Definition
A judicial writ in old English practice that lay to correct an over-delivery of seisin by a sheriff executing a habere facias seisinam. When a sheriff, carrying out the writ of habere facias seisinam, delivered possession of more land than the judgment entitled the successful party to receive, rehabere facias seisinam commanded the sheriff to restore seisin of the excess to the party from whom it had been wrongfully taken. It was, in essence, a corrective instrument directed at the officer of the court rather than at the original parties, addressing the specific error of excess delivery rather than any fault in the underlying judgment.
The Latin translates roughly as "that you cause to re-have seisin" or "cause to regain seisin" — a command to the sheriff to undo what should not have been done.
Common Confusion
Rehabere facias seisinam is easily confused with habere facias seisinam, the parent writ it exists to correct. Habere facias seisinam commanded the sheriff to deliver seisin to a successful plaintiff in a real action. Rehabere facias seisinam moved in the opposite direction, commanding the sheriff to take back and restore the excess. The two writs work in sequence: the second cannot arise without the first having been improperly executed. Researchers encountering either writ in historical records should confirm which direction of delivery is being commanded before drawing conclusions about which party benefited.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a rare, highly specialized writ of purely historical significance. Researchers will encounter it almost exclusively in records predating the nineteenth-century abolition of the old real actions and their associated process writs in England, or in colonial American records derived from English practice.
Several research traps are worth noting. First, the term appears inconsistently spelled across historical sources and records — seisinam, setsinam, and variant spellings of the Latin appear even across the five dictionary sources consulted here, reflecting the loose orthographic conventions of medieval and early modern legal Latin. Searches in manuscript or printed court records should account for this variation.
Second, the Reg. Jud. citations appearing across all five source dictionaries refer to Registrum Omnium Brevium, the register of writs that served as the standard reference for writ forms in English common law practice. Researchers tracing the formal authority for this writ in historical practice should consult that source directly. The page references vary slightly across dictionaries (12, 13, 51, 54), suggesting different editions of the register were consulted.
Third, Burrill's entry contains what appears to be an editorial bleed — text relating to a separate entry concerning re-enablement of a spiritual person appears appended to the rehabere facias seisinam entry without clear separation. Researchers relying on Burrill for this term should read carefully to avoid incorporating material from an adjacent, unrelated definition.
Finally, this writ has no modern counterpart as a named instrument. Modern procedural law handles analogous situations — correction of over-seizure or improper execution of process — through motions practice, court orders, and rules governing enforcement of judgments rather than through independent corrective writs. The concept survives; the form does not.
Historical Dictionary Support
The five source dictionaries are in substantial agreement on the core definition. All describe the writ as arising from a sheriff's excess delivery under a habere facias seisinam, and all identify its purpose as commanding restoration of the excess. The formulations are nearly identical, suggesting the dictionaries drew from a common root — most likely the Registrum Omnium Brevium and the same line of common law commentary.
Bouvier contributes the Latin translation ("do you cause to regain seisin"), which helpfully confirms the imperative, command-directed character of the instrument. Burrill's translation ("you cause to re-have seisin") captures the same meaning from a slightly different angle and reinforces that the writ addressed the sheriff personally as the commanded party.
No substantive divergence appears among the sources on the legal function of the writ. What the dictionaries collectively do not address is the procedural context in which a party would seek this writ — how the excess delivery was established, what showing was required, or what remedy was available if the sheriff failed to comply. For those questions, researchers must go beyond the dictionaries to the writ registers and treatises on real property practice.
Jurisdictional Note
This writ was a product of English common law real property practice and had no independent statutory footing in American jurisdictions. Where it appeared in colonial or early American courts, it did so by reception of English common law practice. Its relevance is effectively confined to English legal history and the history of jurisdictions that inherited English real actions before those actions were abolished or superseded.