DETAINER. Detention. The act of keeping a person against his will, or of with holding the possession of goods or other per sonal or real property from the owner.
Detainer and detention are pretty much synony mous. If there be any distinction, it is perhaps that detention applies rather to the act considered as a fact, detainer to the act considered as some thing done by some person. Detainer is more fre quently used with reference to real estate than in application to personal property.
2. All illegal detainers of theperson amount to false imprisonment, and may be remedied by habeas corpus.
A detainer or detention of goods is either lawful or unlawful ; when lawful, the party having possession of them cannot be deprived of it. The detention may be unlawful al though the original taking was lawful : as when goods were distrained for rent, and the rent was afterwards paid ; or when they were pledged, and the money borrowed, and inte rest was afterwards paid. In these and the like cases the owner should make a demand, and, if the possessor refuses to restore them, truver, detinue, or replevin will lie, at the cpti.n of the plaintiff.
S. There may also be a detainer of land ; and this is either lawful and peaceable, or unlawful and forcible. The detainer is law
ful where the entry has been lawful and the estate is held by virtue of some right. It is unlawful and forcible where the entry has been unlawful and with force, and it is re tained by force against right ; or even where the entry has been peaceable and lawful, if the detainer be by force and against right: as, if a tenant at will should detain with force after the will has determined, he will be guilty of a forcible detainer. Hawkins, Pl. Cr. c. 64, s. 22 ; 2 Chitty, Pract. 238 ; Co rnyns, Dig. Detainer, B 2; 8 Cow. N. Y. 216; 1 Hall, N. Y. 240 ; 4 Johns. N. Y. 198 ; 4 Bibb, Ky. 501. A forcible detainer is a distinct offence from a forcible entry. 8 Cow. N. Y. 216. See FORCIBLE ENTRY AND DETAINER.
In Practice. A writ or instrument, issued or made by a competent officer, authorizing the keeper of a prison to keep in his custody a person therein named. A detainer may be lodged against one within the walls of a pri son, on what account soever he is there. Co myna, Dig. Process, E (3. B).