Definition
Latin: "without such cause." A formal phrase used in common law pleading as part of the replication de injuria — a procedural device by which a plaintiff could deny, in a single comprehensive response, all the defensive matter pleaded by the defendant. The full formula from which this phrase is drawn is de injuria sua propria absque tali causa ("of his own wrong without such cause"), meaning the plaintiff asserted that the defendant acted wrongfully on his own initiative, independent of any justification or excuse the defendant had alleged. The phrase absque tali causa is the trailing element of that formula — the denial of "such cause" as the defendant claimed.
The replication de injuria and its associated formulas are obsolete. They belonged to the formal system of common law pleading that was displaced in English practice by the Common Law Procedure Act 1852 and in American jurisdictions by the Field Code of 1848 and subsequent civil procedure reforms culminating in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (1938).
Common Confusion
Absque tali causa is sometimes encountered in isolation in older pleading materials and can be mistaken for a standalone plea or defense. It is neither. It is a fragment of a longer formula — de injuria sua propria absque tali causa — and has no independent procedural meaning apart from that replication. Researchers who encounter only the short form in a historical document should treat it as a reference to the full replication de injuria. The two terms are cross-listed in Burrill precisely because confusion on this point is likely.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in pre-reform pleading records, practice manuals, and treatises dating from before the mid-nineteenth century. Researchers working with English common law pleading materials from the seventeenth through mid-nineteenth centuries, or American materials from the colonial period through the early republic, may encounter it in case records, writs, or practice guides.
The primary trap: the phrase appears superficially self-explanatory (Latin readers may translate it without recognizing its technical procedural role) but its significance is entirely structural. Seeing absque tali causa in a historical pleading record signals that the plaintiff was deploying the general replication — a relatively aggressive pleading choice that collapsed multiple potential traverses into one. This has implications for understanding what issues were actually joined and what the defendant's plea must have contained.
For corpus researchers, the term functions as a reliable marker of common law pleading practice. Its presence in a document places that document firmly within the formal pleading era. Its absence in later materials of similar type may itself indicate when a jurisdiction transitioned to code pleading.
Researchers should also note: Stephen's Pleadings (Steph. Pl.), cited by both editions of Black's, is Henry John Stephen's A Treatise on the Principles of Pleading in Civil Actions (multiple editions from 1824 forward). This is the authoritative primary source for understanding the mechanics of de injuria and the role of absque tali causa within it. Black's citation to page 191 refers to the section on replications generally.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree on the essentials: absque tali causa is Latin for "without such cause" and functions as formal language within the replication de injuria. The entries are brief and convergent, reflecting that the phrase had no contested meaning — it was a fixed formula, not an interpretive concept.
Burrill adds the most navigational value by explicitly cross-referencing the full Latin phrase de injuria sua propria absque tali causa, correctly treating absque tali causa as a fragment requiring that fuller entry to be understood. Both editions of Black's cite Stephen's Pleadings as the authoritative source, which is appropriate; Stephen remains the most accessible systematic account of common law pleading for researchers without direct access to the older practitioners' manuals.
What the historical dictionaries do not supply: any account of how the replication de injuria functioned strategically, what kinds of defenses it was used to answer, or how courts treated its sufficiency when challenged. Researchers needing that context must go to Stephen directly or to Chitty's Pleading, another standard nineteenth-century practice treatise.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: De Injuria; Common Law Pleading; Replication.