Definition
Per omnes (Latin: "by all") is a phrase appearing in early English legal reports to indicate that a ruling, statement, or holding was agreed upon by all the judges sitting in a case. When a reporter noted a decision or proposition per omnes, it signaled unanimous judicial concurrence — not merely a majority outcome but the assent of every judge on the bench. The phrase functions as a shorthand attribution, identifying the source and weight of a legal declaration within the report.
Common Confusion
Per omnes is sometimes loosely associated with per curiam, but the two phrases are not synonymous. Per curiam (by the court) is a term of continuing use in modern appellate practice, typically designating an opinion issued in the name of the court as a whole rather than attributed to a named author. Per omnes, by contrast, is an archival notation from the old reports indicating that all individual judges concurred; it is not used in modern court practice. A researcher encountering per omnes in an old report should not treat it as equivalent to a per curiam designation in a contemporary sense.
Per omnes should also be distinguished from per totam curiam, a variant phrase meaning "by the whole court" that appears in some early reporters with essentially the same meaning. The functional difference is negligible, but awareness of both forms prevents confusion when cross-referencing citations across different report series.
Why It Matters in Research
Per omnes is primarily a reporter's annotation device found in the old English reports, particularly in the volumes of the Modern Reports and similar pre-nineteenth-century series. Researchers working in early case law — especially common law authorities predating the systematic reporting era — will encounter it as a credibility and weight marker. A holding noted per omnes carries greater persuasive authority than one attributed to a single judge's statement or a divided bench, and recognizing the phrase prevents misreading the notation as a party name, procedural term, or citation element.
The phrase appears infrequently and without formal definition in most historical sources, which means a researcher unfamiliar with it may pass over it without understanding that it is communicating something about judicial unanimity. In the context of citing old English authority in American courts or legal scholarship, distinguishing per omnes from phrases like per curiam (by the court, as an institutional voice) or per totam curiam (by the whole court) is important, as these terms overlap in meaning but were not always used interchangeably by different reporters.
Because the old reports were privately compiled and lacked standardized notation, the same concept may appear in variant phrasings across different reporters and time periods. Researchers should not assume that absence of per omnes means the decision was contested — it may simply reflect a different reporter's style.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the primary historical source with an entry for this term. Burrill defines it concisely as "by all (the judges)" and identifies it as "a phrase in the old reports," citing 6 Modern Reports 289. The entry is spare — a single line — which accurately reflects how the phrase functioned: as a marginal or inline notation rather than a term of art requiring elaboration.
The limitation of Burrill's treatment is also its completeness. There is little more to say doctrinally about per omnes than Burrill says, because the phrase is descriptive rather than operative. It does not create legal rights, establish a test, or define a doctrine. Its significance is entirely evidentiary in the old-reports sense: it tells the reader how many judges stood behind a proposition. Historical dictionaries that omit the term entirely (as most do) reflect that it belongs to the vocabulary of legal reporting rather than substantive law.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Torts & Personal Injury Encyclopedia — Defamation Per Se Categories (torts_123); Negligence Per Se (torts_8)
The Law Mind Constitutional Law Encyclopedia — Physical Takings and Per Se Rules (constitutional_66)
Note: These encyclopedia entries address per se doctrines in substantive law. They are not directly related to per omnes as a reporter's phrase, but researchers who encounter Latin per- compounds in legal sources and need orientation to the broader family of per se rules in American doctrine may find them useful as context.