Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 22.pdf/530

 The Green Bag

502

what is required of persons generally. The relation between such speciﬁc parties is called an obligation, the word “obligation" in this sense—the original sense in the Roman law-denoting not simply the duty but the entire legal

no general right of mental security, but there are certain limited rights), (d) the right of liberty, whose violation is called imprisonment, (e) the right of reputation.

(2) Potestative rights.

law a chose in action. The distinction between rights in rem and in personam has been considered by some writers

These are absolute, such as a husband has in his wife's consortium and services, or relative, such as he has in her personal security relative to her services. When rights of personal security are spoken of hereafter, these relative potestative rights in the security of the subject of the right, who, not being a thing but in a situation like that of a thing, may be called a subject person, will

to be unimportant.

generally be included.

relation, jun‘: vinculum, between the

parties, consisting in a right on one side and a corresponding duty on the other. The right is called a right in personam,— also an inappropriate name, because all rights are against persons,-—or in our

But it is very

important for purposes of arrangement, because rights in rem can be, and are most conveniently, deﬁned separately from their corresponding duties by deﬁning the states of fact that make up their contents, which are few in number; whereas rights in personam are mostly so intimately .connected with their duties that they cannot be

The same duties

correspond to them as to rights of personal security. (3) Property rights. In a loose sense almost any valuable

or transferable right is called property, e.g., a chose in action.

Here, however,

the name will be conﬁned to such rights as are rights in rem. A normal property

right is a right in a corporeal thing; an abnormal property right is a right

separated for deﬁnition, and their con

in an incorporeal thing, such as a patent

tents are so inﬁnitely various, being in

right, which is a right in an invention,

many

or the ownership of shares of stock. Perhaps in some cases it is unnecessary to posit any incorporeal thing. Ease

cases

whatever

the

parties

choose to specify, that they are more

conveniently classiﬁed by the facts from which they arise than by their contents.

The states of fact which the law protects generally, which form the contents of rights in rem, are (1) a

person's own life and bodily and mental condition, (2) the life bodily and mental

condition of some other person in whom he has an interest, e.g. his wife or child, (3) the condition of a thing, (4) a

person’s pecuniary condition. On this basis an exhaustive list of rights in rem can be made. as follows:

(1) Rights

of personal security, divided into the following

sub-rights:

(a)

the

right

of life, (b) the right of bodily security, (0) rights of mental security (there is

ments and

rents,

which

in our law

are classed, quite unnecessarily, as incorporeal things, should go with normal property rights, being rights in land. To a large extent the duties that correspond to normal and abnormal

property rights are different. Property rights are generally complex groups of rights comprising both permissive and protected rights. Ownership is the largest of those groups, comprising the full'extent of all the rights in a thing which the law recognizes. Other prop erty rights, as an estate for life, a special property in a chattel or a lien, are inferior property rights comprising only a part of the rights which go to make up