Definition
To agree with, join in, or act alongside another. CONCUR carries distinct meanings depending on context:
1. Appellate practice. When a judge agrees with the outcome reached by the court but wishes to state separate reasoning, that judge is said to concur. The resulting written statement is a concurring opinion. A concurring judge may agree entirely with the majority's logic, or may agree only with the result while rejecting the reasoning — the latter is sometimes called a special concurrence or concurrence in judgment only.
2. Civil law / Louisiana practice. To join with other claimants in asserting a demand against an insolvent estate. A creditor who concurs participates alongside other creditors in the distribution of available assets, often subject to rules of privilege and priority.
3. General procedural usage. For two legal conditions, facts, or requirements to co-exist at the same moment — as where malice and want of probable cause must both be present (concur) to establish a malicious prosecution claim. In this sense, concur describes simultaneity rather than agreement.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To agree in action or opinion; to have a common view; to coincide or correspond.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To unite or agree in action or opinion; to join; to act jointly; to coincide; also (obsolete) to run together or meet at a point.
The ordinary meaning captures the agreement sense well enough, but it misses the Louisiana civil law usage entirely — where concur describes a creditor's active legal participation in insolvency proceedings, not merely an expression of agreement. Researchers working with pre-codification Louisiana materials or civil law sources should not read the term through a common-law lens.
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Common Confusion
CONCUR vs. CONSENT vs. ASSENT: In appellate practice, concurring does not mean the judge is simply pleased with the result. A judge may concur while explicitly rejecting the majority's reasoning. This is legally significant: only reasoning joined by a majority carries precedential weight. A concurrence, however forceful, does not make law in the same way the court's opinion does. Researchers counting judicial votes or tracing the development of a legal rule must distinguish concurrences in the judgment from full concurrences.
CONCURRENCE vs. DISSENT: A concurring opinion agrees with the result; a dissent rejects it. Some opinions are miscategorized in older reporters or legal digests, particularly where a judge agrees in part and dissents in part.
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Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Full concurrence: The concurring judge agrees with both the result and the majority's reasoning but writes separately to add observations or emphasis.
Special concurrence (concurrence in judgment only): The concurring judge agrees with the result but not the reasoning. This is the form most consequential for research, since it signals fragmentation in the court's rationale.
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Why It Matters in Research
Appellate research. When reading multi-judge opinions — particularly Supreme Court decisions — tracking who concurred and on what basis is essential to understanding precedential value. A plurality opinion joined by fewer than a majority, supplemented by concurrences, creates notoriously unstable doctrine. The narrowest ground of agreement among the concurring justices typically controls, but identifying that ground requires reading each opinion individually. Historical reporters do not always clearly label concurrences, and some older opinions use "I concur" without further elaboration.
Louisiana and civil law sources. The concursus meaning is confined almost entirely to Louisiana and civil law jurisdictions tracing to French or Spanish legal traditions. Researchers using nineteenth-century Louisiana materials will encounter concur in the insolvency context frequently. Modern Louisiana law formalizes this in the concursus proceeding, a mechanism for resolving competing claims to a fund — closely related to interpleader in common law practice. Do not import common-law insolvency vocabulary when interpreting these sources.
Elements-simultaneity usage. In older common law pleading and tort treatises, concur describes the requirement that two conditions exist at the same time. This usage appears in elements analysis for malicious prosecution, fraud, and conspiracy, among others. It is not a term of art in modern doctrine but remains present in historical sources and should be read as a temporal or logical modifier, not as a term signaling agreement.
Corpus connections. The term connects directly to CONCURRING OPINION, CONCURSUS, CONCURRENT JURISDICTION, and CONCURRENT NEGLIGENCE — all of which use the root concept of co-existence or joint operation but in distinct legal contexts. Researchers following any of these threads should verify which sense of the word is operative in a given source.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries reflect three distinct layers of meaning without fully integrating them. Black's (both editions) and Bouvier focus on the Louisiana insolvency sense, which was the most technically specific meaning and therefore the one most in need of dictionary treatment in the nineteenth century. Burrill reaches further back, citing Finch's Law for the older common law usage of titles "concurring" — meaning competing or meeting — and notes this sense had fallen out of use by the time of his writing. Anderson is the most analytically useful, distinguishing the simultaneity sense (conditions that must concur) from the agreement sense and flagging the derivative term concurrent explicitly.
None of the historical dictionaries give adequate treatment to the appellate practice meaning — the concurring opinion — which had emerged as common practice by the time these dictionaries were compiled but was apparently considered self-explanatory. Black's 2nd edition is the exception, providing the clearest statement of that usage. Researchers relying solely on Bouvier or Burrill for this term will find the appellate sense underserved.
The Burrill note that the adversarial/joint-claim sense was "not in use" by his time is a useful dating marker: materials from before the mid-nineteenth century may use concur in ways that later sources do not recognize.
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Jurisdictional Note
The insolvency/claimants sense of concur is specific to Louisiana and civil law jurisdictions. In common law states, the procedural equivalent is interpleader or a creditor's claim in probate or bankruptcy — not concursus. The appellate-opinion sense is universal across American courts and most common law appellate systems. The simultaneity sense appears in substantive doctrine across jurisdictions wherever multiple elements must co-exist.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Concurring Opinions and Judicial Agreement; Concursus and Civil Law Insolvency Proceedings; Concurrent Jurisdiction.
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