Definition
"For use" is a term of art with two distinct legal meanings:
1. For the benefit of another. When a party with a substantive interest in a claim cannot sue in their own name — most commonly because they are an assignee but the right of action nominally remains with the assignor — the suit is styled to reflect who holds the real interest. The caption reads: "A., for use of B., v. C.," meaning A. is the nominal plaintiff but B. is the real party in interest who will benefit from any recovery.
2. For enjoyment without destruction. In the law of bailment and loans, "for use" describes an arrangement in which the bailee or borrower may use and enjoy the article but must return the identical thing — as distinguished from a loan "for consumption" (commodatum versus mutuum in the civil law tradition), where the borrower may consume or destroy the object and need only return an equivalent.
Common Confusion
The phrase "for use" can be misread as a general modifier meaning simply "to be used," which obscures its technical freight. In procedural contexts, it is not a description of what is being done with an instrument — it is a formal signal identifying the real party in interest standing behind a nominal plaintiff. In bailment contexts, "for use" is not interchangeable with "for consumption": the distinction governs who bears the risk of loss, what obligations attach to the borrower, and what remedy exists if the article is not returned. Researchers encountering either phrase in historical pleadings or contracts should resist the intuitive reading.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Use-plaintiff practice (procedural sense). The "A. for use of B." construction appears in several recurring fact patterns:
- Assignment of a chose in action where the jurisdiction does not permit the assignee to sue directly.
- Subrogation contexts where an insurer, having paid a loss, proceeds in the name of the insured.
- Relator actions where a private party proceeds in the name of a public officer or the state.
Loan for use (bailment sense). Corresponds to the civil law commodatum — a gratuitous loan of a specific, non-fungible article for temporary use, with an obligation to return the identical object in the same condition. Contrasts with:
- Loan for consumption (mutuum): a loan of fungible goods (money, grain) where the borrower acquires title and owes return of equivalent quantity and quality.
Why It Matters in Research
In procedural and pleading research, the "for use" construction is essential for correctly identifying parties in pre-merger common law jurisdictions and in any jurisdiction that has not fully adopted real-party-in-interest rules by statute or rule. In historical records — particularly nineteenth-century American and English court filings — the nominal plaintiff and the actual claimant are different people, and index entries may be organized under the nominal plaintiff's name, causing researchers to miss the real party entirely. When searching historical case reporters or docket records, look for both names.
Federal practice largely eliminated the need for use-plaintiff suits through Rule 17 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which requires actions to be prosecuted in the name of the real party in interest. Many states followed suit. But the construction persists in states that have retained older procedural frameworks, and it appears routinely in older reported decisions that remain authoritative precedent. Understanding the construction is necessary to read those cases accurately.
In insurance subrogation research, the use-plaintiff form is still encountered even in modern litigation in some jurisdictions, and the caption signals not just procedure but the underlying equitable relationship between the nominal and real parties.
In bailment and personal property research, the for-use/for-consumption distinction carries substantive consequences: risk allocation, the nature of the borrower's duty of care, and the applicable measure of damages all differ. Researchers working with colonial-era or early republic commercial records will find the distinction embedded in cargo and commodity loan disputes.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary and Bouvier's Law Dictionary are in complete agreement on both senses of the term. Both identify the procedural use-plaintiff construction and the bailment distinction with consistent definitions. Neither source diverges in any meaningful respect, which is notable — the term has a settled, narrow meaning across the historical dictionary record.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the erosion of the procedural sense following adoption of modern pleading rules. Black's entry, written for an era when use-plaintiff practice was routine, does not flag that Rule 17 and its state analogues would substantially displace the construction in direct-action jurisdictions. Researchers should not assume that because the construction appears in a Black's edition it remains procedurally necessary in the jurisdiction under study.
Bouvier's treatment of the bailment sense is slightly more developed, gesturing toward the civil law background (commodatum), which helps situate the English common law rule within a broader doctrinal tradition. Neither dictionary, however, provides the full civil law vocabulary that appears in treatise literature, so researchers pursuing the bailment sense should supplement with Blackstone's Commentaries and Story on Bailments for period-accurate analysis.
Jurisdictional Note
The procedural use-plaintiff form has been largely superseded in federal court and in states that have adopted real-party-in-interest statutes or rules modeled on FRCP 17. It remains operative in a minority of states with unreformed procedural codes and appears frequently in historical records from all jurisdictions. The bailment sense of "for use" is a common law concept of general application, though its precise contours in subrogation and insurance contexts vary by state.