Under medieval English common law, if an inanimate object directly caused the death of a human being, the object itself was declared a 'deodand'—derived from the Latin phrase 'Deo dandum', meaning 'to be given to God'. Under this doctrine, the offending object was seized by the local coroner, forfeited to the Crown, and supposedly sold so the proceeds could be donated to pious causes or distributed as charity to appease God's wrath. The legal theory held that physical objects involved in fatal accidents were morally tainted or cursed.
A wide variety of everyday items faced legal condemnation: runaway cart wheels, fallen tree trunks, heavy millstones, leaking cauldrons, and even church bells that fell from belfries. The trial process involved a coroner's jury determining the exact value of the object responsible. If a horse and cart ran over someone, the jury might rule that only the left rear wheel caused the fatal injury, forfeiting only that wheel rather than the entire valuable wagon.
As England industrialized in the 19th century, the Law of Deodand became an enormous headache for booming steam railway companies. When a train locomotive derailed and caused fatal accidents, coroners routinely declared the entire, extremely expensive steam engine a deodand, demanding massive payouts to reclaim the machinery. Railway lobbyists eventually pressured Parliament, leading to the formal abolition of the doctrine in 1846.