Definition
Entry in the case provided (Latin form: *breve de ingressu in casu proviso*) is a common law real action — a writ of entry — available to the reversioner or remainderman when a tenant in dower has unlawfully alienated the land in fee simple, for life, or for another's life during the lifetime of the tenant in dower. The writ allowed the injured party to recover possession of the freehold that had been improperly conveyed beyond the scope of the dowress's limited estate.
As with all writs of entry, the remedy was possessory rather than proprietary: the plaintiff sought to establish that the current holder's title traced back through a defective conveyance — here, the unauthorized alienation by the tenant in dower — and that the plaintiff was therefore entitled to re-enter.
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Common Confusion
ENTRY IN THE CASE PROVIDED is one of several writs of entry distinguished by the nature of the defective title being challenged. Researchers sometimes conflate the various writs of entry because they share a common procedural framework and similar Latin naming conventions. The critical distinctions lie in the triggering fact pattern: the writ *in casu proviso* addresses specifically the alienation by a tenant in dower beyond her lawful estate. It should not be confused with:
- **Writ of entry sur disseisin**, which addressed a wrongful ouster;
- **Writ of entry ad terminum qui praeteriit**, which addressed a holdover by a termor after the term expired;
- **Writ of entry sur intrusion**, which addressed unauthorized entry after the death of a life tenant.
Each writ corresponded to a particular factual defect in the possessor's chain of title. Using the wrong writ was fatal to the action.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term will appear almost exclusively in pre-modern English common law sources — treatises, abridgments, and year books predating the abolition of real actions in England by the Real Property Limitation Act 1833 and the Common Law Procedure Act 1852. American researchers will encounter it primarily in colonial-era pleading records and early nineteenth-century treatises that surveyed inherited common law forms before the states systematically abolished real actions.
Several research traps apply:
**Terminological variation.** The writ appears in Latin, Law French, and anglicized forms interchangeably across sources. *Casu proviso* is the standard Latin shorthand; Termes de la Ley and similar Law French glossaries use the anglicized form reproduced in Black's. Searches limited to one linguistic form will miss parallel references.
**Dower law context is essential.** The writ exists entirely within the framework of dower rights. Researchers approaching it without a working understanding of the tenant in dower's estate — its duration, alienability constraints, and relationship to the reversioner's interest — will misread the operative legal issue. The writ's premise is that a dowress held only a life estate measured by her own life, and alienation in fee or for life exceeded her title.
**Obsolescence and displacement.** By the time American legal dictionaries were systematically compiled in the nineteenth century, this writ had been functionally displaced by ejectment as the universal possessory action. References in nineteenth-century American treatises are typically historical or comparative rather than practical. Researchers should not assume the writ was available or used in any particular American jurisdiction without direct primary source evidence.
**Corpus connections.** This entry connects to the broader corpus of real property and feudal land law, dower and curtesy doctrine, and the general history of real actions in common law procedure. It is most productively researched alongside treatises on common law pleading (Stearns, Booth, and Reeve on dower) rather than in isolation.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary transmits this definition directly from Termes de la Ley, a Law French legal glossary with roots in the sixteenth century, republished repeatedly into the early modern period. The definition in Black's is a compressed paraphrase of that source and does not elaborate on the procedural mechanics of bringing the writ, the proper parties, or the form of the count.
Termes de la Ley itself was a practitioner's reference rather than an analytical treatise, and its entries on writs of entry are characteristically brief. The entry captures the essential triggering condition — alienation by the dowress beyond her estate — but leaves unstated the relationship to the broader taxonomy of writs of entry, the role of the "degrees" limitation (which restricted writs of entry based on how many steps removed the defective title had become), and the question of whether the *casu proviso* writ was subject to that degrees restriction or was among the writs available at any remove.
Other historical English dictionaries, including Cowell's *Interpreter* and Jacob's *Law Dictionary*, address writs of entry generally but do not consistently isolate *casu proviso* as a discrete entry. Researchers relying solely on Black's should be aware that the definition, while accurate as far as it goes, represents a thin treatment of what was a technically specific procedural form embedded in a complex body of real actions doctrine.
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Jurisdictional Note
This writ was an English common law form. American states that adopted common law pleading inherited the framework of real actions, but reception was uneven and abolition came early in most jurisdictions. No modern American jurisdiction recognizes this writ as a live procedural vehicle; its relevance in American legal research is exclusively historical.
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