Definition
Latin: "against the form of the statute." A formal concluding phrase used in criminal indictments and declarations on penal statutes to allege that the offense charged was committed in violation of a specific statute. The full form reads: contra formam statuti in tali casu editi et provisi — "against the form of the statute in such case made and provided."
The phrase served a pleading function, not a substantive one. Its presence signaled to the court that the prosecution arose from statutory authority rather than common law, and that the penalty sought derived from that statute. Where one statute prohibited an act and a separate statute provided the penalty, the correct form was the plural: contra formam statutorum — against the form of the statutes.
Common Confusion
CONTRA FORMAM STATUTI vs. CONTRA FORMAM STATUTI / CONTRA FORMAM STATUTORUM: The singular and plural forms are not interchangeable. When a single statute both defines the offense and prescribes the penalty, the singular suffices. When the offense and penalty are found in separate statutes, the plural is required. Historical sources treat this distinction as a matter of technical pleading necessity, not stylistic preference. Failure to use the correct form could expose an indictment or declaration to challenge.
CONTRA FORMAM STATUTI vs. COMMON LAW PLEADING CONCLUSIONS: In common law indictments, no such statutory conclusion appeared — the offense stood on common law authority alone. The presence or absence of this phrase was therefore a reliable signal of the legal basis for the charge, and its misuse or omission in a statutory prosecution could be grounds for objection.
Why It Matters in Research
This phrase is a marker, not a substantive rule. When it appears in historical indictments, criminal records, or reported cases, it tells a researcher that the offense was statutory in origin. Its presence confirms that a court was operating under parliamentary or legislative authority, not common law.
Researchers working with pre-nineteenth-century English criminal records or early American indictments will encounter this phrase routinely in boilerplate pleading language. It is easy to overlook precisely because it appears at the tail end of formal documents, after the operative charging language. But its presence or absence can help date a document, identify the source of a penalty, or clarify whether an offense was recognized at common law before being codified.
The phrase largely disappeared from American practice as pleading codes simplified or eliminated formal Latin conclusions. Researchers should not expect to find it in modern indictments; its continued appearance in a document after the mid-nineteenth century in most American jurisdictions may indicate either archaism or a jurisdiction that retained formal common law pleading conventions longer than most.
The distinction between contra formam statuti and contra formam statutorum is significant when working with cases involving penalty statutes — a common feature of early commercial regulation, revenue law, and licensing regimes. Bouvier's note on this point is the clearest practical guide among the historical dictionaries.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries converge on the core definition: this is a formal pleading conclusion, required in statutory prosecutions, essentially meaningless outside that procedural context. Black's and Rapalje & Lawrence provide the shortest treatment, identifying the phrase as the "usual conclusion" of statutory indictments without much elaboration. Bouvier's adds the most practically useful point — the singular/plural distinction — and provides citations to Plowden and East that researchers can follow into the original case law. Burrill offers the fullest form of the phrase and is explicit that it was "held to be essential," citing Lord Raymond and Stephen's Commentaries, situating the requirement in the body of pleading doctrine rather than treating it as mere convention.
None of the historical dictionaries discuss what happened when the phrase was omitted — whether the defect was fatal, curable, or waivable — a gap that researchers pursuing pleading challenges in historical records will need to fill from primary sources and treatises such as Chitty on Criminal Law or Archbold's Pleading.
Jurisdictional Note
In English practice, the requirement was firmly established in common law pleading doctrine and persisted well into the nineteenth century. Early American courts largely followed the English rule, but the adoption of code pleading in many states during the nineteenth century rendered such formal Latin conclusions unnecessary or obsolete. Federal practice and states retaining common law pleading forms retained the phrase longer. Researchers should check the pleading rules operative in the specific jurisdiction and time period under examination.