Legal Term: DOMINIUM

Definition: empire, domain. It is of three kinds: 1, Directum dominium, or usufructuary dominion, dominium utile, as between landlord and tenenant, or, 2. It is to full property, and simple property. The former is such as belongs to the cultivator of his own estate, the other is the property of a tenant. 3. Dominion acquired by the law of nations, and dominion acquired by municipal law. By the law of nations, property may be acquired by occupation, by accession, by commixtion, by use or the pernancy of the usufruct, and by tradition or delivery. As to the dominium eminens, the right of the public, in cases of emergency, to seize upon the property of individuals, and convert it to public use, and the right of individuals, in similar cases, to commit a trespass on the persons and properties of others, see the opinion of chief justice McKean in Respublica v. Sparhawk, 1 Dallas, 362, and the case of Vanhorn v. Dorrance, 2 Dall. Rep. 304. See, further, as to dominium eminens, or the right of the community to take, at a fair price, the property of individuals for public use, the supplement of 1802 to the Pennsylvania compromising law, respecting the Wyoming controversy, also, Vattel, l. 1, c. 20, 244-248, Bynkershoek, lib. 2, c. 15, Rousseaus Social Compact, c. 9, Domat, l. 1, tit. 8, l, p. 381, fol. ed., the case of a Jew, whom the grand seignior was compelled by the mufti to purchase out, cited in Lindsay et al. v. The Commissioners, 2 Bay. S. Car. Rep. 41. See Eminent domain.

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