disseisin

Disseizin \Dis*sei"zin\, n. [OF. dessaisine.] (Law)
   The act of disseizing; an unlawful dispossessing and ouster
   of a person actually seized of the freehold. [Written also
   {disseisin}.] --Blackstone.
   [1913 Webster]
    

DISSEISIN, torts. The privation of seisin. 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 
deforcement, as well as by disseisin, properly so called. Every 
dispossession is not a disseisin. A disseisin, properly so called, requires 
an ouster of the freehold. A disseisin at election is not a disseisin in 
fact; 2 Prest. Abs. tit. 279, et seq.; but by admission only of the injured 
party, for the purpose of trying his right in a real action. Co. Litt. 277; 
3 Greenl. 316; 4 N. H. Rep. 371; 5 Cowen, 371; 6 John. 197; 2 Fairf. 309, 2 
Greenl. 242; 5 Pet. 402; 6 Pick. 172. 
     2. Disseisin may be effected either in corporeal inheritances, or 
incorporeal. Disseisin of things corporeal, as of houses, lands, &c., 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 hereditaments 
cannot be an actual dispossession, for the subject itself is neither capable 
of actual bodily possession nor dispossession. 3 B1. Com. 169, 170. See 15 
Mass. 495 6 John. R. 197; 2 Watts, 23; 6 Pick. 172 1 Verm. 155; 11 Pet. R. 
41; 10 Pet. R. 414; 14 Pick. 374; 1 Dana's R. 279; 2 Fairf. 408; 11 Pick. 
193; 8 Pick. 172; 8 Vin. Ab. 79; 1 Swift's Dig. 504; 1 Cruise, *65; Arch. 
Civ. Pl. 12; Bac. Ab. h.t.; 2 Supp. to Ves. Jr. 343; Dane's Ab. Index, h.t.;
1 Chit. Pr. 374, note (r.)