DIGNITIES. English law. Titles of honor.

2. They are considered as incorporeal¹ hereditaments.

3. The genius of our government forbids their admission into the republic.

DILAPIDATION². Literally³, this signifies the injury done to a building by taking stones from it; but in its figurative, which is also its technical sense, it means the waste committed or permitted upon a building.

DILATORY⁴. That which is intended for delay. It is a maxim⁵, that delays in law are odious⁶, dilationes in lege sunt odiosae. Plowd. 75.

DILATORY DEFENCE. chancery practice. A dilatory defence is one, the object of which is to dismiss, suspend, or obstruct⁷ the suit, without touching⁸ the merits, until the impediment or obstacle insisted on shall be removed.

2. These defences are of four kinds: 1. To the jurisdiction⁹ of the court. 2. To the person of the plaintiff or defendant¹⁰. 3. To the form of proceedings¹¹, as that the suit is irregularly brought, or it is defective¹² in its appropriate allegation of the parties; and, 4. To the propriety¹³ of maintaining the suit itself, because of the pendancy of another suit for the same controversy¹⁴. Montag. Eq. Pl. 88; Story Eq. Pl. §434. Vide Defence: Plea, dilatory.

DILATORY PLEAS. Those which delay the plaintiff's remedy, by questioning, not the cause of action, but the propriety of the suit, or the mode in which the remedy is sought. Vide Plea, dilatory.

DILIGENCE, contracts. The doing things in proper time.

2. It may be divided into three degrees, namely: ordinary diligence, extraordinary diligence, and slight diligence. It is the reverse of negligence¹⁵. (q. v.) Under that article is shown what degree of negligence, or want of diligence, will make a party to a contract responsible to the other. Vide Story, Bailm. Index h. t.; Ayl. Pand. 113 1 Miles, Rep. 40.

DILIGENCE. In Scotland, there are certain forms of law, whereby a creditor¹⁶ endeavors to make good his payment, either by affecting the person of his debtor¹⁷, or by securing the subjects belonging to him from alienation¹⁸, or by carrying the property of these subjects to himself. They are either real or personal.

2. Real diligence is that which is proper to heritable or real rights,. and of this kind there are two sorts: 1. Inhibitions. 2. Adjudication, which the law has substituted in the place of apprising¹⁹.

3. Personal diligence is that by which the person of the debtor may be secured, or his personal estate affected²⁰. Ersk. Pr. L. Scotl. B. 2, t. 11, s. 1.