Hotch-pot

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Hotch-pot, or hotch-potch, in English law, is the name given to a rule of equity whereby a person, interested along with others in a common fund, and having already received something in the same interest, is required to surrender what has been so acquired into the common fund, on pain of being excluded from the distribution. The same principle is to be found in the collatio bonorum of Roman law: emancipated children, in order to share the inheritance of their father with the children unemancipated, were required to bring their property into the common fund.

The name hotch-pot is taken from a kind of pudding. The term is derived from the French word hocher, or "shake." It was used as early as 1292 as a law term, and from the 15th century in cooking for a sort of broth with many ingredients (see Hodge-Podge soup), and so it is used figuratively for any heterogeneous mixture.

It is also found in the law of Scotland.

[edit] References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.