The Collaborative International Dictionary
Possessory \Pos*sess"o*ry\, a. [L. possessorius: cf. F. possessoire.] Of or pertaining to possession, either as a fact or a right; of the nature of possession; as, a possessory interest; a possessory lord.
Possessory action or Possessory suit (Law), an action to regain or obtain possession of something. See under Petitory.
Wiktionary
a. Of, pertaining to, having or arising from possession.
Wikipedia
In legal usage, Possessory forms several compounds.
Usage examples of "possessory".
Thus in World War I the State of New York enacted a statute which, declaring that a public emergency existed, forbade the enforcement of covenants for the surrender of the possession of premises on the expiration of leases, and wholly deprived for a period owners of dwellings, including apartment and tenement houses, within the City of New York and contiguous counties of possessory remedies for the eviction from their premises of tenants in possession when the law took effect, providing the latter were able and willing to pay a reasonable rent.
The meaning of the rule that all bailees have the possessory remedies is, that in the theory of the common law every bailee has a true possession, and that a bailee recovers on the strength of his possession, just as a finder does, and as even a wrongful possessor may have full damages or a return of the specific thing from a stranger to the title.
The point which is essential to understanding the common-law theory of possession is now established: that all bailees from time immemorial have been regarded by the English law as possessors, and entitled to the possessory remedies.
In the next place, and this was the importance of the last Lecture to this subject, the common law has always given the possessory remedies to all bailees without exception.
On the other hand, so far as the possessory actions are still allowed to bailors, it is not on the ground that they also have possession, but is probably by a survival, which [175] explained, and which in the modern form of the an anomaly.
Rent was treated in early law as a real right, of which a disseisin was possible, and for which a possessory action could be brought.
In the assize of novel disseisin, which which was a true possessory action, the defendant could always rely on his title.
Perhaps [209] another fact besides those which have been mentioned has influenced this reasoning, and that is the accurate division between possessory and petitory actions or defences in Continental procedure.