Definition
A feigned action is a lawsuit brought on a pretended or fictitious right, where the plaintiff has no genuine cause of action, pursued for some unlawful or improper purpose. The action is "feigned" not because the procedural form is defective — the words of the writ may be technically correct — but because the underlying right asserted does not truly exist or is manufactured to achieve an end the law does not sanction.
Feigned actions must be distinguished from false actions: in a feigned action the writ's language is formally true but the right is fabricated; in a false action the writ itself contains false statements. The distinction is procedural and formal, not moral — both involve an abuse of legal process, but they fail at different points in the pleading structure.
A separate, older usage of "feigned action" refers to collusive or fictitious suits that parties brought by agreement to obtain a judicial determination of their rights without a genuine dispute — a practice that gave rise to the action on a feigned issue. This usage, once an accepted procedural device in English common law courts, should not be confused with the fraudulent sense above.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Feigned" means pretended, simulated, or insincere — used of emotions, illness, or appearances manufactured to deceive.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Feigned" is defined as not real or genuine; simulated; as, feigned sickness.
The common meaning tracks the legal meaning closely enough that the word itself presents no interpretive trap. The danger for researchers lies elsewhere: in legal sources, "feigned" carries a specific technical distinction from "false," and in some older authorities it describes a legitimate procedural fiction (the feigned issue) rather than a fraudulent one. A reader importing only the common meaning — simple pretense or deception — will miss this structural legal distinction entirely.
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Common Confusion
FEIGNED ACTION vs. FEIGNED ISSUE: These are not synonyms. A feigned issue was a formally recognized procedural device in equity and common law practice by which courts directed a fictitious action at law to obtain a jury's finding on a disputed fact. The parties consented, the fiction was transparent, and the practice was legitimate. A feigned action in the fraudulent sense is an abuse of process. Historical sources use "feigned" in both contexts, sometimes without signaling which sense is intended. Researchers encountering the phrase in equity practice materials should determine whether the context is procedural facilitation or fraudulent litigation before drawing conclusions.
FEIGNED ACTION vs. FALSE ACTION: Both Black's and Bouvier's draw the distinction explicitly from Coke: feigned action (true writ, false right); false action (false writ). The terms are not interchangeable, though both describe defective litigation. Historical sources may use them loosely.
FEIGNED ACTION vs. COLLUSIVE ACTION: A collusive action involves two parties cooperating to manufacture a dispute for a judicial ruling — closer to the feigned issue device than to a unilaterally fraudulent feigned action. The distinction matters when researching justiciability and the historical development of standing doctrine.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term is predominantly a historical term of art. It appears rarely in modern practice and virtually never in modern American statutory or case law under this label. Researchers are most likely to encounter it in:
— Pre-twentieth century common law treatises and pleading manuals, where the feigned/false action distinction was a live doctrinal point drawn from Coke on Littleton.
— Equity practice materials discussing feigned issues, where the word "feigned" signals a legitimate procedural fiction rather than fraud.
— Early American and English reports addressing abuse of process, champerty, or maintenance, where feigned actions appeared as examples of improper litigation.
The central research trap is the term's dual valence: fraudulent pretense in one tradition, accepted procedural fiction in another. When Rapalje & Lawrence redirects to ACTION § 17, that cross-reference is doing significant work — the concept is subsumed into broader action-classification schemes in later dictionaries rather than standing alone as a discrete doctrine.
Researchers tracing the historical roots of modern doctrines like standing, justiciability, or collusion in litigation should note that feigned actions and feigned issues are ancestor concepts. The courts' discomfort with both — fraudulent and collusive alike — contributed to evolving requirements for genuine adverse interest between parties.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's, Bouvier's, and Rapalje & Lawrence are in substantive agreement, all tracing the definition to Coke on Littleton (Co. Litt. 361). Black's and Bouvier's reproduce nearly identical text, reflecting the standard common law formulation. Rapalje & Lawrence offers no independent definition, redirecting to a broader classification entry — which itself signals that by the late nineteenth century this term was being absorbed into larger taxonomies rather than treated as a freestanding concept.
None of the historical sources develop the procedural consequences of a feigned action in detail, nor do they address whether discovery of a feigned action voids the judgment, subjects counsel to sanction, or sounds in abuse of process. Researchers should not treat these definitions as exhaustive statements of the law; they are classificatory labels pointing toward Coke and the older common law pleading tradition.
The Coke citation (Co. Litt. 361) is the primary anchor. Researchers wanting the full doctrinal context should consult that source directly rather than relying on the dictionary summaries, which compress a more nuanced discussion.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Actions at Law — Classification and Historical Forms; Feigned Issue; Abuse of Process.
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