Definition
Nunquam indebitatus (Latin: "never indebted") is the name of a common law plea by which a defendant in an action of indebitatus assumpsit denies that he was ever indebted to the plaintiff. It functions as the general issue in such actions — a flat denial that the obligation alleged by the plaintiff ever existed — and puts the plaintiff to proof of the underlying debt.
In English practice, nunquam indebitatus replaced the older plea of nil debet as the proper general issue in actions of debt founded on simple contract. The two pleas serve similar denying functions, but they are procedurally and historically distinct: nil debet was the traditional general issue in debt, while nunquam indebitatus developed as the appropriate plea for the hybrid action of indebitatus assumpsit, which sounded in assumpsit but was used to recover a liquidated sum.
Common Confusion
Nunquam indebitatus is easily conflated with nil debet, and historical sources sometimes treat them interchangeably. They are not the same. Nil debet ("he owes nothing") was the general issue in a pure action of debt, denying that a present obligation exists. Nunquam indebitatus ("never indebted") denies that the defendant was ever indebted at all — a subtly broader denial suited to the assumpsit framework in which the fiction of an implied promise underlies the claim. Burrill expressly notes the substitution: nunquam indebitatus is "the plea now substituted in England for nil debet, as the general issue in debt on simple contract." Researchers encountering nil debet in older English sources should not assume the same procedural rules governed both pleas.
Why It Matters in Research
This term surfaces almost exclusively in the context of common law pleading — specifically in materials treating the action of indebitatus assumpsit, the general counts (money had and received, goods sold and delivered, work and labor done, and their siblings), and the forms of the general issue. Researchers will encounter it primarily in English treatises and practice manuals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in American pleading texts of the antebellum period, and in reported cases from that era in which pleading error was a live appellate issue.
Several traps await the inattentive researcher. First, the plea is essentially extinct in modern practice. Code pleading and its successors abolished the rigid system of common law forms of action; a general denial under a modern answer serves the function that nunquam indebitatus once served. Encountering the plea in a nineteenth-century case does not mean the underlying substantive law of implied obligation has changed — only the procedural vehicle.
Second, the substitution of nunquam indebitatus for nil debet was an English reform that did not always travel uniformly to American jurisdictions. Some American states retained nil debet longer; others adopted the new form; still others collapsed the distinction early through their own procedural reforms. A researcher reading an American decision from, say, 1820 to 1850 should not assume that the English rule described by Burrill applied in the jurisdiction under study.
Third, because indebitatus assumpsit was itself a legal fiction — a writ of assumpsit used to recover debts that would formerly have been pursued in debt — the plea of nunquam indebitatus interacts with questions about what counts as a "simple contract" debt eligible for that form of action. Arguments about whether a particular obligation sounded in debt or assumpsit, and which plea was therefore appropriate, generated substantial litigation in the common law period. Corpus materials on pleading, forms of action, and implied contract will be the most productive search targets.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary gives the minimum serviceable definition: "never indebted," the plea in indebitatus assumpsit by which the defendant denies indebtedness. It appends, apparently through a printing or editorial adjacency, the unrelated maxim nunquam nimis dicitur quod nunquam satis dicitur — researchers should note this is not part of the definition of the plea.
Burrill is the most substantive source. He identifies nunquam indebitatus specifically as the plea substituted in England for nil debet as the general issue in debt on simple contract, citing Stephens's Commentaries and Archbold's Nisi Prius. This is the critical historical datum: the plea is a reform measure, not an ancient form. Burrill also appends the separate maxim nunquam crescit ex post facto praeteriti delicti aestimatio (a past offence is not aggravated by a subsequent act), drawn from the Digest — again, no connection to the plea itself; the adjacency is alphabetical only.
Rapalje and Lawrence provide no independent definition, directing the reader elsewhere. The absence is itself informative: by the time that dictionary was compiled, the plea had receded enough in practical importance that extended treatment was unnecessary.
None of the three sources adequately addresses the American reception of this plea or its fate under code pleading reform. Researchers should not rely on the historical dictionaries alone for that analysis.
Jurisdictional Note
Nunquam indebitatus as a formal plea is a creature of English common law practice. American reception varied by state and era. The plea became largely academic in American jurisdictions following the Field Code of 1848 and successor procedural reforms, which abolished the forms of action. English sources describing the plea — including Burrill's citations to Stephens and Archbold — should be checked against the procedural law of the specific American jurisdiction and time period under study before any conclusion is drawn about applicable practice.