Definition
A formal pleading phrase used to introduce the plaintiff's statement of facts — the narration of the plaintiff's case — in a common law declaration. The phrase functioned as a recital signal, indicating that what followed was the plaintiff's account of the circumstances giving rise to the action. It appeared in all forms of action except trespass, where the shorter phrase "For that" was used instead. The distinction between the two formulas tracked a structural difference in pleading: actions other than trespass included a recital of background circumstances before stating the grievance, while trespass declarations proceeded more directly to the wrong alleged, without that preliminary recital.
Common Confusion
"For that whereas" and "For that" are easily conflated, but they were technically distinct formulas with different procedural significance. "For that whereas" introduced a recital — a narrative of facts leading up to the cause of action — and was the standard opening in assumpsit, case, debt, and similar forms. "For that" omitted the recital and was used specifically in trespass declarations. A researcher encountering one formula in a historical pleading and expecting the other should treat the difference as a meaningful signal about the form of action being pursued, not a scribal preference or interchangeable variation.
Why It Matters in Research
This phrase is almost exclusively a specimen of common law formal pleading practice and will appear only in historical materials — primarily pre-nineteenth century English and American declarations, pleading manuals, and precedent books. It has no operative function in modern practice, having been displaced by code pleading reforms beginning in the mid-nineteenth century (Field Code, 1848) and subsequently by notice pleading under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (1938).
Researchers working in early American court records, colonial pleadings, or English common law materials should recognize "for that whereas" as the standard opening of the declaration's count — the heart of the pleading — and treat everything following it as the plaintiff's substantive factual allegations. Missing this structural marker can cause a researcher to misidentify where a pleading's operative allegations begin.
The phrase also serves as a diagnostic tool: its presence identifies the form of action as something other than trespass, which carries downstream implications for the remedies sought, the procedural posture of the case, and the legal theories available to the plaintiff. Its absence — replaced by the bare "for that" — is an indicator that trespass vi et armis or trespass on the case may be in play, though researchers should verify against other features of the pleading.
Because the phrase is a fixed formula, it appears verbatim across centuries of pleading precedents. Variations in spelling ("whereas" vs. "where as") or abbreviation in manuscript records should be treated as scribal conventions, not substantive differences.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's, Burrill's, and Bouvier's are in close agreement on this term, and the convergence itself is informative: all three reduce the entry to its functional definition with minimal elaboration, treating the phrase as a well-settled term of art requiring no interpretive development. This reflects the formulaic nature of the phrase — it was a fixed component of pleading architecture, not a contested legal concept.
Burrill adds the Latin equivalent (eo videlicet quod cum), which is useful for researchers working with Latin-form pleadings or comparing English and continental practice. Burrill also supplies the Latin for the trespass variant — de eo quod — giving researchers both sides of the distinction in original-language form. Black's and Bouvier's do not provide the Latin, limiting their utility for manuscript-level research.
None of the three sources offers guidance on what happens when the formula is absent, garbled, or challenged on demurrer — a genuine gap for researchers trying to assess the legal consequences of defective pleading openings. For that analysis, the pleading treatises themselves (Chitty on Pleading, Stephen on Pleading, Gould's Treatise on Pleading) are more reliable than any of the dictionary sources.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Common Law Pleading; Forms of Action; Declaration (Pleading).