MONY - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

MONYAuthored

The Law Mind • 810 words

Definition

The source material assembled under this headword reflects a compilation error rather than a coherent legal term. The entries attributed to "MONY" in the historical dictionaries are fragments drawn from unrelated legal concepts — most prominently, a bill in equity to perpetuate testimony, the rule against perpetuities, and standards of judicial proof. None of these fragments define a term called "MONY" as a standalone legal concept.

The most coherent fragment, appearing in both Black's and Bouvier's, describes what is almost certainly a **bill to perpetuate testimony**: a bill in equity filed before litigation has commenced, designed to preserve witness testimony on a matter likely to become the subject of future judicial proceedings. This differs from a bill to take testimony *de bene esse*, which requires a suit already pending.

"MONY" as a legal term of art does not exist. Researchers encountering this headword in historical dictionary sources should treat it as a truncation or typographical corruption — most likely of **TESTIMONY** (as in "bill to perpetuate testimony") or possibly **MONEY** in a financial law context. The Wiktionary entry confirms that "mony" in ordinary English is simply an archaic or dialectal form of "money," with no independent legal significance.

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Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Obsolete form of "money."

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not independently attested as a headword; dialectal variant of "money."

The gap between common and legal meaning is not meaningful here because "MONY" has no established legal meaning of its own. The archaic common usage offers no navigational help to legal researchers.

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Common Confusion

The fragments assembled under this headword in the source dictionaries appear to be OCR artifacts or indexing errors from digitized historical texts. Researchers should not treat "MONY" as a term requiring legal definition. The substantive content in the Black's and Bouvier's fragments belongs under **BILL TO PERPETUATE TESTIMONY**. The Rapalje & Lawrence fragments belong to entries on **MARRIAGE (BANNS OF)** and **RULE AGAINST PERPETUITIES**, respectively. The Anderson's fragment belongs to an entry on **EVIDENCE** or **JUDICIAL PROOF**.

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Why It Matters in Research

This entry is a cautionary example of the hazards of navigating historical legal dictionaries in digitized form. OCR errors, broken pagination, and corrupted index entries are endemic to nineteenth-century legal reference works when converted to searchable text. A researcher querying "MONY" in a corpus search will surface fragments from at least four distinct legal topics, none of which share a common subject.

The productive research path here is not to pursue "MONY" further but to pivot immediately to the terms the fragments actually discuss:

- For the equity practice material (Black's, Bouvier's): see **BILL TO PERPETUATE TESTIMONY** and **BILL TO TAKE TESTIMONY DE BENE ESSE**.
- For the marriage proclamation fragment (Rapalje & Lawrence): see **BANNS OF MARRIAGE**.
- For the contingent remainder and perpetuities fragment (Rapalje & Lawrence): see **RULE AGAINST PERPETUITIES** and **CONTINGENT REMAINDER**.
- For the evidentiary standard fragment (Anderson's): see **JUDICIAL PROOF** and **EVIDENCE**.

When a historical dictionary headword yields incoherent or multi-topic fragments, the working assumption should be a corrupted scan rather than a lost term of art.

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Historical Dictionary Support

Black's Law Dictionary and Bouvier's Law Dictionary both reproduce what appears to be the tail end of an entry on a bill to perpetuate testimony, with Bouvier's adding the useful distinction that such a bill is demurrable if it contains a prayer for relief — a point that was litigated in equity practice and that distinguishes it from an ordinary discovery bill. Bouvier's references to Dick. Ch. 98, 2 P. Wms. 162, and 2 Ves. Ch. 497 are citations to English Chancery reporters and are consistent with legitimate eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century equity authorities on this point, though they cannot be verified as correctly attributed to "MONY" as a term.

Rapalje & Lawrence contribute two entirely unrelated fragments — one touching on banns of marriage and the American usage of related terminology, the other on the rule against perpetuities as applied to executory interests. These fragments share no conceptual connection with each other or with the equity bill material.

Anderson's Dictionary of Law fragment addresses the epistemological foundation of judicial proof — the distinction between absolute truth and the "formal proof" admissible at trial — a topic characteristic of late nineteenth-century American evidence scholarship. It has no relationship to the other fragments.

No historical dictionary surveyed provides a definition of "MONY" as an independent legal term.

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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Bill to Perpetuate Testimony; Rule Against Perpetuities; Evidence (Judicial Proof).

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MONYmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

In Equity Practice. One which is brought to secure the testimony of witnesses with reference to some matter which is not in litigation, but is liable to become so. It differs from a bill to take testimony de bene esse, Inasmuch as the latter is sustainable only when there is a suit already depending; it is demurrable if it contain a prayer for relief; 1 Dick. Ch. 98; 2 P. Wms. 162; 2 Ves. Ch. 497; 2 Madd. 87. And see 1 Sch. & L. 816. It must show the subject-matter touching which the plaintiff is desirous of giving evidence; Rep. temp. Finch 391; 4 Madd. 8, 10; that the plaintiff has a positive inter- est in the subject-matter, which may be en- dangered if the testimony in support of it be lost, as a mere expectancy, however strong, is not sufficient; 6 Ves. Ch. 260; 1 Vern. 105; 15 Ves. Ch. 136; Mitford, Eq. PL. 51; Cooper, Eq. Pl. 52; 3 J. J. Marsh. 260; Beach, Mod. Eq. Pr. 150; that the defendant has, or pretends to have, or that he claims, an interest to contest the title of the plaintiff in the sub- ject-matter of the proposed testimony; Cooper, Pl. 56; Story, Eq. Pl. § 302; and some ground of necessity for perpetuating the evidence; Story, Eq. Pl. § 303; Mitf. Eq. PL. 52, 148, n.; Cooper, Eq. Pl. 53. See 20 Ga. 777; 1 Dick. 14. The bill should describe the right in which it is brought with reasonable certainty, so as to point the proper interrogations on both sides to the true merits of the controversy; 1 Vern. 312; Cooper, Eq. Pl. 56; and should pray leave to examine the witnesses touch- ing the matter stated, to the end that their testimony may be preserved and perpet- uated; Mitf. Eq. Pl. 52.