Trespasser

One who commits a trespass.

A man is a trespasser by his own direct actohen he acts without any excuse; or he may be a trespasser in the execution of a legal process in an illegal manner or when the court has no juris4iction over the subject-matter when the court has jurisdiction but the proceeding is defective and void; when the process has been misapplied, as, when the defendant has taken A's goods on an execution against B; when the process has been abused in all these cases a man is a trespasser ab initio. And a person capable of giving his assent may become a trespasser, by an act subsequent to the tort. If, for example, a an take possession of land for the use of another, the latter may afterwards recognize and adopt the act; by so doing, he places himself in the situation of one who had previously commanded it, and consequently is himself a trespasser, if the other had no right to enter, nor he to command the entry.
   

This entry contains material from Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850's.