Definition
"Begun" appears in legal texts as a participial marker denoting the commencement of a legal proceeding, action, or prosecution. In statutory drafting, the word carries interpretive weight: when a saving clause or transitional provision refers to proceedings "begun" under a prior law, courts must determine whether "begun" refers only to proceedings already initiated before a new statute's effective date, or whether it extends to proceedings initiated after that date but grounded in conduct or authority arising under the old law.
The distinction matters most in saving clauses — provisions that preserve the legal force of prior statutes for specified purposes after repeal or replacement. A clause protecting proceedings "begun" under an existing act can be read narrowly (only those already filed) or broadly (any proceeding that properly invokes the old statute, regardless of when filed).
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Past participle and simple past of "begin."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Past participle of "begin."
The ordinary meaning of "begun" is simply the past participle of "begin" — something already started. The legal complication arises precisely because statutory saving clauses use this word at the boundary between old and new law, and courts have found that "begun" in that context does not always mean what it plainly seems to mean. A proceeding can be "begun" after a repeal and still fall within a saving clause if the underlying authority derives from the prior act.
Common Confusion
The most frequent interpretive trap is reading "begun" in a saving clause as automatically restricting application to pending proceedings only. Bouvier's flags this directly: in the immigration context, a saving clause protecting prosecutions "begun" under the old act was held to apply not merely to already-pending cases but also to prosecutions initiated after the new act's passage, provided they were grounded in offenses or authority under the prior law. Researchers should not assume temporal limitation without examining how the specific court construed the clause.
Why It Matters in Research
This term surfaces almost exclusively in the context of statutory transition — saving clauses, repealer provisions, and transitional rules in legislation. Researchers working with historical immigration statutes, criminal codes, or any statutory scheme that underwent repeal and replacement should watch for "begun" in saving language and not assume its meaning is self-evident.
The interpretive question — does "begun" mean "already initiated" or "properly initiated under the prior authority" — is a recurring issue in statutory construction and can determine whether an entire class of prosecutions or civil proceedings survives a statutory overhaul. The answer turns on legislative intent, the structure of the saving clause, and the specific statutory context, not on the word's plain meaning alone.
In historical corpus research, saving clauses using "begun" often appear in session laws and revised statutes without any accompanying judicial gloss. Researchers should treat the word as a flag for deeper interpretive inquiry rather than a resolved term.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's treats "begun" not as a standalone substantive legal concept but as a word requiring interpretive attention within a specific statutory context — the immigration act of March 3, 1903. The entry illustrates the core problem: a court rejected the narrow reading of "begun" that would have confined the saving clause to already-pending proceedings. This is a useful demonstration that common participial words embedded in statutory text can acquire a non-obvious legal meaning through judicial construction.
Bouvier's entry is narrow in scope and tied to a single statute, which limits its usefulness as a general guide. It does not survey other statutory contexts where "begun" has been construed, nor does it articulate a general principle of statutory interpretation. Researchers should treat the Bouvier's entry as illustrative of a pattern — saving clause interpretation — rather than as authority for a universal rule.
No other major historical law dictionaries (Black's, Stroud's, Wharton's) develop "begun" as an independent entry, which reflects its status as an ordinary English word that becomes legally significant only in context.
Jurisdictional Note
The interpretive issue Bouvier's identifies arose in federal immigration law, but the underlying problem — how courts read "begun" in saving clauses — appears across federal and state statutory schemes. State courts construing analogous saving language in their own codes have reached varying results depending on statutory structure and local rules of construction.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Statutory Construction
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Saving Clause
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Immigration Law (Historical Federal Statutes)