Definition
Latin: "In a different view" or "with another view or object." The phrase describes an action, proceeding, or transaction that operates — or is alleged to operate — under a different purpose, intent, or legal aspect than the one stated or ostensibly at issue.
In practical legal usage, alio intuitu most often appears in one of two contexts:
1. A proceeding is characterized as brought alio intuitu when it is not prosecuted in good faith for the purpose or on the grounds formally alleged, but instead serves some other, unstated object. In English divorce practice, this usage became a term of art: a suit was said to be brought alio intuitu when the party's actual motive diverged from the grounds pleaded.
2. More broadly, the phrase describes a legal instrument, grant, or act that has a different legal character or operative effect depending on the aspect under which it is viewed — distinct from how it might appear under another frame of analysis.
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Common Confusion
Alio intuitu is occasionally conflated with the concept of collusion or fraud on the court, but it is not synonymous with either. A suit brought alio intuitu need not involve active deception of the court; it may simply mean that the true object of the litigation is other than what the pleadings disclose. The phrase describes motive and purpose, not necessarily misconduct. It is also distinct from the Latin phrase aliud simulatum, aliud actum (one thing simulated, another done), which connotes outright sham.
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Why It Matters in Research
This is a phrase that migrated from Latin pleading and admiralty practice into English domestic relations law, particularly divorce, where it acquired a specific procedural meaning. Researchers will encounter it in two distinct bodies of authority that should not be conflated.
In admiralty and general common law contexts, the phrase appears as a neutral analytical tool — a way of saying that a legal instrument or act looks different depending on which legal aspect governs it. In that usage it is descriptive, not accusatory.
In English divorce practice, however, the phrase became a quasi-technical ground for objecting to or dismissing proceedings. When a respondent alleged that a suit was brought alio intuitu, the charge was that the petitioner's real motive — say, financial advantage or harassment — was not the statutory ground pleaded. This use tracks divorce practice under the Matrimonial Causes Act and pre-codification ecclesiastical court procedure. Researchers working in nineteenth-century English divorce records, or in American courts applying analogous doctrine, should look for this phrase as a signal that the good faith of the plaintiff's pleadings is in dispute.
The phrase does not appear frequently in modern American casebooks or statutory schemes, but it resurfaces in historical research on collusive divorce and in admiralty scholarship discussing the legal character of transactions viewed under different legal aspects. Because it sits at the intersection of Latin maxim, admiralty practice, and domestic relations law, it will appear in different parts of the Law Mind corpus with distinct meanings depending on context. Treat the subject-matter domain as a disambiguation key.
Researchers should also note that alio intuitu sometimes appears in close proximity to the maxim aliquid conceditur ne injuria remaneat impunita — a related but independent principle that something will be conceded to prevent a wrong from going unredressed. Several historical dictionaries bundle the two phrases in the same entry. They are not synonymous; the maxim about unredressed wrongs is a distinct rule of legal construction that the historical sources happen to place nearby.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The historical sources agree on the core Latin sense: "in a different view" or "with another view or object." Black's (both editions) and Burrill's are consistent on this point, each citing early admiralty authority, including 4 Rob. Adm. & Pr. 151 and Lord Ellenborough's usage in 7 East 558. These citations point to early nineteenth-century English admiralty and common law contexts.
Rapalje & Lawrence is the most practically informative of the historical sources. It explicitly connects alio intuitu to English divorce practice and cites Browne's treatise on divorce at pages 131 and 339, giving researchers a direct path to the doctrinal elaboration of the phrase in that specific procedural context. Neither Black's nor Burrill's makes this connection, which means a researcher relying solely on those dictionaries might miss the divorce-practice usage entirely.
Bouvier's entry for this phrase appears to have been lost or corrupted in the available source text; the excerpt supplied does not correspond to alio intuitu but instead to alimony factors. Researchers should not rely on Bouvier's version for this term without consulting the original.
None of the historical dictionaries address what happens when the alio intuitu objection is sustained — whether the suit is dismissed, stayed, or merely noted — leaving the procedural consequences to the treatise literature rather than the dictionaries.
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