Case, Action On The - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition case-action-on-the

Definition :

Case, action on the. The action on the case lay where a party sued for damages for any wrong or cause of complaint (such as negligence, or breach of contract not under seal) to which covenant or trespass did not apply. Statutory sanction was obtained for this form of action under the Statute of Westminster 2 (13 Edw. 1, c. 24), which regulated and limited the increasing practice of framing new writs by officers of the Crown and empowered the Clerks in Chancery to frame new writs in consimili casu with writs then in existence, see Pollock on Torts and Law Quarterly Review, Vol. 52, p. 68. Under the statutory sanction many new writs which were analogous to the writ of trespass, or in consimili casu with that action, were invented and issued under the appellation of 'trespass on the case' (brevia 'de transgressione super casum') as being founded on the particular circumstances of the case thus requiring a remedy, and to distinguish them from the old writ of trespass; and the injuries themselves, which are the subject of such writs, were not called trespasses, but had the general name of torts. Slander in the Limitation Act, 1623 (21 Jac. 1, c. 16), is termed 'an action on the case for words' as well as slander, two years being fixed as its limitation of time, six years being fixed for other actions on the case, whereas four were fixed for trespass, except to land, in which case the limit was six.

But another instance of the exercise of the statutory authority was the issue of the writ 'indebitatus assumpsit, and although this cause of action has been assigned to the breach (a tort) of a promise and therefore in trespass the writ may also plausibly be ascribed to have been founded on fact in consimili casu with those required to support the legal action of 'debt' (also founded, by implication, on failure to pay), see the Chancery writ, consimili casu, and ORIGINAL WRIT.

As the technical mode of pleading at Common Law was abolished by the Judicature Acts, 1873 and 1875, the term 'action on the case' only continues to exist as a convenient mode of expression, and has ceased to be a term of art.

For different kinds of actions of trespass on the case, see Malicious Prosecution; Negligence; Deceit; Libel; Slander; Seduction; Lights; Ways; Seducing From Service.

A proceeding, action, suit or controversy at law or in equity, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn.