Definition
A procedural step in Scots law by which a summons — the formal written command initiating a civil action — is publicly called or announced before the court as part of the process of bringing a cause to issue. The calling of a summons formally placed the action on the court's roll and required the defender (defendant) to appear or answer, marking the transition from service of process to active litigation before the tribunal.
The term is distinct from the mere service or execution of a summons. Service delivered the summons to the defender; calling it before the court activated the proceeding on the judicial record and triggered the defender's obligation to compear (appear). Failure to call a summons within the prescribed period after service could result in the summons falling, requiring the pursuer to begin again.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a term of art specific to Scots civil procedure and will not appear in English common law or American sources in this sense. Researchers encountering it in historical documents should be alert to several navigational issues.
First, the term operates within a procedural framework substantially different from English or American practice. Scots law historically followed a mixed Romano-canonical and indigenous tradition, and its court procedure — particularly before the Court of Session — involved formal stages (calling, enrollment, debate, proof) that do not map neatly onto English common law stages. A researcher applying common law procedural concepts to a document containing this term will misread it.
Second, both Black's and Burrill's decline to define the term in their own text, instead deferring entirely to Bell's Dictionary and Digest of the Law of Scotland. This is significant: it signals that mid-nineteenth-century American legal lexicographers treated the term as outside their primary corpus. Any researcher looking for substantive explanation in these dictionaries will be sent immediately elsewhere. The Law Mind corpus entry for this term should be understood as a pointer, not a definition in the traditional sense.
Third, Burrill's entry conflates two separate matters — calling a summons in Scots practice, and the American land-law concept of "calling for" a natural object in a survey or patent — under a single heading. The two concepts are entirely unrelated. Researchers using Burrill's must be careful not to allow the editorial proximity of these entries to suggest a doctrinal connection. The land-law sense of "call" (designating a landmark or boundary in a grant or survey) belongs to a different body of law and a different legal tradition entirely.
Fourth, Scots procedure in this area has evolved considerably. The Court of Session Act 1988 and subsequent Rules of the Court of Session substantially modernized Scottish civil procedure. The calling of a summons remains a recognized step in modern Scots practice, but its mechanics and time limits differ from the historical rules Bell described. Researchers working with post-1988 Scottish materials should consult current Rules of the Court of Session rather than historical dictionaries.
Historical Dictionary Support
Both Black's Law Dictionary and Burrill's Law Dictionary treat this term identically: each provides a brief jurisdictional label ("In Scotch practice") and directs the reader to Bell's Dictionary. Neither attempts a substantive definition of its own. This convergence is itself informative — it confirms that American legal dictionaries of the nineteenth century regarded the term as foreign law requiring specialist Scottish authority, and it tells the researcher that these sources will not yield doctrinal content on the point.
Bell's Dictionary and Digest of the Law of Scotland (variously edited through the nineteenth century) is the authoritative source both dictionaries cite. Researchers needing the substantive content of this term should go directly to Bell. The historical legal dictionaries on the Law Mind shelf function here purely as cross-references.
What the historical dictionaries miss is any acknowledgment of how calling a summons fits into the broader architecture of Scots civil procedure — its relationship to service, to enrollment, to the period of compearance, and to the consequences of failure to call timeously. That procedural context must be sourced from Scottish primary materials and specialist treatises.
Jurisdictional Note
This term applies exclusively to Scots law and Scots civil procedure. It has no direct equivalent in English common law or American practice. English and American researchers encountering this term in historical documents are advised to consult Scottish legal sources directly; the common law concepts of service of process and filing are analogous in function but not identical in form or legal consequence.