QUANDO VERBA STATUTI - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

QUANDO VERBA STATUTIAuthored

The Law Mind • 828 words

Definition

*Quando verba statuti sunt specialia, ratio autem generalis, generaliter statutum est intelligendum.* A Latin maxim of statutory construction meaning: "When the words of a statute are special but the reason or purpose is general, the statute is to be understood generally." The principle instructs that where the animating purpose behind a statute is broad, courts should not confine its operation to the literal or narrow scope of its specific language if doing so would defeat that general purpose. The maxim is invoked when a statute's particular wording appears to address only limited cases, yet the evident intent of the legislature was to reach a wider class of circumstances.

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Common Confusion

QUANDO VERBA STATUTI is one of several closely related Latin maxims governing statutory interpretation, and researchers frequently conflate them. The most common confusion is with *quando verba statuti aliquid* variants and with the distinct maxim *verba generalia restringuntur ad habilitatem personae vel aptitudinem rei*, which cuts in the opposite direction — restricting general words to fit the subject matter. Researchers should also distinguish this maxim from *expressio unius est exclusio alterius* (express mention of one thing excludes others), which produces a narrowing result, and from *noscitur a sociis* (a word is known by its associates), which interprets ambiguous terms by surrounding context rather than by reference to general purpose. The practical risk is citing a narrowing canon when the principle sought is a broadening one, or vice versa.

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Why It Matters in Research

This maxim belongs to a dense cluster of Latin interpretive canons that appear frequently in 19th-century American and English case law and in treatises on statutory construction. Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus should be alert to several navigational issues.

First, the maxim is almost never cited by its full form. Courts and treatise writers abbreviate it to *quando verba statuti* or simply cite it by shortened Latin phrase with a volume and page reference, most commonly to Coke's Reports. The Black's 2nd edition entry in the source material itself is truncated mid-sentence — a transcription artifact common in digitized historical law dictionaries — so researchers should not rely on any single dictionary source for the complete formulation.

Second, the maxim gained its greatest traction in a period when courts regularly reached for Latin canons as shorthand authority. By the mid-20th century, American courts increasingly replaced Latin maxims with paraphrased English statements of the same principle (e.g., "purposive construction" or "remedial statutes are to be construed broadly"). Researchers searching historical materials should run both the Latin phrase and its English functional equivalents.

Third, the maxim is directionally important in research: it is a broadening canon. When a client's research question involves whether a statute should be read to cover a situation not expressly mentioned, this maxim and its relatives are the relevant cluster. The opposing cluster (narrowing canons) requires different search terms entirely.

Fourth, this maxim intersects with the broader English common law principle that remedial statutes are to be construed liberally — a doctrine with its own separate lineage in equity and in the Interpretation Acts. Researchers tracing American reception of this canon may find it cited alongside Blackstone's *Commentaries* and Dwarris on Statutes rather than exclusively through the Coke citations Black's references.

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Historical Dictionary Support

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) records the maxim within a sequence of *quando* Latin canons, though the digitized source text is cut off mid-entry. The immediately adjacent entries in Black's illustrate the typical organization: these maxims were collected alphabetically under their Latin openings and cited primarily to Coke's Reports, with the volume and page given as the sole authority. This is consistent with the broader practice in Black's 1st and 2nd editions of treating Latin maxims as self-authenticating through citation to Coke rather than to judicial decisions.

What historical dictionaries do not provide — and what researchers must look elsewhere to find — is any account of how American courts actually applied or modified these maxims. The dictionary entries present the maxims as fixed and universal; the case law reveals that courts selected among competing canons situationally, and that the broadening versus narrowing canons were regularly deployed on opposing sides of the same argument. Sutherland's *Statutes and Statutory Construction* (various editions) provides more practical guidance on how the maxim functioned in American courts than any of the historical law dictionaries.

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Jurisdictional Note

As a common law maxim of statutory construction, *quando verba statuti* was received across common law jurisdictions but without uniform weight. English courts treated Coke-derived maxims with greater formal authority than most American courts, which by the late 19th century were more likely to cite them as persuasive aids rather than binding rules.

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QUANDO VERBA STATUTImain

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

Quando jus domini regis et subditi concurrunt, jus regis preferri debet. 9 Coke, 129. When the right of king and of subject ‘concur, the king’s right should be preferred. . Quando lex aliguid alicui oconcedit, concedere videtur et id sime quo res ipsse esse non potost. 5 Coke, 47. When the law gives a man anything, it gives him that also without which the thing itself cannot exist. Quando lox aliquid alioui 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, goneraliter lex est intelligenda. When a law is special, but its reason {or object] general, the law is to be understood generally. 2 Inst. 83. Quando licet id quod majus, videter et licere id quod minus. Shep. Touch. 429. When the greater is allowed, the less is to be understood as allowed also. Quando mulier nobilis nupserit ignobili, desinit esse nobilis nisi nobilitas nativa fuerit. 4 Coke, 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 factendum est. When more is done than ought to be done, that at least shall be considered as performed which should have been performed, [as, if a man, having a power to make a lease for ten years, make one for twenty years, it shall be void only for the surplus.) Broom, Max. 177; 5 Coke, 115; 8 Coke, 85a. Quando quod ago non valet ut ago, valeat quantum valere potest. Wher that which I do does not have effect as } do it, let it have as much effect as it can. Jackson ex dem. Troup v. Blodget, 16 Johns. (N. Y.) 172, 178; Vandervolgen v. Yates, 3 Barb. Ch. (N. Y.) 242, 261. Quando res non valet ut ago, valeat: quantum vwalere potest. When a thing is of no effect as I do it, it shall have effect as far as for in whatever way] it can. Cowp. 600. Quando verba et meus congruunt, non est imterpretationi locus. When the words and the mind agree, there is no place for interpretation. Quando werba statuti sunt specialia, ratio autem generaHs, generaliter statutum est intelligendum. When the words