Distress damage feasant is a
common law self-help
legal remedy whereby a person who is in possession of land may impound a
chattel
Chattel may refer to:
* Chattel, an alternative name for tangible personal property
* A chattel house, a type of West Indian dwelling
* A chattel mortgage, a security interest over tangible personal property
* Chattel slavery, the most extreme form ...
which is wrongfully on that land to secure the payment of compensation for damage caused by it. It is part of the law relating to
distraint. In some cases the party also has the right to sell the chattel. The chattel may be inanimate, or it may be an animal or livestock.
Any livestock had to be distrained at the time, before they left the land. No cause in distress would stand if the landowner was in any way responsible for allowing the trespass, such as failing to fence off the land.
The remedy principally relates instances of
nuisance, and was often exercised in conjunction with certain
strict liability
In criminal and civil law, strict liability is a standard of liability under which a person is legally responsible for the consequences flowing from an activity even in the absence of fault or criminal intent on the part of the defendant.
...
torts, such as liability under the
rule in ''Rylands v Fletcher'' or
cattle trespass. In a number of instances, the exercise of the remedy has now been curtailed by statute.
[See for example, , section 7(1).]
Footnotes
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Judicial remedies