Definition
In Scots law, spuilzie (also spelled spulzie) is the wrongful taking or interference with movable property in another person's possession, without the owner's consent and without legal authority. It is a civil wrong — an action available to the possessor of moveables against anyone who unlawfully dispossesses them or meddles with their goods.
Spuilzie is distinctive in that it protects possession itself, not merely ownership. A person in lawful possession of goods — even if not the owner — could bring an action of spuilzie against someone who wrongfully deprived them of that possession. The remedy traditionally included not only the return of the goods (or their value) but also violent profits: a penal measure requiring the wrongdoer to account for the highest value the goods could have fetched during the period of unlawful detention, regardless of actual loss.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Listed only as an alternative form of spulzie; no independent common meaning.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Directs the reader to see spulzie; no substantive definition offered.
This term has no meaningful existence outside Scots legal usage. It appears in neither general English vocabulary nor ordinary Scottish speech as an active word. Researchers encountering it in any context can treat it as a technical legal term of Scots private law without risk of confusion with a colloquial meaning.
Common Confusion
Spuilzie is sometimes loosely compared to the English tort of conversion or the common law action of replevin, but the comparison requires care. Conversion protects ownership and focuses on the defendant's dealing with the property inconsistently with the owner's rights. Spuilzie protects possession directly and historically carried the additional penal remedy of violent profits, which has no equivalent in English conversion doctrine. The two actions arise from entirely different legal traditions and should not be treated as equivalents in research spanning both systems.
Why It Matters in Research
Spuilzie is a term confined almost entirely to historical Scots private law. Researchers working in pre-Union Scottish legal records, institutional writers (Stair, Erskine, Bell), or comparative property law will encounter it; researchers in English, American, or modern Scots law will not, as the action has been largely superseded.
Several research traps are worth flagging:
First, spelling variation is significant. Spuilzie, spulzie, spulyie, and occasional further variants all appear in historical sources. A search limited to one spelling will miss material under the others. Index and database searches should account for this instability.
Second, the violent profits remedy is the doctrinal feature that most distinguishes spuilzie from superficially similar actions. Historical sources that describe spuilzie without mentioning violent profits are giving an incomplete account. Bell's Principles, the source cited in both Black's editions, covers this remedy; researchers should go to Bell directly rather than rely on the dictionary summary.
Third, Black's both first and second editions reproduce essentially identical one-line definitions sourced to Bell. Neither edition adds analytical depth. For substantive doctrine, the institutional writers — particularly Stair's Institutions and Erskine's Institute — are the primary sources. Bell's Principles and Dictionary of the Law of Scotland supplement these.
Fourth, spuilzie as an independent action has largely disappeared from modern Scots law, absorbed into broader delictual and property frameworks. Researchers should be cautious about assuming the term carries operational legal force in any post-nineteenth-century Scottish source.
Historical Dictionary Support
Both Black's editions define spuilzie in identical terms: the taking away or meddling with movables in another's possession, without the owner's consent or authority of law, citing Bell. The definitions are accurate as far as they go but are skeletal. Neither edition situates the action within Scots private law, distinguishes it from analogous remedies, or mentions the violent profits remedy — the feature most likely to matter to a researcher tracing the doctrinal content of historical pleadings or judgments.
The reference to Bell (Patrick Bell, Principles of the Law of Scotland, or his Dictionary) points researchers in the right direction. The institutional writers, however, provide the fullest treatment. Stair's Institutions of the Law of Scotland and Erskine's Institute of the Law of Scotland both address spuilzie as part of the Scots law of obligations and possession. These sources should be consulted for any substantive research; Black's entries serve only as a pointer of first identification.
Jurisdictional Note
Spuilzie is a term of Scots law only. It has no counterpart in English law, Irish law, or any American jurisdiction. It appears in Scottish legal sources from the medieval period through the nineteenth century. Modern Scots law has substantially reorganized the law of delict and property in ways that have displaced or absorbed the old action, and the term rarely appears in contemporary Scottish legal practice.