CLAIM (OF. claim, demand, from Lat. e/antre. to call out). A demand of a right; sometimes used of the legal right, asserted, as a •redito•'s claim to be paid the amount. due him, sometimes of the amount alleged to be due. In both these senses the term is commonly em ployed in bankruptcy and other creditors' pro •eedings against an insolvent debtor. and in the administration of the estates of deceased per sons. In all such eases the claim must be proved —i.e. verified by oath—in order to share in the distribution of the assets; the duty of the trustee in the former ease, and of the executor or ad minist•ato• in the latter, being limited to the payment of duly authenticated claims against the estate.
At the common law, a claim was a formal as scrtion of title to, or of interest in, property. mil or personal, which was in the possession of another. It was not a mere protest against an unlawful sei.in or detainer of property, but was a recognized process for preserving the rights of the claimant against extinction by of lapse of time or other cause. It had, therefore, much of the effect of an actual entry upon land. and was available to one who, by reason of his interest being a future and not a present one (as a remainder or reversion), was not entitled to make an immediate entry; or, ns Coke explains, "when a person dares not make an entry on land for fear of being beaten or other injury, he may approach as near as he can to the land and claim the same, and that shall be sufficient to vest the seisin in him." In other cases, however, in which the claimant's right depended on possession. it seems to have been considered that, to make a claim to an estate effective. there must be an actual entry into some part of the lands claimed.
Continua/ chtim was the process whereby one who had been disso•bred of lands prevented his claim from lapsing by reason of the death of his disseisor, and the transmission of the lands to the latter's heir by descent. In order to avoid this ronsequence, it was necessary to make claim within a year and a day' of the disseisor's death, and. to insure this, to repeat. the formality con
'a it him that interval until the descent took place. See ADVERSE POSSESSION; DIS SE I six.
In the United States the term `elaiin' has acquired a distinctive sense as applied to the initial or prinw.facie title acquired by settlers to Government lanols, and by prospectors to min eral Ennis. under United States statutes. The term is also applied to the land so secured. These claims may, upon the performance of the terms of sale. ripen into complete and valid titles; but, in the meantime. they confer on the claimant or holder a recognized though defea slide property right, which may be bought and sold and administered upon, like any other property. Because of its precarious nature, it is generally considered personal rather than real property. See GOVERNMENT LANDS; PREEMP TION.
la admiralty proceedings the statement 01 rights of the defendant or other party to prop erty attached under process of the court is called the 'claim.' nt of Haim is the pleading in which the plaintiff sets forth the facts constituting his cause of action. It supersedes the deviant tion in England, and corresponds to the com plaint in the code pra•tiee of most of the United States. The facts are alleged in it in a plain, concise, and natural way. avoiding the arbi trary forms that characterized the declaration in common-law pleading. The phrase is used in some jurisdictions to designate any narrative of facts that is made the basis of a judicial or official proceeding. Sec DEcLa RATION: PLEADING.
Cia im of liberty, in English law, is a petition to the sovereign, filed in the Court of Ex chequer, claiming a privilege or immunity, as freedom from jury duty, by virtue of custom' or the petitioner's rank. The claim was made under an actual or supposed grant, as these 'liberties or franchises' (q.v.) were said to have Griginally been a part of the Crown's preroga t;vt', which could only he enjoyed by a subject by virtue of a grant from the sovereign.