Chosein Action

Chose in Action is a right to recover which exists in law as against the actual enjoyment or possession of the thing. Thus money due on a bond is a chose in action, for there is a right to claim the money when payable, but there is no possession of it until it is recovered by course of law, or until payment be first voluntarily made. And so if a man promise or covenant with me to do any act and fail in it whereby I suffer damage, the recompense for this damage is a chose in action, for though a right to some recompense vests in me at the time of the damage done, yet what and how large such recompense shall be can only be ascertained by law, and possession can only be given me by legal judgment and execution. A chose in action, then, is a thing rather in potentia than in esse, and the owner may have as absolutely a property in, and be as well entitled to, things in action as to things in possession. By the Judicature Act, 1873, any absolute assignment in writing by the assignor of any debt or chose in action or notice given to the debtor or obliger passes the legal right to the same subject to all existing equities therein, as well as all remedies for recovery thereof, to the assignee. Formerly the assignee could not sue in his own name.