Apportionment

The legal term apportionment (French apportionement; Med. Latin apportionamentum; derived from Latin portio, share) means distribution or allotment in proper shares. The legal term apportionment (French apportionement; Med. Latin apportionamentum; derived from Latin portio, share) means distribution or allotment in proper shares. It is a term used in law in a variety of senses. Sometimes it is employed roughly and has no technical meaning; this indicates the distribution of a benefit (e.g. salvage or damages under the Fatal Accidents Act 1846, § 2), or liability (e.g. general average contributions, or tithe rent-charge), or the incidence of a duty (e.g. obligations as to the maintenance of highways). In its strict legal interpretation apportionment falls into two classes: 'apportionment in respect of estate' and 'apportionment in respect of time.' Apportionment in respect of estate may result either from the act of the parties or from the operation of law. Where a lessee is evicted from, or surrenders or forfeits possession of part of the property leased to him, he becomes liable at common law to pay only a rent apportioned to the value of the interest which he still retains. So where the person entitled to the reversion of an estate assigns part of it, the right to an apportioned part of the rent incident to the England, and in many of the British colonies. In the cases just mentioned there is apportionment in respect of estate by act of the parties. Apportionment by operation of law may be brought about where by act of law a lease becomes inoperative as regards its subject-matter, or by the 'act of God', as, for instance, where part of an estate is submerged by the encroachments of the sea. To the same category belongs the apportionment of rent which takes place under various statutes (e.g. the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act 1845, § 119, when land is required for public purposes; the Agricultural Holdings Act 1883, § 41, in the case of a tenant from year to year receiving notice to quit part of a holding; and the Irish Land Act 1903 § 61, apportionment of quit and crown rents). At common law, there was no apportionment of rent in respect of time. Such apportionment was, however, in certain cases allowed in England by the Distress for Rent Act 1737, and the Apportionment Act 1834, and is now allowed generally. Under that statute (§2) all rents, annuities, dividends and other periodical payments in the nature of income are to be considered as accruing from day to day and to be apportionable in respect of time accordingly. It is provided, however, that the apportioned part of such rents, etc., shall only be payable or recoverable in the case of a continuing payment, when the entire portion of which it forms part itself becomes payable, and, in the case of a payment determined by re-entry, death or otherwise, only when the next entire portion would have been payable if it had not so determined (§ 3). Persons entitled to apportioned parts of rent have the same remedies for recovering them when payable as they would have had in respect of the entire rent; but a lessee is not to be liable for any apportioned part specifically. The rent is recoverable by the heir or other person who would, but for the apportionment, be entitled to the entire rent, and he holds it subject to distribution (§ 4). The Apportionment Act 1870 extends to payments not made under any instrument in writing (§2), but not to annual sums made payable in policies of insurance (§ 6). Apportionment under the act can be excluded by express stipulation.