MERGER, in law, is the absorption of one right, estate, interest, or offense in another -of a higher degree vesting in or committed by the same person. The doctrine of merger is most commonly brought to bear in the case of real estate. Thus, where there is no intervening estate between a greater and a less limited to the same person, the less estate ?is absorbed or merged in the greater. If an assignment of the mortgage is made to the Jnortgager, the whole estate vests in him. Or if the reversion in fee simple come to the tenant for years, either by descent or purchase, his term for years is merged in the fee. -But both estates, to produce a merger, must be held by the same person, by one right, :and at onetime. 3ferger occurs either upon the meeting, in the same person, of an estate 'of higher and an estate of less degree, or by the nieeting in the same person of the rever :sion and the particular estate. The inferior estate is extinguished by the merger. hut -the greater estate remains the same as before the merger. As a rule, whenever the legal and the equitable estates meet in one and the same person, the former absorbs the latter. But a court of equity will not allow the two interests to be merged, if such merger would be contrary to the intentions of the parties, or if, without prejudice to other parties, the legal and equitable estates can be kept apart, to the profit of the party in whom they would otherwise merge. Instances of a partial merger may occur, where an estate is merged in part, and exists in part. Thus, if a tenant for years acquire the reversion of part of the leased property, he owns part of the property leased in fee-simple, and is a tenant as to another part. Where two estates meet in the same person but by different.
rights, merger will not take place.—In criminal law a less offense is merged in a greater which includes it, Thus, every assault includes a battery. But where the offenses are of an equal degree, merg-er will not take place. In torts, when a felony is also a tort, for which private person may institute a civil action, the private wrong merges in the public wrong. But the mer..er in such cases is not complete, and, upon the conviction of the criminal, the civil remed6y is revived. This rule of merger in the criminal law ob tains in England, where criminal prosecutions are usually conducted by private persons, and the justification of it is to be found in the fear that criininals would not be pros ecuted, if the injured person could first obtain civil satisfaction. In this country, crimi nal proceedings are generally conducted by public prosecutors, and the English doctrine of criminal merger does not obtain. In England itself, it applies only to actions of tort and trespass. 3.1erger is also extended to contracts. Thus, against a debtor by specialtv, the remedy for breach of an ordinary simple contract is merged in the higher remedy upon the specialty, and the creditor can resort to the latter only. So where a creditor has obtained a judgment against his debtor by contract, he can only bring suit upon the judgment, if it be unsatisfied.