Definition
A bill of information is a formal pleading filed in a court of equity by the attorney general or solicitor general on behalf of the government, or on behalf of persons whose rights the government is charged with protecting. It functions as the government's equivalent of a private party's bill of complaint — the document that initiates an equity proceeding — but because the sovereign is the nominal plaintiff, it is styled as an "information" rather than a petition or bill.
Two primary uses are recognized:
1. Direct government interest. Where the suit immediately concerns a right of the crown or state, the attorney general files the information on behalf of the government alone, without a named private party. No relator is required.
2. Protected private party. Where the government does not have a direct stake but acts as the formal vehicle to protect a private individual whose rights fall under sovereign protection — such as a minor, a lunatic, or a charitable trust beneficiary — the information is filed with a relator. The relator is considered the real party in interest and may be held liable for costs.
In both forms, the document is frequently referred to simply as an "information in equity" rather than by the full phrase "bill of information."
Common Confusion
The phrase "bill of information" is easily conflated with two distinct legal instruments. First, an information (in criminal law) is a formal criminal charge filed by a prosecutor without a grand jury indictment — a different proceeding and a different body of law entirely. Second, a bill in equity is the general term for a private plaintiff's initiating pleading in chancery; a bill of information is not filed by a private party at all. Researchers encountering "information" in older equity records must determine from context whether the document is a chancery filing by the government or a criminal charging instrument. The confusion is compounded because both uses appear in courts of the same era and the shorthand label for each is simply "information."
Why It Matters in Research
The bill of information belongs to English chancery practice and its American colonial and early republic successors. Researchers working in pre-merger equity records — before the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure merged law and equity in 1938, and before similar state-level mergers — will encounter these documents in their original procedural context. Several navigational points matter:
First, terminology is inconsistent across historical sources. Bouvier and Black both acknowledge that the instrument is "usually termed simply an information," meaning the full phrase "bill of information" may not appear in the document itself. Index searches using only the full phrase will miss records.
Second, the relator distinction matters for tracing parties. Where a relator is named, that individual — not the attorney general — is the operative litigant for purposes of costs, appeals, and follow-on proceedings. Charitable trust and guardianship litigation in equity courts frequently takes this form, and the relator's name may be the only practical finding aid in older registers.
Third, the instrument's use shifted over time. In English practice, the bill of information was a robust procedural tool for protecting charities and public interests. American adoption was uneven; some states developed analogous attorney general equity practice independently, and others folded similar functions into statutory proceedings. Researchers moving between English and American sources should not assume procedural equivalence.
Fourth, this term does not appear in modern civil procedure. Post-merger practice absorbed the government's equity role into standard complaint practice and administrative enforcement frameworks. Encountering "bill of information" in a post-1940 source almost certainly signals historical discussion, not live procedure.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's, Bouvier's, and Rapalje & Lawrence are in close agreement on the essential structure of the bill of information: it is an equity pleading, filed by the attorney or solicitor general, used either for direct government interests or for protected private parties through a relator. All three sources treat the two-part structure — crown/government interest versus relator-based protection — as the organizing principle.
Rapalje & Lawrence is the most precise on the relator's legal position, explicitly identifying the relator as the real party in interest and as liable for costs. This detail is practically important and sometimes underemphasized in Black's treatment.
Bouvier's notes that if the suit does not immediately concern the rights of the state, the information is exhibited with a relator. Black's frames the same point in terms of custody by prerogative or rights under particular sovereign protection. Neither formulation is wrong; they approach the same doctrine from slightly different angles.
What the historical dictionaries do not address: the post-merger obsolescence of the instrument, the uneven American reception of English chancery practice, and the overlap with criminal information practice that creates the most common modern research confusion. Researchers relying solely on these sources will have the doctrine but lack the navigational context for searching historical records across jurisdictions.
Jurisdictional Note
The bill of information was a recognized procedure in English chancery and was adopted with varying fidelity in American courts that maintained separate equity jurisdiction. Its availability and scope differed by state, and some American jurisdictions replaced it with statutory attorney general enforcement authority early in the nineteenth century. Researchers should not assume that a procedure described in English treatises was uniformly available in any given American state court.