interruptio

INTERRUPTION. The effect of some act or circumstance which stops the course 
of a prescription or act of limitation's. 
     2. Interruption of the use of a thing is natural or civil. Natural 
interruption is an interruption in fact, which takes place whenever by some 
act we cease truly to possess what we formerly possessed. Vide 4 Mason's 
Rep. 404; 2 Y. & Jarv. 285. A right is not interrupted by: mere trespassers, 
if the trespasser's were unknown; but if they were known, and the trespasses 
frequent, and no legal proceeding instituted in consequence of them, they 
then become legitimae interruptiones, of which Bracton speaks, and are 
converted into adverse assertions of right, and if not promptly and 
effectually litigated, they defeat the claim of rightful prescription; and 
mere threats of action for the trespasses, without following them up, will 
have no effect to preserve the right. Knapp, R. 70, 71; 3 Bar. & Ad. 863; 2 
Saund. 175, n. e; 1 Camp. 260; 4 Camp. 16; 5 Taunt. 125 11 East, 376. 
     3. Civil interruption is that which takes place by some judicial act, 
as the commencement of a suit to recover the thing in dispute, which gives 
notice to the possessor that the thing which he possesses does not belong to 
him. When the title has once been gained by prescription, it will not be 
lost by interruption of it for ten or twenty years. 1 Inst. 113 b. A simple 
acknowledgment of a debt by the debtor, is a sufficient interruption to 
prevent the statute from running. Indeed, whenever an agreement, express or 
implied, takes place between the creditor and the debtor, between the 
possessor and the owner, which admits the indebtedness or the right to the 
thing in dispute, it is considered a civil conventional interruption which 
prevents the statute or the right of prescription from running. Vide 3 Burge 
on the Confl. of Lalys, 63.