Definition
A pleading procedure in English common law practice by which a defendant voluntarily delivered a rejoinder — the defendant's answer to the plaintiff's replication — without requiring the plaintiff to obtain a formal court rule (order) compelling that response. When a defendant was under terms to rejoin gratis, the rejoinder had to be delivered within the prescribed time, sparing the plaintiff the procedural burden and expense of moving the court for a rule to rejoin. The phrase is Latin-inflected legal shorthand: gratis meaning freely, without compulsion.
Why It Matters in Research
This term belongs exclusively to the formal pleading regime of English common law practice, specifically the sequential written exchange of declarations, pleas, replications, rejoinders, surrejoinders, rebutters, and surrebutters that governed civil actions before pleading reform. It has no operative meaning in modern practice anywhere in the common law world. Researchers encountering it will almost always be working in pre-Judicature Acts English sources (pre-1873), early American colonial or federal practice materials, or historical treatises on common law pleading.
The critical navigational point: terms to rejoin gratis were a procedural condition imposed by the court, typically as a concession extracted from a defendant in exchange for some indulgence — an extension of time, leave to amend, or similar relief. The condition was a cost-shifting and efficiency mechanism. When researching a historical case record and this phrase appears, it signals that the defendant had previously obtained some procedural favor and was required to absorb the ordinary burden of the next pleading step.
Bouvier's provides a specific and practically important detail not in the other sources: the rejoinder had to be delivered within four days of the replication, and while the defendant was obligated to rejoin without prompting, judgment could not be signed without a demand. Researchers relying solely on Black's or Burrill's would miss this nuance.
This term appears in early American practice manuals that closely tracked English forms — Archbold's Practice in particular is cited across the source dictionaries — and researchers working in antebellum American court records may encounter it in conditions attached to interlocutory orders. By the mid-nineteenth century, code pleading reforms (beginning with New York's Field Code of 1848) swept away the formal pleading sequence and with it any operative context for this term. Post-reform appearances in legal writing are historical reference only.
Historical Dictionary Support
The source dictionaries are substantially in agreement on the core meaning: rejoining gratis means delivering a rejoinder voluntarily, without requiring the plaintiff to secure a rule to rejoin. Black's (both editions) and Rapalje & Lawrence track almost identically, citing Atkins v. Anderson, 10 Mees. & W. 12, and Lush's Practice as authority. Burrill's is consistent but minimal, offering no procedural detail beyond the basic definition.
Bouvier's is the most operationally specific, adding the four-day delivery window from the replication and the qualification that judgment could not be signed without a demand (citing 3 Dowling 537). This creates a small but meaningful divergence: the other dictionaries suggest the gratis condition is simply about voluntariness and cost, while Bouvier's makes clear the timing and demand requirements were not entirely eliminated — the plaintiff retained a role even when the defendant had agreed to rejoin without compulsion.
None of the historical dictionaries provide substantial doctrinal context for how courts imposed this condition or what procedural events typically gave rise to it. Researchers needing that context should consult Archbold's Practice directly (1 Archb. Pr. 280, 317, cited in Bouvier's) or Lush's Practice (cited in Black's), as the dictionaries treat the term as self-explanatory to a contemporary reader steeped in common law pleading forms — which modern researchers will not be.
Jurisdictional Note
This term is rooted in English common law practice and has no modern application in any jurisdiction. Early American courts in states that retained common law pleading forms used substantially identical procedures, making the term legible in pre-code American records. Code pleading states eliminated the formal pleading sequence in which rejoining gratis operated, and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (1938) completed that displacement at the federal level.