Definition
A Law French phrase meaning "to go without day." In old English legal practice, the phrase indicated the final dismissal of a party or case from court without any further date being assigned for appearance and without any continuance to a future day. A party who was granted leave to "aler sans jour" was discharged from the proceedings entirely — there was no obligation to return, because no future day had been set. The phrase functioned as a formulaic marker of finality: the court's business with that party was concluded.
Common Confusion
Aler sans jour is sometimes loosely equated with any dismissal or nonsuit, but the distinction matters historically. Not every dismissal carried the same finality. A continuance postponed proceedings to a named future date; a nonsuit might be voluntary or conditional; but aler sans jour specifically meant the party left court with no day assigned — the most absolute form of discharge available. Researchers encountering dismissal language in old records should not assume the terms are interchangeable without confirming which formula was used.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in medieval and early modern English court records, Year Books, and treatises on common law pleading and practice. By the time American legal practice was codified, the phrase had largely disappeared from active use, surviving mainly as a historical reference in treatises and law dictionaries.
Several research traps apply:
First, the phrase is Law French, and variant spellings appear in older sources. Researchers working with manuscript records or early printed Year Books may encounter forms such as "aller sans jour" or the Latinized equivalent "ire sine die" (rendered in court Latin as "eat inde sine die"). Black's and Burrill both confirm this Latin counterpart, and Burrill cross-references "Eat inde sine die" as a companion entry. A researcher who knows only one form may miss relevant records.
Second, the functional concept — a court dismissal with no future date assigned — survives in modern practice under entirely different terminology. The modern equivalent is dismissal "without prejudice" or "with prejudice" depending on context, and in some procedural contexts the concept maps onto a final judgment of dismissal. The vocabulary has changed; the underlying procedural reality has not vanished. Researchers tracing the history of finality doctrine in civil procedure will find aler sans jour at the early end of that chain.
Third, the phrase is a useful signal when reading old pleading records. Its presence indicates that the entry or record reflects a terminal event in the litigation, not a procedural interlude. This helps researchers distinguish substantive outcomes from procedural continuances when indexing or analyzing archival court records.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (both the first and second editions) defines the term identically and briefly: "a phrase used to indicate the final dismissal of a case from court without continuance" and glosses it as "to go without day." The entries are compressed and treat the term as a simple historical artifact requiring no extended analysis.
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the more useful source for research purposes. Burrill confirms the Law French origin, provides the Latin equivalent ("ire sine die"), cites the formulaic variant "eat inde sine die," and references Cowell's law lexicon as well as Littleton's Tenures (section 201) and Coke on Littleton (134b) — sources that situate the phrase within the substantive framework of old English practice. Burrill's cross-reference to "Eat inde sine die" is particularly valuable because that Latin form appears in formal court entries where the Law French phrase might not.
No significant divergence exists among the three source dictionaries on meaning. All agree on the core definition. The differences are in depth: Burrill preserves the procedural context and cross-references that Black's omits. Researchers relying only on Black's will understand the term but may miss the Latin-form equivalent most likely to appear in the primary sources they are actually searching.
Jurisdictional Note
This term is specific to the historical common law courts of England and was carried into early American colonial and state practice before being superseded by modern procedural codes. It is not in active use in any current jurisdiction.