Site icon The Law Dictionary

QUO WARRANTO

(A) Latin term meaning by what warrant? This refers to a legal procedure undertaken to cause a person or organization to (i) cease its efforts or activities with regard to performing some act for which it may not have the legal right or authority and to (ii) state what right or authority it has to perform such actions. (B) remedies. By what authority or warrant. The name of a writ issued in the name of a government against any person or corporation that usurps any franchise or office, commanding the sheriff of the county to summon the defendant to be and appear before the court whence the writ issued, at a time and place therein named, to show quo warranto he claims the franchise or office mentioned in the writ.

Law Dictionary – Alternative Legal Definition

In old English practice. A writ in the nature of a writ of right for the king, against him who claimed or usurped any office, franchise, or liberty, to inquire by what authority he supported his claim. In order to determine the right It lay also in case of non-user, or long neglect of a franchise, or misuser or abuse of it; being a writ commanding the defendant to show by what warrant he exercises such a franchise, having never had any grant of it, or having forfeited it by neglect or abuse. 3 BL Comm. 262. In England, and quite generally throughout the United States, this writ has given place to an “Information in the nature of a quo warranto,” which, though in form a criminal proceeding, is in effect a civil remedy similar to the old writ, and is the method now usually employed for trying the title to a corporate or other franchise, or to a public or corporate office.

Exit mobile version