Definition
Nient le fait (Law French: "not the deed") is a pleading term denoting the general issue in an action on a deed or specialty, by which a defendant denies that the instrument in question is his act — that is, that he executed it. In effect, the plea asserts that the document is not his deed and puts the plaintiff to proof of execution. The plea is the historical Law French antecedent of the Latin formula non est factum, and the two terms are functionally equivalent. Variant forms recorded in the Year Books include nient son fait ("not his deed," referring to a third party's deed) and nient nostre fait ("not our deed," used in actions against multiple defendants).
Common Confusion
Nient le fait and non est factum are not competing pleas but successive names for the same plea. The Latin form eventually displaced the Law French in formal practice as Law French fell out of use in English courts after the seventeenth century. Researchers who encounter nient le fait in Year Book or early common law materials should recognize it as the direct predecessor of the non est factum plea familiar from later authorities. The two terms should not be treated as distinct defenses with different legal effects.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is almost exclusively a historical artifact. Researchers will encounter it primarily in Year Book citations, early English pleading manuals, and treatises on the history of common law procedure — not in modern case law or practice materials.
Several navigational points matter for corpus research:
The term appears in multiple Law French variant forms. Burrill records at least three: nient le fait, nient son fait, and nient nostre fait. Search strategies must account for all three, along with potential spelling variations in manuscript and early printed sources. Year Book citation conventions add another layer of difficulty: references such as "H. 11 Hen. VI. 21" or "T. 1 Edw. II. 18" use regnal year notation requiring familiarity with English monarchical dating.
The historical sources Burrill cites — Crabb's History of English Law and Reeves' History of English Law — are the most substantive secondary treatments. Researchers tracing the procedural history of deed-related pleading should consult those works directly rather than relying on dictionary summary alone.
The plea connects directly to the broader history of the action of debt on a specialty and the rules governing proof of sealed instruments. Understanding nient le fait requires understanding what a deed or specialty meant in medieval English law: a document under seal, the authenticity of which could be challenged only by this general issue, not by special pleading in most early practice.
Jurisdictional reach is narrow. This plea form is specific to English common law history. American courts inherited the non est factum terminology rather than the Law French form, so nient le fait will rarely if ever appear in American primary sources.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries agree on the core meaning but vary substantially in depth. Black's offers a single-sentence cross-reference to non est factum, treating the term as obsolete shorthand requiring no elaboration. Rapalje and Lawrence are equally terse, providing only the translation and a cross-reference. Burrill is the most useful of the three, supplying the Latin equivalent, three variant Law French forms with distinct Year Book citations for each, and references to Crabb and Reeves that give the term procedural and historical context.
All three dictionaries correctly identify the equivalence with non est factum, but none explains why the Law French form fell out of use or situates the plea within the larger history of common law pleading on sealed instruments. Researchers should treat the dictionary entries as finding aids to primary and secondary sources, not as complete accounts.
Jurisdictional Note
Nient le fait belongs to English common law pleading history and has no independent life in American practice. American pleading adopted non est factum rather than the Law French form. Researchers working in American jurisdictions will not encounter nient le fait except in comparative or historical analysis.