FALCIDIAN LAW

civil law, plebiscitum. A statute or law enacted by the people, made during the reign of Augustus, on the proposition of Falcidius, who was a tribune in the year of Rome 714. 2. Its principal provision gave power to fathers of families to bequeath three-fourths of their property, but deprived them of the power to give away the other fourth, which was to descend to the heir. 3. The same rule, somewhat modified, has been adopted in Louisiana; donations inter vivos or mortis causal says the Civil Code, art. 1480, cannot exceed two-thirds of the property of, the disposer, if he leaves at his decease a legitimate child; one-half, if he leaves two children; and one-third, if he leaves three, or a greater number. 4. By the common law, the power of the father to give his property is unlimited. He may bequeath it to his children equally, to, one in preference to another, or to a stranger, in exclusion of the whole of them. Over his real estate, his wife has a right of dower, or a similar right given to her by act of assembly, in, perhaps, all the states. In Roman law. A law on the subject of testamentary disposition, enacted by the people in the year of Rome 714, on the proposition of the tribune Falcidius. By this law, the testator’s right to burden his estate with legacies was subjected to an important restriction. It prescribed that no one could bequeath more than three-fourths of his property in legacies, and that the heir should have at least one-fourth of the estate, and that, should the testator violate this prescript, the heir may have the right to make a proportional deduction from each legatee, so far as necessary. Mackeld. Rom. Law,