法律英语|英文法律词典 D-61

DIGNITIES. English law. Titles of honor.

2. They are considered as incorporeal^{1 hereditaments.}

3. The genius of our government forbids their admission into the republic.

DILAPIDATION^{2. Literally3, this signifies the injury done to a building by taking stones from it; but in its figurative, which is also its technical sense, it means the waste committed or permitted upon a building.}

DILATORY^{4. That which is intended for delay. It is a maxim5, that delays in law are odious6, dilationes in lege sunt odiosae. Plowd. 75.}

DILATORY DEFENCE. chancery practice. A dilatory defence is one, the object of which is to dismiss, suspend, or obstruct^{7 the suit, without touching8 the merits, until the impediment or obstacle insisted on shall be removed.}

2. These defences are of four kinds: 1. To the jurisdiction^{9 of the court. 2. To the person of the plaintiff or defendant10. 3. To the form of proceedings11, as that the suit is irregularly brought, or it is defective12 in its appropriate allegation of the parties; and, 4. To the propriety13 of maintaining the suit itself, because of the pendancy of another suit for the same controversy14. Montag. Eq. Pl. 88; Story Eq. Pl. 434. Vide Defence: Plea, dilatory.}

DILATORY PLEAS. Those which delay the plaintiff's remedy, by questioning, not the cause of action, but the propriety of the suit, or the mode in which the remedy is sought. Vide Plea, dilatory.

DILIGENCE, contracts. The doing things in proper time.

2. It may be pided into three degrees, namely: ordinary diligence, extraordinary diligence, and slight diligence. It is the reverse of negligence^{15. Under that article is shown what degree of negligence, or want of diligence, will make a party to a contract responsible to the other. Vide Story, Bailm. Index h. t.; Ayl. Pand. 113 1 Miles, Rep. 40.}

DILIGENCE. In Scotland, there are certain forms of law, whereby a creditor^{16 endeavors to make good his payment, either by affecting the person of his debtor17, or by securing the subjects belonging to him from alienation18, or by carrying the property of these subjects to himself. They are either real or personal.}

2. Real diligence is that which is proper to heritable or real rights,. and of this kind there are two sorts: 1. Inhibitions. 2. Adjudication, which the law has substituted in the place of apprising^19.

3. Personal diligence is that by which the person of the debtor may be secured, or his personal estate affected^{20. Ersk. Pr. L. Scotl. B. 2, t. 11, s. 1.}