PETITORY. That which demands or petitions that which has, the, quality of a prayer or petition; a right to demand.
2. A petitory suit or action is understood to be one in which the mere title to property is to be enforced by means of a demand or petition, as distinguished from a possessory suit. 1 Kent, Com. 371.
3. In the Scotch law, petitory actions are so called, not because something is sought to be awarded by the judge, for in that sense all actions must be petitory, but because some demand is made upon the defender, in consequence either of the right of property or credit in the pursuer. Thus, actions for restitution of movables, actions of pounding, of forthcoming, and indeed all personal actions upon contracts, or quasi contracts, which the Romans called condictiones, are petitory. Ersk. Inst. b. 4, t. 1, n. 47.