Definition
Annos (also rendered as *non assumpsit infra sex annos*) is a historical common law plea name for the statute of limitations defense in an action of assumpsit. The term derives from the Latin form of the plea, in which the defendant alleged that the plaintiff's cause of action did not accrue — or that the defendant did not undertake the obligation — within six years preceding the filing of suit. The plea functioned as a procedural bar to recovery where the claim was time-expired under the applicable limitations period for assumpsit actions.
The full Latin formula from which the shorthand derives reads substantially as *non assumpsit infra sex annos* — "he did not undertake [within] six years" — with *annos* (years) serving as the identifying word in the abbreviated name. Once pleaded, the burden shifted to the plaintiff to establish that the action was timely.
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Common Confusion
Annos is sometimes loosely conflated with the general plea of *non assumpsit* (the general denial in assumpsit), but the two are distinct. *Non assumpsit* denies that any undertaking was ever made. Annos does not deny the undertaking — it admits the obligation but asserts that the time for bringing suit has expired. Confusing them in historical pleading records will lead to a misreading of the defendant's litigation posture. A defendant pleading Annos concedes the underlying promise; one pleading *non assumpsit* contests it.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in historical common law pleading records, treatises on evidence, and formbooks from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Researchers working in colonial American court records, English common law pleading archives, or early American state court files will encounter Annos as a shorthand notation in plea rolls and docket entries. It will not appear in modern pleading practice, which replaced Latin plea names with plain-language affirmative defenses.
The key research trap: Annos is specific to *assumpsit* (contract actions based on an implied or express promise). It does not apply to debt, covenant, or tort actions, each of which had their own limitations pleas and formulaic names. A researcher scanning plea rolls for limitations defenses across multiple forms of action cannot treat Annos as a universal marker — its presence confirms both the form of action (assumpsit) and the defense (limitations), making it doubly diagnostic when encountered.
Greenleaf's *Evidence* (2nd volume, § 342 and accompanying note) is the primary treatise reference cited by both source dictionaries and remains the standard secondary source for understanding how the plea operated at trial, including burden allocation and the kinds of evidence used to rebut or sustain it.
The six-year period referenced in the plea formula corresponds to the traditional limitations period for assumpsit under English statute (21 Jac. 1, c. 16), which was adopted in varying forms across American jurisdictions during the colonial and early national periods. Researchers encountering Annos in American records should not assume a uniform six-year period applied — local reception of the English statute varied, and some early American jurisdictions modified the applicable period by local enactment.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill and Black are in agreement on the core meaning: Annos names the statute of limitations plea in assumpsit, identified by the emphatic Latin words of the historical formula. Burrill's entry is marginally more precise in naming the full Latin form (*non assumpsit infra sex annos*) and pointing directly to Greenleaf. Black's entry is briefer but consistent.
Neither dictionary provides significant doctrinal depth, which is appropriate — Annos is a pleading label, not a substantive doctrine. Both sources treat it as a term of art requiring no further elaboration beyond identification and citation. Neither addresses jurisdictional variation in the limitations period itself, which is a gap researchers should fill with period-specific local statutes and treatises.
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Jurisdictional Note
The six-year period embedded in the Annos formula reflects English common law practice. American jurisdictions received this framework but modified it by local statute, and the period for contract actions varies across states in both historical and modern law. The plea form itself became obsolete with the shift to code and notice pleading in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
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