mutilation

As applied to written documents, such as wills, court records, and the like, this term means rendering the document imperfect by the subtraction from it of some essential part, as, by cutting, tearing, burning, or erasure, but without totally destroying it.

See U.C.C. No. 3-407.

Also, the alteration in the writing, as in a negotiable instrument, so as to make it another and different instrument and no longer evidence of the contract which the parties made. Clem v. Chapman, Tex. Civ.App., 262 S.W. 168,171.

See also alteration

- deface

- spoliation.

In criminal law, the depriving a man of the use of any of those limbs which may be useful to him in fight, the loss of which amounts to mayhem. People v. Bullington, 27 Cal.App.2d 396, 80 P.2d 1030, 1032.

See maim

- mayhem.

It is a federal crime to mutilate public records (18 U.S.C.A. No. 2071), coins (No. 331), passports (No. 1543)