Definition
Causa data et non secuta (often abbreviated in legal references as causa data et non se) is a Latin phrase from the civil law tradition meaning, literally, "consideration given and not followed" — that is, something given on the condition that a future event would occur, where that event subsequently failed to materialize. It names both the underlying legal situation and the action available to recover what was transferred in reliance on that unfulfilled condition.
The classic scenario: Party A transfers property or money to Party B on the understanding that a specific event will take place. The event does not occur. Because the basis for the transfer has failed, the civil law recognized an action — the condictio causa data causa non secuta — to recover the thing given. The transfer was not a gift; it was conditional. The failure of the condition destroys the legal justification for Party B to retain what was received.
This concept belongs to the broader Roman law taxonomy of condictiones: personal actions to recover a thing on the ground that the recipient had no lawful basis to retain it. Causa data et non secuta is specifically the condictio triggered by failure of a contemplated cause or condition, as distinct from condictio indebiti (payment of a debt not owed) or condictio sine causa (retention without any legal basis at all).
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Common Confusion
Causa data et non secuta is sometimes loosely conflated with condictio indebiti (recovery of an undue payment) or with the broader category of condictio sine causa. The distinctions matter for research. Condictio indebiti concerns a mistaken payment — the payer believed a debt existed when it did not. Causa data et non secuta concerns a deliberate, conditional transfer — the payer knew what was being given and why, but the anticipated future event never came to pass. No mistake is required; the failure is in the condition itself. Conflating these leads researchers into the wrong body of secondary literature and the wrong historical authorities.
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Why It Matters in Research
This is primarily a civil law and Roman law term. Researchers working in common law sources will encounter it rarely and almost exclusively in comparative, historical, or Louisiana law contexts. Its most practical modern appearance is in the law of unjust enrichment, where the concept of "failure of basis" or "failure of consideration" (as common law systems frame it) is the functional equivalent.
Several traps exist in historical sources. First, the phrase is frequently abbreviated — appearing as causa data et non se, causa data non secuta, or simply the condictio causa data — and historical dictionaries do not always clarify which condictio is meant. Rapalje & Lawrence's entry abbreviates the full phrase, which is causa data causa non secuta. Researchers should not assume these partial citations refer to different doctrines.
Second, the word "consideration" in older English-language summaries of this concept (as in Burrill's usage cited by Rapalje & Lawrence) is a translation convenience, not a precise equivalence to common law consideration. The Roman causa is not identical to the common law doctrine of consideration; importing that equivalence into analysis of historical civil law materials produces distortion.
Third, researchers working in Louisiana law, Quebec law, or other mixed civil/common law jurisdictions will find this concept has a living doctrinal afterlife in unjust enrichment and quasi-contract frameworks — not merely as a historical curiosity.
The maxim appended in Rapalje & Lawrence — Causa et origo est materia negotii ("The cause and origin is a material part of a thing") — is a related but distinct principle, cited to Coke. It expresses the broader civil and early common law concern with causa as foundational to legal transactions, and researchers should treat it separately rather than as a gloss on causa data et non secuta specifically.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence is the primary source on record for this term. Their entry (drawing on Burrill) correctly identifies the core meaning: an action to recover a thing given in anticipation of an event that failed to occur. The entry is brief but accurate in its essentials.
What historical dictionaries including Rapalje & Lawrence consistently underperform on is the relationship between causa data et non secuta and the broader condictio taxonomy. The Roman sources — Justinian's Digest and the Institutes — organize these actions systematically, but English-language legal dictionaries of the nineteenth century tend to treat individual condictiones as isolated entries rather than as a coherent scheme. A researcher relying solely on dictionary entries will miss the architecture that gives each condictio its meaning.
Burrill's Law Dictionary, referenced within Rapalje & Lawrence's entry, provides somewhat fuller treatment of related condictiones. For deeper historical work, Pothier's treatises on obligations and the civilian commentators (Domat, Vinnius) are the appropriate secondary sources; these are not accessible through the dictionary shelf alone.
The appended maxim, Causa et origo est materia negotii, cited to 1 Co. 99 (Coke's Reports), points toward the use of Roman causa concepts in early English common law reasoning — a connection worth tracing for legal historians but not strictly part of the causa data et non secuta doctrine.
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Jurisdictional Note
This term has practical doctrinal relevance primarily in civil law jurisdictions and in mixed systems such as Louisiana and Quebec. In purely common law jurisdictions, the equivalent doctrine operates under the heading of failure of consideration or failure of basis in unjust enrichment law, and the Latin phrase itself does not typically appear in modern court materials.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Quasi-Contract; Unjust Enrichment; Condictio
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