Definition
A writ of old English law directed at preventing the dissipation or waste of cattle and goods seized or held by another party during a legal dispute. The writ issued when the person holding the property was unlikely to be able to satisfy a judgment — that is, when they lacked the financial means to make the aggrieved party whole — and when there was a risk they would dispose of or squander the property before the matter was resolved. Its purpose was protective and preservatory: to freeze assets in controversy until the dispute could be settled by the court.
The name translates roughly from Latin as "for arresting goods lest they be dissipated."
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Common Confusion
The term is occasionally run together in source texts as "Arrestandis Bonis Ne Dissipenitur," "Arrestandis Bonis Ne Dissipentur," or hyphenated variants (as in Black's Supplemental). These are the same writ. The variation is a product of inconsistent Latin transcription across centuries of legal printing, not distinct writs with distinct functions. Researchers should search under multiple spellings in historical sources.
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Why It Matters in Research
This is a relic writ of the English common law system and will appear almost exclusively in historical sources — primarily in registries of original writs (Registrum Omnium Brevium), early treatises on English practice, and the occasional digest or legal dictionary entry derived from them. It has no modern procedural counterpart under that name, though its function — preservation of assets pending litigation — survives in modern law through injunctions, attachment, and receivership.
Researchers working on the history of provisional remedies or the development of pre-judgment asset protection will find this writ part of a family of early English writs concerned with securing property during litigation. The writ's two-part trigger — (1) risk of dissipation and (2) judgment-proof defendant — maps closely onto the logic that still underlies modern attachment and freezing injunctions, making it a useful historical anchor for tracing the lineage of those doctrines.
Because the writ is so rarely discussed, secondary sources are thin. Researchers will likely need to go directly to Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium or the Registrum Originale to find substantive treatment beyond dictionary entries. Do not rely solely on Black's summary for any analytical claim — the entry is compressed and does not address procedural details, issuing courts, or limitations on the writ's use.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed., Supplemental) provides the only dictionary entry identified in the current Law Mind corpus. It is brief: the writ lay for a person whose goods or cattle were taken by another who, during the contest, was likely to make away with them and lacked the ability to render satisfaction, citing Reg. Orig. 126.
The entry is notable for what it omits. It does not address which court issued the writ, whether return was required of the officer executing it, or how the writ interacted with the underlying action. The citation to the Registrum Originale (Reg. Orig.) at page 126 is the primary documentary anchor and the appropriate starting point for deeper research. No divergence among historical sources can be assessed from the current corpus, as only one source covers this term. Researchers should treat Black's summary as an introduction, not a complete account.
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Jurisdictional Note
This writ is a creature of English common law and has no direct equivalent in American statutory or common law under this name. Its conceptual descendants — prejudgment attachment, the Mareva injunction in Commonwealth jurisdictions, and receivership — vary significantly by jurisdiction. Researchers applying this writ's logic to modern practice must identify the applicable modern doctrine in the relevant jurisdiction rather than treating the historical writ as operative authority.
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