Definition
"Each" is a distributive adjective pronoun meaning every one of two or more persons or things considered individually and separately from the rest of the group. In legal drafting, its primary function is distributive: it assigns rights, obligations, or liabilities to every member of a group severally, not collectively. When "each" appears in a covenant, contract, or statute, it typically signals that the obligation or benefit attaches to every individual member independently.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "All; every; qualifying a singular noun, indicating all examples of the thing so named seen as individual or separate items."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Every one of the two or more individuals composing a number of objects, considered separately from the rest."
The common and legal meanings are close but not identical in their consequences. Ordinary usage treats "each" as a simple quantifier meaning "every one." Legal usage treats it as a structural signal that creates several — not joint — obligations or entitlements. A reader applying the common meaning might see "each party shall pay" as simply meaning all parties pay; a legal reader understands it to mean every party pays separately, with independent liability.
Why It Matters in Research
The word "each" carries structural weight in legal instruments that its casual appearance may obscure. Several research traps appear regularly:
Distribution versus collection. "Each" distributes — it creates separate, individual obligations or entitlements. This is the opposite of collective or joint language. A covenant binding "each" of several parties creates several obligations; a covenant binding them "jointly" creates one. Confusing the two in historical instruments can lead to a fundamental misreading of who owes what to whom.
Statutory scope. Anderson's Dictionary flags a concrete example: a municipal charter authorizing taxation of "each" express company was held not to reach foreign companies exempted by state law. When researching historical tax or regulatory statutes, the scope of "each" will sometimes turn on whether the drafters intended an exhaustive or a limited distribution. Look for contemporaneous legislative history and exemption clauses when the scope is disputed.
Testamentary construction. Anderson's example of a bequest of "two thousand dollars each" to two legatees illustrates that "each" in will language creates separate, equal, individual gifts — not a shared sum to be divided. When reading historical probate records or equity proceedings, watch for disputes over whether "each" or "between them" was the operative word, since errors in transcription or ambiguous handwriting frequently generated litigation.
Drafting evolution. Modern contracts often pair "each" with "and every" for emphasis ("each and every party"), a construction redundant in strict logic but common in practice since at least the nineteenth century. When researching older instruments, treat "each and every" as intensifying rather than adding meaning, and read it as equivalent to "each" alone.
Corpus connections. The distributive force of "each" connects directly to severability, joint and several liability, and the allocation of litigation costs. The American Rule — that each party bears its own attorney's fees absent a statute, contract, or recognized exception — uses "each" in precisely this distributive sense: the rule attaches fee-bearing to every litigant individually, not to the litigation as a collective event.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical sources converge on the distributive function of "each" without significant disagreement, though they emphasize different applications.
Black's Law Dictionary (1st Ed.) leads with the bond-covenant context, noting that "each" in a covenant creates a several obligation. This reflects the common law rule that individual words of distribution in a multi-party instrument determine the character of the obligation — joint or several — and that courts looked closely at "each," "jointly," and "severally" as technical signals rather than mere stylistic choices.
Black's (2nd Ed.) Supplemental defines "each" succinctly as a distributive adjective pronoun referring to every one of a group, consistent with the first edition but without elaboration.
Anderson's Dictionary of Law adds practical texture through its examples — the express company taxation case and the testamentary bequest — showing that disputes over "each" arose most often at the margins: who counted as a member of the governed class, and whether the distributive gift was per capita or otherwise conditioned. Anderson implicitly acknowledges that the word's apparent simplicity made it a source of litigation precisely because drafters used it without always intending its full legal force.
What the historical sources do not address: the interaction between "each" and modern statutory interpretation canons, the effect of "each" in class action contexts, and the word's role in fee-shifting provisions — all of which are live issues in current research.