Definition
De arbitratione facta (Latin: "of arbitration had") was a writ formerly available in English common law proceedings. It was invoked when a plaintiff brought an action in court for a cause of action that had already been resolved through arbitration. The writ functioned as a procedural defense mechanism, allowing the party who had obtained an arbitral settlement to check a renewed lawsuit over the same matter. In essence, it gave legal effect to a completed arbitration by barring relitigation of a dispute the parties had already submitted to and resolved through arbitrators.
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Common Confusion
De arbitratione facta is occasionally conflated with a general plea of accord and satisfaction or a plea in bar, but it was a distinct writ with its own procedural character. A plea of accord and satisfaction addressed any settlement by agreement; de arbitratione facta specifically presupposed a completed arbitration proceeding, not merely an informal compromise. Researchers should also take care not to confuse this writ with writs compelling arbitration or referring a matter to arbitrators — this writ operated after arbitration had concluded, not before or during it.
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Why It Matters in Research
This is a historical writ with no direct modern counterpart as a formal pleading, but it is materially relevant to researchers tracing the deep roots of arbitration law and the common law treatment of arbitral awards as binding resolutions.
Several research traps exist. First, the writ appears inconsistently in historical sources: some dictionaries misprint or misattribute the entry, as is evident in Black's 1st edition, where the de arbitratione facta entry is run together with an adjacent writ entry (de arrestandis), creating ambiguity about where one entry ends and the other begins. Researchers consulting early editions of Black's in microform or early digitizations should verify the entry boundaries carefully.
Second, the writ's function connects directly to broader questions about how common law courts historically treated finality in arbitration. Understanding de arbitratione facta illuminates why modern doctrines — including res judicata applied to arbitral awards and statutory confirmation procedures under instruments like the Federal Arbitration Act — developed as they did. The writ reflects an early common law acknowledgment that arbitral resolution deserved procedural protection, a premise that modern law has formalized through very different mechanisms.
Third, the primary treatise authority cited in both editions of Black's — Watson's Arbitration (Wats. Arb. 256) — refers to William Watson's A Treatise of the Law of Arbitration and Awards, an English treatise from the early nineteenth century. Researchers who need the full doctrinal context for this writ should consult Watson directly, as dictionary entries necessarily compress the procedural conditions under which the writ issued.
Finally, because this writ belonged to the old forms of action abolished in England by the Common Law Procedure Acts and in American jurisdictions through code pleading reforms of the nineteenth century, it will appear in primary sources only in pre-reform periods. Searching for it in post-1850s American case law or post-1870s English authorities will generally be unproductive.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's 1st and 2nd editions agree on the substance: de arbitratione facta was a writ used when an action was brought for a cause already settled by arbitration, and both cite Watson's Arbitration at page 256 as authority. Rapalje & Lawrence confirm the same function in compressed form, without the Latin gloss or citation. The three sources are in full agreement on meaning.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the procedural mechanism by which the writ operated — whether it was interposed as a plea, how the fact of prior arbitration was proved to the court's satisfaction, or what conditions the arbitration had to satisfy to support the writ. Watson's treatise remains the necessary supplement on these points. The dictionary entries treat the writ as self-explanatory within a legal culture still familiar with the forms of action; modern researchers should not assume that familiarity.
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Jurisdictional Note
De arbitratione facta was a writ of English common law origin. American courts operating under the forms of action prior to code pleading reform would have recognized it in principle, but it never became a prominently litigated writ in American practice. Its relevance to American legal history is primarily doctrinal rather than procedural.
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