The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Abatement

ABATEMENT. In law: (1) A removal or putting down, as of a nuisance. (2) A quashing; a judicial defeat; the rendering abortive by law, as when a writ is overthrown by some fatal exception taken to it in court. A plea designed to effect this result is called a plea in abatement. All dilatory pleas are considered pleas in abatement, in contradistinction to pleas in bar, which consider the merits of the claim. (3) Forcible entry of a stranger into an inheritance when the person seized of it dies, and before the heir or devisee can take possession. (4) The termination of an action in a court of law, or the suspension of proceedings in a suit in equity, in consequence of the occurrence of some event, as for example the death of one of the litigants. In contracts, a reduction made by the creditor in consideration of the prompt payment of a debt due by the debtor. In mercantile law, a deduction from duties imposed at the custom-house, on account of damages received by goods during importation of while in the custom-house.

A misnomer of plaintiff or defendant can be taken advantage of only by plea in abatement.

In heraldry, an abatement was formerly an addition to a coat-of-arms, indicative of disgrace of inferiority; now it is confined to the bend sinister, marking illegitimate descent.