Definition
A Latin term meaning "to fall," "to fall in," "to come to hand," or "to happen." In legal usage, agcidere appears most commonly in the phrase quando acciderint (sometimes rendered quando acciderint), a judgment formula directing that a monetary obligation against an executor or administrator be satisfied from assets of the estate "when they shall come to hand" — that is, when sufficient assets are actually received or realized by the personal representative, rather than immediately upon judgment.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering agcidere will almost always encounter it embedded in the phrase quando acciderint rather than as a standalone term. The phrase appears in older English and American probate and equity practice as a qualifier on judgments against executors or administrators, and signals that enforcement is conditional on the future receipt of estate assets. This has practical significance: a judgment quando acciderint is not an ordinary money judgment immediately executable against the personal representative personally — it suspends collection until assets materialize.
When reading historical probate records, chancery decrees, or early American equity decisions, the phrase marks a distinct procedural posture. A researcher who does not recognize quando acciderint as a conditional judgment formula may misread the document as establishing immediate personal liability against the executor or administrator. It does not. It protects the representative from personal exposure while preserving the creditor's claim against the estate.
The term itself is purely Latin ecclesiastical and common-law vocabulary and will not appear in modern American statutory codes or procedural rules by name. Its relevance is confined to historical legal instruments, treatises on executors and administrators, and older equity practice materials. Researchers working in probate history, estate litigation, or the history of English chancery procedure will be most likely to encounter it.
Note also the variant spelling in Black's 2nd edition Supplemental: the headword appears as "agcidere" while the phrase in the definition is rendered "acci-derint" (hyphenated across a line break in the original), reflecting the typographic conventions of the source rather than a true variant spelling. Researchers should search variant forms — accidere, acciderint, quando acciderint — when conducting corpus searches.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) Supplemental is the primary legal dictionary source documenting this term. The entry is brief and functional: it identifies the Latin meanings and anchors the term's legal significance entirely in the quando acciderint judgment formula. The entry does not discuss the procedural history of that formula or its origins in English equity practice, which limits its utility as a standalone reference.
The formula quando acciderint has a longer history in English practice than the Black's entry suggests. It appears in treatises on executors dating to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, where courts of equity routinely entered such qualified judgments to account for the reality that an executor's ability to satisfy estate debts depended on the future collection of assets — rents coming due, debts owed to the decedent being paid in, property being sold. The term agcidere itself is simply the Latin root that generates acciderint, the future perfect indicative form meaning "they shall have come to hand."
No significant divergence among historical dictionaries is present here because the term is documented by only one source in the Law Mind corpus. The definition it provides is consistent with the established understanding of quando acciderint in equity and probate practice.
Jurisdictional Note
This term belongs to English and early American common-law and equity practice. It has no modern statutory home in any U.S. jurisdiction. Researchers working in Louisiana civil-law materials or other non-common-law traditions are unlikely to encounter it.