Definition
De bonis testatoris ac si is a Latin phrase meaning "from the goods of the testator, if he has any, and if not, from those of the executor." It describes a form of judgment entered against an executor in probate and common law pleading contexts. The judgment operates in two stages: it first reaches the assets of the deceased testator's estate, and only if those assets prove insufficient does liability fall upon the executor personally.
The judgment arises specifically where an executor falsely pleads a matter that purports to discharge or release the estate's liability — for example, falsely asserting that a debt was already paid or released — or more generally in any situation where an executor is to be held personally accountable because the testator's estate cannot satisfy the claim. The phrase captures the sequential logic of the liability: the executor's personal goods are a secondary, conditional source of recovery, not a primary target.
Common Confusion
De bonis testatoris ac si is easily confused with two related Latin formulas used in executor liability:
De bonis testatoris — a judgment reached solely against the testator's estate, with no personal liability on the executor. This is the standard form of judgment against an executor acting within proper bounds.
De bonis propriis — a judgment against the executor's own personal assets, available where the executor has committed a devastavit (waste of the estate) or another personal wrong. This is the harshest form of executor liability.
De bonis testatoris ac si sits between these two: it first exhausts estate assets and then, if the estate is insufficient, the executor's personal goods become available. The distinction matters because it reflects the nature of the wrong alleged and the pleading posture that triggered personal exposure.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in historical common law pleading sources and early probate practice materials. Researchers are unlikely to encounter it in modern case law or statutes, but will find it in older reports, treatises on executors and administrators, and English equity and common law pleading forms.
The key research trap is conflating the three de bonis formulas. Historical sources — including Williams' Saunderss and Bacon's Abridgment — treat these as distinct judgments with distinct procedural consequences, and the difference between them often determines whether a plaintiff can reach an executor personally. Reading a historical judgment entry without recognizing which de bonis variant applies can lead to a misreading of the executor's exposure.
This term also signals a false pleading context. When de bonis testatoris ac si appears in historical records, it marks a case where the executor's conduct — specifically, asserting a false release or discharge — elevated the matter from ordinary estate administration into personal accountability territory. Researchers tracing the history of executor liability, fiduciary duty, or probate fraud will find this formula a useful index of the older common law's mechanisms for policing executor misconduct.
Cross-reference with devastavit: that doctrine describes the broader category of executor waste giving rise to personal liability, and many historical sources treat de bonis propriis as the judgment form associated with devastavit. De bonis testatoris ac si occupies the narrower space of false pleading by the executor.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (both the first and second editions) and Bouvier's Law Dictionary are in precise agreement on the definition and operative circumstances of this term. All three sources reproduce substantially identical language, tracing the judgment to false pleading of a release and extending it generally to cases where the executor is personally chargeable upon insufficiency of the estate. This uniformity suggests the term had a settled, technical meaning in Anglo-American common law pleading with little doctrinal variation between sources.
The supporting references — Williams' Saunders on pleading, Bacon's Abridgment under "Executor," and Archbold's Practice — locate the term squarely within English common law practice. None of the historical dictionary entries addresses American statutory probate reforms, which largely displaced these common law pleading forms by the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Researchers should treat the dictionary definitions as accurate for their historical period but should not assume the judgment form survived into modern American probate procedure in any operative sense.
Jurisdictional Note
This judgment form is rooted in English common law pleading and has no direct modern statutory equivalent in U.S. jurisdictions. American probate codes have replaced the common law framework governing executor liability with statutory regimes that address the same underlying concerns — executor misconduct and personal liability — through different mechanisms.