Definition
A Latin prepositional phrase meaning "as to," "as regards," or "with respect to a particular matter." Used in legal writing to limit or qualify the scope of a statement, obligation, right, or status — indicating that what follows applies only to the specified subject or purpose, not generally or universally.
QUOAD HOC: The most common compound form. Means "as to this" or "with respect to this particular matter." Used to confine a legal relationship, liability, duty, or finding to a defined context without extending it further. A party may be treated as a principal quoad hoc — that is, only for purposes of the transaction or obligation in question — while their general legal status remains otherwise unaffected.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "With respect to."
Historical common usage: Not separately defined in general dictionaries; recognized primarily as a learned Latin phrase used in formal and legal writing.
The gap is minor in vocabulary but significant in application. In ordinary usage the phrase is a neutral qualifier. In legal contexts it carries structural weight: it limits liability, status, or obligation to a precise scope, and courts have relied on it to distinguish general legal standing from situational exposure. A researcher who reads it as mere formality may miss that it is doing real legal work in the passage.
Common Confusion
QUOAD vs. QUOAD HOC: These are related but not interchangeable. Quoad introduces the subject matter being addressed (quoad the creditors; quoad the contract). Quoad hoc is a fixed compound phrase referring to "this particular thing" already identified in context, often used to characterize a relationship or agency as limited in scope. Many historical sources use them interchangeably in loose drafting; careful reading requires attention to which construction is actually present.
Why It Matters in Research
Quoad and quoad hoc appear across a wide range of historical legal materials — equity opinions, treatises on agency and partnership, property conveyances, and corporate liability cases — and their presence signals a deliberate limitation of scope that researchers must not overlook.
The most practically important use is in liability and status questions. As Anderson notes, a shareholder who transfers stock to an irresponsible party to evade liability may still be treated as a shareholder quoad the creditors — meaning courts will look past the transfer for that limited purpose. This pattern recurs in agency law (a party may be an agent quoad hoc for a single act), in property (a tenant may hold quoad a particular covenant), and in jurisdictional questions (a court may have authority quoad a specific res but not the parties generally).
In historical corpus research, quoad and quoad hoc can appear without explanation in nineteenth-century opinions and treatises, with the assumption that readers know Latin. Modern digitized legal databases may not flag these phrases as terms of art, so keyword searches on the surrounding substantive issue (agency, liability, shareholder status) may miss the limiting construction entirely. Always read the sentence containing quoad carefully to identify exactly what is being cabined.
The phrase also appears in ecclesiastical and Scots law sources with some frequency, where quoad sacra (as to sacred matters) and quoad civilia (as to civil matters) were used to distinguish jurisdictional spheres. Researchers working in those areas should be alert to these extended forms.
Historical Dictionary Support
Both Anderson and Burrill agree on the core meaning — "as to," "as far as concerns" — and neither treats the term as ambiguous. Burrill's entry is spare, citing Lord Ellenborough at 12 East 409, which grounds the phrase in English common law usage without elaboration. Anderson provides more texture, illustrating application in the corporate shareholder context and flagging quoad hoc separately as its own operative phrase.
Neither dictionary addresses the ecclesiastical law extensions (quoad sacra, quoad civilia), which appear in Scots law sources and some equity materials. Researchers working in those areas will need to supplement with specialized ecclesiastical law glossaries. Neither source addresses the full range of agency law applications where quoad hoc became a term of art for situational or limited agency — a gap that treatises on agency fill more completely.
Jurisdictional Note
Quoad hoc in agency contexts appears most prominently in English common law and early American equity, but the phrase traveled broadly through jurisdictions that inherited common law pleading traditions. Scots law developed a more elaborate taxonomy of quoad phrases. In modern American legal writing the phrase is largely archaic, having been replaced by plain-English equivalents; it survives primarily in historical materials and occasionally in academic or ecclesiastical law contexts.