OMNIA PERFORMAVIT

2 definitions found across Law Mind sources

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OMNIA PERFORMAVITAuthored
The Law Mind • 852 words
Definition
Latin: "He has performed all" or "He has done all things." A plea in bar used in common law pleading to defend against a claim that the defendant failed to perform obligations under a contract or deed. When a party is sued for breach of covenants that are entirely affirmative in character — that is, covenants requiring the defendant to do something rather than to refrain from doing something — the defendant may respond with omnia performavit, asserting that all such obligations have been fully performed. The plea operates as a complete defense, admitting the existence of the covenant but denying that any breach occurred. ---
Common Confusion
Omnia performavit is occasionally conflated with the general denial or with the plea of non est factum. The distinction matters: a general denial contests whether the agreement was made; non est factum contests whether the instrument is the defendant's deed; omnia performavit concedes both the instrument and the obligation and asserts only that performance was complete. Researchers encountering older pleading records should also avoid confusing this plea with a traverse of specific covenants, which contests performance of a particular clause rather than asserting wholesale fulfillment. ---
Core Elements
The plea's validity in historical practice turned on two conditions: 1. AFFIRMATIVE COVENANTS ONLY. The plea is proper only when the covenants at issue are affirmative — obligations to act. Where any covenant is negative in character (an obligation to refrain from acting), a blanket omnia performavit plea is technically defective because it does not respond to the proper subject matter of a negative covenant. 2. GENERAL FORM SUFFICIENT. Because the plea covers all covenants collectively rather than responding to each individually, it operates as a single comprehensive bar. Courts in the common law tradition accepted this general form rather than requiring the defendant to enumerate each covenant and allege performance of each separately. ---
Why It Matters in Research
This term surfaces almost exclusively in sources documenting pre-modern common law pleading practice — primarily English cases and early American decisions from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Researchers working with colonial-era court records, early state reporters, or common law pleading treatises will encounter it in the context of covenant actions. By the mid-nineteenth century, code pleading reforms (beginning with New York's Field Code of 1848 and spreading through most American jurisdictions) largely displaced the formal Latin plea system, and omnia performavit disappears from active litigation usage accordingly. Its appearance in a document is therefore a reliable dating and procedural marker. The term also signals the type of action: an action of covenant on a deed or formal contract. If you are tracing a dispute through early court records and find this plea entered, you can infer that the plaintiff's declaration set out affirmative covenants and that the defendant chose not to contest the instrument's validity or the existence of the obligation. Researchers should be careful that the snippet in Black's Law Dictionary cites "1 Me. 189," a reference to an early Maine Reports decision. That citation connects this plea to American jurisdictions that continued formal common law pleading into the early national period. Anyone tracing the plea's American usage should consult early state reporters from New England and the mid-Atlantic states, where common law pleading persisted longest. ---
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary provides the core entry: "He has done all. In pleading. A good plea in bar where all the covenants are in the affirmative." This is a characteristically compressed Black's definition, accurate as far as it goes but requiring expansion for practical research use. The limitation to affirmative covenants is stated without explanation; classical pleading treatises — particularly Chitty's Treatise on Pleading and Stephen's Principles of Pleading — supply the underlying logic that a negative covenant cannot be answered by a general performance plea because the breach of a negative covenant consists in an act, not an omission, and requires a more specific responsive pleading. No common-usage dictionary (Wiktionary, Webster's 1913) carries this term, confirming it as pure legal Latin with no meaningful life outside formal pleading practice. The related maxims included in the Black's entry following the primary definition — omnia praesumuntur contra spoliatorem and omnia praesumuntur legitime facta donec probetur in contrarium — are separate maxims of evidence and should not be read as part of the definition of omnia performavit itself. Their proximity in the printed dictionary reflects alphabetical sequencing, not conceptual kinship. ---
Jurisdictional Note
The plea belongs to the common law pleading tradition shared by England and the American states prior to code pleading reform. Its practical relevance is therefore largely historical. A small number of jurisdictions retained common law pleading forms well into the late nineteenth century; researchers working with records from those jurisdictions may find the plea appearing later than expected. ---
Related Terms
Plea in bar — Covenant (action of) — Non est factum — Performance (contract) — Affirmative covenant — Traverse — Common law pleading — Code pleading — Breach of covenant — General issue
OMNIA PERFORMAVITmain
Black's Law Dictionary • 1891
He has done all. In pleading. A good plea in bar where all the covenants are in the affirmative. 1 Me. 189. Omnia præsumuntur contra spoliato- rem. All things are presumed against a despoiler or wrong-doer. A leading maxim in the law of evidence. Best, Ev. p. 340, § 303; Broom, Max. 938. Omnia præsumuntur legitime facta donec probetur in contrarium. All things are presumed to be lawfully done, un- til proof be made to the contrary. Co. Litt. 2326; Best, Ev. p. 337, § 300. Omnia præsumuntur rite et solem- niter esse acta donec probetur in con- trarium. All things are presumed to have been rightly and duly performed until it is proved to the contrary. Co. Litt. 232; Broom, Max. 944. Omnia præsumuntur solemniter esse acta. Co. Litt. 6. All things are presumed to have been done rightly. OMNIS INTERPRETATIO, ETC. Omnia quæ jure contrahuntur con- trario jure pereunt. Dig. 50, 17, 100. All things which are contracted by law perish by a contrary law. Omnia quæ sunt uxoris sunt ipsius viri. All things which are the wife's are the husband's. Bract. fol. 32; Co. Litt. 112a. See 2 Kent, Comm. 130-143. All Omnia rite acta præsumuntur. things are presumed to have been rightly done. Broom, Max. 944. OMNIBUS AD QUOS PRÆSENTES LITERÆ PERVENERINT, SALUTEM. To all to whom the present letters shall come, greeting. A form of address with which charters and deeds were anciently com- menced. Omnis actio est loquela. Every action is a plaint or complaint. Co. Litt. 292a. Omnis conclusio boni et veri judicii sequitur ex bonis et veris præmissis et dictis juratorum. Every conclusion of a good and true judgment follows from good and true premises, and the verdicts of jurors. Co. Litt. 2266. Omnis consensus tollit errorem. Every consent removes error. Consent always re- moves the effect of error. 2 Inst. 123. Omnis definitio in jure civili pericu- losa est, parum est enim ut non sub- verti possit. Dig. 50, 17, 202. All defini- tion in the civil law is hazardous, for there is little that cannot be subverted. Omnis definitio in lege periculosa. All definition in law is hazardous. 2 Wood. Lect. 196. Omnis exceptio est ipsa quoque regula. Every exception is itself also a rule. Omnis indemnatus pro innoxis legibus habetur. Every uncondemned person is held by the law as innocent. Lofft, 121. Omnis innovatio plus novitate per- turbat quam ultilitate prodest. Every innovation occasions more harm by its novelty than benefit by its utility. 2 Bulst. 338; Broom, Max. 147. Omnis interpretatio si fieri potest ita fienda est in instrumentis, ut omnes con- trarietates amoveantur. Jenk. Cent. 96 Every interpretation, if it can be done, is to be so made in instruments that all contra- dictions may be removed. OMNIS INTERPRETATIO, ETC. Omnis interpretatio vel declarat, vel extendit, vel restringit. Every interpre tation either declares, extends, or restrains. Omnis nova constitutio futuris formam imponere debet, non præteritis. Every new statute ought to prescribe a form to future, not to past, acts. Bract. fol. 228; 2 Inst. 95. Omnis persona est homo, sed non vicissim. Every person is a man, but not Calvin. every man a person. Omnis privatio præsupponit habitum. Every privation presupposes a former enjoy- ment. Co. Litt. 339a. A "rule of phi- losophie" quoted by Lord Coke, and applied to the discontinuance of an estate.

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