Definition
Ex parte talis (Law Latin: "on the part of such a person") was a writ of medieval English origin available to a bailiff or receiver who, after submitting his accounts to auditors appointed to examine them, was denied reasonable allowance by those auditors and was cast into prison as a result. The writ provided a remedy against the unjust detention of an accounting officer who had been imprisoned following an adverse—and allegedly unreasonable—audit determination. Its function was corrective: it operated to secure the release or relief of an officer whose accounts had not been fairly reckoned.
The writ belongs to the broader family of writs catalogued in Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium, the standard medieval English reference for original writs, which is the principal authority cited across the historical dictionaries for this entry.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is a navigational hazard for researchers working in historical common law sources. It appears in dictionaries of general legal terms not because it carries ongoing doctrinal significance, but because it was catalogued as part of the exhaustive inventory of obsolete writs that nineteenth-century lexicographers preserved from Fitzherbert and related authorities. Researchers encountering the term in Black's or Rapalje & Lawrence should understand immediately that they are looking at a writ that has been effectively dead since the abolition of the writ system in England and the displacement of analogous forms in American practice.
The primary research trap is confusion with the modern procedural concept of ex parte proceedings generally. A researcher searching a historical corpus for "ex parte" materials may surface this writ inadvertently and mistake it for authority on modern ex parte procedure. The two share only the Latin prefix—the writ is a discrete, obsolete remedy tied to medieval audit accountability, not a procedural vehicle for one-sided judicial proceedings.
For researchers tracing the history of accountability mechanisms for public officers, receivers in equity, or court-appointed accounting officers, this writ represents an early common law ancestor of what equity later handled through receivership supervision and surcharge. The connection between ex parte talis and the equitable treatment of receivers is worth noting for anyone building a historical account of officer accountability.
Burrill's Law Dictionary entry is incomplete in the available source material, truncating at "L. Lat. (On the"—a reminder that corpus searches in historical dictionaries must account for pagination breaks and scanning artifacts that can make an entry appear more ambiguous than the original source.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries present substantially consistent accounts with minor variation. Black's (both editions) and Rapalje & Lawrence agree on the core definition—a writ for a bailiff or receiver denied reasonable allowance by auditors and imprisoned—and all cite Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium, page 129, as the controlling authority. This uniformity reflects that nineteenth-century American legal lexicographers were largely drawing from the same English source rather than independently verifying the writ's operation.
Rapalje & Lawrence adds a parenthetical cross-reference to "EX OFFICIO, (defined). 1 Wyom. T. 318" in a way that appears to be a formatting artifact of the original dictionary, not a substantive connection between the two writs. Researchers should not read doctrinal linkage into this juxtaposition.
None of the historical dictionaries explain the procedural mechanics of how the writ was obtained, what court issued it, or what standard governed the determination of "reasonable allowance." Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium itself would be the necessary source for that level of detail. The dictionaries treat the writ as a cataloguing entry rather than as a working practitioner's tool—unsurprising given that by the time these dictionaries were compiled, the writ had long since passed out of use.
The Black's entries also include, immediately following the ex parte talis definition, two Latin maxims (Ex paucis dictis intendere plurima possis and Ex paucis plurima concipit ingenium) that begin the next alphabetical entry. Researchers working with digitized versions of Black's should be aware that these maxims are separate entries that were printed in close proximity and may be captured together in corpus searches or OCR outputs.
Jurisdictional Note
Ex parte talis was a writ of English common law with no American successor. It has no jurisdictional variation to track because it was never transplanted into American practice as a distinct form. Modern relief for an improperly imprisoned officer or receiver would proceed through habeas corpus, contempt proceedings, or equitable receivership supervision depending on the context and jurisdiction.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Constitutional Law: Ex parte Young — The Fiction That Permits Suits Against State Officers (constitutional_42) [for the modern ex parte procedural framework in federal constitutional litigation]
Family Law: Domestic Violence — Emergency / Ex Parte Orders of Protection (family_171) [for the modern ex parte procedural context most commonly encountered in practice]
Intellectual Property: The Defend Trade Secrets Act — Federal Civil Action and Ex Parte Seizure (ip_94) [for a contemporary statutory ex parte remedy with structural echoes of emergency, one-sided relief]