Definition
Non dedit (Latin: "he did not grant") is a pleading term denoting the general issue in an action of formedon. When a defendant pleaded non dedit, he denied that the original donor had made the gift or grant upon which the plaintiff's claim of title rested. The plea put the plaintiff to proof of the foundational conveyance in the chain of title underlying the formedon action.
To understand non dedit, formedon must be understood. Formedon was a common law real action — a writ used to recover land held under a conditional fee or entail, brought by one claiming as the heir or donee of an original grant in fee tail. The entire action turned on whether such a grant had in fact been made. Non dedit denied that grant at its root.
Common Confusion
Non dedit is sometimes loosely grouped with other Latin "non" pleading formulas (such as non assumpsit or non est factum) by researchers unfamiliar with the real actions. These are distinct pleas operating in distinct procedural contexts. Non assumpsit denied a promise in assumpsit; non est factum denied the execution of a deed in debt on specialty; non dedit denied the original grant in a real action. They share Latin negation but nothing else structurally or functionally.
Why It Matters in Research
Non dedit is almost exclusively a term of pre-modern pleading practice and will appear in historical records, abridgments, and older treatises dealing with real property actions. Researchers working in colonial American land records, English common law pleading materials, or early American court records may encounter this plea in formal pleading rolls or case summaries.
The term is inseparable from formedon, which was itself abolished in England by the Real Property Limitation Act 1833 and fell out of use in American jurisdictions as common law real actions were supplanted by statutory ejectment and eventually modern quiet title actions. Any source using non dedit as a live procedural term predates this transition. Treat it as a marker of archaic pleading practice, not of any surviving procedural form.
Researchers should note the cross-reference in Bouvier to NE DONA PAS — the Norman French equivalent of the same plea. In older English records and Year Books, the French form appears far more frequently than the Latin. A researcher unfamiliar with ne dona pas may miss the same plea appearing under its alternative name in different sources covering the same period.
The encyclopedia entries flagged as potentially matching (non-solicitation, non-disclosure, non-compete) share the prefix "non" only. They are entirely unrelated to this term. Do not follow those cross-references for research on non dedit.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries — Black's (1st and 2nd editions) and Bouvier — are in tight agreement: non dedit is the Latin form of the general issue in formedon, meaning "he did not grant." There is no meaningful divergence across sources on substance. The brevity of each entry reflects that this was a highly technical term within a now-obsolete action, and the historical dictionaries assumed readers already understood formedon's framework.
Bouvier's direction to "See NE DONA PAS" is the most useful navigational cue among the three entries. Researchers should follow that cross-reference, as ne dona pas will appear in the older English authorities that predate the Latin pleading conventions. Black's entries across both editions are nearly identical and add nothing beyond the core identification of the plea.
What the historical dictionaries do not explain: the procedural consequence of the plea. Non dedit as the general issue meant that, once pleaded, the entire matter of the grant went to trial on the merits. It was not a dilatory plea and did not raise a collateral objection — it went directly to the heart of the plaintiff's title claim.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
No Law Mind Encyclopedia entry directly covers formedon or archaic real property pleading. The flagged encyclopedia entries (contracts_199, employment_127, employment_125) are unrelated and should not be consulted for this term.