Definition
A medieval English writ directed to the justices of the common bench or justices in eyre, commanding them to deny any legal benefit to a party who had fraudulently obtained the writ known as *præcipe in capite*. The fraud consisted of falsely claiming that the disputed land was held directly of the king in chief (*in capite*), thereby invoking the king's court jurisdiction under a pretext, when in fact the tenure did not support that writ. Rather than allowing the deceiving party to proceed on the fraudulently obtained *præcipe in capite*, the court was instructed to compel that party to pursue the more burdensome writ of right before the appropriate lord's court.
The name derives from the Latin *dolus impetratur* — "fraud is obtained" or "obtained by fraud" — describing the act that triggered the writ's issuance.
Common Confusion
Do not confuse DOLE IMPETRATUR with *South Dakota v. Dole*, 483 U.S. 203 (1987), or with any use of "dole" in modern constitutional spending-power doctrine. The Latin *dolus* (fraud, deceit) is the root of this writ's name. The surname *Dole* in the Supreme Court case is unrelated. Keyword searches in legal databases that return both may safely disregard any connection between them.
Why It Matters in Research
This is an archaic, obsolete writ of narrow application. Researchers will encounter it almost exclusively in two contexts: (1) antiquarian treatments of the medieval English writ system, particularly works organized around the *Registrum Omnium Brevium* (*Reg. Orig.*), the official register of writs; and (2) historical legal dictionaries that catalog the full range of English common-law writs for completeness.
The term carries no modern operational legal meaning. It was not transplanted into American common law, and no American analog exists. Researchers working in early English land law — particularly disputes involving tenure *in capite* and the feudal hierarchy of courts — may need to understand it as part of the broader architecture of the *præcipe* writs and the procedural maneuvering they enabled. Fraudulent invocation of the *præcipe in capite* was a recognized problem because it could strip a mesne lord of jurisdiction over his tenant, which the Statute of Quia Emptores (1290) and earlier measures sought to address in related ways.
Do not confuse the "Dole" in this writ's name with *South Dakota v. Dole* or any modern constitutional spending-power doctrine. The terminological overlap is entirely coincidental. Any researcher who arrives here from a search on "Dole" in a constitutional law context should redirect immediately to the spending conditions literature.
When using historical dictionaries that cite *Reg. Orig. 4* as the source, note that the *Registrum Omnium Brevium* (various printed editions, 16th–17th century) is the standard reference for the text of the writ. All three dictionary sources here draw on that same reference and are in complete agreement on the writ's definition and purpose.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's (1st Ed.), Black's (2nd Ed.), and Rapalje & Lawrence are verbatim or near-verbatim in their treatment of this term. All three identify the writ's addressees (justices of the bench or in eyre), the wrong it corrected (fraudulent procurement of a *præcipe in capite* by falsely suggesting royal tenure), the remedy directed (denial of benefit from the fraudulent writ), and the alternative imposed (prosecution by writ of right). All three cite *Reg. Orig. 4* as authority.
No meaningful divergence exists among the sources. The consistency reflects that this was a fixed, historical form rather than a term subject to doctrinal development or interpretive dispute. None of the three dictionary sources provides additional context about how frequently the writ was actually used or how courts in practice handled the transition to writ of right — gaps that researchers would need to fill from primary sources or specialized scholarship on medieval English land procedure.