Definition
Dorsement is an archaic or abbreviated form of ENDORSEMENT (also spelled INDORSEMENT), referring to the act of signing the back of a negotiable instrument — such as a check, promissory note, or bill of exchange — to transfer rights in it, guarantee payment, or restrict its further negotiation. The term derives from the practice of writing on the dorsum (back) of the instrument itself.
In its operative legal sense, a dorsement accomplishes one or more of the following: it transfers title to the instrument to another party; it creates a secondary liability on the part of the signer (the dorser) to pay if the primary obligor defaults; or it imposes conditions on how the instrument may be further negotiated.
Common Confusion
DORSEMENT, ENDORSEMENT, and INDORSEMENT are functionally the same concept across different spellings and historical periods. INDORSEMENT is the preferred spelling in most American commercial law statutes, including the Uniform Commercial Code. ENDORSEMENT is dominant in general commercial and banking usage. DORSEMENT appears primarily in older English and early American legal sources and is rarely used in modern practice. Researchers encountering DORSEMENT in historical documents should treat it as equivalent to INDORSEMENT and apply the same legal analysis.
Do not confuse any of these terms with ASSIGNMENT. An indorsement transfers a negotiable instrument under the law of commercial paper; an assignment transfers contractual rights under general contract law and carries different notice requirements and defenses.
Why It Matters in Research
The spelling DORSEMENT will surface almost exclusively in pre-twentieth-century texts, particularly English legal sources and early American treatises. Researchers mining the Law Mind corpus for negotiable instruments doctrine should run searches under all three spellings — DORSEMENT, ENDORSEMENT, and INDORSEMENT — to ensure complete retrieval across historical periods.
The Bouvier's entry fragment reproduced above gestures at an important substantive issue: the bona fide holder for value doctrine. Under that doctrine, a holder who takes a negotiable instrument by valid dorsement/indorsement, for value, in good faith, and without notice of defects, takes free of most prior claims and personal defenses. This is the core commercial law benefit of negotiability, and the dorsement is the mechanism that activates it. Any historical source discussing dorsement in the context of bearer instruments or holder-in-due-course status is engaging with this principle, even if the vocabulary differs from modern UCC usage.
Be alert to the following research traps:
First, historical sources treat bearer instruments and order instruments differently with respect to transfer requirements. A bearer instrument passes by delivery alone; dorsement is not required for transfer, though it may still be made and carries legal consequences when it is. An order instrument requires indorsement plus delivery for negotiation. Bouvier's fragment touches on this distinction.
Second, the liability consequences of dorsement varied significantly in historical sources depending on whether the dorsement was blank, special, restrictive, or qualified. Modern UCC Article 3 codifies these categories explicitly; pre-UCC sources use inconsistent terminology for the same underlying concepts. When reading a historical source, do not assume that a "general" indorsement in an 1880s treatise maps cleanly onto any single modern category.
Third, the spelling variation itself can be a dating clue. Sources using DORSEMENT as a standalone term (rather than as a component of INDORSEMENT) tend to be English in origin or early in date. American sources after the mid-nineteenth century generally prefer INDORSEMENT. This can help date an undated document or identify its probable jurisdiction of origin.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary uses the DORSEMENT entry as a bridge into the law of negotiable instruments generally, with its reproduced fragment focusing on bearer instruments and the bona fide holder doctrine. This is consistent with Bouvier's broader organizational strategy of using specific technical terms as entry points for extended doctrinal exposition.
The fragment's reference to the 1891 English chancery authority reflects the significant cross-pollination between English commercial law and American negotiable instruments doctrine in the late nineteenth century — a period before the Negotiable Instruments Law (1896) and long before UCC Article 3 (1952, revised 1990) rationalized American practice. Researchers relying on Bouvier's for negotiable instruments doctrine should treat it as a guide to pre-codification common law principles, not as a statement of current law.
What Bouvier's and comparable historical dictionaries do not adequately address is the systematic treatment of indorser liability, discharge, and presentment that modern statutes impose. For those questions, the historical dictionary entries must be supplemented with the primary statutory sources.
Jurisdictional Note
Modern American law governing indorsement is found in UCC Article 3, as enacted in each state. English law follows the Bills of Exchange Act 1882. Historical sources may reflect either tradition, or a pre-codification common law that diverged in significant ways from both.