EXONERETUR - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

EXONERETURAuthored

The Law Mind • 724 words

Definition

A Latin term meaning "let him be discharged" or "let him be relieved." In practice, exoneretur is the word of art entered on a bail-piece — the document evidencing a surety's undertaking — to record that the bail has been formally discharged from further obligation. The discharge occurs when the condition of the bail is satisfied, most commonly by the surrender of the principal to custody, but also by other recognized means of fulfillment. The entry of exoneretur operates as a formal release: once made, the surety's liability on the bail bond is extinguished.

Common Confusion

Exoneretur should not be confused with the underlying act of surrender or with the discharge of the defendant from custody. The term speaks exclusively to the surety's release from obligation, not to any disposition of the principal's case. A principal may be surrendered, triggering exoneretur on the bail-piece, while the criminal or civil proceeding against that principal continues entirely unaffected. Researchers encountering the term in historical records should resist reading it as evidence of case resolution.

Why It Matters in Research

Exoneretur appears almost exclusively in older procedural sources and historical court records. Its practical significance declined sharply as American bail practice modernized and formal bail-piece procedure gave way to statutory bond systems. Researchers working with pre-twentieth-century American or English court records — particularly common law civil practice records, plea rolls, and bail dockets — will encounter the term as a clerk's notation rather than as a substantive legal ruling. The entry of exoneretur may be the only record that a surety discharged successfully, making it potentially significant in disputes over surety liability or in tracing the outcome of bail proceedings.

The term also surfaces in treatises on suretyship and bail from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Researchers consulting those sources should note that the procedural mechanism described — the bail-piece with formal entry — reflects English common law practice that was adopted unevenly across American jurisdictions. Some American states formalized the procedure by statute; others absorbed the concept informally into bond practice without retaining the Latin terminology. This means that the absence of the word exoneretur in American records does not necessarily indicate the absence of a surety discharge.

One trap in historical sources: several dictionary entries for exoneretur appear immediately adjacent to entries for "expectancy" or "estate in expectancy" due to alphabetical proximity, and at least one historical dictionary (Burrill's) has a visibly truncated entry where the text runs into the adjacent definition. Researchers consulting Burrill's should be aware that the exoneretur entry cuts off mid-sentence and should verify against Black's or Rapalje & Lawrence for a complete account.

Historical Dictionary Support

The four source dictionaries agree on all substantive points: exoneretur is a Latin phrase meaning "let him be discharged," entered on a bail-piece to release a surety, triggered most commonly by surrender of the principal. The definitions are nearly identical across Black's first and second editions, suggesting the second edition carried the first forward without revision.

Rapalje & Lawrence adds the useful specification that the entry is made "by order of a judge," a procedural detail the other sources omit. This is a meaningful addition: it clarifies that exoneretur was not a self-executing clerical notation but required judicial authorization, at least in American practice. Burrill's entry, though truncated in the available text, confirms the core meaning and adds the Latin root exonerare (to discharge), which is consistent with the term's use across suretyship and civil procedure contexts.

None of the historical dictionaries address the decline of the bail-piece as a procedural instrument, nor do they note jurisdictional variation in American adoption of the practice. This is expected given their period, but researchers should not assume uniform procedure from these sources alone.

Jurisdictional Note

Exoneretur as a formal entry on a bail-piece is primarily an English common law procedural mechanism. American adoption varied: some states retained the bail-piece form and formal entry; others transitioned early to statutory bond practice that achieved the same substantive result under different terminology. The term is largely obsolete in modern American and English practice.

EXONERETURmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

Lat. Let him be re- lieved or discharged. An entry made on a bail-piece, whereby the surety is relieved or discharged from further obligation, when the condition is fulfilled by the surrender of the principal or otherwise.

EXONERETURmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1888

- Let him be discharged. 1. In American practice. --An entry made by order of a judge on a bailpiece, where the bail are discharged from liability either by surrender of their principal, or otherwise. ЕХРЕСТАTION. property immediately available, is exposed to the temptation of selling or mortgaging his right or expectation on unreasonable terms, (e. g. for much below its value, or at a usurious rate of interest,) and is, therefore, considered as entitled to the protection of the court against the enforcement of such "catching bargains," as they are called. (Earl of Chesterfield v. Janssen, 2. In English practice. In an action White & T. Lead Cas. 483; Poll. Cont. 529; in the Mayor's Court, an exoneretur is an entry Earl of Aylesford v. Morris, L. R. 8 Ch. made on the recognizance of bail, when the action has been withdrawn or settled (Brand. 484; Nevill v. Snelling, 15 Ch. D. 679.) For. Att. 109), and operates as a discharge of Thus, where a man twenty-six years of the bail from their liability. In the days when arrest on mesne process existed in ordinary actions in the superior courts, an exoneretur was entered on the bail-piece or filacer's book, if the defendant was rendered to prison, because the bail was thereby discharged. Tidd. Pr. 288. age, entitled to a reversion of £600, but wholly without present means, applied to a money-lender, who advanced him £85 on a mortgage of the reversion for £100, with a provision that if default should be EXORDIUM.--The beginning or inmade in payment of the £100, it should troductory part of a speech. " bear interest at 5 per cent. per month; it was held, that the mortgagor was entitled EXPATRIATION takes place when to a decree for redemption of his reversion a person loses his nationality, and reon payment of the sum borrowed and simnounces his allegiance to his native coun-ple interest at 5 per cent. per annum. try by becoming the subject of a foreign (Beynon v. Cook, L. R. 10 Ch. 389.) The State. Expatriation by a British subject term expectant heir" is used, not in its has been made possible by the Naturalizaliteral meaning, but as including every tion Act, 1870. Udny v. Udny, L. R. 1 Sc. & D. App. 441. As to the American doctrine, see U. S. Rev. Stat. 2 1999, 2000. See EXUERE PATRIAM; NATURALIZATION;

EXONERETURmain

Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1867

L. Lat. [from exonerare, to discharge.] (Let him be discharged.) In practice. An entry made upon a bail-piece, where the bail are discharged, either by the surrender of their EXPECTANCY, Estate in. An estate the possession of which a person is entitled to have in futuro.* 1 Steph. Com. 289. See Estate in expectancy.

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