Definition
A Latin maxim appearing in early common law sources, most commonly encountered in its full form: *Quod alias bonum et justum est, si per vim vel fraudem petatur, malum et injustum efficitur* — "What otherwise is good and just, if it is sought by force or fraud, becomes bad and unjust." The phrase stands for the principle that the legitimacy of an end does not redeem the illegitimacy of the means. A rightful claim, demand, or act is corrupted when the party pursuing it resorts to force or fraud to obtain it.
A second related maxim appearing in the same cluster of sources reads: *Quod alias non fuit licitum, necessitas licitum facit* — "What otherwise was not lawful, necessity makes lawful." This companion maxim runs in a parallel direction: just as force and fraud can taint what is otherwise just, necessity can excuse what is otherwise unlawful.
These are maxims of equity and general jurisprudence rather than operative rules of pleading or substantive law. They function as interpretive principles — shorthand distillations of legal reasoning used by courts and treatise writers to justify or limit holdings.
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Common Confusion
The phrase "quod alias bonum" is sometimes treated as a free-standing maxim, but it is a fragment. The operative legal content lives in the full formulation. Researchers encountering the abbreviated form in a margin note, headnote, or secondary source should locate the full Latin text before drawing any interpretive conclusions. The two maxims in this cluster — one on force and fraud corrupting a just claim, one on necessity excusing an unlawful act — point in different directions and should not be conflated. They are related by their "what otherwise would be" structure, not by any shared substantive rule.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term is a navigational challenge rather than a research destination. No case turns on "quod alias bonum" as a controlling rule; it is encountered as persuasive authority, as rhetorical support, or as a citation anchor in treatises and early English reports. Researchers are most likely to meet it in one of three contexts:
First, in Coke's *Reports* and the works that cite them. Black's references 3 Coke 78, situating this maxim firmly in the early seventeenth-century common law tradition. When reading Coke-era materials, these maxims appear as shorthand — assume the full Latin and the underlying principle are in play even when only the opening words appear.
Second, in equity pleading and fraud doctrine. The first maxim is directly relevant to the equitable principle that a party cannot invoke equity to obtain relief when their own conduct in pursuing that relief has been fraudulent. This connects to clean hands doctrine and to the general rule that equity will not aid a party who has acted unconscionably in pursuing an otherwise valid claim.
Third, in necessity doctrine. The companion maxim (*necessitas licitum facit*) appears in contexts touching on criminal law necessity, agency by necessity, and maritime necessity. Fleta, the thirteenth-century legal treatise cited in Black's, is a rare source; its authority is historical rather than binding, but its invocation signals a claim of deep common law roots.
The practical trap: these maxims are cited in Black's without full context, and the entry in the 2nd edition is incomplete — the Black's entry for *Quod approbo non reprobo* begins mid-sentence, suggesting the printed source itself was fragmentary or the entry was cut. Researchers relying on digitized versions of early Black's editions should verify against print copies when the maxim cluster is relevant.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) is the sole dictionary source for this entry, and it presents the maxim in a compressed cluster alongside *Quod alias non fuit licitum* and the opening words of *Quod approbo non reprobo*. The entry is primarily a translation vehicle — Black's does not analyze the maxims but renders them into English and attaches source citations.
The citation to 3 Coke 78 is the operative historical anchor. Coke's Reports are a primary vehicle through which Latin maxims entered and were standardized in English common law. The citation to Fleta (lib. 5, c. 23, § 14) for the necessity maxim reflects the older civilian-influenced tradition that Fleta represents — Fleta draws on Bracton and reflects thirteenth-century jurisprudence shaped partly by Roman law sources, where necessity (*necessitas*) carried substantial doctrinal weight.
What historical dictionaries miss: neither Black's nor its predecessors attempt to trace how these maxims were actually applied in reported decisions, or to identify the range of factual contexts in which they were invoked. The maxims are presented as self-evident truths. Modern researchers should treat them as rhetorical tools rather than rules, and look for the underlying doctrinal principles — fraud, clean hands, necessity — when doing substantive legal research.
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Jurisdictional Note
These maxims are products of English common law and early equity jurisprudence. American courts have occasionally invoked the force-and-fraud maxim in equity cases, but it carries no uniform doctrinal weight across jurisdictions. The necessity maxim has analogs in criminal law necessity defenses and in maritime law, but those doctrines have developed independently and should be researched through their own terminology.
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