Definition
NEM is a Latin abbreviation used in legal and parliamentary contexts, most commonly appearing in two distinct abbreviated forms:
1. Nem. con. (nemine contradicente): "No one contradicting." Used to record that a vote, resolution, or decision passed without opposition — that is, unanimously or at least without any dissenting voice. Common in parliamentary proceedings, court records, and formal deliberative bodies.
2. Nem. diss. (nemine dissentiente): "No one dissenting." Functionally equivalent to nem. con. but historically preferred in the English House of Lords, while nem. con. was the form used in the House of Commons. The distinction is one of institutional convention rather than substantive legal difference.
A third, narrower usage appears in older pleading practice: "nem." as shorthand in the phrase non fregit conventionem ("he did not break the contract"), though this appears in records of a defunct pleading form rather than as a freestanding abbreviation in active use.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): NEM as an initialism for "net energy metering" or "net electrical metering" — a utility billing arrangement for customers who generate their own electricity, as through solar panels.
Editorial note: The gap here is significant and practically important. A researcher encountering "NEM" in a modern regulatory or energy law context is almost certainly reading about net energy metering, a creature of utility regulation and state energy policy entirely unrelated to the Latin parliamentary abbreviation. A researcher encountering "nem. con." or "nem. diss." in historical legal records, case reports, or parliamentary materials is reading Latin abbreviations with no connection to energy law. Context disambiguates, but the collision of these two usages in a single abbreviation is a genuine trap.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Nem. con. (nemine contradicente): The form recorded in House of Commons proceedings and in many court and deliberative body records. Signals no spoken opposition, but does not necessarily mean every member voted affirmatively — abstentions are consistent with nem. con.
Nem. diss. (nemine dissentiente): The form preferred in the House of Lords. Same practical meaning as nem. con. The distinction is ceremonial and institutional.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in historical English legal materials — case reports, parliamentary debates, chancery records, ecclesiastical court records — will encounter nem. con. and nem. diss. with regularity. The abbreviations signal unanimous or uncontested passage and carry evidentiary weight when reconstructing the procedural history of legislation or the reception of a legal proposition.
Two traps deserve attention. First, nem. con. does not mean every member voted yes. It means no one spoke against. A decision recorded as nem. con. may have passed with abstentions. This matters when a researcher is trying to assess the actual strength of a historical consensus. Second, modern legal and regulatory databases are heavily populated with "NEM" in the net energy metering sense. A keyword search across a corpus spanning historical and modern materials will surface both usages, and the researcher must filter by date and subject matter to avoid conflation.
The Black's entry for nem. also gestures toward a pleading usage — the plea of non fregit conventionem in the action of covenant — but flags it as a bad plea with no practical future. Researchers encountering this in pre-nineteenth century pleading records should treat it as a historical artifact, not operative doctrine.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries handle this term unevenly. Bouvier is the most useful, offering a clear explanation of both nemine contradicente and nemine dissentiente and correctly identifying the institutional distinction between Commons and Lords usage. Black's takes a narrower path, defining only the pleading-related usage of nem. (non fregit conventionem) and treating the parliamentary abbreviations under separate headwords. Burrill's entry as excerpted does not address nem. directly, appearing in the context of broader maxims (nemo...) rather than the abbreviation itself.
None of the historical dictionaries address the modern energy-law meaning of NEM, which postdates them entirely. Researchers should not expect historical sources to resolve the disambiguation problem; that work falls to the researcher based on document context and date.
Jurisdictional Note
The parliamentary distinction between nem. con. (Commons) and nem. diss. (Lords) is specific to English legal tradition. In American legal and legislative records, nem. con. appears occasionally in historical materials but is less systematic; American legislative practice more commonly records "unanimous consent" in English rather than Latin abbreviation.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See NEMINE CONTRADICENTE; NEMINE DISSENTIENTE