QUANDO ALIQUID PROHIBETUR - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

QUANDO ALIQUID PROHIBETURAuthored

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Definition

A Latin maxim of statutory and legal construction meaning: when something is prohibited, everything by which that thing is accomplished or reached is also prohibited. The principle operates as an interpretive rule — a direct prohibition on an end implies an indirect prohibition on all means leading to that end. Courts and commentators have recognized two closely related formulations of this maxim:

(1) Quando aliquid prohibetur ex directo, prohibetur et per obliquum — when anything is prohibited directly, it is also prohibited indirectly.

(2) Quando aliquid prohibetur, prohibetur et omne per quod devenitur ad illud — when anything is prohibited, everything by which it is reached is also prohibited.

Together, these express a single logical proposition: a prohibition cannot be circumvented by adopting an indirect route to the same forbidden result.

Common Confusion

This maxim is sometimes conflated with its mirror-image counterpart, the maxim that when something is commanded, everything necessary to accomplish it is also commanded (a principle appearing in the same cluster of Coke maxims). The two are structurally parallel but operate in opposite directions — one extends prohibitions, the other extends commands. A researcher encountering either in early common law sources should confirm which direction the logic runs before drawing interpretive conclusions.

Why It Matters in Research

This maxim appears most frequently in pre-twentieth-century case law and treatise commentary dealing with statutory construction, equity, and the law of trusts and conveyances. When a statute or instrument prohibited a specific act, courts used this principle to reach prohibited indirect schemes — particularly in cases involving attempted evasion through formal transactional structures.

Researchers working in equity sources should be alert to the fact that this maxim provided doctrinal grounding for equity's traditional hostility to indirect evasion of legal prohibitions. The principle is ancestral to modern doctrines against shams and indirect circumvention, but the Latin formulation largely disappears from American judicial opinions after the mid-nineteenth century. Citing this maxim in a modern research context requires tracing its reception into specific doctrinal lines rather than treating it as operative authority in its own right.

In historical sources, the maxim appears alongside a family of related construction maxims in Coke's Institutes and the secondary literature derived from them. The Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) entry is truncated in surviving form, cutting off mid-sentence, which is a known artifact of some editions — researchers should verify the full text against Coke, Second Institutes, page 48, which is the primary citational anchor for the second formulation.

Jurisdictional variation is not meaningfully relevant here. This is a common law maxim of general application, not a rule tied to a particular jurisdiction's statute or code.

Historical Dictionary Support

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) records both formulations and anchors them to Co. Litt. 223 and 2 Inst. 48, identifying Coke as the primary expository source. The entry in Black's is incomplete as reproduced — the text breaks off — but the two formulations it does record are consistent with Coke's broader treatment of prohibitory construction.

Historical dictionaries generally do not elaborate on the maxim beyond restating its Latin text and translation. None of the standard historical sources (Bouvier, Tomlin, Jacob) provides extended doctrinal analysis. This is typical for Latin maxims treated as self-evident logical principles rather than contested rules. Researchers should not expect historical dictionary treatment to resolve hard questions about the maxim's scope; the working doctrine lived in case law and the Institutes rather than in dictionary entries.

QUANDO ALIQUID PROHIBETURmain

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

everything by which it can be accomplished is also commanded. Quando aliquid prohibetur ex directo, prohibetur et por obliquum. Co. Litt. 223. When anything is prohibited directly, it is prohibited also indirectly. Quando aliquid prohibetur, prohibetur et omme 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 aliguis aliquid concedit, conecdere videtur et id sine quo res uti mon potest. When a person grants anything, he is supposed to grant that also without which the thing cannot be used. 8 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. continct generalem clausulam, posteagque descendit ad verba specialia que clausuls generali sunt econsentamea, interpretanda est charta secundum verba specialia. When a deed contains a general clause, and afterwards ' descends to special words which are agreeable to the general clause, the deed is to be interpreted according to the special words. 8 Coke, 1540. Quando de una et cadem re duo one= rabiles existunt, unus, pro insufficientia alterius, de integro onerabitur. When there are two persons Hable 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 waleat 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, so that the disposition may be valid. Quando diversi desiderantur actus ad aliquem statum perficiendum, plus respicit lex actum originalem. When different acts are required to the formation of any estate, the law chiefly regards the original act. 10 Coke, 49a. When to the perfection of an estate or interest divers acts or © things are requisite, the law has more regard to the original act, for that is the fundamental part on which all the others are founded. Id.