Definition
A forejudger is a judgment of expulsion or deprivation — an order by which a person is stripped of a right, privilege, or thing previously held, or is removed (banished) from a position or place. The term is rooted in English practice and refers specifically to the act of judgment that effects the loss, not merely the underlying finding of wrongdoing. Where ordinary judgments impose liability or command payment, a forejudger dispossesses: it puts a person out of something they held.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in older English legal materials and in American dictionaries that borrowed heavily from English sources. Researchers encountering it in historical pleadings, reports, or treatises should treat it as a term of art for a specific form of judgment — not a generic condemnation but a formal dispossession or banishment. It surfaces most naturally in contexts involving forfeiture of office, expulsion from a franchise, or loss of a legal privilege following misconduct.
The practical trap: because the word looks like a compound of "fore" (before) and "judge," a researcher might misread it as referring to pre-judgment proceedings or anticipatory rulings. It does not. The "fore" carries the sense of "away from" or "out of" — the judgment that puts a person *out*. Researchers working in historical equity, franchise law, or early English criminal procedure should be alert to this distinction.
Black's cross-reference to FOREJUDGE is essential navigation. The verb and noun form appear in close proximity in older sources, and a corpus search that captures one may miss the other. Both forms should be searched together.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary and Webster's 1913 are in near-complete agreement here, defining the forejudger as a judgment by which one is deprived of a right or thing in question. Black's adds the dimension of expulsion or banishment, which Webster's omits — a meaningful addition because it signals that the forejudger operated not only against property interests but against personal status (removal from a place, office, or body). Wiktionary tracks Webster's 1913 almost verbatim, offering no independent elaboration.
None of the available dictionary sources situate the forejudger within a broader procedural context — they do not explain what process preceded it, what courts issued it, or under what circumstances it arose. Historical English sources, including Coke and early common law treatises, provide richer context, but researchers should not expect that depth from dictionary entries alone. The lacuna is worth flagging: dictionary definitions of this term describe its effect without illuminating its mechanism.
Jurisdictional Note
The forejudger is a term of English origin and has no meaningful life in modern American, Canadian, or Commonwealth statutory law. It persists in American legal dictionaries primarily as a historical artifact. Researchers working in U.S. jurisdictions will encounter it only in sources that consciously borrowed from English practice — early colonial records, treatises modeled on Blackstone, or historical pleading forms.