ABATEMENT, a beating down or diminishing, a term used especially in various legal phrases.
is the remedy of destroying or removing, allowed by law to a person or public authority injured by a public nuisance, provided no breach of the peace is committed in doing so. In the case of private nuisances abate ment is also allowed provided there be no breach of the peace, and no damage be occasioned beyond what the removal of the nuisance requires (see NUISANCE).
takes place where, after the death of the person last seised, a stranger enters upon lands before the entry of the heir or devisee, and keeps the latter out of posses sion. It differs from intrusion, which is a similar entry by a stranger on the death of a tenant for life, to the prejudice of the reversioner, or remainder man ; and from disseisin, which is the forcible or fraudulent expulsion of a person seised of the freehold (see FREEHOLD).
When the assets of a deceased person are not sufficient to satisfy fully all the vari ous creditors, their debts must abate proportionately, and they must accept a dividend. Also, in the case of legacies, when the funds or assets out of which they are payable are not sufficient to pay them in full, the legacies abate in proportion, unless there is a priority given specially to any particular legacy (see LEGACY). Annuities are subject to the same rule as general legacies.
or plea in abatement, was directed to defeating or quashing a particular action by some matter, such as a defect in form or the personal incompetency of the parties suing, pleaded by the defendant. All pleas in abatement are now abolished (Rules of the Supreme Court Order 21). In criminal proceedings the plea in abatement was nullified by the Criminal Law act, 1826, which required the court to amend according to the truth, and the Criminal Procedure act, 1851, which rendered description of the defendant unnecessary.
In civil proceedings, no action abates by reason of the marriage, death or bankruptcy of any of the parties, if the cause of action survives or continues, and does not become defective by the assignment, creation or devolution of any estate or title pendente lite (R.S.C. Order 17). Criminal proceedings do not abate on the death of the prosecutor, being in theory instituted by the Crown, but the Crown itself may bring about their termination without any decision on the merits and without the assent of the prosecutor.
is a badge in coat-armour, indicat ing some kind of degradation or dishonour. It is called also rebatement.
A reduction in assessment to taxation or in rate of tax, which is made to remove anomalies, miti gate hardship or refine a scale of duties. Abatements have long been a special feature of the British income-tax system. For many years a rough-and-ready graduated income-tax was formed by imposing a fixed poundage rate upon all incomes of whatever size, and providing in the Finance Act for (1 ) the total exemption of very small incomes and (2) the reduction or "abatement" of the assessments made upon incomes above- the exemption limit and not exceeding certain moderate amounts This abatement system has been swept away, but abatements of assessment to mitigate rate of tax are still made in respect of the maintenance of wife and young children and the payment of a life insurance premium. See INCOME TAX.
In the United States abatement of State and local taxation is governed solely by statute, and the laws of the various States and the court decisions thereunder should therefore be consulted for specific information on this subject. Abatement of Federal taxa tion is likewise purely statutory; and the question is governed ex , clusively by numerous Acts of Congress, including Section 3220 of the Revised Statutes (as amended) and the various Federal rev enue acts together with the regulations thereon. (See TAXATION.)
