Definition
Latin: "To which there was no answer." A phrase appearing in early English law reports to signal one of three distinct silences in the course of legal argument: (1) a point advanced by one party was not denied or countered by the opposing party; (2) an argument made by counsel was not addressed or noticed by the court; or (3) an objection raised by counsel was met by the court, yet counsel offered no reply. In each use, the phrase functions as a reporter's notation — a shorthand observation that a particular argument or point passed without rebuttal, leaving it effectively unanswered on the record of the proceeding.
Common Confusion
The phrase is sometimes read as implying that the unanswered argument was therefore accepted as correct, or that silence operated as concession or judicial adoption. This overreads the notation. The phrase records only the fact of non-response; it carries no formal legal weight as precedent or admission. An argument going unanswered by opposing counsel does not become established law, and a point unaddressed by a court is not necessarily endorsed by it. Researchers encountering the phrase in early reports should treat it as a reporter's observation about the record, not as a substantive ruling.
Why It Matters in Research
The phrase is a creature of early English legal reporting practice and has essentially no operational life in modern legal proceedings. Its significance for researchers is almost entirely historical and bibliographic.
When reading Year Books, early Coke reports, or other pre-modern English law reporters, this notation serves as a signal about the quality of argument preserved in the record. Its appearance may indicate that a point was strategically abandoned, that counsel was unprepared, that the court found an argument beneath reply, or simply that the reporter chose to note what was conspicuously missing from the exchange. Understanding the phrase prevents a researcher from misreading silence as assent.
The three distinct usages identified in Black's 2nd edition deserve attention: they cover three different actors (opposing counsel, the court, and the originating counsel), and the rhetorical significance of each differs. Silence from opposing counsel may suggest weakness in their position; silence from the court may suggest the point was overlooked or considered unimportant; silence from counsel after a court's response may suggest concession. None of these inferences is reliable without corroborating context.
Researchers tracing the development of a common law doctrine through early reports should note the phrase when it appears near arguments that later became settled law — it sometimes marks the historical moment when a contested point was first left uncontested. In that narrow sense, the phrase can have genealogical value for doctrinal history research.
The term will not appear in modern American or English legal instruments, statutes, rules, or contemporary case reporters. Its domain is the annotated reading of historical sources.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree on the core translation and the basic function of the phrase. Black's 1st edition and Burrill's both offer minimal treatment — a translation and a note that it appears in the reports. Black's 2nd edition provides the most useful entry, identifying the three distinct contexts of use and citing Coke's reports as illustrations.
The citations to 3 Coke 9 and 4 Coke 40 in Black's 2nd edition point to Edward Coke's reports, where the phrase appears in its natural reporting habitat. Researchers wishing to see the phrase in situ should consult those volumes directly.
No historical dictionary entry addresses the interpretive trap identified above — the risk of reading non-response as concession. That gap is significant for a researcher who encounters the phrase without prior exposure to early reporting conventions.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Legal Maxims and Latin Phrases; History of English Legal Reporting