Definition
Ad notitiam perventa (Latin: "newly come to notice" or "newly come to knowledge") is a term from ecclesiastical procedure referring to facts that have only recently come to the knowledge of a party to a cause — that is, facts discovered or learned after the initial pleadings have been submitted. Because a party cannot be expected to plead facts unknown to them at the time of filing, ecclesiastical courts generally permitted amendment of the pleadings to include such newly discovered facts, even after pleadings were formally closed. The doctrine reflects a principle of procedural fairness: a litigant should not be penalized for failing to plead what they could not have known.
The related phrase noviter perventa (or noviter ad notitiam perventa) appears in older sources as a near-synonym and is the form more commonly used when describing the formal leave granted by the court to introduce such facts.
Common Confusion
Ad notitiam perventa is sometimes loosely conflated with the broader civil procedure concept of amendment to add newly discovered evidence. The ecclesiastical doctrine is narrower and more specific: it applies to facts first coming to a party's knowledge after pleadings close, not merely facts that were known but omitted. The permission to plead noviter perventa was a recognized procedural remedy within the ecclesiastical court system, which operated under canon law procedure quite distinct from common law pleading rules. Researchers should not assume that modern rules on amendment — such as those governing newly discovered evidence in post-trial motions — are direct descendants of this doctrine.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a term of art from historical ecclesiastical procedure and will appear almost exclusively in sources dealing with English ecclesiastical courts, canon law practice, or pre-modern church courts. Researchers encountering the phrase in historical records of probate, matrimonial, or defamation proceedings in English ecclesiastical courts should recognize it as a procedural marker: its presence signals a motion or application for leave to supplement the pleadings based on newly acquired knowledge.
The term is largely absent from American legal sources because ecclesiastical jurisdiction was not received into American civil court practice in the same form. Researchers working with colonial-era materials touching on ecclesiastical matters, or tracing the procedural history of courts with concurrent jurisdiction over probate and testamentary matters, may encounter the concept indirectly.
The distinction between noviter perventa (the broader Latin phrase) and ad notitiam perventa (emphasizing the subjective element of knowledge coming to the party) can matter when parsing historical pleadings or understanding why a court granted or denied leave to amend. The subjectivity of "coming to notice" — when did the party actually learn the fact? — could be disputed, making the phrase a potential point of contention in archived cause papers.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) provides the sole significant entry among the shelf sources. Black's situates the term squarely in ecclesiastical procedure and notes that leave to plead facts noviter perventa was generally given in proper cases even after pleadings were closed, citing Phillimore's Ecclesiastical Law and Rogers' Ecclesiastical Law. This framing is consistent with what is known of English ecclesiastical court practice, where the civilian procedural tradition — derived from Roman and canon law — was more flexible about post-pleading supplementation than the common law courts of the same era.
No entry appears in earlier general legal dictionaries that draw primarily from common law sources, which is expected: the term belongs to the civilian/canon law tradition, not the common law tradition. Researchers should look to specialized treatises on ecclesiastical law — such as Phillimore and Rogers, the very sources Black's cites — for fuller procedural context. The Black's entry is accurate but minimal; it identifies the concept without elaborating on the procedural mechanics, the standard for granting leave, or how "newly come to knowledge" was tested in practice.
Jurisdictional Note
This term is essentially confined to the historical English ecclesiastical court system and the canon law procedural tradition from which it derives. It has no operative counterpart in modern American or English civil procedure. Researchers working in comparative canon law or contemporary ecclesiastical tribunal practice (such as Catholic marriage tribunal proceedings) should consult modern canon law sources rather than historical common law dictionaries.