Definition
Ex integro is a Latin maxim meaning "anew" or "afresh" — that is, from the beginning, as if for the first time. It describes the act of reconsidering, restarting, or redoing something completely, without reference to what came before. When a matter is taken up ex integro, prior proceedings, determinations, or states of affairs are set aside and the question is approached from a clean slate.
The phrase appears most often in the context of judicial or quasi-judicial proceedings where a prior ruling or transaction is treated as void or a nullity, and the matter must be reconsidered without the encumbrance of what preceded it.
Common Confusion
Ex integro is most easily confused with two related Latin phrases:
De novo: The modern standard term for fresh reconsideration, particularly in appellate review. De novo has a specific, well-developed procedural meaning in American law. Ex integro is broader and older, and lacks the procedural precision de novo has acquired. Researchers should not treat the two as interchangeable when analyzing historical sources.
Ab initio: Meaning "from the beginning," ab initio typically describes the legal effect of voiding a transaction from its inception — it is retrospective in character. Ex integro is forward-looking: it describes what happens next (the matter proceeds afresh), not what the legal status of prior acts is. A contract void ab initio was never valid; a matter reconsidered ex integro is being started over regardless of what came before.
Why It Matters in Research
Ex integro is a navigational hazard for corpus researchers because it appears rarely in primary legal texts and almost exclusively in Latin-dense secondary sources, maxim compilations, and treatises from the English common law tradition. Its appearances are most concentrated in medieval and early modern legal writing — Bracton is the anchor citation — and it drops off sharply in nineteenth-century American legal literature as courts increasingly Anglicized Latin shorthand.
Researchers working in equity sources or appellate procedure materials should distinguish ex integro from the more familiar de novo. Both describe fresh reconsideration, but ex integro carries a stronger connotation of complete recommencement from the origin point of a matter, while de novo has become the dominant term of art in American procedural law for fresh appellate review. A search for ex integro in American case law will return sparse results; the concept it describes will almost always appear under de novo, ab initio, or simply "anew."
When tracing the phrase in English chancery or common law pleading materials, note that Bracton's usage (fol. 293, as cited by Burrill) situates the term in a property and seisin context — reconsidering a right or title from its inception — rather than in the narrower modern sense of appellate review. Researchers should account for this contextual drift when interpreting historical appearances of the phrase.
The phrase may also appear without translation in older American equity opinions that borrowed liberally from English chancery Latin. In those contexts, it is best read alongside ab initio and in integrum to triangulate precise meaning.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries are in complete agreement: Black's (both editions) and Burrill define ex integro identically as "anew; afresh." This unanimity reflects the phrase's status as an uncomplicated Latin adverbial — there was no jurisprudential controversy about its meaning, only about its application in specific procedural contexts.
Burrill adds the sole substantive citation in the historical record, pointing to Bracton fol. 293, which anchors the phrase in thirteenth-century English legal writing. Black's offers no additional context or case support in either edition, suggesting the phrase was treated as self-evident translation rather than a contested term of art.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the relationship between ex integro and functionally equivalent phrases that were gaining currency simultaneously. The omission is significant: by the time Black's first edition was published, de novo had largely displaced ex integro in American practice, and the dictionaries make no effort to map the boundary between them.