ACC - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

ACCAuthored

The Law Mind • 742 words

Definition

ACC is a citational abbreviation used in legal writing and law reports to signal that a cited authority agrees with, accords with, or confirms the proposition for which the primary authority is cited. It functions as a shorthand notation placed before a supporting citation to indicate that the referenced case or source reaches the same conclusion or applies the same doctrine as the primary authority, without being directly on point.

In practice, ACC (or its expanded form "accord") tells the reader: this additional source supports the same rule, though it may arise from a different jurisdiction, involve different facts, or be less directly dispositive than the primary citation.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Abbreviation of accusative case (a grammatical term in linguistics).

Historical common usage: Not in Webster's 1913 as a legal term.

The gap here is complete. A reader encountering ACC in a grammar or linguistics context will find a reference to noun case marking. A reader encountering ACC in a legal brief or law review footnote is reading a citation signal, wholly unrelated to grammar. The two usages share only the abbreviation.

Common Confusion

ACC is occasionally conflated with the full citation signal ACCORD, though they are functionally the same — ACC is simply the abbreviated form. More importantly, researchers sometimes confuse ACC/accord with the signal SEE, which indicates that the cited source supports the proposition only inferentially or by analogy. Accord signals direct agreement; see signals indirect support. A further confusion arises with CONTRA, which is the direct opposite signal, denoting disagreement or conflicting authority. Burrill explicitly notes this distinction: "The disagreement or opposition of cases is denoted by contra."

Why It Matters in Research

Researchers working with historical law reports and digests will encounter ACC (and its variants) as a compact editorial tool inserted by compilers and reporters to build doctrinal clusters around a leading case. Understanding the signal matters for two reasons.

First, navigating older sources: In pre-twentieth-century reports and digests, the signal appears inconsistently — sometimes as ACC, sometimes as Acc., sometimes spelled out as accord or accordant. Burrill identifies accordant as the adjectival form used in this same function. Researchers must recognize all variants to avoid misreading a citational signal as part of the substantive text.

Second, evaluating weight: An ACC or accord signal in a historical source tells you that the compiler judged the cited authority to be in agreement — but that judgment reflects the compiler's era and understanding of the doctrine. A case marked ACC in an 1850 digest may have been subsequently distinguished or overruled. The signal indicates historical doctrinal alignment, not current good law.

In modern legal writing governed by The Bluebook or similar citation manuals, "accord" functions as a formal citation signal with defined meaning. Researchers moving between historical sources and modern briefs should treat the abbreviation as a signal of doctrinal agreement, not as a term with independent substantive content.

Historical Dictionary Support

Burrill's Law Dictionary treats ACC in its citational and comparative sense, describing it as a notation used in law reports "to denote the accordance or agreement between one adjudged case and another, in establishing, or confirming the same doctrine, and sometimes, the accordance of judges in opinion in the same case." Burrill cross-references Accordant and directs readers to Spelman for further authority on the signal's usage.

Burrill's treatment is useful precisely because it captures the pre-standardization era of citation practice, when compilers exercised editorial discretion in deploying such signals rather than following a uniform manual. The entry makes plain that ACC was a recognized and purposeful notation, not mere shorthand invented ad hoc.

What Burrill does not address — and what later citation manuals fill in — is any hierarchy among citation signals or guidance on when accord is preferable to direct citation. That systematization came later.

Jurisdictional Note

ACC as a citation signal is not jurisdiction-specific in its meaning, but its usage frequency varies. American legal writing (particularly law review articles and federal court briefs) employs the accord signal with some regularity. English and Commonwealth legal writing relies on different citation conventions and does not use this abbreviation in the same standardized way.

ACCmain

Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1867

(17) another, in establishing, or confirming the same doctrine, and sometimes, the accordance of judges in opinion in the same case. See Accordant. The disagreement or opposition of cases is denoted by contra. Spelman, ub. sup. See Headland, Siding. reports, to denote the accordance or agreeThis shows a marked distinction between ment between one adjudged case and the two kinds of boundaries, though it is now lost in the general, and not strictly accurate term, abuttal. A still further distinction was sometimes anciently made between one of the ends of a piece of land, and the other, or opposite end, as in the phrases, caput terræ, cauda terræ, (qq. v.) This formal division, however, of the boundary lines of lands into ends and sides, seems necessarily predicated on a regular four-sided figure in the land itself. There is another sense in which the term abuttal or butt (bout,) was probably, and perhaps originally used; appearing as it does, to involve the radical meaning of the word, besides being applicable to lands of every shape, and not merely to those where the ends were distinguishable from the sides, viz. the end of a boundary line, or the point where it stopped, and turned in a new direction. These points, or angles were, from the earliest times, distinguished by some visible object, or landmark, as at the present day. According to Camden, there were hillocks raised upon the lines on purpose, which were called botentines, from which Cowell conjectures the term butting to have sprung. In confirmation of the opinion here advanced, it may be observed that the words mete and butt, in the common phrases, "metes and bounds," "butts and bounds," and which appear to be the synonymes of abuttal, as they are of each other, have both the same double meaning of a terminating and turning point. See Butts, Bounds, Metes. (19) was, by word or writing, Habeo, acceptumque fero; (I hold it so, and put it down as received.) Bract. fol. 101 a. Fleta, lib. 2, c. 60, § 11. The last clause in this example shows the etymology of the word; (latio, from ferre.) It was sometimes written as two words, accepti latio. Fleta, ubi supra. Hale's P. C. 618, 622. Hawk. P. C. b. 2, c. 29, s. 32. And generally, any assistance whatever, given to a felon, to hinder his being apprehended, tried or suffering punishment, makes such assistor an accessary; as furnishing him with a horse to escape his pursuers, money or victuals to support him, a house or other shelter to conceal him, or open force and violence to rescue him. Hawk. P. C. b. 2, c. 29, ss. 26, 27, 28. 1 Hale's P. C. Richardson's 620, 621. 4 Bl. Com. 38. 4 Steph. Com. 91. 2 N. Y. Rev. Stat. [699,] 583, Acceptilation is used in modern civil law, and in Scotch law. Bell's Dict. It is also used as an ordinary English word, by some of the old writers. Dict. ( 20 ) • another, but understood by it the thing itself which comes to be joined to another. 1 Mack. Civ. Law, 279, § 266, note (d.) Id. 155, § 153. An incident or appurtenant to another thing. Dig. 34. 2. 19. 13. The profit, fruit, or increase of a thing. More commonly used in the plural, (accessiones.) Dig. 22. 1. An incidental or auxiliary obligation, as that of a surety. Calv. Lex. A party contracting such obligation. Id. Brissonius. ( 21 ) Pothier, Oblig. part 1, ch. 1, sect. 1, art. 2. (22) it. Tomlins. Jacob. This term includes are two judgments; the first is that the deall the participes criminis, whether confendant do account, (quod computet,) before sidered in strict legal propriety as princiauditors appointed by the court, and, when pals, or as accessories. 1 Russell on such account is finished, then the second Crimes, 26. It is generally applied to judgment is that he do pay the plaintiff so those who are admitted to give evidence much as he is found in arrear. 3 Bl. against their fellow criminals. 4 Bl. Com. Com. 162. 331. Hawk. P. C. b. 2, c. 37, § 7. (23) grow or arise; to begin Actio non accrevit infra the action did not ac3 Chitt. Pl. 941. L. Fr. To increase, or accrue. Kelham. See Accrescere.

accnoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
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Abbreviation of accusative case

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