Definition
Severance is a legal term of art with three distinct meanings depending on context: procedural, property, and employment.
1. Procedural severance (pleading and litigation). The separation of claims, parties, or proceedings that were initially joined. In the pleading sense, severance describes defendants electing to file separate pleas rather than a joint plea — each defendant "severs" from the others and proceeds independently. In modern civil practice, the concept extends to courts ordering that joined claims or parties be tried separately, either because they were improperly joined or because separate trials serve the interests of justice and judicial economy.
2. Property severance. The physical or legal detachment of something from real property. Two distinct sub-types: (a) Fixture severance — when an item physically attached to land (a fixture) is detached, it may revert from real property to personal property. The legal status of the severed item depends on the intent and circumstances of detachment. (b) Joint tenancy severance — the destruction of one or more of the unities required to maintain a joint tenancy (unity of time, title, interest, and possession), which converts the joint tenancy into a tenancy in common. Severance of a joint tenancy can occur voluntarily (by conveyance) or involuntarily (by operation of law).
3. Employment severance. Compensation or benefits provided to an employee upon termination of employment, whether by layoff, discharge, or mutual agreement. "Severance" in this sense is shorthand for a severance package or severance agreement — the arrangement governing what the departing employee receives and, typically, what rights the employee waives in exchange.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The act of severing or the state of being severed; a separation; a severance payment.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The act of severing or the state of being severed; partition; separation; the singling or severing of two or more that join in one writ; the destruction of the unity of interest in a joint estate.
Editorial note: Ordinary English treats "severance" as a general word for separation or cutting apart, and most speakers today associate it almost exclusively with severance pay following job loss. Legal usage is far broader and more technically structured — particularly in property law, where severance of a joint tenancy has precise doctrinal triggers and consequences that bear no intuitive relationship to the everyday sense of the word.
Common Confusion
Severance (joint tenancy) vs. partition. Severance converts a joint tenancy into a tenancy in common but does not divide the property itself — the co-owners still hold undivided interests. Partition is the legal mechanism that actually divides the property (in kind or by forced sale). A researcher who conflates the two will misread historical pleading records and equity proceedings.
Severance (pleading) vs. bifurcation. Modern courts distinguish between severance, which permanently splits claims into separate actions, and bifurcation, which stages the same action into separate trial phases (e.g., liability before damages). Historical sources predate this distinction; older usage of "severance" may encompass what modern practitioners would call bifurcation.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Severance in pleading: Defendants severally pleading; judicial severance of claims or parties under procedural rules.
Severance in property: Fixture severance (real to personal property conversion); joint tenancy severance (joint tenancy to tenancy in common conversion).
Severance damages: In eminent domain, compensation paid to a landowner when a partial taking damages the value of the remaining property — a distinct legal remedy arising from the severance of a portion of a parcel.
Severance in employment: Severance pay; severance agreements (typically including a release of claims).
Why It Matters in Research
The multi-context nature of this term is the primary research hazard. A search for "severance" in a historical corpus without context filtering will return results spanning pleading practice, joint tenancy disputes, fixture litigation, eminent domain proceedings, and — in twentieth-century materials onward — employment law. Each usage requires a different doctrinal framework to interpret correctly.
In property research, pay attention to the period. The historical dictionaries emphasize severance of fixtures and joint tenancy, which were the dominant meanings through the nineteenth century. Employment severance is a largely twentieth-century phenomenon and will be absent from pre-New Deal sources. Eminent domain severance damages emerged as a distinct doctrine alongside expanded infrastructure condemnation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and will appear in that literature under both "severance" and "consequential damages."
In pleading research, the historical procedural meaning — defendants separately pleading — is essentially obsolete in modern civil practice but appears throughout common law pleading records and treatises. Researchers working in early American or English equity records should apply the pleading definition, not the employment one.
Joint tenancy severance is a research trap in real property chains of title. A conveyance, mortgage, or judgment lien that severs a joint tenancy can change survivorship rights and downstream ownership — consequences that may not be obvious from the face of an instrument labeled something other than "severance."
Employment researchers should note that the term "severance agreement" frequently functions as a vehicle for releases of employment discrimination claims. The enforceability of such releases (including OWBPA requirements for ADEA claims) developed through statute and case law beginning in the 1990s and is not reflected in any of the historical dictionary sources.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries converge on two core meanings: pleading separation and property severance. Black's (both editions) and Burrill lead with the pleading definition, citing Stephen's Pleading for the proposition that defendants adopt separate pleas rather than joining. This reflects the common law pleading world those dictionaries inhabited. Bouvier is the most useful of the historical sources for the property dimension, explicitly addressing fixture severance and the real-to-personal property transformation that detachment triggers.
None of the historical sources address employment severance — this is a genuine gap in the shelf sources that researchers must supply from modern materials. Rapalje & Lawrence offers nothing beyond a cross-reference to "sever," which limits its utility here.
Webster's 1913 is notable for essentially restating Bouvier's legal definitions in the common dictionary, signaling that the property and pleading meanings were sufficiently embedded in legal culture to cross into general reference works by the turn of the twentieth century.
Jurisdictional Note
Employment severance obligations vary significantly by jurisdiction. Most U.S. states have no statutory requirement that employers provide severance pay absent a contract or established policy, but some states impose additional notice and payment obligations on top of federal WARN Act requirements. Internationally, statutory severance entitlements are common and often mandatory, creating a sharp divergence from U.S. default rules that researchers in comparative or transnational employment contexts must account for.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Employment & Labor Law Encyclopedia: Severance Agreements, Releases, and Settlement of Claims
The Law Mind Contracts & Commercial Law Encyclopedia: Employment Contracts — Severance Agreements and Release of Claims
The Law Mind Property Law Encyclopedia: Eminent Domain — Partial Takings and Severance Damages