LIEN. A hold or claim which one person has upon the property of another as a curity for some debt or charge.
The right which one person possesses, in certain cases, of detaining property placed in his possession belonging to another, until some ,demand which the former has be satisfied. 2 East 235.
A qualified right which, in certain cases, may be exercised over the property of an other. 6 East 25, n.
A right to hold. 2 Campb. 579.
A right, in regard to personal property, to detain the property till some claim or charge is satisfied. Mete. Yelv..67, n.
The right of retaining or continuing pos session till the price is paid. 1 Parsons, Mar. Law, 144.
A lien is defined by statute in California, Utah, New Mexico, and the Dakotas, to be a charge imposed upon specific property by which it is made security for the perform ance of an act.
In its moet extensive signifiCation, the term lien includea every case in which real or personal prop erty is charged with the payment of a debt or duty; every such charge being denominated. a lien on the property. It differa from an estate in or title to the property, as it may be discharged at any time by payment of the sum for which the lien attaches.
It differs from a mortgage in the fact that a mort gage is made and the property delivered, or other wise, for the express purpose of security ; while the lien attaches as Incidental to the main purpose of the bailment, or, as in case of the lien of a Judg ment, by mere act of the law, without any act of the party. In this general sense the word is com monly used by English and American law writers to include those preferred or privileged claims given by statute or by admiralty law, and which seem to have been adopted, from the civil law, as well as the security existing at common law, to which the term more exactly applies. In its more limited as well as commoner sense, the word lien indicates a mere right to hold the property of An other as security until some claim is satisfied.
The civil law embraces, under the head of mortgage and .privilege, the peculiar se curities which, in common and maritime law, and equity, are termed liens. See MORTGAGE;