Definition
Monstrans de faits (from the Law French, meaning "showing of deeds") was a procedural device in common law pleading by which a party was required to produce and show to the court a deed, obligation, record, or other written instrument upon which a claim or plea was founded. Where a plaintiff brought an action upon a written instrument — such as a bond or obligation — and had declared upon it, the opposing party could demand that the instrument be shown, or the pleading party might be required to produce it as a condition of proceeding. The phrase "ou records" extends the device to records, covering judicial and official documents as well as private deeds.
In essence, monstrans de faits was a demand or rule of pleading that compelled the exhibiting of a foundational document before the proceeding could advance. It operated as a check on pleadings that relied on instruments not yet before the court.
Common Confusion
Monstrans de faits is routinely confused with oyer de faits (or simply oyer), a related but distinct common law procedure. The distinction, noted in the Rapalje & Lawrence entry, is functional: oyer was a prayer by the opposing party to have the deed or record read aloud in open court and incorporated into the pleading record, whereas monstrans de faits was a showing — a production and exhibition of the document by the party relying upon it, compelled either by rule or by the opposing party's demand. The party seeking oyer was asking to hear and adopt the instrument; the party subject to monstrans was being required to produce and exhibit what they had already relied upon. In practice, later commentators and some courts blurred this line, and the procedural contexts in which each arose overlapped considerably, making the two terms easy to conflate in historical sources.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in sources predating the merger of law and equity and the adoption of modern code pleading. Researchers encountering monstrans de faits in historical materials — particularly in English common law reports, early American state court decisions, and treatises on common law pleading — should understand that the procedure it describes has no direct modern equivalent. Its function has been absorbed into discovery rules, pleading requirements, and rules governing the attachment of instruments to complaints.
The Rapalje & Lawrence entry is fragmentary, listing case references across multiple jurisdictions (Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and English nisi prius) without full explanation, which reflects the term's status as a known procedural term of art that practitioners of the era would have recognized without extended definition. Researchers using early American state reporters — particularly those from Kentucky (Bibb), Pennsylvania (Sergeant & Rawle), and Indiana — may encounter this term in opinions addressing bond and obligation actions or patent matters. The English reference to Campbell's Nisi Prius Cases suggests the device appeared in commercial contexts as well.
Because the Rapalje & Lawrence text is truncated at the point of distinguishing monstrans de faits from oyer de faits, researchers should treat that entry as a starting point only and consult the underlying case reporters for the full procedural context.
The jurisdictional spread of the cited cases signals that American courts in the early nineteenth century applied this device unevenly, adapting English common law pleading forms to local practice. Do not assume uniform procedural meaning across states.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence is the sole historical dictionary source available here, and its entry is notably incomplete — the text cuts off mid-sentence at the point of explaining the distinction between monstrans de faits and oyer de faits. What the entry does establish is that the term operated across at least three distinct contexts: mercantile contracts, obligations (bonds), and patents. The citation spread — Bibb (Kentucky), Sergeant & Rawle (Pennsylvania), Campbell (English), and Indiana Reports — suggests broad but uneven adoption in American practice.
The entry's fragmentary state is itself a research signal: this was a term whose meaning was assumed rather than explained, suggesting that contemporaneous practitioners would have understood it from English pleading practice without requiring elaboration. Researchers relying solely on Rapalje & Lawrence for this term will have an incomplete picture and should look to Chitty on Pleading and Stephen on Pleading for fuller treatment of the monstrans/oyer distinction in the English common law context.
Jurisdictional Note
The procedural device was rooted in English common law pleading and was carried into early American practice in states that retained common law pleading forms. With the adoption of Field Code pleading in New York (1848) and its spread to other states, along with the eventual adoption of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (1938), monstrans de faits ceased to function as a live procedural concept. It survives only as a historical term in pre-code case law.