Definition
A procedural default in common law pleading. When a plaintiff failed to file or deliver a declaration within the time prescribed by court rule or order, the defendant could enter a rule or judgment of "clare" — sometimes styled *clare constat* or a rule to declare — compelling the plaintiff to declare or suffer a procedural consequence, including nonsuit or dismissal of the action.
The term functioned as a mechanism of docket control: courts set deadlines for declarations, and "clare" was the defendant's remedy when plaintiffs sat on their obligations. In practice, a rule "to declare" put the plaintiff on notice that further delay would result in judgment against them.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A proper noun designating a county in Ireland and various place names derived from it.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "A nun of the order of St. Clare."
Neither common meaning has any connection to the legal term. "Clare" as a pleading concept is derived from Latin procedural usage, entirely separate from the geographic and religious senses the word carries in ordinary English. Researchers encountering the term in old reports should not assume a scribal error or place-name reference.
Common Confusion
"Clare" is easily overlooked or misread in historical case reports as a proper name or geographic reference. It should not be confused with *clare constat* (a Scottish instrument of sasine acknowledging an heir's title), which is a distinct legal concept sharing only the Latin word. The pleading-default sense of "clare" is specific to common law practice in actions at law and does not appear in equity procedure.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in older common law materials — English, Irish, and early American — and is effectively obsolete in modern practice, having been displaced by rules governing default and dismissal under code pleading and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Researchers working in pre-code case reporters, especially English term reports and early state supreme court records, may encounter "a rule to declare" or "rule of clare" without explanation, as contemporaneous readers would have understood the reference immediately.
The truncated state of the Rapalje & Lawrence entry — "When the plaintiff in an action was not ready to declare within the time limited" — suggests the fuller procedural consequences were treated as common knowledge by the dictionary's intended audience. Modern researchers cannot assume that context and should consult period-specific pleading manuals for the full procedure.
Because "clare" as a pleading default operates within the broader machinery of common law declaration practice, understanding it requires familiarity with the declaration itself (the plaintiff's first formal pleading), the rules of court setting time limits, and the available responses to default. Researchers focused on the evolution of pleading reform will find "clare" useful as a marker of how rigidly time-bound the common law system was before code reforms eliminated many of these procedural formalities.
Jurisdictional variation is real but difficult to trace: English and Irish practice shared the concept, and early American courts in states that initially followed common law pleading forms would have recognized it, but adoption was uneven and local court rules governed the specific deadlines involved.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence is the sole historical dictionary source available for this entry, and their treatment is incomplete — the entry breaks off after establishing the triggering condition (plaintiff not ready to declare within the limited time) without recording the consequences or the defendant's available remedies. This gap is itself informative: it confirms the term was in recognized legal use but suggests it was already receding from everyday practice by the time the dictionary was compiled.
No other major legal dictionaries — Bouvier, Black's early editions, Burrill — appear to have treated "clare" as a standalone entry, which is consistent with its status as a term of art embedded in procedural practice rather than a freestanding legal concept requiring extended definition. Its absence from equity dictionaries and from later editions of pleading encyclopedias tracks the decline of common law pleading forms generally.
Jurisdictional Note
Primarily an English and Irish common law procedural term. American courts in jurisdictions that adopted English common law pleading forms would have recognized it in the early national period, but code pleading reforms beginning in the mid-nineteenth century rendered the specific mechanism obsolete. Modern practice has no direct equivalent.