Definition
In legal usage, FOLLOW operates less as a standalone term of art and more as a functional verb carrying precise legal weight depending on context. It signals that one legal consequence, obligation, or attribute is determined by, attached to, or moves with another legal fact or status. Three principal legal uses appear in the historical sources and practice:
1. Costs follow the event: The party who loses a proceeding bears the costs. The outcome of the case (the "event") determines who pays.
2. Property status or situs follows a legal fact: Certain attributes of property are derived from and move with a controlling legal fact. The classic formulation is that the situs of personal property follows the domicile of the owner; similarly, the rule partus sequitur ventrem holds that the legal status of offspring follows that of the mother.
3. Following authority or precedent: A court or party conforms its judgment or conduct to an established rule, prior decision, or controlling authority.
In each use, FOLLOW denotes legal dependency — one result is fixed by reference to another status, fact, or rule.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To go after; to pursue; to move behind in the same path or direction. Also: to carry out orders or instructions; to understand; to subscribe to or track content from another person.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To go or come after; to move behind in the same path or direction; to endeavor to overtake; to chase or pursue; to accept as authority or adopt the opinions of another.
The common meanings of follow — physical movement behind something, or compliance with instructions — are close enough to the legal uses that the word rarely signals confusion in isolation. The gap worth noting is one of precision: in law, follow does not merely describe sequence or compliance. It describes legal dependency and automatic legal consequence. When costs "follow the event," no separate order is required to create that obligation; the result flows as a matter of law from the triggering fact. The common meaning suggests a voluntary act; the legal meaning often describes an involuntary, rule-governed attachment.
Common Confusion
FOLLOW vs. PURSUE/PROSECUTE: Anderson's entry for FOLLOW redirects entirely to PROSECUTE, PROSEQUI, PURSUE, and SUIT — reflecting older usage in which "to follow" a claim or action meant to press or continue it, essentially synonymous with prosecuting a suit. Modern legal writing has largely abandoned this usage. Researchers encountering "follow" in older pleadings, writs, or procedural materials should read it as meaning to prosecute or continue a legal action, not as a statement of legal dependency.
FOLLOW THE FORTUNES (insurance): In reinsurance law, "follow the fortunes" is a discrete doctrine — not simply the word follow used generically. It obligates a reinsurer to follow the cedent's good-faith settlements and coverage decisions. This doctrine has its own body of authority and should not be confused with the general legal usage of follow as denoting legal dependency.
Why It Matters in Research
The principal research trap with FOLLOW is its chameleon quality across historical periods and doctrinal contexts. Anderson's entry offers no standalone definition — it dispatches readers to related procedural terms, confirming that in older legal usage the term was procedural shorthand for prosecuting or pursuing an action. Black's 2nd edition captures the dependency usage but presents it as if fully settled and uniform, which it is not across all jurisdictions or all time periods.
Researchers working in equity and remedies will encounter FOLLOW most actively in the tracing context: courts speak of "following" misappropriated property through exchanges or commingled funds. Here the word carries equitable doctrine — the ability to trace and recover specific property rests on whether the law recognizes that the plaintiff's interest "follows" the asset as it changes form. This is distinct from a mere damages claim and implicates priority rules, constructive trusts, and the limits of tracing in insolvency.
Researchers working in insurance and reinsurance will encounter the "follow the fortunes" clause as a contractual and doctrinal term. The Law Mind Insurance Law Encyclopedia entry on reinsurance covers this in detail and should be the starting point for that line of research.
Researchers in conflicts of laws and property will find the situs-follows-domicile and partus-sequitur-ventrem formulations historically significant. The latter was extensively used to fix the status of enslaved persons in antebellum American law; primary source materials from that era will use "follows" in this legal-dependency sense, and researchers must recognize its doctrinal weight.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's 2nd edition provides the most useful affirmative definition, illustrating three canonical formulations of legal dependency: costs follow the event, situs follows the owner, offspring follows the mother. These examples reveal that the term's legal weight lies entirely in context — the same word signals three different doctrinal rules depending on subject matter.
Anderson's entry is notable for what it does not do: it provides no independent definition at all, treating FOLLOW as entirely derivative of prosecute, pursue, and suit. This reflects late nineteenth-century procedural usage in which "follow" was a procedural verb, not a substantive one. Neither dictionary addresses the reinsurance doctrine or the equitable tracing usage, both of which developed their modern form after these sources were compiled.
The gap between these sources and modern usage is significant. Researchers should not rely on either dictionary as a complete account of how "follow" functions in current doctrine.
Jurisdictional Note
The "costs follow the event" rule is standard in English and Commonwealth systems but is not the American default; U.S. courts generally follow the American Rule requiring each party to bear its own attorney's fees absent a statute, contract, or recognized exception. Researchers moving between common law jurisdictions must identify which costs rule applies before assuming that "costs follow" has the same effect in the materials they are reading.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Tracing — Following Misappropriated Property Through Exchanges and Commingled Funds (Law Mind Remedies & Equity Encyclopedia)
Reinsurance — Treaty and Facultative, Follow the Fortunes, Cut-Through Clauses, and Arbitration (Law Mind Insurance Law Encyclopedia)