Definition
An archaic Law French term meaning to implead — that is, to bring a party before a court by legal process; to sue or prosecute. In historical usage, *impleder* denoted the act of impleading, and a party so brought before the court was said to be *impleaded*. The term appears in early English legal texts and statutes as a variant form, with *empleder* being the more commonly encountered spelling in the primary sources.
In modern legal usage, the concept survives in the procedural device of *impleader* — the mechanism by which a defendant brings a third party into pending litigation, typically to seek contribution or indemnification. The historical term *impleder* is the ancestor of this modern usage but should not be treated as a direct equivalent; the modern impleader rule (as codified in instruments such as Rule 14 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure) is a specific, structured procedural device, whereas the historical term referred more broadly to the general act of summoning or suing.
Common Confusion
IMPLEDER vs. IMPLEADER: Researchers encountering *impleder* in historical sources should resist the reflex of reading it as the modern procedural term *impleader*. The historical *impleder* is a verb-derived noun meaning simply the act of impleading — bringing suit or drawing a party into court — not the specific third-party practice rule that *impleader* denotes in contemporary civil procedure. Conflating the two risks misreading the scope and procedural context of older authorities.
IMPLEDER vs. EMPLEDER: Burrill notes that *empleder* was the more usual form. In researching early English statutes and Year Books, researchers are more likely to encounter *empleder* than *impleder*. Both refer to the same underlying concept, but variant spelling in manuscript and printed sources can create the appearance of distinct terms where none exists.
Why It Matters in Research
*Impleder* is a term researchers will encounter almost exclusively in pre-modern English legal sources — statutes, Year Books, and early treatises — rather than in modern case law or procedural codes. Its practical research significance is primarily navigational: knowing that *impleder*, *empleder*, and cognate forms all refer to the same foundational act of bringing a party into litigation allows researchers to trace the conceptual lineage of modern third-party practice back through the common law.
The specific statutory reference in Burrill — the Statute of Gloucester, chapter 12 — grounds the term in late thirteenth-century English legislation, signaling that researchers working on the history of civil procedure, early English statutory interpretation, or the development of party-joinder rules should treat *impleder* as a source-layer term rather than a working legal concept.
For corpus researchers, the key trap is anachronism: using the historical term as a gloss on modern impleader doctrine, or vice versa, without accounting for the centuries of procedural development between them. The modern impleader device carries specific requirements — a pending action, a defendant's claim against a non-party, a defined relationship of contingent liability — none of which are embedded in the historical *impleder*, which was simply the act of suing or summoning.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the principal shelf source for this term and treats it briefly, identifying it as Law French for "to implead" and noting its appearance in the Statute of Gloucester before directing readers to *empleder* as the more standard form. This cross-reference is the most useful navigational signal in the entry: Burrill signals that *impleder* is essentially a variant spelling and that the substantive content of the concept is better addressed under *empleder*.
What historical dictionaries do not supply — and what researchers should not expect them to supply — is any account of how the act of impleading evolved into the structured procedural device of modern impleader. That development belongs to the history of civil procedure and equity practice, not to the lexicography of the term itself.
Jurisdictional Note
As a historical Law French term, *impleder* has no active jurisdictional variation in modern law. Its cognate concept, impleader, varies in its procedural details across federal and state systems, but those variations attach to the modern term, not to this historical form.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: IMPLEADER (Third-Party Practice)