Ejectment

Ejectment (Ejectio firmæ) was, in English law, a form of possessory action, wherein the title to land might be tried, and the possession recovered. Under the old common law, a person dispossessed of his freehold was often obliged to have recourse to the cumbrous forms of a real action. A lessee for years, on the other hand, if dispossessed, could only claim damages for ejectment; but at an early period the courts decided that he should not only have his damages, but recover possession of the land. By means of an elaborate series of fictions, the action for ejectment was made to serve the purpose of any person claiming title to land. If Smith wished to recover land from Brown, he commenced his action with a declaration, every word of which was untrue, setting forth that Smith had made a lease to John Doe; that Doe entered on the land; that Doe was wrongfully ejected by one Richard Roe, and claimed damages accordingly. Brown, the actual possessor, was admitted to defend the action, in place of the imaginary Roe, but only on agreeing to admit the truth of the story about Doe; so that the only question in dispute was whether Smith had a right to make the lease to Doe. This curious legal comedy was abolished by the Common Law Procedure Act of 1852, and the Judicature Acts have now substituted an action for the recovery of land for the action of ejectment. But the term ejectment is still commonly used to describe the various forms of process by which a person in possession of land or house property may be turned out by his landlord or by a rival claimant. See EVICTION.