recaption

Recaption \Re*cap"tion\ (r[-e]*k[a^]p"sh[u^]n), n. (Law)
   The act of retaking, as of one who has escaped after arrest;
   reprisal; the retaking of one's own goods, chattels, wife, or
   children, without force or violence, from one who has taken
   them and who wrongfully detains them. --Blackstone.
   [1913 Webster]

   {Writ of recaption} (Law), a writ to recover damages for him
      whose goods, being distrained for rent or service, are
      distrained again for the same cause. --Wharton.
      [1913 Webster]
    

RECAPTION, remedies. The act of a person who has been deprived of the 
custody of another to which he is legally entitled, by which he regains the 
peaceable custody of such person; or of the owner of personal or real 
property who has been deprived of his possession, by which he retakes 
possession, peaceably. In each of these cases the law allows the recaption 
of the person or of the property, provided he can do so without occasioning 
a breach of the peace, or an injury to a third person who has not been a 
party to the wrong. 3 Inst. 134; 2 Rolle, Rep. 55, 6; Id. 208; 2 Rolle, Abr. 
565; 3 Bl. Comm. 5; 3 Bouv. Inst. n. 2440, et seq. 
     2. Recaption may be made of a person, of personal property, of real 
property; each of these will be separately examined. 
     3.-1. The right of recaption of a person is confined to a husband in 
re-taking his wife; a parent, his child, of whom he has the custody; a 
master, his apprentice and, according to Blackstone, a master, his servant; 
but this must be limited to a servant who assents to the recaption; in these 
cases, the party injured may peaceably enter the house of the wrongdoer, 
without a demand being first made, the outer door being open, and take and 
carry away the person wrongfully detained. He may also enter peaceably into 
the house of a person harboring, who was not concerned in the original 
abduction. 8 Bing. R. 186; S. C. 21 Eng. C. L. Rep. 265. 
     4.-2. The same principles extend to the right of recaption of personal 
property. In this sort of recaption, too much care cannot be observed to 
avoid any personal injury or breach of the peace. 
     5.-3. In the recaption of real estate the owner may, in the absence of 
the occupier, break open the outer door of a house and take possession; but 
if, in regaining his possession, the party be guilty of a forcible entry and 
breach of the peace, he may be indicted; but the wrongdoer or person who had 
no right to the possession, cannot sustain any action for such forcible 
regaining possession merely. 1 Chit. Pr. 646.