Definition
A common law writ available in English practice to holders of limited estates — including tenants for life, in dower, by the curtesy, or in fee-tail — who had lost possession of land through their own default or non-appearance in a prior possessory action. The writ allowed such a tenant to restore the right of possession that had been unwarily forfeited when judgment went against them not on the merits, but because they failed to appear in a praecipe quod reddat or similar proceeding. In essence, the law recognized that a judgment by default in a possessory action should not permanently extinguish a limited estate holder's right, and this writ provided a corrective remedy.
The Latin phrase translates roughly as "that he deforces him," signaling the nature of the injury the writ addressed: wrongful withholding of land following an adverse judgment obtained not by proof but by the claimant's procedural advantage over a defaulting tenant.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a deeply historical term with no modern procedural counterpart. Researchers encounter it almost exclusively in pre-nineteenth-century English materials — treatises, Year Books, register of original writs (Registrum Originale), and abridgments. Its practical relevance ended with the English Fines and Recoveries Act (3 & 4 Will. IV, c. 27, 1833), which abolished the writ alongside most of the apparatus of old real actions.
The chief research trap is conflating this writ with the praecipe quod reddat itself. The praecipe quod reddat was the possessory action in which the tenant defaulted; quod ei deforceat was the subsequent corrective writ available to that defaulting tenant. Understanding this sequence — the underlying possessory action, the default, and then the remedial writ — is necessary to parse references in Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium (155 B), Coke on Littleton (331b, 354b), and Blackstone's Commentaries (3 Bl. Com. 193), all of which treat the writ within larger discussions of real property and possessory remedies.
Researchers using the Law Mind corpus should note that any primary or secondary source discussing this writ is operating in the feudal land law register. Context from the Statute of Westminster II (13 Edw. I, c. 4, 1285) is essential: that statute was the original legislative grant of the writ and is frequently cited in conjunction with it. Westminster II was a landmark statute expanding remedies in real property, and quod ei deforceat was one of several new writs it created or confirmed. Researchers tracing the history of real actions will need to move across corpus sources dealing with Westminster II, the fee-tail system, and the abolition of real actions in the nineteenth century.
Jurisdictional carry-over to American practice was minimal. American courts largely discarded the English system of real actions before this writ gained any foothold, and post-independence codification of property law made it a historical curiosity even in the early republic. American legal dictionaries include it as a term of English historical art rather than as a working procedural tool.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries agree closely on the core definition. All identify the writ as the creature of the Statute of Westminster II and agree on the class of tenants it protected: life tenants, tenants in dower, tenants by the curtesy, and tenants in fee-tail. All agree that the trigger was a default or non-appearance in a possessory action.
The most informative entry is Burrill's, which specifies the underlying action as a praecipe quod reddat and supplies the Registrum Originale reference (Reg. Orig. 171) alongside Fitzherbert — useful for researchers seeking primary sources in manuscript or facsimile form. Rapalje & Lawrence adds the critical piece of historical closure: express citation to the 1833 statute (3 & 4 Will. IV, c. 27, § 36) that abolished the writ, a detail Black's omits.
Black's (both editions) correctly cites Westminster II but reproduces what appears to be a compositor's error in the second edition — "138 Edw. I" rather than "13 Edw. I" — which researchers should note when following that citation to the statute.
None of the historical dictionaries provides more than a skeletal account. For substantive treatment, researchers must go directly to Blackstone's Commentaries (Book III, Chapter 12) and Coke on Littleton for doctrinal depth.
Jurisdictional Note
This writ was an exclusively English common law remedy, statutory in origin (Westminster II, 1285) and statutory in its abolition (Fines and Recoveries Act, 1833). American jurisdictions did not adopt it as a functioning remedy. References to the writ in American legal literature are historical and comparative only.