Definition
Non acorevit infra sex annos is a Latin pleading formula meaning "it did not accrue within six years." It is the formal name of a plea by which a defendant asserts the statute of limitations as a defense against a plaintiff's cause of action, specifically where the applicable limitations period is six years. By pleading non acorevit infra sex annos, the defendant contends that the plaintiff's claim arose more than six years before the action was commenced and is therefore time-barred.
The phrase functions as a shorthand label for what is now commonly called a statute of limitations defense or a limitations plea — a procedural argument that the court should dismiss or deny the claim not because it lacks merit, but because the plaintiff waited too long to bring it.
Common Confusion
Non acorevit infra sex annos is sometimes loosely grouped with other Latin limitations pleas, but the "sex annos" (six years) formulation is specific to causes of action subject to a six-year bar. Parallel pleas existed for other limitation periods — a two-year bar or three-year bar, for instance, would have generated a differently named plea. Researchers should not assume the six-year formula applies universally to all statute of limitations defenses encountered in historical pleading records.
Why It Matters in Research
This term will appear almost exclusively in older common-law pleading records, English practice materials, and American legal sources predating the shift toward code pleading in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. Under the common-law system of formal pleading, the name of the plea carried legal weight — the specific Latin formula signaled not just the defense being raised but the precise legal ground and limitations period at issue.
Researchers working in pre-code pleading materials should be alert to several traps:
First, the spelling is unstable in historical sources. "Acorevit" is itself a variant — the more standard Latin reconstruction would approximate "accrevit" (from accrescere, to accrue). Manuscript and early print sources may render the term differently, and catalog searches should account for variant spellings.
Second, the plea belongs to the family of negative pleas in bar — it is a plea in bar, not a plea in abatement. This distinction mattered procedurally: a successful plea in bar operated as a final judgment against the plaintiff's claim, not merely a dismissal for procedural defect. Understanding this distinction is essential when interpreting the outcome of historical litigation.
Third, the six-year period was not universal. Under English common law, different actions carried different limitation periods, and which period applied depended on the form of action. Researchers tracing the history of a particular claim type should verify which limitation period governed before assuming non acorevit infra sex annos was the operative plea.
Finally, this plea is a corpus marker for common-law formal pleading practice. Its presence in a document signals that the record predates — or was drafted in a jurisdiction that resisted — code pleading reforms. This can help date documents and identify the procedural regime in effect.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) defines the term concisely: "It did not accrue within six years. The name of a plea by which the defendant sets up the statute of limitations against a cause of action which is barred after six years." This entry captures the essential function of the plea accurately. Black's does not elaborate on procedural context, the range of actions to which a six-year bar historically applied, or the relationship between this plea and its counterparts for other limitation periods. Researchers should treat the Black's entry as a reliable starting point but supplement it with materials on common-law pleading practice for fuller context.
No other source dictionary in the Law Mind corpus provides an independent entry for this term. The absence of broader historical dictionary coverage reflects the term's status as a specialized pleading formula rather than a substantive legal concept with independent doctrinal development.
Jurisdictional Note
This plea form was native to English common-law practice and was carried into American colonial and early republic courts. As American jurisdictions adopted code pleading beginning with the New York Field Code of 1848, and later through the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 1938, the formal Latin plea names fell out of use. The underlying defense — the statute of limitations — remains universally available, but the formal designation non acorevit infra sex annos is not used in modern practice in any U.S. jurisdiction.