Definition
A Latin term from the civil law meaning "to run together," "to meet," or "to be simultaneously available in respect of the same object or person." In legal usage, concurrere describes the situation in which two legal rights, claims, actions, or causes converge upon the same subject matter or the same person at the same time.
The term carries particular weight in the context of the civil law maxim that two lucrative causes cannot concur in the same person with respect to the same thing — that is, a party cannot simultaneously hold or enforce two separate grounds of enrichment or two independent legal claims that would produce the same benefit through different legal mechanisms. The underlying principle is one of non-duplication: the law does not permit double recovery or the stacking of independently sufficient legal titles when a single remedy would fully satisfy the right in question.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Concur" in modern English means to agree, to happen simultaneously, or to act together toward a common end.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's defines "concur" as "to meet in the same point; to agree; to unite or be joined; to act jointly."
The ordinary sense of concurrence — agreement or cooperation — is only partially present in the legal Latin. In concurrere as a civil law term of art, the operative meaning is not agreement between parties but the simultaneous convergence of two legal mechanisms upon the same person or object. The legal concern is one of collision and potential duplication, not cooperation. A researcher encountering the term in a civil law or Roman law context should not read it through the lens of the modern English "concur."
Why It Matters in Research
Concurrere appears almost exclusively in sources dealing with Roman law, the civil law tradition, and those common law treatises that drew on Justinian's Institutes and Digest. Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus should be alert to several navigational points.
First, the term surfaces in discussions of the actio de dolo, enrichment actions, and inheritance law — specifically where the question arises whether a claimant who has already acquired a benefit through one legal route may also pursue a second route targeting the same object. The maxim duae causae lucrativae in eadem re concurrere non possunt is the primary operative context and appears in Institutes 2.20.6 and Digest 17.43.1.
Second, in common law sources, the concept behind concurrere is sometimes absorbed into discussions of election of remedies or the merger doctrine, without the Latin term being used. Researchers tracing the doctrinal lineage of those concepts backward through history may find concurrere as the civil law ancestor of the principle, particularly in treatises by civilians and in equity sources that engaged directly with Roman law.
Third, because Burrill's entry is truncated (the Digest citation at 17.43.1 is given but the entry text appears cut off), researchers relying solely on that dictionary will have an incomplete picture. The full force of the principle requires reading the relevant passages of the Institutes and Digest directly.
Fourth, the term should be distinguished from the English legal concept of concurrent jurisdiction, concurrent causes, and concurrent conditions, which share the "running together" image but arise in distinct doctrinal contexts and are not direct descendants of this civil law usage.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the primary historical dictionary source for this entry. His treatment correctly identifies the etymological roots (con + currere) and the civil law context, and he anchors the term in the specific maxim regarding two lucrative causes. The Institutes reference (2.20.6) is accurate and foundational.
What Burrill does not supply — whether by design or because the entry was truncated in the surviving text — is a developed account of how concurrere functions across the broader range of civil law doctrines. The Digest citation to 17.43.1 is offered but the explanatory text surrounding it is lost. Researchers should treat Burrill's entry as a starting point and a pointer to the primary Roman law sources, not as a self-contained account.
No other historical dictionaries in the present corpus cover this term. Its absence from common law dictionaries (such as Black's early editions) is itself informative: concurrere remained a term of art within the civil law tradition and did not migrate into standard common law vocabulary as a recognized term, even where the underlying principle was received.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Concurrence (Civil Law); Election of Remedies; Lucrative Cause