ONUS IMPORTANDI - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

ONUS IMPORTANDIAuthored

The Law Mind • 754 words

Definition

A Latin phrase meaning "the charge of importing merchandise." Onus importandi refers to the duty, burden, or cost imposed upon the importation of goods — historically, the customs charge or imposition levied at the point of entry. The term appears in English statutory law, specifically in the Act 12 Car. II c. 28, a seventeenth-century English statute governing customs and trade duties. It is a term of historical commercial and customs law with no active modern legal application.

Common Confusion

Onus importandi is easily confused with onus probandi, the Latin phrase for "burden of proof," which is a living term of evidence law still used in courts today. The confusion arises from shared Latin construction and from the fact that historical dictionaries — including Rapalje & Lawrence and Bouvier — place the two terms in immediate sequence with minimal separation. A researcher encountering either phrase in an old document should confirm which term is present before proceeding. The two are wholly unrelated in meaning: onus importandi concerns trade and customs charges; onus probandi concerns procedural allocation of proof. See ONUS PROBANDI.

Why It Matters in Research

This term is essentially a relic of a single statutory context. Researchers will encounter onus importandi almost exclusively in one of three situations: transcriptions or commentaries on 12 Car. II c. 28 and related Restoration-era customs legislation; historical treatises on English trade law from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; or legal dictionary cross-references, where the term appears as a brief entry immediately preceding the far more consequential onus probandi.

The navigational trap here is real. Because historical dictionaries treat onus importandi as a stub — typically a single sentence — and then immediately transition to onus probandi, researchers scanning quickly may absorb the onus probandi definition while believing they are reading about onus importandi, or vice versa. This is particularly likely in Rapalje & Lawrence, where the two entries run together with minimal visual break.

Researchers working in colonial American trade law, early customs disputes, or admiralty proceedings should note that the English customs framework established around 12 Car. II c. 28 influenced early colonial trade regulation, though American sources rarely use the Latin phrase itself. If the phrase appears in an American document, it is almost certainly a direct quotation from or citation to the English statute, not an independent American legal term.

There is no equivalent modern term of art. Contemporary customs and import law uses tariff, duty, customs charge, or import levy — none of which derive from onus importandi as a term of art.

Historical Dictionary Support

All three source dictionaries — Black's, Rapalje & Lawrence, and Bouvier — are in complete agreement: onus importandi means the charge of importing merchandise as mentioned in 12 Car. II c. 28. No source adds substantive elaboration beyond this single sentence. The uniformity reflects that this was always a narrow statutory term, not a common law concept that evolved through judicial interpretation.

What the historical dictionaries do not provide is any context about the statute itself or the broader customs framework it established. The Act 12 Car. II c. 28, passed in 1660, was a foundational English customs statute of the Restoration period, reorganizing import and export duties. The term onus importandi captures one specific aspect of that scheme — the formal charge imposed on imported goods — but the dictionaries treat it as self-defining through the statutory reference alone.

The absence of any case law citation in any of the three dictionaries suggests the term did not generate significant litigation under that name, or at least none that found its way into the common law reports in a manner that impressed itself on dictionary compilers.

Jurisdictional Note

Onus importandi is a term of English statutory law. It has no recognized independent meaning in American, Scottish, or other common law jurisdictions. Researchers working outside English law of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are unlikely to encounter it as an operative legal term.

ONUS IMPORTANDImain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

The charge of importing merchandise, mentioned in 12 Car. II. с. 28. ONUS PROBANDI (Lat.). In Evi- dence. The burden of proof. It is a general rule that the party who alleges the affirmative of any proposition shall prove it. It is also a general rule that the onus probandi lies upon the party who seeks to support his case by a partic- ular fact: for example, when to a plea of infancy the plaintiff replies a promise after the defendant had attained his age, it is sufficient for the plaintiff to prove the promise, and it lies on the defendant to show that he was not of age at the time; 1 Term 648. But where the negative in- volves a criminal omission by the party, and, consequently, where the law, by vir- tue of the general principle, presumes his innocence, the affirmative of the fact is also presumed. See 11 Johns. 513; 19 id. 345; 9 Mart. La. 48; 3 Mart. La. N. S. 576. The burden of proof of the want of mental capacity of a person at the time of his marriage is on those asserting it, in the absence of proof of a confirmed condition of lunacy or idiocy prior to such marriage; 159 Pa. 634. In general, wherever the law presumes the affirmative, it lies on the party who de- nies the fact to prove the negative; as when the law raises a presumption as to the continuance of life, the legitimacy of children born in wedlock, or the satisfac- tion of a debt. See, generally, 1 Phil. Ev. 156; 1 Stark. Ev. 376; Rosc. Civ. Ev., 16th ed. 94; Rosc. Cr. Ev., 8th ed. 17; Bull. N. P. 298; 2 Gall. 485; 1 M'Cord 573; 1 Houst. 44; 12 Viner, Abr. 201; Tayl. Ev. 343; 1 Greenl. Ev. 79; Whart. Ev. 353. As to shifting of burden of proof, see, generally, 44 La. Ann. 1043; 44 Mo. App. 141; 90 Tenn. 638. The party on whom the onus probandi lies is entitled to begin, notwithstanding the technical form of the proceedings; 1 Stark. Ev. 584. See BURDEN OF PROOF; OPENING AND CLOSING; NEGATIVE.