Definition
A Latin phrase meaning "that the writ be quashed." In the common law practice of pleading, cassetur breve was the formal judgment entered for the defendant when the plaintiff's original writ was defeated by a successful plea in abatement. Upon such a plea, if the plaintiff could not deny the plea, demur to it, or did not wish to amend his declaration, he could enter cassetur breve on the roll — effectively acknowledging that the writ was defective and voluntarily having it quashed. This ended the current proceeding without a judgment on the merits, allowing the plaintiff to commence a new action if the underlying claim remained viable.
The companion judgment, cassetur billa ("that the bill be quashed"), applied when the action was commenced by bill rather than by original writ. The two forms are functionally identical; only the vehicle of commencement differed.
Common Confusion
CASSETUR BREVE / CASSETUR BILLA: Researchers occasionally conflate these two forms or treat them as interchangeable. The distinction tracks the procedural vehicle: cassetur breve applied to actions commenced by original writ (breve); cassetur billa applied to actions commenced by bill. In later common law practice, as original writs fell into disuse, cassetur billa became the operative form. Some historical sources use cassetur breve loosely to describe both, which can obscure the procedural posture actually at issue in a given case.
CASSETUR BREVE / NOLLE PROSEQUI: Both terminate a proceeding without a judgment on the merits, but they operate differently. Cassetur breve was a defendant-side judgment entered on a successful plea in abatement — the plaintiff's writ was found defective. Nolle prosequi is a plaintiff- (or prosecutor-) side discontinuance, entered voluntarily before judgment. Conflating them in historical sources can misread who controlled the termination and what its consequences were.
Why It Matters in Research
Cassetur breve is a procedural artifact of the English common law writ system and will appear almost exclusively in pre-nineteenth-century English sources and in early American reports from jurisdictions that retained formal common law pleading. Researchers working in these materials should note several navigational points.
First, the term marks a plea in abatement, not a plea in bar. A successful plea in bar would produce judgment for the defendant on the merits. Cassetur breve signals only that the writ itself was defective — misnomer, wrong form, failure to state a proper cause of action in the writ — and carries no res judicata weight on the underlying claim. A plaintiff who received this judgment could, in principle, sue again on a corrected writ.
Second, the decline of original writs in English practice (accelerated by procedural reforms in the nineteenth century and effectively complete after the Judicature Acts) rendered cassetur breve obsolete as a living form. American jurisdictions that adopted code pleading even earlier largely eliminated the conditions under which the judgment would arise. Researchers will not encounter the term in modern American or English practice.
Third, when tracing a historical dispute through court records, an entry of cassetur breve on the roll means the action ended at the pleading stage without reaching issue. Subsequent proceedings in the same dispute will appear under a fresh writ and may carry a different docket reference entirely. This can create gaps in case-trail research if the researcher does not know to look for a recommenced action.
Fourth, the distinction between cassetur breve and cassetur billa matters for reading historical court records accurately. A roll entry of cassetur billa indicates the action was on the bill side of the court; cassetur breve places it on the writ side. In equity-adjacent or mixed jurisdictions, misreading the form can lead to incorrect inferences about which court or which procedural track was involved.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree on the core definition: cassetur breve is the form of judgment for the defendant on a plea in abatement in an action commenced by original writ. Both editions of Black's cite Blackstone's Commentaries and Stephen on Pleading as authority. The Rapalje & Lawrence entry adds useful procedural texture, noting explicitly that the plaintiff entered this judgment when he could not deny or demur to the plea and did not wish to amend — clarifying that the judgment was sometimes a tactical election by the plaintiff rather than purely an adjudication against him.
The Rapalje & Lawrence entry trails off in the available text before completing its explanation of the plaintiff's subsequent options (presumably, recommencement of the action), but the procedural logic is clear from Stephen on Pleading. Historical dictionaries uniformly treat the term as belonging to the defunct writ system and offer no guidance on how it appears in American practice, which is a gap researchers should be aware of when working in early state reports.
Jurisdictional Note
Cassetur breve was a form native to English common law pleading and was received into American practice only in those early jurisdictions that substantially adopted the English writ system. As American states moved to code pleading through the mid-nineteenth century, the term disappeared from live practice. Researchers working in colonial-era or early federal materials may encounter it; researchers working in any modern jurisdiction will not.