Definition
"Audita" is a Latin legal term meaning "having been heard" — the feminine past participle of the verb *audire*, to hear. In legal usage, it appears almost exclusively as the first word of the compound phrase AUDITA QUERELA ("the complaint having been heard"), a common law writ and procedural remedy. Standing alone, "audita" has no independent legal force; it functions as a grammatical component signaling that the matter before the court has been heard or that the complainant's grievance has been received and considered.
The term also appears in older doctrinal writing as part of the broader Latin vocabulary of writs and pleading, where the passive participial construction was used to name writs by their operative circumstance — the hearing of a matter — rather than by a command or grant.
Common Confusion
Researchers encountering "audita" in historical sources should not treat it as a standalone term of art. It is not a writ, remedy, or doctrine in itself. The full operative phrase is AUDITA QUERELA. Anderson's Dictionary directs researchers immediately from "audita" to "audita querela" and the related entry for "audire," confirming that the term carries meaning only in combination. Confusion arises most often when legal indexes or digests abbreviate the compound phrase, leaving researchers with a fragment.
Why It Matters in Research
The principal research value of "audita" as a standalone entry is navigational. Researchers working in older case reporters, digests, or treatise indexes may encounter the term in abbreviated or truncated form — particularly in pre-twentieth-century materials where Latin writ names were often shortened in headnotes, marginal notes, or index entries. Knowing that "audita" is always a lead-in to "audita querela" prevents dead ends.
Anderson's cross-references are instructive here: the entry points to People v. Green (1874) and to Coke's Institutes (Book IV), as well as to Miller's Appeal (1858). These citations span common law treatise authority and mid-nineteenth-century American case law, illustrating that "audita querela" — and by extension the vocabulary built around "audita" — remained live procedural currency in American courts well past the colonial period. Researchers using Pennsylvania reporters or New York lower court records from the mid-to-late nineteenth century should be alert to this.
The connection to 4 Coke, Institutes 107 is significant for researchers working backward into English common law sources. Coke's treatment of the writ process provides the doctrinal foundation that American courts drew on, and the Latin participial framing of writs like "audita querela" is a consistent feature of that tradition.
Historical Dictionary Support
Anderson's Dictionary of Law treats "audita" as a cross-reference entry only, redirecting immediately to "audire" and the compound writ forms. This approach reflects standard practice in nineteenth-century legal dictionaries, where Latin particles and verb forms were indexed but not independently defined. The substantive content was reserved for the full writ name.
The citations Anderson provides — People v. Green, 5 Daly 200 (1874); Field v. Holland (cited in the same cluster); Miller's Appeal, 30 Pa. 490 (1858) — are to American cases applying or discussing the audita querela tradition. This signals that historical legal dictionaries of this period understood "audita" as inseparable from its context in practice, not as an abstract term requiring independent definition.
No meaningful divergence exists among the historical sources on this point. The consensus is that "audita" is a grammatical element, not a legal concept standing on its own.
Jurisdictional Note
Because "audita" appears only in the context of audita querela practice, jurisdictional variation tracks that of the underlying writ. Some states abolished the writ by statute or civil rules; others retained it as a residual common law remedy. Federal courts have split on whether audita querela survives the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.