Champarty

Champarty, or Champerty, a species of maintenance of litigation. It consists in the purchasing or bargaining over a thing in dispute between rival parties, with the object of maintaining and taking part in the litigation. It is not champarty if the parties to such purchase have a common interest, and a moral interest, as that, of a parent in a child, suffices. Nor is it champarty to simply mortgage the property in litigation, with the object of raising the necessary funds to carry it on. Champarty is a misdemeanor punishable by fine and imprisonment. In Scotland this offence has no existence, i.e. it is not punishable.