1. A relative or kinsman; a person connected by consanguinity or affin- ity. 2. The connection of two persons, or their situation with respect to each other, who are associated, whether by the law, by their own agreement, or by kinship, in some social status or union for the purposes of domestic life; as the relation of guardian and ward, husband and wife, master and servant, parent and child; so in the phrase “domestic relations.” 3. In the law of contracts, when an act is done at one time, and it operates upon the thing as if done at another time, it is said to do so by relation; as, if a man deliver a deed as an escrow, to be delivered, by the party holding it, to the grantor, on the performance of some act, the delivery to the latter will have relation back to the first delivery. Termes de la Ley. See U. S. v. Anderson, 194 U. S. 394, 24 Sup. Ct. 716, 48 L. Ed. 1035; Peyton v. Desmond, 129 Fed. 11, 63 C. C. A. 651. 4. A recital, account, narrative of facts; information given. Thus, suits by quo war- RELATION 1011 RELEASE ranto are entitled “on the relation or’ a private person, who is called the “relator.” But in this connection the word seems also to involve the idea of the suggestion, instigation, or instance of the relator. 5. In the civil law, the term “relation” was used to designate the report of the facts and law in a pending case, made by the judges to the emperor, for the purpose of ob- taining his opinion on the questions of law involved, in the form of an imperial rescript. This proceeding might be resorted to in cases where no law seemed applicable, or where there were great difficulties in its interpretation, until It was abolished by Jus- tinian. Nov. 125. Relation never defeats collateral acts. 18 Vin. Abr. 292. Relation shall never make good a void grant or devise of tke party. 18 Vin. Abr. 292.
