INTERIM. In the mean time; in the meanwhile. For example, one appointed between the time that a person is made bankrupt, to act in the place of the assignee until the assignee shall be appointed, is an assignee ad interim. 2 Bell's Com. 355.

INTERLINEATION, contracts, evidence. Writing between two lines.

2. Interlineations are made either before or after the execution of an instrument. Those made before should be noted previously to its execution; those made after are made either by the party in whose favor they are, or by strangers.

3. When made by the party himself, whether the interlineation be material or immaterial, they render the deed void; 1 Gall. Rep. 71; unless made with the consent of the opposite party. Vide 11 Co. 27 a: 9 Mass. Rep. 307; 15 Johns. R. 293; 1 Dall. R. 57; 1 Halst. R. 215; but see 1 Pet. C. C. R. 364; 5 Har. & John; 41; 2 L. R. 290; 2 Ch. R. 410; 4 Bing. R. 123; Fitzg. 207, 223; Cov. on Conv. Ev. 22; 2 Barr. 191.

4. When the interlineation is made by a stranger, if it be immaterial, it will not vitiate the instrument, but if it be material, it will in general avoid it. Vide Cruise, Dig. tit. 32, c. 26, s. 8; Com. Dig. Fait, F 1.

5. The ancient rule, which is still said to be in force, is, that an alteration shall be presumed to have been made before the execution of the instrument. Vin. Ab. Evidence, Q, a 2; Id. Faits, U; 1 Swift's Syst. 310; 6 Wheat. R. 481; 1 Halst. 215. But other cases hold the presumption to be that a material interlineation was made after the execution of an instrument, unless the contrary be proved. 1 Dall. 67. This doctrine corresponds nearly with the rules of the canon law on this subject. The canonists have examined it with care. Vide 18 Pick. R. 172; Toull. Dr. Civ. Fr. liv. 3, t. 3, c. 4, n. 115, and article Erasure.

INTERLOCUTORY. This word is applied to signify something which is done between the commencement and the end of a suit or action which decides some point or matter, which however is not a final decision of the matter in issue; as, interlocutory judgments, or decrees or orders. Vide Judgment, interlocutory.

INTERLOPERS. Persons who interrupt the trade of a company of merchants, by pursuing the same business with them in the same place, without lawful authority.

INTERNATIONAL. That which pertains to intercourse between nations. International law is that which regulates the intercourse between, or the relative rights of nations.

INTERNUNCIO. A minister of a second order, charged with the affairs of the court of Rome, where that court has no nuncio under that title.

INTERRELATION, civil law. The act by which, in consequence of an agreement, the party bound declares that he will not be bound beyond a certain time. Wolff, Inst. Nat. 752.

2. In the case of a lease from year to year, or to continue as long as both parties please, a notice given by one of them to the other of a determination to put an end to the contract, would bear the name of interpelation.

INTERPLEADER, practice. Interpleaders may be had at law and in equity.

2. An interpleader at law a proceeding in the action of detinue, by which the defendant states the fact that the thing sued for is in his hands, and that it is claimed by a third person, and that whether such person or the plaintiff is entitled to it, is unknown to the defendant, and thereupon the defendant prays, that a process of garnishment may be issued to compel such third person, so claiming, to become defendant in his stead. 3 Reeves, Hist. of the Eng. Law, ch. 23; Mitford, Eq. Pl. by Jeremy, 141; Story, Eq. Jur. 800, 801, 802. Interpleader is allowed to avoid inconvenience; for two parties claiming adversely to each other, cannot be entitled to the same thing. Bro. Abr. Interpleader, 4. Hence the rule which requires the defendant to allege that different parties demand the same thing. Id. pl. 22.

3. If two persons sue the same person in detinue for the thing, and both action; are depending in the same court at the same time, the defendant may plead that fact, produce the thing (e. g. a deed or charter in court, and aver his readiness to deliver it to either as the court shall adjudge; and thereupon pray that they may interplead. In such a case it has been settled that the plaintiff whose writ bears the earliest teste has the right to begin the interpleading, and the other will be compelled to answer. Bro. Abr. Interpl. 2.

4. In equity, interpleaders are common. Vide Bill of Interpleader, and 8 Vin. Ab. 419; Doct. Pl. 247; 3 Bl. Com. 448; Com. Dig. Chancery, 3 T; 2 Story, Eq. Jur. 800.

INTERPRETATION. The explication of a law, agreement, will, or other instrument, which appears obscure or ambiguous.

2. The object of interpretation is to find out or collect the intention of the maker of the instrument, either from his own words, or from other conjectures, or both. It may then be divided into three sorts, according to the different means it makes use of for obtaining its end.

3. These three sorts of interpretations are either literal, rational, or mixed. When we collect the intention of the writer from his words only, as they lie before us, this is a literal interpretation. When his words do not express his intention perfectly, but either exceed it, or fall short of it, so that we are to collect it from probable or rational conjectures only, this is rational interpretation and when his words, though they do express his intention, when rightly understood, are in themselves. of doubtful meaning, and we are forced to have recourse to like conjectures to find out in what sense he used them this sort of interpretation is mixed; it is partly literal, and partly rational.

4. According to the civilians there are three sorts of interpretations, the authentic, the usual, and the doctrinal.

5. - 1. The authentic interpretation is that which refers to the legislator himself, in order to fix the sense of the law.

6. - 2. When the judge interprets the law so as to accord with prior decisions, the interpretation is called usual.

7. - 3. It is doctrinal when it is made agreeably to rules of science. The Commentaries of learned lawyers in this case furnish the greatest assistance. This last kind of interpretation is itself divided into, three distinct classes. Doctrinal interpretation is extensive, restrictive, or declaratory. 1st. It is extensive whenever the reason of the law has a more enlarged sense than its terms, and it is consequently applied to a case which had not been explained. 2d. On the contrary, it is restrictive when the expressions of the law have a greater latitude than its reasons, so that by a restricted interpretation, an exception is made in a case which the law does not seem to have embraced. 3d. When the reason of the law and the terms in which it is conceived agree, and it is only necessary to explain them to have the sense complete, the interpretation is declaratory. 8. The term interpretation is used by foreign jurists in nearly the same sense that we use the word construction. (q. v.)

9. Pothier, in his excellent treatise on Obligations, lays down the following rules for the interpretation of contracts:

10. - 1. We ought to examine what was the common, intention of the contracting parties rather than the grammatical sense of the terms.

11. - 2. When a clause is capable of two significations, it should be understood in that which will have some operation rather than, that in which it will have none.

12. - 3. Where the terms of a contract are capable of two significations, we ought to understand them in the sense which is most agreeable to the nature of the contract.

13. - 4. Any thing, which may appear ambiguous in the terms of a contract, may be explained by the common use of those terms in the country where it is made.

14. - 5. Usage is of so much authority in the interpretation of agreements, that a contract is understood to contain the customary clauses although they are not expressed; in contractibus tacite veniunt ea quae sunt moris et consuetudinis.

15. - 6. We ought to interpret one clause by the others contained in the same act, whether they precede or follow it.

16. - 7. In case of doubt, a clause ought to be interpreted against the person who stipulates anything, and in discharge of the person who contracts the obligation.

17. - 8. However general the terms may be in which an agreement is conceived, it only comprises those things respecting which it appears that the contracting parties proposed to coutract, and not others which they never thought of.

18. - 9. When the object of the agreement is to include universally everything of a given nature, (une universalite de choses) the general description will comprise all particular articles, although they may not have been in the knowledge, of the parties. We may state, as an example of this rule, an engagement which I make with you to abandon my share in a succession for a certain sum. This agreement includes everything which makes part of the succession, whether known or not; our intention was to contract for the whole. Therefore it is decided, that I cannot object to the agreement, under pretence that considerable property has been found to belong to the succession of which we had not any knowledge.

19. - 10. When a case is expressed in a contract on account of any doubt which there may be whether the engagement resulting from the contract would. extend to such case, the parties are not thereby understood to restrain the extent which the engagement has of right, in respect to all cases not expressed.

20. - 11. In contracts as well as in testaments, a clause conceived in the plural may be frequently distributed into several particular classes.

21. - 12. That which is at the end of a phrase commonly refers to the whole phrase, and not only to that which immediately precedes it, provided it agrees in gender and number with the whole phrase.

>22. For instance, if in the contract for sale of a farm, it is said to be sold with all the corn, small grain, fruits and wine that have been got this year, the terms, that have been got this year, refer to the whole phrase, and not to the wine only, and consequently the old corn is not less excepted than the old wine; it would be otherwise if it had been said, all the wine that has been got this year, for the expression is in the singular, and only refers to the wine and not to the rest of the phrase, with which it does not agree in number. Vide 1 Bouv. Inst. n. 86, et seq.

INTERPRETER. One employed to make a translation. (q v.)

2. An interpreter should be sworn before he translates the testimony of a witness. 4 Mass. 81; 5 Mass. 219; 2 Caines' Rep. 155.

3. A person employed between an attorney and client to act as interpreter, is considered merely as the organ between them, and is not bound to testify as to what be has acquired in those confidential communications. 1 Pet. C. C. R.. 356; 4 Munf. R. 273; 1 Wend. R. 337. Vide Confidential Communications.

INTERREGNUM, polit. law. In an established government, the period which elapses between the death of a sovereign and the election of another is called interregnum. It is also understood for the vacancy created in the executive power, and for any vacancy which occurs when there is no government.

INTERROGATOIRE, French law. An act, or instrument, which contains the interrogatories made by the judge to the person accused, on the facts which are the object of the accasation, and the answers of the accused. Poth. Proc. Crim. s. 4, art. 2, 1. Vide Information.

INTERROGATORIES. Material and pertinent questions, in writing, to necessary points, not confessed, exhibited for the examination of witnesses or persons who are to give testimony in the cause.

2. They are either original and direct on the part, of him who produces the witnesses, or cross and counter, on behalf of the adverse party, to examine witnesses produced on the other side. Either party, plaintiff or defendant, may exhibit original or cross interrogatories.

3. The form which interrogatories assume, is as various as the minds of the persons who propound them. They should be as distinct as possible, and capable of a definite answer; and they should leave no loop-holes for evasion to an unwilling witness. Care must be observed to put no leading questions in original interrogatories, for these always lead to inconvenience; and for scandal or impertinence, interrogatories will, under certain Circumstances, be suppressed. Vide Will. on Interrogatories, passim; Gresl. Ea. Ev pt. 1, c. 3, s. 1; Vin. Ab. h. t.; Hind's Pr. 317; 4 Bouv. Inst. n. 4419, et seq.

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.

INTERVAL. A space of time between two periods. When a person is unable to perform an act at any two given periods, but in the interval he has performed such act, as when a man is found to be insane in the months of January and March, and he enters into a contract or makes a will in the interval, in February, he will be presumed to have been insane at that time; and the onus will lie to show his sanity, on the person who affirms such act. See Lucid interval.

INTERVENTION, civil law. The act by which a third party becomes a party in a suit pending between other persons.

2. The intervention is made either to be joined to the plaintiff, and to claim the same thing he does, or some other thing connected with it or, to join the defendant, and with him to oppose the claim of the plaintiff, which it-is his interest to defeat. Poth. Proced. Civ. lere part. ch. 2, s. 6, 3. In the English ecclesiastical courts, the same term is used in the same sense.

3. When a third person, not originally a party to the suit or proceeding, but claiming an interest in the subject-matter in dispute, may, in order the better to protect such interest, interpose his claim, which proceeding is termed intervention. 2 Chit. Pr. 492; 3 Chit. Com. Law, 633; 2 Hagg. Cons. R. 137; 3 Phillim. R. 586; 1 Addams, R. 5; Ought. tit. 14; 4 Hagg. Eccl. R. 67 Dual. Ad. Pr. 74. The intervener may come in at any stage of the cause, and even after judgment, if an appeal can be allowed on such judgment. 2 Hagg. Cons. R. 137: 1 Eng. feel. R. 480; 2 E.g. Eccl. R. 13.

INTESTACY. The state or condition of dying without a will.

INTESTABLE. One who cannot law fully make a testament.

2. An infant, an insane person, or one civilly dead, cannot make a will, for want of capacity or understanding; a married woman cannot make such a will without some special authority, because she is under the power of her hushand. They are all intestable.

INTESTATE. One who, having lawful power to make a will, has made none, or one which is defective in form. In that case, he is said to die intestate, and his estate descends to his heir at law. See Testate.

2. This term comes from the Latin intestatus. Formerly, it was used in France indiscriminately with de-confess; that is, without confession. It was regarded as a crime, on account of the omission of the deceased person to give something to the church, and was punished by privation of burial in consecrated ground. This omission, according to Fournel, Hist. des Avocats, vol. 1, p. 116, could be repaired by making an ampliative testament in the name of the deceased. See Vely, tom. 6, page 145; Henrion De Pansey, Authorite Judiciare, 129 and note. Also, 3 Mod. Rep. 59, 60, for the Law of Intestacy in England.

INTIMATION, civil law. The name of any judicial act by which a notice of a legal proceeding. is given to some one; but it is more usually understood to mean the notice or summons which an appellant causes to be given to the opposite party, that the sentence will be reviewed by the superior judge.

2. In the Scotch law, it is an instrument, of writing, made under the hand of a notary, and notified to a party, to inform him of a right which a third person had acquired; for example, when a creditor assigns a claim against his debtor, the assignee or cedent must give an intimation of this to the debtor, who, till then, is justified in making payment to the original creditor. Kames' Eq. B. 1, p. 1, s. 1.

INTRODUCTION. That part of a writing in which are detailed those facts which elucidate the subject. In chancery pleading, the introduction is that part of a bill which contains the names and description of the persons exhibiting the bill. In this part of the bill are also given the places of abode, title, or office, or business, and the character in which they sue, if it is in autre droit, and such other description as is required to show the jurisdiction of the court. 4 Bouv. Inst. n. 4156.

INTROMISSION Scotch law. The assuming possession of property belonging to another, either on legal grounds, or without any authority; in the latter case, it is called vicious intromission. Bell's S. L. Dict. h. t.

INTRONISATION, French eccl. law. The installation of a hishop in his episcopal see. Clef des Lois Row. h. t. Andre.

INTRUDER. One who, on the death of the ancestor, enters on the land, unlawfully, before the heir can enter.

INTRUSION, estates, torts. When an ancestor dies seised of an estate of inheritance expectant upon an estate for life, and then the tenant dies, and between his death and the entry of the heir, a stranger unlawfully enters upon the estate, this is called an intrusion. It differs from an abatement, for the latter is an entry into lands void by the death of a tenant in fee, and an intrusion, as already stated, is an entry into land void by the death of a tenant for years. F. N. B. 203 3 Bl. Com. 169 Archb. Civ. Pl. 12; Dane's Ab. Index, h. t.

INTRUSION, remedies. The name of a writ, brought by the owner of a fee simple, &c., against an intruder. New Nat. Br. 453.

INUNDATION. The overflow of waters by coming out of their bed.

2. Inundations may arise from three causes; from public necessity, as in defence of a place it may be necessary to dam the current of a stream, which will cause an inundation to the upper lands; they may be occasioned by an invincible force, as by the accidental fall of a rock in the stream; or they may result from the erections of works on the stream. In the first case, the injury caused by the inundation is to be compensated as other injuries done in war; in the second, as there was no fault of any one, the loss is to be borne by the unfortunate owner of the estate; in the last, when the riparian. proprietor is injured by such works as alter the level of the water where it enters or where it leaves the property on which they are erected, the person injured may recover damages for the injury thus caused to his property by the innundation. 9 Co. 59; 4 Day's R. 244; 17 Serg. & Rawle, 383; 3 Mason's R. 172; 7 Pick. R. 198; 7 Cowen, R. 266; 1 B. & Ald. 258; 1 Rawle's R. 218; 5 N. H. Rep. 232; 9 Mass. R. 316; 4 Mason's R. 400; 1 Sim. & Stu. 203; 1 Come's R. 460. Vide Schult. Aq. R. 122; Ang. W. C. 101; 5 Ohio, R. 322, 421; and art. Dam.

TO INURE. To take effect; as, the pardon inures.

INVALID. In a physical sense, it is that which is wanting force; in a figurative sense, it signifies that which has no effect.

INVASION. The entry of a country by a public enemy, making war.

2. The Constitution of the United States, art. 1, s. 8, gives power to congress "to provide for calling the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions." Vide Insurrection.

INVENTION. A contrivance; a discovery. It is in this sense this word is used in the patent laws of the United States. 17 Pet. 228; S. C. 1 How. U. S. 202. It signifies not something which has been found ready made, but something which, in consequence of art or accident, has been formed; for the invention must relate ot some new or useful art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, not before known or used by others. Act of July 4, 1836, 4 Sharsw. continuation of Story's L. U.S. 2506; 1 Mason, R. 302; 4 Wash. C. C. R. 9. Vide Patent. By invention, the civilians understand the finding of some things which had not been lost; they must either have abandoned, or they must have never belonged to any one, as a pearl found on the sea shore. Lec. Elem 350.

INVENTIONES. This word is used in some ancient English charters to signify treasure-trove.

INVENTOR. One who invents or finds out something.

2. The patent laws of the United States authorize a patent to be issued to the original inventor; if the invention is suggested by another, he is not the inventor within the meaning of those laws; but in that case the suggestion must be of the specific process or machine; for a general theoretical suggestion, as that steam might be applied to the navigation of the air or water, without pointing out by what specific process or machine that could be accomplished, would not be such a suggestion as to deprive the person to whom it had been made from being considered as the inventor. Dav. Pat. Cas. 429; 1 C. & P. 558; 1 Russ. & M. 187; 4 Taunt. 770; B ut see 1 M. G. & S. 551; 3 Man. Gr. & Sc. 97.

3. The applicant for a patent must be both the first and original inventor. 4 Law Report. 342.