Definition
A Latin phrase meaning "against an unwilling party" or "against one not consenting." In legal usage, in invitum describes any proceeding, transfer, or legal consequence that operates upon a party without that party's agreement or consent. The law does not require the affected party's acquiescence; the proceeding takes effect by operation of law or judicial authority regardless of opposition.
The phrase appears most often in two related contexts. First, it characterizes adversarial legal proceedings directed at a party who does not consent to the action brought against them — the ordinary posture of defendant-facing litigation. Second, and more technically, it describes the involuntary transfer of rights or property through judicial process, as when a judgment operates to divest ownership or impose liability without the consent of the party bound.
Common Language
Wiktionary: No standard entry. The phrase is not in general English use.
Webster's 1913: No entry. The phrase does not appear in general American dictionaries of the period.
Editorial note: In invitum is pure legal Latin with no common English counterpart. The COMMON LANGUAGE section is omitted accordingly.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encounter in invitum most frequently in older treatise and case law discussions of judgments, liens, and involuntary transfers — areas where courts needed precise language to distinguish consent-based transactions from those imposed by law. The phrase is a marker for the involuntary nature of a proceeding, and its presence in a source often signals analysis of due process, jurisdiction, or the limits of judicial power over an absent or non-consenting party.
Two research traps are worth flagging. First, the phrase is nearly always used adverbially or adjectivally modifying another legal concept — "a proceeding in invitum," "a transfer in invitum" — rather than standing alone as a term of art with its own doctrine. Searching for it in isolation will return scattered references; searching it paired with "judgment," "transfer," or "lien" will surface the substantive discussions. Second, the phrase functions in older sources as a conceptual anchor for what modern law handles under the rubrics of involuntary transfer, judicial lien, and due process. A researcher following a chain of authority from historical sources into modern doctrine will need to translate the Latin framing into those contemporary categories.
The Burrill entry is the most analytically useful of the historical sources. It supplies the maxim quod judicium redditur in invitum — that a judgment is rendered against a party's will — and connects this to the broader principle that ownership can transfer involuntarily through judicial process (per judicem, quia judicium ruit in invitum). This framing matters for understanding why consent is irrelevant to the enforceability of a judgment and why a judgment creditor acquires rights against a debtor who has not agreed to the transfer.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries agree on the core translation: against an unwilling party, against one not consenting. Black's (both editions) offers identical, compressed entries that confirm standard usage but add little analytical content. Rapalje & Lawrence similarly supplies the bare translation.
Burrill's is the outlier in depth. Beyond the translation, Burrill provides the underlying maxim from Coke (5 Co. 28b, Harrison's case) and a companion principle from the civil law tradition regarding involuntary transfer of ownership by judicial act. The Coke reference is significant: it anchors the phrase in common law authority and ties it to the well-established proposition that judgments operate against a party's will as a matter of legal power, not contract. The additional Florida and English reports cited by Burrill suggest the phrase was actively deployed in common law courts well into the nineteenth century, not merely a dictionary relic.
What the historical dictionaries collectively miss is any discussion of how in invitum connects to jurisdictional doctrine — specifically, the requirement that courts have authority over a party before a proceeding in invitum can bind them. That gap is significant for modern researchers because the due process implications of binding non-consenting parties are now the primary analytical frame where this concept survives in practice.
Jurisdictional Note
The phrase appears across common law jurisdictions without meaningful variation in meaning, though it is rarely used in modern American judicial opinions. Researchers working in civil law influenced jurisdictions (Louisiana, Quebec) may find the phrase in discussions of involuntary transfer that draw more directly on the Roman law tradition than on Coke's common law formulation.