Definition
Mitter le droit (Law French: "to put or pass the right") is an old English common law doctrine by which a release of a claim operates not merely to extinguish a personal action but to transfer and convey the releasor's right or title in the subject matter to the releasee. Under this doctrine, where a person holding a right or interest in property executes a release in favor of another who already has possession or some competing interest, the release enures to pass the full right from the releasor to the releasee — effectively functioning as a conveyance rather than a bare waiver. The result is that the releasee acquires whatever right the releasor held, consolidated with whatever interest the releasee already possessed.
This is distinguished from a release that operates simply to discharge a personal obligation or extinguish a right of action without transferring anything. Mitter le droit is the affirmative, title-passing function of a release.
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Common Confusion
MITTER LE DROIT / MITTER L'ESTATE
These two Law French doctrines describe the two principal modes by which a release could operate in old English law. Mitter le droit passes the right — it transfers a bare right or title without present possession. Mitter l'estate, by contrast, passes the estate itself — it operates where the releasee is already in possession and the release enlarges or perfects the estate. Researchers who encounter either term in historical pleading or conveyancing records should identify which mode is at issue, since the operative conditions and legal effects differ. Conflating the two distorts both the conveyancing history and the nature of any title claim being analyzed.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in pre-nineteenth-century English legal sources — treatises on real property, conveyancing manuals, and the older common law reporters. It will not appear in modern American case law as a live doctrine. Researchers encountering it should treat it as a signal that the source is dealing with the technical law of releases and conveyancing as it existed before the simplification of property transfer through deed and statutory reform.
The primary trap for researchers is reading "release" in an old source through a modern lens, where release typically means discharge of liability. In the historical context, a release could function as a complete substitute for a formal conveyance of title — mitter le droit being one of the two recognized mechanisms for achieving that result. Missing this distinction will cause a researcher to misread the nature of a transaction, particularly in title chains and historical land records.
The Littleton quotation preserved in Burrill ("En ascun cas, un releas urera de mitter tout le droit...") is from Littleton's Tenures, the foundational English property law text, and Blackstone's Commentaries volume two is the standard secondary source anchoring the doctrine. Both are available in the Law Mind corpus. Hale's Analysis of the Law, also cited by Burrill, provides structural placement of releases within the broader common law framework. Researchers working with colonial American conveyancing, early republic land titles, or English property disputes before the nineteenth century should be alert to this term as a technical marker of how releases were understood to operate.
Because the term appears in Law French, researchers should also be attentive to spelling variation in historical sources — forms like "mitter tout le droit" (passing the whole right) appear in direct quotation from Littleton and reflect a more specific application of the general doctrine.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the primary source available, and it handles the term efficiently. The definition — "to put or pass the right; passing the right" — is accurate and unambiguous. Burrill's value here lies in anchoring the doctrine to Littleton and Blackstone directly, preserving the Law French quotation from Littleton section 306, and noting Hale's Analytical treatment.
What Burrill does not do is explain the practical conditions under which mitter le droit applied as opposed to mitter l'estate — that doctrinal detail requires consulting Blackstone directly or a specialized conveyancing treatise such as Sheppard's Touchstone of Common Assurances, which treats releases at length. Researchers should not expect Burrill's entry alone to resolve a specific historical title question; it functions as a pointer, not a full treatment.
No divergence or meaningful disagreement exists across the limited dictionary sources available, which is expected for a term this narrow and archaic.
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Jurisdictional Note
This doctrine is English common law in origin and has no independent American statutory or modern common law development. It may appear in American sources only as historical background in old title disputes or in treatises summarizing the received English law of conveyancing. It is not a term in active use in any American jurisdiction.
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