Definition
Conduct money is a sum paid or tendered to a witness who has been subpoenaed to appear at trial, sufficient to cover the reasonable expenses of traveling to, remaining at, and returning from the place of trial. It is not compensation for the witness's time or testimony but a reimbursement for the bare costs of compelled attendance.
The practical significance of conduct money lies in its precondition character: a subpoenaed witness in English practice was entitled to decline to attend — and could not be held in contempt for non-attendance — until conduct money had been paid or formally tendered. The obligation to appear and the obligation to pay were linked.
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Common Confusion
Conduct money is sometimes loosely grouped with witness fees, but the two are distinct. Witness fees (where recognized) compensate a witness for the time spent in attendance. Conduct money addresses only travel and subsistence expenses, and its tender is a precondition to compelling attendance. A witness who has not received conduct money has a recognized basis to resist compliance with a subpoena; a witness who has received it but not a separate witness fee does not, on that ground alone, have the same right of refusal. Modern American practice has largely absorbed both concepts into a single statutory witness fee and mileage payment, which can obscure this distinction when reading older English or common law sources.
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Why It Matters in Research
The term is principally a term of English practice and appears most prominently in sources treating pre-twentieth-century English civil and criminal procedure. American researchers will encounter it almost exclusively in historical materials or in common law treatise discussions borrowed from English authority.
The key navigational trap is the word "conduct" itself. In modern legal usage, "conduct" almost invariably refers to behavior — a party's actions, a fiduciary's conduct, criminal conduct. In this term, "conduct" carries its older meaning of escorting or conveying: money provided to conduct (i.e., convey) the witness to court. A researcher scanning older index entries or digests under "conduct" for behavioral or criminal law material may encounter conduct money references that are entirely unrelated.
In American jurisdictions, the functional equivalent is statutory witness fees and mileage reimbursement. Federal practice under the Federal Rules and 28 U.S.C. § 1821 governs witness attendance fees and travel allowances. These statutes do not use the phrase "conduct money," and the precondition-to-attendance rule of English practice was not uniformly adopted in American courts. Researchers tracking the historical development of witness compensation in American law will need to bridge between the English conduct money doctrine and the American statutory fee structure — they are related but not identical regimes.
The Bouvier entry adds a curiosity worth noting: it appends a reference to the tax levied by Charles I to fund army travel expenses under the same label. This is a historical anomaly with no procedural legal significance and should not be imported into analysis of the witness-fee doctrine.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The five historical sources are in close agreement on the core definition. Black's (both editions), Burrill, and Rapalje & Lawrence all define conduct money as money paid to a subpoenaed witness sufficient to cover the expenses of going to, staying at, and returning from the place of trial. All four trace to the same two English practice sources: Lush's Practice and Archbold's New Practice.
Rapalje & Lawrence is the most useful of the five for substantive legal research because it adds the operative procedural rule explicitly: a witness is entitled to decline to attend or be sworn until expenses have been paid or tendered. This is the rule with legal consequence, and Black's and Burrill omit it from their definitions.
Bouvier's entry is the least reliable here. It conflates the witness-expense doctrine with a historically unrelated royal tax under the same label, and the transition between the two is abrupt and unexplained. Researchers relying on Bouvier alone may come away with an inaccurate impression that the term has broader fiscal or constitutional significance. It does not.
No historical source in this set addresses the American reception of the doctrine or its relationship to statutory witness fees — a gap that reflects the English orientation of nineteenth-century American legal dictionaries generally.
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Jurisdictional Note
Conduct money as a distinct term and formal precondition belongs to English common law procedure and retains little independent force in modern American courts, where witness attendance payments are governed by statute. In jurisdictions that still follow common law subpoena practice closely — including some Commonwealth jurisdictions — the precondition rule (no valid compulsion without prior tender of expenses) may retain relevance. American researchers should consult applicable state and federal witness fee statutes rather than relying on conduct money doctrine.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
No Law Mind Encyclopedia entry directly addresses conduct money or the law of witness subpoenas. The matching entries flagged — Disorderly Conduct and Breach of Peace, Contested Accountings and Fiduciary Conduct, and Money Laundering — are unrelated to this term and are not recommended cross-references.
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