Definition
Entry in the case provid (from the Latin *in casu proviso*, meaning "in the case provided") is an archaic common law writ of entry that lay in a specific fact pattern: a tenant in dower had alienated the freehold in fee, or for life, or for another's life, and that alienating tenant in dower was still living at the time the action was brought. The writ allowed the reversioner or remainder-man to recover the land from the alienee on the ground that the alienation exceeded the tenant's lawful interest. The phrase "in the case provided" refers to the statutory or recognized case for which this particular form of the writ was expressly made available.
Common Confusion
Researchers should not conflate "entry in the case provid" with the broader category of writs of entry generally. The writ-of-entry system encompassed many named variants, and the in casu proviso form was limited to the specific dower-alienation scenario. Using the term loosely to describe any writ of entry for unauthorized alienation by a life tenant would be anachronistic and imprecise.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is of purely historical interest. Researchers encountering it in early American or English legal records—case reports, plea rolls, or conveyancing treatises predating the mid-nineteenth century—should understand that the writ belongs to the medieval writ-of-entry system, a family of real actions that were abolished or rendered obsolete in England by the Real Property Limitation Act of 1833 and in most American jurisdictions by the adoption of simplified real property actions and, later, quiet title statutes during the nineteenth century.
The critical research trap is the Latin abbreviation. Sources from the seventeenth through early nineteenth centuries frequently render this as "entry in casu proviso," "entry in le casu proviso," or in Anglicized shorthand as "entry in the case provided." All refer to the same writ. Researchers working with Termes de la Ley, Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium, or early Year Book materials will find the writ grouped among the possessory and mixed real actions rather than under personal actions, which affects where it appears in older digest and abridgment indexes.
The writ's specific trigger—the continued life of the tenant in dower who made the alienation—is a condition that shaped how pleadings were drafted. The survival of the alienating tenant had to be affirmatively alleged and, in practice, proved. This procedural particularity occasionally surfaces in early American case law as courts applied English common law forms in the colonial and early republic periods.
Corpus researchers should note that this writ is rarely the subject of standalone reported decisions. It appears most often in treatise discussions of the broader writ-of-entry system, in glossaries, and incidentally in cases involving dower rights or unauthorized alienation by life tenants.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence (1883) preserves the entry in compressed form, citing Termes de la Ley as authority and providing the essential fact pattern without extended analysis. The entry appears in a cluster with other writ-of-entry variants—entry of a foreclosure and entry on the roll—reflecting the dictionary's format of grouping procedurally related terms rather than treating each independently.
Termes de la Ley, the original source cited, is one of the earliest English legal glossaries, and its treatment of this writ reflects the classical common law understanding: the writ was classified as a form of real action, not a personal one, and its availability depended strictly on the relationship between the parties and the continuing life of the alienating tenant. Rapalje & Lawrence add nothing beyond what Termes de la Ley provides, which is itself a signal that by 1883 this writ was understood as a historical artifact rather than a living procedural tool.
Older English dictionaries, including Jacob's Law Dictionary and Tomlins's Law Dictionary, give fuller treatments of the writ-of-entry system generally and discuss in casu proviso as one of several named variants, alongside writs in the per, the per and cui, and the post—each reflecting how many degrees of alienation had intervened between the original dispossession and the action.
What the historical sources collectively omit is any sustained American case law development, because the writ did not take root in most American jurisdictions in a robust way. American courts that confronted dower alienation questions in the nineteenth century generally reached for equity remedies or statutory real property actions rather than the ancient writ forms.
Jurisdictional Note
The writ was formally part of English common law and was received into American colonial jurisprudence, but its practical use in American courts was sparse and largely confined to the earliest period of the republic. Most American states abolished the formal writ system in favor of statutory real property actions well before the Civil War, rendering this writ a matter of legal history in virtually all American jurisdictions.