6-127.Expiration of plaintiff's right or termination of plaintiff's title before trial.

An ejectment plaintiff's interest in the property does not always last through the entire lawsuit. This section covers what happens when a plaintiff's right expires, or the plaintiff's title terminates, sometime after the action is filed but before it goes to trial. Rather than pretending the interest still exists, a jury verdict, if the case is tried by a jury, must be returned according to the actual fact of that expiration or termination.

The judgment that follows reflects the changed reality. The plaintiff still recovers damages for the defendant's withholding of the premises during the period the plaintiff's right existed, with those damages to be assessed, but the action itself is dismissed as to the premises claimed, since the plaintiff no longer has a live interest in recovering possession.

The section specifies who assesses those damages: the court or the jury trying the case may assess them once the verdict or finding establishes that the plaintiff's right expired or title terminated before trial. This section works alongside 6-104's requirement that the plaintiff's interest be valid and subsisting at commencement; it addresses what happens when that interest, valid at the outset, does not survive to the trial itself.