Definition
Pro falso clamore is a Latin phrase meaning "for his false claim" or "for his false clamour." It describes a penalty or amercement historically imposed on a plaintiff in a common law action who failed to establish the claim alleged in the pleadings. The phrase identifies the specific ground for the punishment: the plaintiff brought a false or unfounded demand before the court.
In practice, the term appears in older common law judgments as part of the formal recital explaining why a losing plaintiff was assessed a monetary penalty. Where a defendant prevailed and the court entered judgment against the plaintiff, the record would note that the plaintiff was amerced pro falso clamore — that is, fined for having raised a false clamour against the defendant.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering this phrase will find it almost exclusively in pre-nineteenth century English common law records, plea rolls, and treatises on common law pleading and practice. It is a term of the formal judgment record, not of substantive doctrine, and its significance is procedural and historical.
The phrase appears at the tail end of judgment entries and can be easy to overlook or misread. Because it signals that judgment went against the plaintiff on the merits (or at least on the pleadings), identifying pro falso clamore in a record helps confirm the outcome and direction of a case — information that is not always obvious from abbreviated plea roll entries.
Researchers working in Bracton, the Year Books, or early common law reports should expect this phrase in its full Latin form. By the time of Blackstone's Commentaries (the source Burrill cites), it was already a term being explained to readers rather than actively coined. Its appearance in nineteenth-century American legal materials is rare and almost always retrospective or comparative.
One navigational trap: the phrase is sometimes confused with related judgment language concerning amercements of defendants or nonsuited parties. Pro falso clamore specifically attaches to the plaintiff as a consequence of the plaintiff's failed claim. It is not a general term for any amercement in litigation.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the sole historical dictionary source here, and its entry is minimal: the Latin phrase, an English gloss ("for his false claim, or clamour"), and a single citation to Blackstone's Commentaries, volume 3, page 296. Blackstone's treatment contextualizes the phrase within the common law system of amercements — the financial penalties assessed against litigants as a matter of course at the close of actions. Blackstone explains that plaintiffs who failed were regularly amerced for their false claim, while defendants who failed were amerced for their unjust detention or withholding.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the procedural machinery underlying the amercement: the role of the affeerors who assessed the amount, the relationship between pro falso clamore amercements and other forms of costs, or how the practice declined as modern costs rules developed. Researchers needing that level of detail must go beyond the dictionary literature to treatises on common law pleading such as Gould on Pleading or Stephen's Principles of Pleading, and to primary common law records.
The phrase itself is not a contested or evolving term — its meaning was fixed and its use formulaic. There is no meaningful divergence among historical sources on its definition.
Jurisdictional Note
Pro falso clamore is a term of English common law procedure and does not appear as a living term in any modern American, English, or Commonwealth jurisdiction. American courts adopted common law pleading forms selectively, and the formal amercement system did not take root. Researchers working in early American colonial or state court records may encounter the phrase in jurisdictions that closely followed English common law forms, but such appearances are uncommon after the late eighteenth century.