Definition
Baratterie is the French legal term for barratry — the wrongful, fraudulent, or criminal acts committed by a ship's master or crew against the interests of the ship's owner or cargo owner. The term appears in French maritime law and in treatises discussing marine insurance, where barratry is a standard insurable peril. In this context, baratterie encompasses deliberate misconduct by those entrusted with a vessel: scuttling the ship, deviation for personal profit, theft of cargo, or similar willful betrayals of duty. The term is encountered in English-language legal sources primarily through citation to French maritime authorities, particularly Emerigon's treatise on insurance.
Common Confusion
Baratterie should not be confused with barratry as it operates in common law outside the maritime context. In common law, barratry (or barretry) refers to the offense of habitually stirring up quarrels, suits, or litigation — a meaning entirely distinct from the maritime sense. The two concepts share a linguistic root and the same English label but describe unrelated wrongs. Researchers encountering "barratry" must determine from context whether the maritime or the litigious-misconduct sense is intended. Historical sources sometimes conflate or compress the two without flagging the distinction.
Why It Matters in Research
The term baratterie is a French-language technical term that surfaces in English legal dictionaries almost exclusively as a citation anchor — a way of pointing researchers to French maritime insurance authorities, chiefly Emerigon. Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus on marine insurance, admiralty law, or the history of insurable perils should treat any appearance of baratterie as a signal to cross-reference French civil law sources and their English translations or summaries.
Two research traps are worth flagging. First, Burrill's entry for baratterie is corrupted or editorially muddled: it begins correctly by identifying baratterie as the French term for barratry, then abruptly pivots to a passage on bargain and sale in English and American conveyancing law — an entirely unrelated topic. This appears to be a typesetting or compilation error in the dictionary. Researchers relying on Burrill for this entry should not treat the bargain-and-sale language as having any connection to baratterie. Second, because the English term barratry covers both maritime misconduct and common law offenses of stirring up litigation, historical sources vary in which sense they emphasize. French maritime law sources such as Emerigon use baratterie exclusively in the maritime sense; English common law sources may use barratry in either sense.
For corpus researchers, the practical takeaway is this: baratterie is not a term of art you will encounter in American case law or statutes. It is a bibliographic signpost pointing toward French maritime insurance doctrine and its absorption into Anglo-American admiralty jurisprudence during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the only source dictionary available for this entry, and its treatment is narrow: a one-line identification of baratterie as French for barratry, with a citation to Emerigon's Traité des Assurances (ch. 12, sect. 3, § 1). Emerigon's treatise, published in 1783 and translated into English by Meredith in 1850, was among the most authoritative continental sources on marine insurance in the common law world, frequently cited by English and American courts. The citation in Burrill signals that the primary legal weight of the term rests with that treatise rather than with any indigenous English authority.
Burrill does not elaborate on the elements of baratterie or its scope under French law, nor does it distinguish the maritime from the common law sense of barratry. The abrupt inclusion of unrelated bargain-and-sale material in the same entry suggests a printing defect and should be disregarded. Other major historical English law dictionaries — Bouvier, Black's early editions, and Jacob's Law Dictionary — treat barratry directly in English rather than through the French form, and researchers seeking doctrinal depth on barratry as an insurable peril will find more substance in those entries and in admiralty treatises than in Burrill's compressed citation.
Jurisdictional Note
Baratterie as a French legal term has no direct operative force in any American or English jurisdiction. Its relevance is doctrinal and historical: French maritime law heavily influenced early Anglo-American marine insurance practice, and the concept of barratry as an insurable peril in standard marine policies derives in part from that tradition.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Barratry (Maritime); Marine Insurance — Insurable Perils; Admiralty Jurisdiction