deodand

The claim is against the property that caused harm, and the object or its equivalent value would be forfeited to the Crown as a “deodand,” which is something “given to God.”

Deodand, dē′o-dand, n. in old English law, a personal chattel which had been the immediate, accidental cause of the death of a human being, forfeited to the crown for pious uses.

The verdict returned was "Accidental Death," with a deodand of five pounds upon the bull.

The old law of Deodand was an expression of this feeling of resentment against inanimate objects even.

It was a principle of English common law derived from the feudal period, that anything through the instrumentality of which death occurred was forfeited to the p. 89crown as a deodand; accordingly down to the year 1840 and even later, we find, in all cases where persons were killed, records of deodands levied by the coroners’ juries upon locomotives.