INTERRUPTION. The effect of some act or circumstance which stops the course of a prescription¹ or act of limitation's.

2. Interruption of the use of a thing is natural or civil. Natural interruption is an interruption in fact, which takes place whenever by some act we cease truly to possess what we formerly² possessed³. Vide 4 Mason's Rep. 404; 2 Y. & Jarv. 285. A right is not interrupted by: mere⁴ trespassers, if the trespasser's were unknown; but if they were known, and the trespasses⁵ frequent, and no legal proceeding⁶ instituted in consequence of them, they then become legitimae interruptiones, of which Bracton speaks, and are converted into adverse⁸ assertions of right, and if not promptly⁹ and effectually litigated, they defeat the claim of rightful prescription; and mere threats of action for the trespasses, without following them up, will have no effect to preserve the right. Knapp, R. 70, 71; 3 Bar. & Ad. 863; 2 Saund. 175, n. e; 1 Camp. 260; 4 Camp. 16; 5 Taunt¹⁰. 125 11 East, 376.

3. Civil interruption is that which takes place by some judicial¹¹ act, as the commencement of a suit to recover the thing in dispute, which gives notice to the possessor that the thing which he possesses does not belong to him. When the title has once been gained by prescription, it will not be lost by interruption of it for ten or twenty years. 1 Inst. 113 b. A simple acknowledgment of a debt by the debtor¹², is a sufficient interruption to prevent the statute¹³ from running. Indeed, whenever an agreement, express or implied, takes place between the creditor¹⁴ and the debtor, between the possessor and the owner, which admits the indebtedness or the right to the thing in dispute, it is considered a civil conventional interruption which prevents the statute or the right of prescription from running. Vide 3 Burge on the Confl. of Lalys, 63.

INTERVAL¹⁵. A space of time between two periods. When a person is unable to perform an act at any two given periods, but in the interval he has performed such act, as when a man is found to be insane in the months of January and March, and he enters into a contract or makes a will in the interval, in February, he will be presumed to have been insane at that time; and the onus¹⁶ will lie to show his sanity¹⁷, on the person who affirms such act. See Lucid¹⁸ interval.

INTERVENTION¹⁹, civil law. The act by which a third party becomes a party in a suit pending²⁰ between other persons.

2. The intervention is made either to be joined to the plaintiff, and to claim the same thing he does, or some other thing connected with it or, to join the defendant²¹, and with him to oppose the claim of the plaintiff, which it-is his interest to defeat. Poth. Proced. Civ. lere part. ch. 2, s. 6, 3. In the English ecclesiastical courts, the same term is used in the same sense.

3. When a third person, not originally a party to the suit or proceeding, but claiming an interest in the subject-matter in dispute, may, in order the better to protect such interest, interpose his claim, which proceeding is termed intervention. 2 Chit. Pr. 492; 3 Chit. Com. Law, 633; 2 Hagg. Cons⁷. R. 137; 3 Phillim. R. 586; 1 Addams, R. 5; Ought. tit. 14; 4 Hagg. Eccl. R. 67 Dual²². Ad. Pr. 74. The intervener may come in at any stage of the cause, and even after judgment²³, if an appeal can be allowed on such judgment. 2 Hagg. Cons. R. 137: 1 Eng. feel. R. 480; 2 E.g. Eccl. R. 13.

INTESTACY. The state or condition of dying without a will.

INTESTABLE. One who cannot law fully²⁴ make a testament²⁵.

2. An infant, an insane person, or one civilly dead, cannot make a will, for want of capacity or understanding; a married woman cannot make such a will without some special authority, because she is under the power of her hushand. They are all intestable.