Definition
*Linea recta semper praefertur transversali.* A Latin maxim of inheritance law meaning: "The right [direct] line is always preferred to the collateral line." In the law of descent, this principle holds that when property passes by inheritance, heirs in the direct lineal line — ancestors and descendants connected by a straight line of descent — take priority over collateral relatives such as siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles. A child, grandchild, or (in ascending line) a parent will be preferred over a cousin or sibling where the rules of descent place the two in competition.
The maxim encapsulates a foundational organizing principle of common law inheritance: blood relationships that run in a straight vertical line (linea recta) are ranked above relationships that branch laterally from a common ancestor (linea transversalis).
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Common Confusion
The maxim is frequently shortened in citation and commentary to *linea recta semper*, though the operative legal content lies in the full phrase *prefertur transversali* — the preference over the collateral line. Researchers encountering the truncated form should understand it always implies the full comparative rule. Separately, this maxim should not be confused with the preference of the male line over the female line (a distinct common law rule of descent), or with the rule of primogeniture; those are separate principles that may operate alongside, but are not the same as, this one.
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Why It Matters in Research
This is primarily a historical research term. The maxim is native to common law real property descent as it existed before statutory reform, when courts and treatises organized inheritance around a structured hierarchy of lines and degrees. It appears most naturally in:
- Pre-twentieth-century treatises on real property and the law of descent and distribution
- Cases construing intestate succession under older common law rules, particularly in English and early American jurisdictions
- Discussions of fee simple inheritance, entail, and the canons of descent
Modern intestacy statutes in all U.S. jurisdictions and in England have displaced the pure common law canons of descent with statutory schemes. Those statutes generally preserve the underlying preference for lineal descendants over collateral relatives, but they do so through explicit statutory language rather than reliance on this maxim. A researcher citing or encountering this maxim in a post-statutory-reform context should treat it as descriptive of statutory intent, not as independently operative law.
The maxim appears in Coke on Littleton — one of the foundational texts of common law property — and in Broom's *Legal Maxims*, making it a citation anchor in the classical treatise literature. Researchers working in that literature will encounter it in discussions of the canons of descent, particularly the first and most basic canon: that lineal descendants take before collateral heirs.
Watch for variation in spelling and abbreviation across historical sources: *praefertur* and *prefertur* both appear; the substantive meaning is identical.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) gives the maxim in full — *Linea recta semper prefertur transversali* — with citations to Coke on Littleton (Co. Litt. 10) and Broom's *Legal Maxims* (p. 529). These citations are instructive: Coke's treatment situates the rule within the deep structure of feudal land tenure and the canons of descent; Broom's treatment synthesizes it as a general maxim carrying across common law jurisdictions.
Black's entry is spare, as befits a maxim entry: it provides the Latin, the translation, and the authority, without extended elaboration. This is consistent with how the classical dictionaries handled Latin maxims — treating them as self-contained propositions of settled law rather than contested doctrinal questions.
Historical dictionaries do not address the statutory displacement of this principle, which is a significant gap for any researcher working in a post-nineteenth-century context. The maxim retains historical and interpretive value but should not be read from dictionary sources alone as a statement of current law.
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Jurisdictional Note
The preference of lineal over collateral heirs survives in substance in virtually all modern intestacy statutes, though expressed in statutory rather than common law terms. The precise contours — how collateral relatives are ranked among themselves, what happens when the direct line is exhausted — vary by jurisdiction and are governed entirely by statute.
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