Definition
A French-law term meaning accidental or fortuitous — that is, occurring by chance rather than by design or negligence. Fortuit appears most often in the compound phrase cas fortuit (fortuitous event or act of God), which denotes an unforeseeable occurrence beyond human control that may excuse a party from legal liability. The adverbial form, fortuitement, carries the sense of "accidentally" or "by chance."
In the common law tradition, fortuit itself is rarely used as a standalone term; it surfaces primarily in translated civil-law materials, comparative law texts, and older treatises dealing with French or Louisiana law.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Fortuitous.
Historical common usage: The root concept aligns with the ordinary English "fortuitous" — happening by accident or lucky chance — without legal loading.
Editorial note: In ordinary English, "fortuitous" has drifted toward meaning merely "lucky" or "fortunate." In legal and civil-law usage, fortuit carries no connotation of good luck; it means only accidental or unforeseen. A cas fortuit can be a disaster. Researchers importing the common English sense of the word into a legal text will misread the passage.
Common Confusion
Fortuit is sometimes loosely treated as a synonym for force majeure, but the concepts are distinct in civil-law systems. Cas fortuit typically refers to internal, unforeseeable accidents (a mechanical failure with no external cause), while force majeure refers to an external, irresistible event (war, flood, government action). Some civil codes treat them interchangeably; others assign different legal consequences to each. Researchers working in comparative or Louisiana law should not assume the terms are equivalent without checking the governing code or jurisdiction.
Why It Matters in Research
Fortuit is a marker of civil-law context. When it appears in an English-language legal text, it signals that the source is drawing on French, Louisiana, or broader civilian doctrine rather than common law principles. This has practical consequences for research navigation:
First, the term will not appear in most common law indices or digests. Researchers searching for the underlying concept — excuse from liability for accidental or unforeseeable events — should pivot to terms like fortuitous event, act of God, vis major, or force majeure depending on the jurisdiction and era.
Second, in Louisiana materials, cas fortuit has a specific doctrinal home in the Civil Code and its predecessors. The term in that context is not merely descriptive but legally operative, potentially determining whether a debtor or obligor is discharged from performance.
Third, historical sources — including both editions of Black's — treat fortuit as a French-law gloss rather than an independent common law entry. The 2nd edition entry is garbled in the digitized corpus, with text from an unrelated Virginia statute (concerning forthcoming bonds) spliced before the fortuit definition. Researchers encountering this entry in database form should be aware the juxtaposition is a digitization artifact, not a substantive connection.
Historical Dictionary Support
Both editions of Black's handle fortuit identically and briefly: it is defined as French for "accidental; fortuitous," with cas fortuit glossed as "a fortuitous event" and fortuitement as "accidentally; by chance." Neither edition develops the doctrinal content of the term or distinguishes it from related concepts like force majeure or vis major. This is consistent with Black's treatment of civil-law terms generally in early editions — they are acknowledged but not analyzed.
The 2nd edition entry is corrupted in at least one digitized version, embedding text from the Virginia Code concerning forthcoming bonds in the middle of the fortuit definition. This is a transcription or OCR error and has no substantive relevance to the term.
Neither edition addresses the civil-law distinction between cas fortuit and force majeure, which is a gap for any researcher working in comparative or Louisiana materials. For that doctrinal content, Pothier's treatises and the annotated Louisiana Civil Code are more reliable guides than either edition of Black's.
Jurisdictional Note
Fortuit and cas fortuit carry operative legal weight primarily in Louisiana, where the civilian tradition shapes obligations law. In other U.S. jurisdictions, the concept travels under common law labels (act of God, vis major, force majeure) and the French terminology is encountered only in historical or comparative materials.