Definition
Latin: "by the same." A citation or attribution signal used in legal writing and judicial reporting to indicate that a quoted statement, ruling, or opinion was delivered by the same judge previously referenced — that is, the reader need not look up a new authority or a new speaker. The phrase functions as an economical shorthand in reported cases and legal texts, identifying continuity of authorship or utterance.
The companion phrase per eundem in eadem means "by the same judge in the same case," narrowing the reference further to confirm that the prior statement was made not merely by the same judge but within the very same proceeding.
Common Confusion
PER EUNDEM vs. PER CURIAM. These are easily conflated by researchers encountering them in older reports. Per curiam means "by the court" — an opinion attributed to the court as a whole rather than to any individual judge. Per eundem means the opposite of anonymous collective authorship: it attributes a statement to a specific, already-identified individual judge. Finding per eundem in a report means look back in the same text for the named judge; finding per curiam means no individual judge is the source.
PER EUNDEM vs. IDEM. Idem ("the same") is a general citation signal applied to authors, sources, or works. Per eundem is specific to judicial utterance and carries the additional meaning "from the mouth of" — it describes the act of speaking or delivering a ruling, not merely identity of authorship.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in pre-twentieth-century English and American law reports, legal treatises, and digests written in the tradition of Law French and Latin citation practice. Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus who encounter per eundem in a historical case report should treat it as a navigational signal, not a substantive legal concept: it tells you to find the same judge's name earlier in the same report or discussion, then re-read that passage as the source being cited or elaborated.
A common research trap: per eundem can appear mid-paragraph in a reporter's notes without any preceding discussion of the judge's name on the same page. The name may appear in a page header, a running margin note, or several paragraphs earlier. Scanning only the surrounding paragraph will miss it.
The phrase has no modern counterpart in standard legal citation practice. The Bluebook, ALWD, and similar contemporary citation systems have entirely replaced Latin attribution signals of this kind. Accordingly, per eundem will essentially never appear in primary sources published after the early twentieth century. Its presence in a document is itself a dating signal.
Researchers should also note the incomplete Rapalje & Lawrence entry, which breaks off mid-phrase with "Per eundem, in eadem [subaudi," — meaning the editor intended to supply a bracketed understood word (likely judicis, "judge") that was never completed in the surviving text. This lacuna does not affect the meaning but is worth flagging when citing that source directly.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree on the core definition without meaningful variation: per eundem means "by, or from the mouth of, the same judge," and per eundem in eadem means "by the same judge in the same case." The phrasing is nearly identical across Black's first and second editions, suggesting the second edition carried the entry forward without revision — which is consistent with the term's frozen, archaic character. Rapalje & Lawrence adds no substantive divergence; its value is confirming that the phrase was treated as standard legal Latin in both English and American practice by the late nineteenth century.
None of the three sources elaborate on how per eundem functions as a citation practice, its relationship to Law French and Latin reporting conventions, or when it fell out of use. That gap is significant: researchers treating these definitions as comprehensive will understand the words but not the practical mechanism the phrase served in actual reports.
Jurisdictional Note
Per eundem is a product of the shared Anglo-American common law reporting tradition and appears without meaningful jurisdictional variation. Its use was driven by the citation conventions of individual law reporters rather than by court rules, and it was equally available in English and American practice wherever Latin citation shorthand was employed.