Definition
Communi dividundo (Latin: "for dividing in common") is a civil law action brought by co-owners of property to compel its division. The action lies where two or more parties hold property in common — that is, as co-owners with undivided shares — but do not hold it as partners in a formal partnership. Its purpose is to end the state of co-ownership by compelling a partition so that each party receives a distinct, separately held portion.
The action originates in Roman law and was among the three classical actiones divisoriae — the trio of Roman actions designed to achieve the division of shared property or settle boundary disputes. Its modern functional equivalent in common law systems is the action for partition.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers will encounter this term primarily in two contexts: civil law jurisdictions and historical English common law sources where Roman legal terminology was adopted or referenced.
The critical distinction embedded in the definition — that the action lies for common ownership but not partnership — reflects a Roman law boundary that persists in modern law. Partnership property was governed separately (by the actio pro socio); communi dividundo addressed co-ownership that arose outside of a formal partnership, such as inheritance, gift, or joint purchase. When reading historical sources, a researcher who conflates co-ownership and partnership may misread the scope of the remedy being invoked.
Burrill specifically notes appearances in Bracton and Fleta, which signals that medieval English legal writers absorbed this Roman classification. Researchers working in early English common law, particularly pre-partition statute materials, may encounter the term in treatise literature rather than in case reports. Its presence in Bracton (fol. 100b) and Fleta (lib. 2, c. 60, §1) makes it relevant to any study of how Roman civil law influenced the early development of English property doctrine.
In Louisiana, Quebec, and other mixed civil law jurisdictions within the Law Mind corpus, the action's conceptual lineage is directly operative — not merely historical. Researchers in those jurisdictions should trace the term forward into codified partition actions rather than treating it as an archaic curiosity.
The Digest (10.3) and Codex (3.37–38) citations in Burrill provide primary Roman law anchors for researchers tracing the action to its source. The Institutes reference (4.17.5) places it within the classical taxonomy of actions, useful context for understanding how later civilians categorized and transmitted the concept.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries converge closely on definition and scope. Black's (both editions) and Bouvier reproduce nearly identical language, each citing Calvinus (Johannes Calvinus, Lexicon Juridicum, a standard early modern civil law glossary) as authority. Burrill offers the most substantive entry: he supplies primary Roman law citations directly to the Institutes, Digest, and Codex, adds Story on Partnership (§352) as a bridge to American legal literature, and — importantly — documents the term's appearance in Bracton and Fleta, establishing its medieval English reception.
None of the historical dictionaries address the term's survival in codified civil law jurisdictions or its relationship to modern partition statutes. This is a gap for researchers: the historical entries treat communi dividundo as Roman and historical, but in mixed-law jurisdictions the conceptual framework remained operative through codification. Historical dictionaries also do not address the actiones divisoriae taxonomy, leaving the relationship between communi dividundo, familiae erciscundae (for dividing an inheritance), and finium regundorum (for settling boundaries) implicit rather than explicit. Burrill comes closest to supplying that context by noting the Institutes classification.
Jurisdictional Note
In common law jurisdictions, communi dividundo has no direct procedural life — partition is governed by statute and equity. In civil law and mixed jurisdictions (Louisiana, Quebec, Puerto Rico), the underlying concept is codified in partition actions, and researchers may find the Latin term used in treatises and older court opinions as a doctrinal reference point rather than a named cause of action.