Definition
In law, "event" carries two related but distinct meanings:
1. Result or outcome. The conclusion, final determination, or end result of a proceeding or legal operation. This is the dominant legal usage. When a court order requires a party to "abide the event," it means that party's obligation — typically as to costs — depends on the final outcome of the litigation. Similarly, when parties agree that one suit shall be governed by the result in another, "event" refers to that controlling determination.
2. Occurrence or contingency. A happening, whether certain or uncertain, that may serve as a triggering condition in contracts, wills, or property instruments. In this sense, "event" defines the moment upon which a right, obligation, or estate vests, shifts, or terminates — as in a condition precedent requiring a specified event before performance is due, or a remainder contingent on an uncertain event.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To occur, take place; or more broadly, any occurrence or happening, often with a sense of significance or planning (a scheduled event, a sporting event).
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "That which comes, arrives, or happens; that which falls out; any incident, good or bad." Webster's also records "the consequence of anything; the issue; conclusion; result" — and notes an obsolete meaning of "affair in hand; business; enterprise."
The gap between common and legal usage is directional. In ordinary English, "event" primarily denotes an occurrence — something happening. In legal texts, particularly older ones, the word tilts toward the outcome or result of that occurrence. A reader encountering "according to the event of the suit" in a historical document should understand it to mean "depending on how the suit ends," not "at the time the suit occurs." This reversal of emphasis — from happening to conclusion — is the critical trap.
Common Confusion
"Event" and "occurrence" are not interchangeable in legal instruments. An occurrence is the happening itself; the event, in the classical legal sense, is what that happening produces — its legal consequence or conclusion. In insurance and tort law, the distinction matters: "occurrence" triggers coverage questions, while "event" in older policy language often pointed to the resulting loss or judgment. Researchers should also note that "event" in the contingency sense (conditions, remainders, wagers) is functionally synonymous with "contingency" in modern drafting — but historical sources treat these as separate terms with distinct doctrinal homes.
Why It Matters in Research
The dual meaning of "event" creates real interpretive risk in historical legal sources. Before the late nineteenth century, "event" in court documents, cost orders, and procedural agreements almost always means outcome or result — not occurrence. A phrase like "costs to follow the event" has nothing to do with timing; it means costs are awarded to the prevailing party. Researchers reading this as a temporal marker will misread the document entirely.
In property and contract law, "event" functions as a condition anchor. Historical instruments — wills, deeds, settlement agreements — use "event" where modern drafting would use "contingency" or "condition." Cross-referencing with entries for CONDITION, REMAINDER, and AFTER is essential when encountering "event" in these instruments, as Anderson's own cross-references signal.
The corpus will also surface "event" in the procedural sense through cost orders and stay agreements. Black's 2nd edition locates this usage firmly in judicial and quasi-judicial proceedings, and the cases cited there — including Benjamin v. Ver Nooy — confirm that this was a stable term of art in American and English practice by the nineteenth century.
Watch for jurisdictional and temporal compression: what equity courts called the "event" of a suit, code pleading jurisdictions later replaced with "judgment" or "verdict." The word does not disappear, but its doctrinal weight shifts.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three historical sources agree on the result-meaning of "event." Bouvier defines it as "the consequences of anything; the issue, conclusion, end." Anderson tracks that definition closely, adding the useful illustration "the relator is to pay or receive costs, according to the event of the suit" — which anchors the word in procedural practice. Black's 2nd edition is the most precise, expressly limiting its legal definition to "judicial and quasi-judicial proceedings" and identifying "conclusion, end, or final outcome or result of litigation" as the operative meaning.
Where the sources diverge is in their treatment of the contingency sense. Anderson alone flags the broader usage — "occurrence; as, an uncertain event" — and cross-references CONDITION, REMAINDER, WAGER, and WHEN, pointing researchers toward the property and contract contexts where event-as-contingency does doctrinal work. Bouvier and Black concentrate on the procedural sense and do not develop the contingency usage. This is a meaningful gap: historical instruments in equity and property law use "event" in the contingency sense regularly, but the dictionary coverage skews toward litigation.
Webster's 1913 is instructive as a bridge: its definition includes both the occurrence sense and the result sense, and its notation of an obsolete meaning ("affair in hand; business") confirms that the word carried a range of weight in early modern English that legal usage progressively narrowed.
Jurisdictional Note
The procedural usage — "event" as outcome of litigation for cost purposes — was well-established in both English and American courts by the mid-nineteenth century and tracks similarly across common law jurisdictions. In American states that adopted code pleading, the term gradually gave way to more explicit cost and judgment language, so its frequency in legal instruments declines after roughly 1850–1880 depending on jurisdiction.