INSTANCE

In pleading and practice. Solicitation, properly of an earnest or urgent kind. An act is often said to be done at a party’s “special instance and request.” In the civil and French law. A general term, designating all sorts of actions and judicial, demands. Dig. 44, 7, 58, In ecclesiastical law. Causes of instance are those proceeded in at the solicitation of some party, as opposed to causes of office, which run.in the name of the judge. Hallifax, Civil Law, p. 156. In Scotch law. That which may be insisted on at one diet or course of probation. Wharton. Instance court. In English law. That division or department of the court of admiralty which exercises all the ordinary admiralty jurisdiction, with the single exception of prize cases, the latter belonging to the branch called the “Prize Court.” The term is sometimes used ia American law for purposes of explanation1, but has no proper application to admiralty courts in the United States, where the powers of both instance and prize courts are conferred without any distinction. 3 Kent, Comm.355, 378; The Betsey, 3 Dall. 6, 1 L. Ed. 485; The Emulous, 1 Gall. 563, Fed. Cas. No. 4,479.