by others. The term appears most often in compound Latin phrases classifying actions, obligations, rights, or proceedings according to whether they are personal (personalis) as opposed to real (realis) or mixed (mixta).

In procedural contexts, personalis describes actions brought to recover damages or enforce obligations that run between persons, not actions brought to recover land or specific property. An actio personalis — a personal action — is distinguished from an actio in rem, which asserts a right against the world or against a thing itself.

Common Confusion

PERSONALIS vs. IN PERSONAM: Modern lawyers and researchers sometimes treat personalis and in personam as interchangeable. They are closely related but not identical. In personam is the classical Roman law formulation describing jurisdiction or a judgment binding on a specific person. Personalis, as used in English legal Latin, more often classifies the nature of the action or right — whether it is the kind that dies with the person (see actio personalis moritur cum persona) or survives to heirs and representatives. The survival question is the more practically significant distinction in historical common law research.

Why It Matters in Research

The most consequential phrase in which personalis appears in the common law corpus is actio personalis moritur cum persona — "a personal action dies with the person." This maxim governed survival of actions at common law and determined whether a cause of action abated upon the death of the plaintiff or defendant. The rule was harsh and was progressively abrogated by survival statutes in most common law jurisdictions, beginning in England with the Actio Personalis Act (4 Edw. III, c. 7, 1330) for certain actions and continuing through modern survival legislation. Researchers working with 18th- and 19th-century American cases will find that the scope of the maxim — and the extent to which local statutes had displaced it — varied considerably by jurisdiction and by the type of action.

When searching historical digests and indexes, personalis typically does not appear as a standalone entry. It surfaces embedded within Latin maxims, within discussions of real versus personal actions, and in the pleading treatises addressing the forms of action. Rapalje & Lawrence, for example, enters personaliter as an independent headword but does not give personalis its own entry, indexing the concept instead through compound phrases. Bouvier reaches the term through substantive discussions of survival, tort, and the rights of heirs versus personal representatives. This indexing pattern means that searching "personalis" alone in historical corpora will undercount the relevant material; searching the associated maxims and the English-language equivalents ("personal action," "survival of action") is necessary for comprehensive coverage.

The term is also significant in understanding the old classification of actions into real, personal, and mixed. This tripartite scheme structured common law pleading before the forms of action were abolished by the procedural reforms of the 19th century. A working grasp of what personalis signified in that system is prerequisite to reading older pleading records accurately.

Historical Dictionary Support

Rapalje & Lawrence gives only the adverbial form personaliter, defining it as "in old English law, personally; in person" — a narrow entry that does not address the broader adjective or its doctrinal significance. This is a gap worth flagging: the omission of personalis as a standalone headword in many historical dictionaries reflects a tendency to fold the concept into discussions of specific maxims rather than treat it as a term of art requiring independent definition.

Bouvier does not define personalis as a headword but discusses the concept substantively in entries on actions, survival, and the rights of parties. His treatment of the rule that personal actions abate upon death — and the qualifications introduced by statute and by the distinction between torts occurring before versus after a decedent's death — is the most useful historical source in the Law Mind corpus for understanding how personalis functioned in practice. Bouvier's treatment of husband and wife, heirs, and personal representatives illuminates how the personal/real distinction governed not just procedural classification but substantive rights to sue and be sued.

Neither source provides a synthetic definition of personalis in the way a modern legal dictionary would. The researcher must assemble the concept from the surrounding material.

Jurisdictional Note

The survival of personal actions is now governed entirely by statute in American jurisdictions, and the common law rule (actio personalis moritur cum persona) has been substantially or entirely abolished in most states. The scope of what counts as a "personal" action for survival purposes, however, continues to be interpreted by courts and varies by jurisdiction. English law retains a parallel statutory framework through the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1934.

PERSONALISmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1883

PERSONALITER.-In old English law, personally; in person.

PERSONALISmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

Actio quælibet it sua via. Every action proceeds in its own course. Jenk. Cent. 77. Actionum genera mazime sunt servanda. The kinds of actions are especially to be preserved. Lofft 460. Actor qui contra regulam quid aduxit, non est audiendus. A pleader ought not to be heard who advances a proposition contrary to the rules of law. Actor sequitur forum rei. The plaintiff must follow the forum of the thing in dispute. Home, Law Tr. 232; Story, Confil. L. 325 k: 2 Kent 462. Actore non probante, reus absolvitur. If the plaintiff does not prove his case, the defendant is absolved. Hob. 103. Actori incumbit onus probandi. The burden of proof lies on the plaintift. Hob. 103; 100 Mass. 490. Bee Dig. 22. 3. 2. Acts indicate the intention. 8.Co. 146 b; Broom, Max. 301. An act of the Jenk. Cent. 118; Actus curicæ neminem gravabit. court shall prejudice no man. Broom, Max. 122; 1 Str. 426; 1 Sm. L. C., notes to Cumber vs. Wane; 12 С. В. 415. Actus Dei nemini facit injuriam. The act of God does wrong to no one (that is, no one is responsible in damages for inevitable accidents). 2 Bla. Com. 123; Broom, Max. 230; 1 Co. 97 b; 5 id. 87 a; Co. Litt. 206 a: 4 Taunt. 309; 1 Term 83; 56 Conn. 374. See

PERSONALISmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

They may sue in their own names for torts subsequent to the death of the deceased: 11 Rich. 363. Heirs and devisors have no claim for torts committed during the lifetime of the an- cestor or devisor; 2 Inst. 305. Husband must, at common law, sue alone for all injuries to his own property and person; 3 Bla. Com. 143; Cro. Jac. 473; 1 Lev. 3; including personalty of the wife which becomes his upon marriage; 6 Call 55; 13 Ν. Η. 283; Cro. Eliz. 133; 6 Ad. & E. 259; 27 Vt. 17; Hempst. 64; and includ- ing the continuance of injuries to such property commenced before marriage; 1 Salk. 141; 6 Call 55; in replevin for timber cut on land belonging to both; 8 Watts 412; for personal injuries to the wife for the damages which he sustains ; 3 Bla. Com. 140; Chitty, Pl. 718, n.; 4 B. & Ald. 523; 4 Ia. 420: as in battery; 8 Mod. 342; 2 Brev. 170: 11 So. Rep. (La.) 541; slander, where words are not actionable per se; 4 B. & Ad. 514; 22 Barb. 396; or for special damages; 4 B. & Ad. 514; 112 N. C. 293. He may sue alone, also, for injuries to personalty commenced before marriage and consummated afterwards; 2 B. & P. 407; and the right survives to him after death of the wife in all cases where he can sue alone; 1 Chitty, Pl. 75; Viner, Abr. Baron & F. (G); for cutting trees on land held by both in right of the wife; 16 Pick. 235: 1 Rop. Husb. & W. 215; and generally, for injury to real estate of the wife during coverture; 18 Pick. 110; 20 Conn. 296; 2 Wils. 414; although her interests be rever- sionary only; 5 M. & W. 142; he may also sue alone for damages for the negligent failure of a telegraph company to transmit and deliver a message to his wife; 70 Tex. 689. Infants may sue by guardian for torts; Broom, Part. 238. Lessors and reversioners, generally, may have an action for injury to their lever- sions; Broom, Part. 214. Damage neces- sarily to the reversion must be alleged and shown; 1 Maule & S. 234; 11 Ad. & Ε. 40; 10 B. & C. 145. Lessees and tenants, generally, may sue for injuries to their possession; 4 Burr. 2141; Woodf. Landl. & T. 661. Married woman must sue alone for in- jury to her separate property; 29 Barb. 512; see 129 Ind. 472; she may bring an action of detinue to recover her separate personal property and join her husband as co-plain- tiff; 37 W. Va. 377. The restrictions on her power to sue are the same as in actions ex contractu; Broom, Part. 233. Actions in which she might or must have joined her husband survive to her; Rolle, Abr. 349 (A). A married woman though living with her husband may main- tain an action for slander in her own name, and without joining him; 89 Ga. 829. The dissolution of marriage by divorce does not enable the wife to sue her husband for a tort committed on her during cover- ture; 46 Ill. App. 106. She may maintain in her own name an action for the aliena- tion of her husband's affections; 29 Ν. Ε. Rep. (Ill.) 389; 32 id. 932. See 31 Cent. L. J. 29. Master has an action in tort for enticing away an apprentice; 3 Bla. Com. 342:3 Maule & S. 191: and, upon the same prin- ciple, a parent for a child; 1 Halst. 322; 4 B. & C. 660; 4 Litt. 25; and for personal injury to his servant, for loss of time, ex- penses, etc.: 3 Bla.Com. 342; Sm.M.& S.171. For seduction or debauchery, a master; Broom, Part. 227; ; 4 Cow. 422; and if any service be shown, a parent; 2 M. & W. any 542; 6 id. 56; has his action. Survivor, whether sole or several, must sue for a tortious injury, the rule being that the remedy, and not the right, sur- vives; Broom, Part. 212; 1 Show. 188; 2 Maule & S. 225. Tenants in common must sue strangers separately in distress and avowry for rent; 15 Johns. 479. A tenant in common may sue his co- tenant, where there has been actual ouster, in ejectment: Littleton § 322; 1 Campb. 173; 11 East 49; or trespass quare clausum; 7 Pa. 397; and trespass for mesne profits after recovery; 8 Wils. Ch. 118. Where there is a total destruction or conversion of the property, one tenant in common may sue his co-tenant in trespass; Co. Litt. 200 a, b; Cro. Eliz. 157; 8 B. & C. 257; or in trover; 1 Term 658; 2 Ga. 78; 2 Johns. 468; 6 Ired. 388. For a misfeasance, waste, or case in the nature of waste, may be brought.

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