QUANDO ACCIDERINT - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

QUANDO ACCIDERINTAuthored

The Law Mind • 845 words

Definition

A Latin phrase meaning "when they shall happen" or "when they shall come in." In practice, quando acciderint is the technical name for a form of judgment entered against an executor or administrator in circumstances where no assets are currently available to satisfy the plaintiff's claim, but assets may subsequently come into the defendant's hands. The judgment does not compel immediate payment; instead, it authorizes the plaintiff to levy execution against future assets of the estate as and when the executor or administrator receives them.

The judgment arises most characteristically in response to a plea of plene administravit — the executor's defense that all assets of the estate have already been fully administered and nothing remains to satisfy the claim. Where the court accepts this plea but recognizes the possibility that further assets may later be discovered or collected, it enters the quando acciderint judgment as a contingent remedy: the plaintiff is protected against future recoveries without being able to compel payment from assets that do not yet exist.

Common Confusion

Quando acciderint is closely associated with, but distinct from, the plea of plene administravit. Plene administravit is the executor's defensive pleading; quando acciderint is the judgment that answers it. Researchers encountering one term in historical sources should expect to find the other nearby. The two terms describe opposite sides of the same procedural moment — the executor's denial of assets and the court's conditional remedy for the plaintiff.

The phrase should also be distinguished from a simple judgment against an executor for assets in hand, which would be satisfied immediately from estate funds currently held. Quando acciderint is specifically the deferred, contingent form.

Why It Matters in Research

This term appears almost exclusively in pre-twentieth-century materials dealing with actions against executors and administrators — the world of common-law pleading in the courts of common pleas, King's Bench, and their American state-court equivalents. Researchers encountering quando acciderint in historical case reports, treatises on executors, or pleading manuals should situate it within the architecture of assets pleading: a technical domain that has been substantially replaced in modern practice by simplified probate and estate administration procedures.

The term rarely appears in modern American case law. When it does surface, it is typically in historical analysis, in states that preserved older common-law forms longer than others, or in scholarly treatment of executor liability. Searching modern databases for this phrase will return thin results; the productive research lode is in English and early American reporters, equity treatises, and works on the law of executors and administrators from roughly 1700 through the mid-nineteenth century.

A navigational caution: Rapalje & Lawrence's entry simply redirects to "JUDGMENT," which correctly signals that quando acciderint is treated in historical sources as a species of judgment rather than as a standalone procedural concept. Researchers should therefore search under judgment headings — particularly "judgment against executor," "judgment quod computet," and "plene administravit" — when working through historical digests and abridgements that may not have indexed the Latin phrase as a primary entry.

The maxim quoted in Black's immediately following this definition — "Quando aliquid mandatur, mandatur et omne per quod pervenitur ad illud" ("When anything is commanded, everything necessary to accomplish it is also commanded") — is a separate Latin legal maxim that appears nearby in alphabetical sequence in the source dictionaries and is unrelated to quando acciderint. Researchers should not treat the two as connected.

Historical Dictionary Support

The historical dictionaries are consistent on substance but vary in emphasis. Burrill's is the most precise, defining quando acciderint as the "technical name of a judgment entered against an executor or administrator, where it is directed to be satisfied out of assets which may afterwards come to the hands of the defendant" — a definition that cleanly captures the contingent, future-looking character of the remedy. Black's first and second editions align closely with Burrill's but frame the definition through the specific context of the plene administravit plea, which is a useful narrowing because that plea is the overwhelmingly common occasion for the judgment. Rapalje & Lawrence adds nothing beyond the cross-reference.

None of the historical sources address the equitable dimensions of executor liability or explain how quando acciderint interacted with equity jurisdiction when assets were disputed. Researchers working on estate litigation that straddled law and equity courts should supplement these dictionary sources with treatises on executors — particularly Toll's and Williams's works on executors — which treat the judgment in procedural context.

Jurisdictional Note

Quando acciderint is a common-law procedural form of English origin. American states adopted it to varying degrees depending on how closely their courts followed English common-law pleading practice. States that early enacted simplified probate codes displaced the need for this form. English materials remain the primary source for understanding the doctrine's full development.

QUANDO ACCIDERINTmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

Lat. When they shall come in. The name of a judgment pecially on a plea of plene administravit, benefit of assets which may at any time there- which empowers the plaintiff to have the after come to the hands of the executor. Quando aliquid mandatur, mandatur et omne per quod pervenitur ad illud. 5 Coke, 116. When anything is commanded, everything by which it can be accomplished is also commanded. 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 et omne per quod devenitur ad illud. When anything is prohibited, everything by which it is reached is prohibited also. 2 Inst. 48. That which cannot be done directly shall not be done indirectly. Broom, Max. 489. Quando aliquis aliquid concedit, con- cedere videtur et id sine quo res uti non potest. When a person grants any- thing, he is supposed to grant that also with- out which the thing cannot be used. 3 Kent, Comm. 421. When the use of a thing is granted, everything is granted by which the grantee may have and enjoy such use. Id. Quando charta continet generalem clausulam, posteaque descendit ad ver- ba specialia quæ clausula general. sunt consentanea, interpretanda est charta secundum verba specialia. When a deed contains a general clause, and after- wards descends to special words which are agreeable to the general clause, the deed is to be interpreted according to the special words. 8 Coke, 1546. Quando de una et eadem re duo one- rabiles existunt, unus, pro insufficien- tia alterius, de integro onerabitur. When there are two persons liable for one and the same thing, one of them, in case of default of the other, shall be charged with the whole. 2 Inst. 277. 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 Coke, 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, sc that the disposition may be valid. QUANDO DIVERSI, ETC. Quando diversi desiderantur actus ad aliquem statum perficiendum, plus re- spicit lex actum originalem. When dif- ferent acts are required to the formation of any estate, the law chiefly regards the origi- nal act. 10 Coke, 49a. When to the per- fection of an estate or interest divers acts or things are requisite, the law has more regard to the original act, for that is the fundament- al part on which all the others are founded. Id. Quando jus domini regis et subditi concurrunt, jus regis præferri debet. 9 Coke, 129. When the right of king and of subject concur, the king's right should be preferred. Quando lex aliquid alicui concedit, concedere videtur et id sine quo res ipsa esse non potest. 5 Coke, 47. When the law gives a man anything, it gives him that also without which the thing itself can- not exist. Quando lex aliquid alicui concedit, omnia incidentia tacite conceduntur.

QUANDO ACCIDERINTmain

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910

Lat.. When they shall come in. The name of a judgment sometimes given against an executor, - especially on a plea of plene administravit, which empowers the plaintiff to have the benefit. of assets which may at any time -thereafter come to the hands of the executor. + : ‘“ . } Quando aliquid mandatur, mandatur pt omne per quod peryenitur ad illud. 5 Coke, 116. When anything is commanded,

QUANDO ACCIDERINTmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1883

- See JUDG-

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