Definition
A Latin legal phrase meaning "the plaintiff shall take nothing by his bill." It is a form of judgment entered for the defendant in a proceeding initiated by bill, signifying that the plaintiff's bill fails entirely and that the plaintiff recovers nothing on the claim presented.
Why It Matters in Research
Billam appears in older equity and common law pleading records as a terminal judgment formula, analogous to a modern judgment for the defendant or a dismissal with prejudice. Researchers working with historical court records — particularly English equity proceedings and early American chancery materials — may encounter this phrase in entries recording the disposition of a cause. Its significance is procedural and notational: it signals the end of litigation in favor of the defendant without any recovery or relief to the plaintiff.
The phrase is tightly bound to the bill as a pleading instrument. In the historical system of equity practice, a suit was commenced by filing a bill (the plaintiff's written statement of complaint addressed to the court of equity). When a court found entirely for the defendant, the judgment formula tracked the form of the initiating pleading — hence "by his bill" rather than "by his writ," which would appear in a corresponding common law judgment. Researchers should be attentive to this distinction: parallel formulas exist for proceedings commenced by writ, and the specific language used in a historical judgment entry often identifies whether the proceeding was in equity or at common law.
Because billam is a judgment formula rather than a substantive legal doctrine, it appears almost exclusively in the procedural and reporting layers of historical legal materials — case reports, court rolls, and pleading practice guides — rather than in treatises on substantive law. Researchers who encounter it in an unfamiliar context should read it as a shorthand notation of result, not as a term carrying independent doctrinal content.
The reference in all three source dictionaries to Latch 133 points to John Latch's reports of cases in the King's Bench (published posthumously in 1661), an early English reporter. This is a real and identifiable source, and researchers tracing the authority for the formula may consult that volume directly.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries — Black's (1st and 2nd editions) and Burrill's — provide substantively identical entries: the Latin phrase, its English translation ("the plaintiff shall take nothing by his bill"), the characterization as a form of judgment for the defendant, and the citation to Latch 133. There is no divergence among the sources on meaning, application, or authority.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the broader procedural context in which the phrase operated — the bill in equity as the initiating pleading, the relationship between judgment formula and forum, or how this phrase fits within the family of Latin judgment formulas used in historical courts. The entries treat billam as a self-contained phrase requiring only translation, which is adequate for identification purposes but leaves the researcher without guidance on its practical significance in pleading records.
The truncation in all three entries (each cuts off mid-entry moving into an adjacent headword beginning "Quærens non invenit ple—") is a formatting artifact of the source volumes and carries no legal significance.