Definition
A writ of identitate nominis (Latin: "identity of name") was an English common law writ available to a person who had been arrested and imprisoned by mistake because they shared the same name as the actual defendant in a personal action. The writ allowed the wrongly imprisoned person to assert that they were not the individual against whom the original process was directed, and to seek release on that basis. It belongs to the family of writs designed to remedy wrongful detention — a category also occupied by habeas corpus — but addressed the specific problem of mistaken identity arising from name confusion rather than unlawful process generally.
The writ is obsolete. It does not exist in modern practice.
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Common Confusion
Identitate nominis is sometimes loosely grouped with habeas corpus because both remedied wrongful imprisonment. The distinction matters for research: habeas corpus attacked the legality of the underlying authority for detention, while identitate nominis accepted the validity of the process but contested the identity of the person against whom it operated. The two writs coexisted in English practice; identitate nominis was the narrower, more targeted remedy.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term is primarily encountered in early English legal sources and in American legal dictionaries that carried forward English common law terminology into the nineteenth century. Researchers are unlikely to find active case law applying this writ after the broad procedural reforms of the nineteenth century, including the Judicature Acts in England and the consolidation of common law and equity pleading in American jurisdictions.
The writ is a useful marker for dating primary sources: its appearance in practice materials signals pre-reform common law pleading. In historical corpus research, encountering identitate nominis in a pleading manual or form book indicates a pre-nineteenth-century or transitional-era text.
The underlying problem the writ addressed — wrongful arrest due to name confusion — persists in modern law but is handled through entirely different procedural mechanisms: motions to quash, habeas corpus, or civil rights claims for wrongful arrest. A researcher tracing the modern treatment of mistaken identity in arrest contexts should not expect continuity from this writ; the doctrinal lineage is not direct.
The reference to Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium (Fitzh. Nat. Brev. 267) in both Black's editions points to one of the foundational English treatises on original writs. Researchers seeking the primary source treatment should consult Fitzherbert directly rather than relying on the dictionary summary alone.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Both editions of Black's Law Dictionary reproduce substantially identical entries, drawing directly on Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium as their sole cited authority. The definition is stable across editions and narrow: both confirm the writ's English origin, its obsolete status, and its application to imprisonment by mistaken identity in personal actions. Neither edition elaborates on procedural mechanics, the showing required to obtain the writ, or how courts resolved disputed identity claims once the writ issued. The dictionary record, in short, preserves the shell of the writ without the substance of its operation. Researchers needing more than identification of the writ's purpose must go to Fitzherbert or other original writ literature directly.
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Jurisdictional Note
Identitate nominis was exclusively an English common law writ. American courts inherited the English writ system at common law, and American legal dictionaries catalogued it, but there is no established American practice under this writ. It did not develop into a recognized form of relief in any American jurisdiction.
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