Definition
A Latin phrase meaning "by right of representation." It describes the legal basis by which a person inherits or receives a share of an estate not in their own right, but standing in the place of a deceased ancestor who would have taken had they survived. The person claiming jure representationis steps into the shoes of the deceased and receives what that ancestor would have received.
In the law of descent and distribution, this principle underlies the concept of representation: a grandchild, for instance, does not inherit as a grandchild per se, but inherits jure representationis — in the right of their deceased parent who predeceased the decedent. The representative takes only the share the represented ancestor would have taken, divided equally among those representing that ancestor's line.
Common Confusion
JURE REPRESENTATIONIS is sometimes encountered alongside JURE UXORIS (in right of a wife), a distinct Latin phrase governing a husband's acquisition of rights in his wife's property by virtue of marriage. Rapalje & Lawrence pair the two entries, which can cause researchers scanning historical sources to conflate them. They are unrelated doctrines: one concerns inheritance by representation in the line of descent; the other concerns marital property rights derived from the spousal relationship.
Why It Matters in Research
This term functions almost exclusively as a qualifying phrase in historical legal instruments, court opinions, and treatises — not as a standalone doctrine. Researchers are most likely to encounter it embedded in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century cases and commentaries on inheritance, particularly those applying per stirpes distribution rules.
The critical research trap: jure representationis appears frequently in sources organized around the per stirpes / per capita distinction, but the phrase itself does not always signal which rule applies in a given jurisdiction. The term describes the basis of the representative's claim, not the mathematical formula for dividing the estate. A researcher finding this phrase in a historical instrument must separately determine the applicable rule of division from context and jurisdiction.
The principle it encodes — that a representative stands in the place of the ancestor — is durable and survives into modern statutory law under "per stirpes" or "by representation" language, but the Latin phrase itself largely disappeared from American legal usage by the mid-twentieth century. Earlier sources (especially English and colonial-era American materials) use it freely; post-1950 American sources almost never do. Researchers working across that temporal divide should flag the terminological shift.
Corpus connections: entries on DESCENT, PER STIRPES, REPRESENTATION, and INHERITANCE are the natural navigation points. Cases discussing jure representationis typically arise in the context of intestacy or the construction of wills containing representation clauses.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's, Burrill's, and Rapalje & Lawrence are in agreement on the core definition — "by right of representation; in the right of another person" — and all three cite the same pair of sources: Blackstone's Commentaries (2 Bl. Comm. 224, 517) and Crabb's Real Property (2 Crabb, Real Prop. p. 1019, § 2398). This uniformity reflects the phrase's stable, technical function: it was never contested in meaning, only applied in varying factual contexts.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the practical operation of the principle across different inheritance systems. Blackstone's treatment is the deepest available in the shelf sources, but researchers should note that Blackstone describes English common law inheritance rules, which diverged materially from American statutory schemes even in the early republic. Burrill adds no substantive content beyond Blackstone's references. Rapalje & Lawrence's entry is the briefest, notable mainly for juxtaposing jure representationis with jure uxoris without explaining the distinction — a potential source of confusion for the inattentive reader.
None of the historical dictionaries address the modern statutory equivalents or the gradual replacement of Latin terminology in American succession law, leaving a gap that researchers must bridge from other sources.
Jurisdictional Note
The underlying doctrine of representation in inheritance is universal in American law, but its precise operation — how many degrees of relationship qualify, whether representation extends to collateral lines, and how shares are divided among representatives — varies by state statute. The Latin phrase jure representationis is jurisdiction-neutral as a descriptor of the concept, but the rules it references are not. English common law treatment (via Blackstone) should not be assumed to reflect any particular American jurisdiction's rules without verification.