Definition
A phrase appearing in grants, easements, and rights-of-way that describes the privilege of traveling over land in both directions — going and returning. When a right of way is granted with the words "to pass and repass," the grantee is authorized to traverse the path or road not merely once but as a matter of ongoing, bidirectional use. The phrase functions as a term of art in property instruments, particularly those creating easements of way, to distinguish a simple transitory crossing from a continuing right of travel in each direction.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Pass" means to go by, through, or across; "repass" means to pass again or return over the same route.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Pass" is defined as to go or move from one place to another; "repass" is to pass again, particularly in the reverse direction.
Editorial note: The common meaning of "pass and repass" might suggest unrestricted or repeated travel in any manner. Legally, the phrase has been interpreted more narrowly: as Bouvier's notes, courts held it to mean going and returning over the road once only per occasion of use — a significant limitation that would not be apparent from the ordinary words alone.
Why It Matters in Research
The interpretive limitation is the essential research fact here. A researcher encountering "pass and repass" in a historical deed, easement, or right-of-way instrument should not assume the phrase grants broad or continuous travel privileges. Courts construed it to mean a single round trip — one passage in, one passage out — per use. This matters acutely when examining disputes over the scope of easements, particularly in older instruments where such phrasing was standard boilerplate.
The phrase appears most commonly in instruments from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Researchers working with historical deeds, manorial grants, turnpike grants, or rural easements will encounter it regularly. Because modern drafting typically replaces this phrase with more explicit language about frequency and manner of use, the phrase is now largely a historical artifact in new instruments — but it survives in chain-of-title documents and must be interpreted according to its historical legal meaning, not its contemporary common sense.
Jurisdictional variations may affect how broadly or narrowly courts construe the limitation. Researchers comparing easement disputes across jurisdictions should not assume uniform adoption of the "one round trip" interpretation.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary is the primary historical authority in the Law Mind corpus for this phrase. Bouvier records the judicial interpretation concisely: the phrase "has been held to mean going and returning over the road once only," citing 34 J.P. 823. This is a spare entry, but it carries real analytical weight — the limitation is judicial, not merely linguistic. Bouvier does not elaborate on what additional language would be required to expand the right beyond a single return passage.
Historical dictionaries generally treat this phrase as settled in meaning, without significant divergence or debate. What they do not address is the question researchers will frequently face: how the limitation interacts with easements appurtenant versus easements in gross, or how courts handled repeated daily use under instruments using this language. Those questions must be resolved through case law research beyond the dictionary sources.
Jurisdictional Note
The interpretation recorded in Bouvier (citing English justice-of-the-peace reports) reflects common law origins. American courts generally adopted this construction, but researchers should verify local precedent when the scope of a historical easement is at issue, as some jurisdictions construed similar phrases more liberally depending on the instrument's evident purpose.