QUANDO - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

QUANDOAuthored

The Law Mind • 913 words

Definition

A Latin adverbial and conjunctive term meaning "when" or "at what time," used in legal instruments, pleadings, and maxims to introduce a temporal condition or contingency. In legal usage, quando functions primarily as a conditional or qualifying clause marker: a provision, obligation, right, or liability is operative quando — that is, when, or at the time when, a specified event occurs or a specified condition is met.

The term appears most often in two contexts:

1. Conditional clauses in instruments and pleadings: A duty, power, or remedy arises quando the triggering circumstance is present. The word signals that what follows is not an absolute rule but one dependent on timing or circumstance.

2. Latin maxims: Quando appears as a structural element in numerous legal maxims, where it governs the scope or application of the rule stated. The maxim cannot be read without attending to the quando clause, which often carries the limiting or qualifying force of the whole proposition.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Quando is not a standard English word. In languages derived from Latin — Italian, Portuguese, Spanish — it means "when," used to introduce questions of time or conditional clauses.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not entered as an English word.

Editorial note: Because quando has no independent English life, researchers encountering it in historical legal texts should treat it as pure Latin legal vocabulary. The risk is not confusion with an English word but rather misreading the conditional force of the clause: quando does not mean "if" (si) or "since" (cum), though in loose translation these shades can blur. The temporal-conditional distinction matters when interpreting the scope of a rule or obligation.

Common Confusion

Quando is sometimes loosely treated as equivalent to si (if) or ubi (where/when). The distinction carries interpretive weight. Si introduces a pure hypothetical; ubi often marks the point at which a legal status attaches; quando marks the time at which an already-contemplated event occurs and a consequence follows. In maxim interpretation, substituting one for another can misstate the rule's scope.

Why It Matters in Research

Researchers working in historical common law sources — Year Books, early equity reports, ecclesiastical records, and pre-modern pleading forms — will encounter quando as a structural word in Latin maxims and formulaic phrases. Several practical research points:

First, quando is rarely the headword; it is the hinge. The maxim or clause is indexed under its substantive noun or principal verb. Researchers who do not recognize quando's conditional function may read a qualified rule as an absolute one.

Second, Anderson's Dictionary of Law cross-references quando to ACCIDERE — meaning "to happen" or "to fall due." This pairing is instructive: quando frequently governs the moment at which something accidit, i.e., when a right accrues, a debt falls due, or a condition is satisfied. Researchers tracing accrual questions, conditions precedent, or contingent interests in historical sources should expect to find quando anchoring the temporal element of the relevant maxim or formula.

Third, the term appears in ecclesiastical and civil law sources with higher frequency than in common law treatises, reflecting the broader penetration of Latin formalism in those traditions. Researchers using Law Mind sources that draw on civilian or canon law materials should be alert to quando appearing in contexts where English common law would use plain conditional English.

Fourth, quando clauses in instruments can affect the interpretation of conditions precedent versus conditions subsequent — a distinction with significant consequences in property, contract, and succession law. Historical sources do not always make this distinction explicit; recognizing quando as a temporal conditional is the first step in parsing which type of condition the drafter intended.

Historical Dictionary Support

Anderson's Dictionary of Law offers only a cross-reference to ACCIDERE, which, while terse, is substantively useful: it points the researcher toward the operational pairing of quando (the temporal trigger) and accidere (the event or accrual). This cross-reference reflects the civilian-influenced structure of Anderson's work and confirms that quando was understood in that tradition not as a standalone concept but as a relational term whose meaning emerges from its pairing with the event it governs.

Rapalje & Lawrence provide no entry for quando. The entry appearing at the relevant page reference concerns an unrelated term. This is a gap in the historical dictionary record, not an error: quando was likely considered too elementary a Latin word to require independent treatment in a dictionary aimed at practitioners already trained in legal Latin.

The Latin dictionary record confirms the classical range of quando: interrogative ("at what time?"), temporal-conditional ("when," in the sense of "at the time when"), and causal in some classical constructions (though the causal use is rare in legal Latin). For legal research purposes, the temporal-conditional sense is the operative one in virtually all encountered contexts.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Latin Terms and Maxims in Common Law Pleading; Conditions Precedent and Subsequent.

QUANDOmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1883

(1044) would refer "quaker" to "quacker," and render it incapable of being under the rests on the following lines written by Sir absolute dominion of any proprietor, as G. Wharton, in 1660 : "Let's tear our ribbons, burn our richer laces, Wear russet, and contrive bewitched faces; With thee and thou let us go quack awhile." As to affirmations by "quakers" instead of oaths, see AFFIRMED, § 3.-Wharton. (1045) QUANDO ACCIDERINT, (in a judgment). 1 Watts (Pa.) 413. Quando duo jura concurrunt in una persona, æquum est ac si essent in diversis (4 Co. 118): When two rights concur in one person, it is the same as if they were in separate persons. This is only another form of the maxim unus homo sustinet plures personas. Quando aliquid conceditur, &c.: Where anything is granted, that also is deemed to be impliedly granted with it without which the principal subject-matter of the grant (i. e. the express grant) could not be enjoyed (id quo- que concedi videtur, sine quo res ipsa percipi non Quando jus domini regis et subditi debeat). When mines are granted or reserved concurrunt, jus regis præferri debet apart from the surface, a right of entry (in the: (9 Co. 129): When the right of king and of absence of other access to them) would be im-subject concur, the king's right should be prepliedly granted or reserved. Quando aliquid mandatur, mandatur et omne per quod pervenitur ad illud (5 Co. 116): When anything is commanded, everything by which it can be accomplished is also commanded. It is one of the rules affecting the law of principal and agent, that the latter's authority includes all medium powers "per quod pervenitur ad illud." Quando aliquid prohibetur ex directo, prohibetur et per obliquum (Co. Litt. 223): When anything is prohibited directly, it is prohibited also indirectly. Quando aliquid prohibetur, prohibetur omne per quod devenitur ad illud (2 Inst. 48): When anything is prohibited, everything which tends towards it is prohibited. Quando charta continet generalem clausulam, posteaque descendit ad verba specialia quæ clausulæ generali sunt consentanea, interpretanda est charta secundum verba specialia (8 Co. 154): When a charter contains a general clause, and afterwards descends to special words, which agreeable to are general clause, the general charter is to be interpreted according to the special words. the Quando de una et eadem re duo onerabiles existunt, unus, pro insufficientia alterius, de integro onerabitur (2 Inst. 277): When there are two persons liable for one and the same thing, one for the other's default will be charged for the whole. Quando dispositio referri potest ad duas res ita quod secundum relationem unam vitietur et secundum alteram utilis sit, tum facienda est relatio ad illam ut valeat dispositio (6 Co.76): When a disposition may refer to two things, so that by the former it would be vitiated, and by the latter it would be preserved, then the relation is to be made to the latter, so that the disposition may be valid. Quando diversi desiderantur actus ad aliquem statum perficiendum, plus respicit lex, actum originalem (10 Co. 49): When to the perfection of an estate divers acts are requisite, the law has more regard to the original act. ferred. Quando lex aliquid alicui concedit, concedere videtur et id sine quo res ipsae esse non potest (5 Co. 47): When the law gives a man anything, it gives him that also without which the thing itself cannot exist. If A. grant to B. a piece of land surrounded on all sides by other land of A.'s, B. will (in case there be no right of way to his land) have a right of way over 1.'s surrounding land. The application of this maxim is very limited, and it refers more especially to contracts under seal. Quando lex aliquid alicui concedit, omnia incidentia tacite conceduntur (2 Inst. 326): When the law gives anything to any one, all incidents are tacitly given. Quando lex est specialis, ratio autem generalis, generaliter lex est intelligenda (2 Inst. 83): When the law is special, but its reason general, the law is to be understood generally. Quando licet id quod majus, videtur et licere id quod minus (Shep. Touch. 429): When the greater is allowed, the less seems to be allowed also. Quando mulier nobilis nupserit ignobili, desinit esse nobilis nisi nobilitas nativa fuerit (4 Co. 118): When a noble woman marries a man not noble, she ceases to be noble, unless her nobility was born with her. Quando plus fit quam fieri debet, videtur etiam illud fieri quod faciendum est (5 Co. 115): When more is done than ought to be done, that too seems to be done which still remains to be done. Quando res non valet ut ago, valeat quantum valere potest (Cowp.600): When anything does not operate in the way one intends, let it operate as far as it cam. In Roe v. Tranmarr, 2 Sm. Lead. Cas. 530, a deed purporting to be a release, which could not operate as such because it attempted to convey a freehold "in futuro," was held valid under the circumstances as a covenant to stand seized. A lease in writing but not under seal, is not absolutely void, but held good in equity as an agreement for a lease. Quando verba statuti sunt specialia, ratio autem generalis, generaliter I statutum est intelligendum (10 Co.

QUANDOcrossref

Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890

See ACCIDERE.

Explore the full Law Mind legal research platform.

Subscribe Encyclopedia Sign In