Definition
A duplicate is an exact or substantially identical copy of a legal instrument or document — one that carries the same legal effect as the original. Where multiple copies of the same instrument are executed simultaneously and with equal formality, each copy is a duplicate original, meaning each stands as independently complete evidence of the agreement, transaction, or testamentary intent it records. A duplicate is not a mere photocopy or later transcription made for convenience; it is a second (or further) original, typically signed and executed with the same formalities as the first.
The term most commonly appears in three contexts:
1. Duplicate originals of contracts or deeds — where both parties sign two identical copies, each retaining one. Both copies are legally operative.
2. Duplicate wills — where a testator executes two identical copies of a will, each with full testamentary formality. The legal consequences of revoking or destroying one copy are significant (see Core Elements below).
3. Duplicate receipts, licenses, and official documents — where a governmental or administrative body issues a second copy of an official instrument, often when the original is lost.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A duplicate is a copy or reproduction of something; to duplicate is to make an exact copy or to repeat an action.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "That which exactly resembles or corresponds to something else; another, correspondent to the first; a copy; a transcript."
The gap between ordinary and legal usage is meaningful in one specific respect: in everyday language, a duplicate implies secondary status — a copy made from an original. In law, a duplicate original carries no secondary status at all. Each duplicate is fully operative, not derivative. A researcher encountering the phrase "duplicate original" in legal instruments should not treat either copy as subordinate to the other.
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Core Elements
The doctrine governing duplicates rests on two interdependent principles:
Equal evidentiary force. Each duplicate of an instrument is complete evidence of the parties' intention in its own right. Neither copy is preferred over the other; either can be produced to establish the terms of the agreement.
Mutual destruction presumption (wills). When duplicate wills exist and one copy is destroyed by the testator, courts apply a presumption — of variable strength depending on circumstances — that the testator intended to revoke both copies. This follows from the principle that the two copies constitute a single testamentary act. The force of this presumption is not absolute; it can be rebutted by evidence that only one copy was intended to be revoked. Bouvier notes explicitly that the presumption "possesses greater or less force" depending on the facts — a signal to researchers that this is a fact-intensive inquiry, not a mechanical rule.
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Why It Matters in Research
The duplicate will problem is the highest-stakes area of this term's legal life, and historical sources handle it inconsistently. Researchers working with 19th-century probate records or will contests need to understand that the mutual destruction presumption was not uniformly applied. Its weight varied by jurisdiction and by the circumstances surrounding the destruction — whether both copies were in the testator's possession, whether one was held by a third party, and whether any declarations of intent accompanied the act. The Bouvier entry gestures toward this variability without resolving it, which is accurate: there was no settled uniform rule.
For contract research, the term "duplicate original" appears frequently in 19th and early 20th-century commercial instruments and deeds. Researchers should confirm from context whether both copies were actually executed with full formality or whether one copy was merely a file copy. The label "duplicate" or "duplicate original" was not always applied with precision in practice.
In modern practice, the Federal Rules of Evidence (Rule 1001–1003) treat duplicates — including photocopies and electronic reproductions made by reliable processes — as admissible to the same extent as originals, absent genuine dispute about authenticity. This is a significant doctrinal shift from the common-law framework reflected in Bouvier, where the concept of a duplicate was tied to simultaneous execution rather than mechanical reproduction. Researchers should not import the modern evidentiary meaning of "duplicate" backward into historical sources.
The two case references in Bouvier (7 Manning & Granger 93; 40 N.Y. 345) point toward 19th-century English and American authority on the evidentiary weight of duplicate instruments and should be tracked if the research involves the foundational rule that each duplicate is complete evidence of intent.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's definition is characteristically compact: "The double of anything. A document which is essentially the same as some other instrument." The entry's most jurisprudentially useful content is the observation about the mutual destruction presumption in the context of wills — that destroying one duplicate raises a presumption both were intended to be destroyed, but that this presumption varies in force. Bouvier is correct to flag the variability without resolving it, as the case law of the period did not produce a uniform answer.
What historical dictionaries at large tend to understate is the distinction between a duplicate original (simultaneously executed, fully operative) and a copy or transcript made after the fact. Bouvier's definition — "a document which is essentially the same as some other instrument" — is broad enough to encompass both, which could mislead a researcher into treating them equivalently. They are not equivalent in evidentiary weight under the classical framework.
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Jurisdictional Note
The mutual destruction presumption for duplicate wills was recognized in both English and American courts but applied with different degrees of rigor. Some American jurisdictions required affirmative evidence that the testator intended to revoke only one copy before defeating the presumption; others treated the presumption as easily rebutted by circumstance. Researchers examining 19th or early 20th-century will contests should identify the controlling jurisdiction's specific approach rather than relying on any general statement of the rule.
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