PENAL

Punishable; inflicting a punishment; containing a penalty, or relating to a penalty. Penal action. In practice. An action upon a penal statute; an action for the recovery of a penalty given by statute. 3 Steph. 535, 536. Distinguished from a popular or qui tarn action, in which the action is brought by the informer, to whom part of the penalty goes’. A penal action or information is brought by an officer, and the penalty goes to the king. 1 Chit. Gen. Pr. 25, note; 2 Archb. Pr. 188. But in American law, the term includes actions brought by informers or other private persons, as well as those instituted by governments or public officers. In a broad sense, the term has been made to include all actions in which there may be a recovery of exemplary or vindictive damages, as suits for libel and slander, or in which special, double, or treble damages are given by statute, such as actions to recover money paid as usury or lost in gaming. But in a more particular sense it means (1) an action on a statute which gives a certain penalty to be recovered by any person who will sue for it, (In re Barker, 56 Vt. 20,) or (2) an action in which the judgment against the defendant is in the nature of a fine or is intended as a punishment, actions in which the recovery is to be compensatory in its purpose and effect not being penal actions but civil suits, though they may carry special damages by statute. See Moller v. U. S., 57 Fed. 490, 6 C. C. A. 459; Atlanta v. Chattanooga Foundry & Pipe Works, 127 Fed. 23, 61 C. C. A. 387, 64 L. R, A. 721. Penal bill. An instrument formerly in use, by which a party bound himself to pay a certain sum or sums of money, or to do certain acts, or, in default thereof, to pay a certain specified sum by way of penalty; thence termed a “penal sum.” These instruments have been superseded by the use of a bond in a penal sum, with conditions. Brown. Penal bond. A bond promising to pay a named sum of money (the penalty) with a condition underwritten that, if a stipulated collateral thing, other than the payment of money, be done or forborne, as the case may be, the obligation shall be void. Penal clause. A penal clause is a secondary obligation, entered into for the purpose of enforcing the performance of a primary obligation. Civ. Code La. art. 2117. Also a clause in a statute declaring a penalty for a violation of the preceding clauses. Penal laws. Those which prohibit an act and impose a penalty for the commission of it. 2 Cro. Jac. 415. Strictly and properly speaking, a penal’ law is one imposing a penalty or punishment (and properly a pecuniary fine or mulct) for some offense of a public nature or wrong committed against the state. Strictly speaking, statutes giving a private action against a wrongdoer are not penal in their nature, neither the liability imposed nor the remedy given being penal. If the wrong done is to the individual, the law giving him a right of action is remedial, rather than penal, though the sum to be recovered may be called a “penalty” or may consist in double or treble damages. Penal servitude, in English criminal law, is a punishment which consists in keeping an offender in confinement, and compelling him to labor. Steph. Crim. Dig. 2. Penal statutes. See “penal laws” supra. Penal sum. A sum agreed upon in a bond, to be forfeited if the condition of the bond is not fulfilled.