Definition
A condition disjunctive is a condition attached to a legal obligation, conveyance, or contract that requires one of several specified acts or events to occur — but not necessarily all of them. The obligor or grantee satisfies the condition by performing any one of the listed alternatives. The disjunctive structure (expressed or implied by "or" rather than "and") contrasts with a condition conjunctive, which requires all specified acts to be performed.
The term appears most frequently in property law, where a conveyance or grant may be made subject to a condition that the grantee do one of several things to maintain or defeat the estate. It also arises in contract and probate contexts wherever conditions precedent or subsequent are expressed in the alternative.
Common Confusion
CONDITION DISJUNCTIVE vs. CONDITION CONJUNCTIVE: These two terms are the natural paired opposites. A condition conjunctive requires all listed acts to be performed; a condition disjunctive requires only one. The distinction carries real consequence: misreading a conjunctive condition as disjunctive (or vice versa) determines whether partial performance satisfies or defeats the condition. Historical sources occasionally blur this line when the drafting language is ambiguous — "or" and "and" were sometimes used interchangeably in older instruments, and courts have had to interpret intent from surrounding context.
CONDITION DISJUNCTIVE vs. ALTERNATIVE CONDITION: These terms are largely synonymous in practice, but "alternative condition" sometimes appears in civil law traditions while "condition disjunctive" is the common law formulation. Researchers should search both terms when working across jurisdictional or mixed-tradition sources.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a narrow but precise technical term, and its brevity in historical dictionaries — both Black's and Burrill's reproduce a single sentence from Sheppard's Touchstone — signals that practitioners were expected to understand it structurally rather than through extended definition. Researchers should be alert to several points:
First, the substance of the doctrine lives in primary sources, particularly deed conditions and will provisions, not in extended treatise discussion. Finding the term in a historical dictionary entry alone tells you almost nothing about how courts resolved disputes over whether disjunctive conditions were satisfied.
Second, the term is most research-relevant in real property contexts. Conditions attached to fee simple determinable estates or fee simple subject to condition subsequent frequently take disjunctive form, and whether the grantor's reversionary interest triggered depended on how courts read the "or" construction in the original conveyance.
Third, condition disjunctive logic resurfaces in modern contexts under different labels. Bail conditions, probation conditions, and construction contract conditions often present alternative compliance paths — the underlying concept is the same even when the term itself is not used. Researchers working in those areas should think structurally about disjunctive versus conjunctive compliance requirements even when the classical term does not appear.
Fourth, older instruments present interpretive hazards. Scribes and draftsmen in earlier centuries did not always distinguish "and" from "or" with modern precision. Courts interpreting 18th- and 19th-century deeds and wills sometimes imposed a conjunctive reading on facially disjunctive language, or vice versa, based on the perceived intent of the grantor or testator.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary and Burrill's Law Dictionary are in complete agreement: both define condition disjunctive as "a condition requiring one of several things to be done," and both cite the same source — Sheppard's Touchstone (p. 118). This uniformity reflects the term's settled and narrow meaning within the common law tradition; there was no dispute to resolve and therefore no need for elaboration.
What the historical dictionaries do not provide is any guidance on how courts resolved ambiguous drafting, what quantum of performance satisfied a disjunctive condition, or how the doctrine interacted with the rules governing conditions precedent versus conditions subsequent. Researchers relying solely on these dictionary entries will have the definition but none of the operational doctrine. Sheppard's Touchstone itself is the foundational treatise source and, where accessible, should be consulted directly for the fuller property law context.
Jurisdictional Note
The term is rooted in English common law property doctrine and applies across common law jurisdictions in the United States. Civil law jurisdictions use analogous concepts under different terminology. Significant variation appears not at the definitional level but in how courts in specific states have resolved ambiguous "and/or" drafting in historical deeds and wills — a research question that is necessarily jurisdiction-specific.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia: Probation — Conditions, Revocation, and Procedure (criminal_221) [for condition disjunctive logic in modern probation contexts]
The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia: Bail and Bond — Types, Determination, and Conditions (criminal_196) [for alternative compliance conditions in pretrial release]