DISSEISIN. A privation of seisin. A. usurpation of the right of seisin and posses sion, and an exercise of such powers and privileges of ownership as to keep out or dis place him to whom these rightfully belong. 2 Washb. R. P. 283 ; Mitch. R. P. 259.
It takes the seisin or estate from one man and places it in another. It is an ouster of the rightful owner from the seisin or estate in the land, and the commencement of a new estate in the wrong-doer. It may be by abatement, intrusion, discontinuance, or de forcement, as well as by disseisin properly so called. Every dispossession is not a dis seisin. A disseisin, properly so called, re quires an ouster of the freehold. A disseisin at election is not a disseisin in fact ; 2 Pres. Abstr. Titles 279; but by admission only of the injured party, for the purpose of trying his right in a real action ; Co. Litt. 277; Lit tle v. Libby, 2 Greenl. (Me.) 242, 11 Am. Dec. 68 ; Doe v. Thompson, 5 Cow. (N. Y.) Jackson v. Huntington, 5 Pet. (U. S.) 402, 8 L. Ed. 170 ; Poignard v. Smith, 6 Pick. (Mass.) 172.
Disseisin may be effected either in cor poreal inheritances, or incorporeal. Disseisin of things corporeal, as of houses, lands, etc., must be' by entry and actual dispossession of the freehold : as if a man enters, by force or fraud, into the house of another, and turns, or, at least, keeps, him or his servants out of possession. Disseisin of incorporeal here
ditaments cannot be an actual dispossession; for the subject itself is neither capable of actual bodily possession or dispossession; 3 Bla. Com. 169, 170. See Poignard v. Smith, 6 Pick. (Mass.) 172 ; Smith v. Burtis, 6 Johns. (N. Y.) 197, 5 Am. Dec. 218 ; Ellicott v. Pearl, 10 Pet. (U. S.) 414, 9 L. Ed. 475; Stet son v. Veazie, 11 Me. 408.
In the early law every disseisin was a breach of the peace; if perpetrated witb vio lence it was a serious breach. The disseisor was amerced never less than the amount of the damage ; if it were by force of arms he was sent to prison and fined. Besides he gave the sheriff an ox,—"the disseisin ox,"—or five shillings. If he disseised one who bas already recovered possesslon from him by the assize, this was a still graver offence, for which he was imprisoned by statute. The offender was a redisseisor ; 2 Poll. & Maitl. Hist. of Eng. Law 45.
See BUYING TITLES.