REMITTERE - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

REMITTEREAuthored

The Law Mind • 805 words

Definition

Latin legal term with two principal meanings in historical Anglo-American law:

1. To send back or remand. In this sense, remittere describes the act of returning a matter — most often a person or a cause — to a prior tribunal or custodian. In habeas corpus practice, a court that declined to discharge a prisoner would remittere the individual to custody, directing their return to the detaining authority.

2. To release, relinquish, or give up a right or claim. In this sense, remittere describes the voluntary surrender of something to which one is legally entitled — a right, a sum of damages, or a property interest. The term appears in conveyancing formulas as the operative word of a remise, and in procedural contexts as the root of remittitur, the judicial mechanism by which a plaintiff relinquishes a portion of a jury verdict to avoid a new trial on damages.

These two meanings — sending back and giving up — are grammatically related but legally distinct. Context determines which sense applies.

Common Confusion

Remittere is the infinitive form; researchers will more often encounter its conjugated forms in primary sources. Remittit (he releases; he surrenders) appears in conveyancing recitals and pleading records. Remittitur (it is sent back; it is released) is the form that survived into modern American procedural law, now carrying a specific and narrow technical meaning in the law of damages. Remittitur damnum and remittitur damna are variants signifying that a sum or damages has been released. A researcher reading historical materials should not assume that remittitur in a 17th-century source means what remittitur means in a modern appellate opinion — the modern term is a descendant, not an identical concept.

Why It Matters in Research

The chief research trap with remittere is anachronistic reading. Modern lawyers know remittitur as a one-way street in appellate practice: the plaintiff accepts a reduced damages award or faces a new trial. But in the historical corpus — and in the Latin formulas where remittere appears — the term is broader and more fluid. It covers remand of persons on habeas corpus, release of property rights in conveyances, and relinquishment of any legal entitlement. A researcher reading older English practice materials or Year Books must treat remittere as a general operative verb meaning surrender or return, not as a technical pointer to the modern damages doctrine.

The habeas corpus usage is particularly important. In Star Chamber and early common law habeas records, a court's order to remittere the prisoner was a refusal of relief — the prisoner went back. This usage is nearly invisible in modern legal education, and a researcher unfamiliar with it may misread the outcome of a historical proceeding. Burrill's citation to Howell's State Trials confirms this usage appears in politically significant cases, meaning the term surfaces in exactly the kind of high-profile historical records that Law Mind researchers are most likely to encounter.

The conveyancing use — postea jus suum remisit et quietum clamavit — links remittere to the formula of the quitclaim and to remise as a term of art in deed drafting. Researchers working on property chain-of-title questions in historical sources should recognize this formula as the operative language of release and understand remittere as its verbal root.

Historical Dictionary Support

Anderson and Burrill agree on the basic meaning and confirm the dual valence — sending back and giving up. Burrill provides the more complete treatment, tracing the Latin roots (re + mittere) and supplying a Bracton citation that anchors the conveyancing formula in medieval practice. The Bracton reference (fol. 313b) places this usage in the foundational period of English common law, confirming that remittere as a term of relinquishment is not a later invention but a term with deep common-law roots.

Anderson's entry pivots quickly to remittitur and the damages context, reflecting a 19th-century American perspective in which the procedural damages doctrine had become the term's dominant practical application. Anderson's truncated entry on remittit damna also signals that by the time of compilation, the full Latin formulas were receding into historical usage and the English-language procedural doctrine was taking over.

Neither source provides a sustained treatment of the habeas corpus usage, though Burrill acknowledges it. Researchers relying solely on these dictionaries for the habeas sense should supplement with Howell's State Trials and Bracton directly.

Jurisdictional Note

The procedural doctrine of remittitur — rooted in remittere in its relinquishment sense — operates in both federal and state courts but with variation. Federal courts apply remittitur under the Seventh Amendment framework; some state courts also recognize additur (the mirror doctrine allowing upward adjustment) where federal courts do not. The historical Latin forms, however, are jurisdictionally uniform across the common law tradition.

REMITTEREmain

Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890

L. To send back: to release; to remit. Remittit. He releases; he surrenders. Remittitur. It is sent back; also, it is released. 1. Relinquishment of a part of the damages found by a jury. Remittitur damnum. The damage is released. Remittitur damna. It is released as Removal for cause. Imports that a reason exists, personal to the individual, which the law and sound public opinion recognize as a good cause for his no longer occupying the place.4 Implies some dereliction or general neglect of duty, some incapacity to perform the duties of the post, or some delinquency affecting the incumbent's general character and fitness for the office.. The power to remove an officer "for cause" can be exerted only for just cause, after he has had an opportunity to defend.. 3. To carry away something that pertains to land; as, in a statute against removing any tree, timber, stone, or other article which would pass by a sale of the land. 4. To transfer a cause from a State court to the circuit court of the United States. The act of March 3, 1875, § 2, provides that any suit of a civil nature pending in any State court, where the matter in dispute exceeds, exclusive of costs, the sum or value of five hundred [now two thousand] dollars, and in which there shall be a controversy between citizens of different States, either party may remove said suit into the circuit court for the proper district.s Pollitz. Schell, 80 F. R. 422 (1887); Phelps v. State v. Young, 29 Minn. 534 (1881), Gilfillan, C. J. Cogswell, 70 Cal. 204 (1886). 2 Brown v. Maffey, 15 East, 216 (1812). Baldwin v. United States Telegraph Co., 6 Abb. Pr. 423 (1867). Craig v. Cook, 28 Minn. 237 (1881), cases; North. Pacific R. Co. v. Herbert, 116 U. S. 646 (1886), cases; 3 Mas. 107; 36 Cal. 462; 3 Col. 571; 4 Conn. 311; 74 111. 399; 35 Iowa, 432; 28 Me. 97; 97 Mass. 213; 49 N. H. 358; 54 Ν. Υ. 225. [3 Bl. Com. 19, 190; 30 Hun, 190. Planters' Bank v. Union Bank, 16 Wall. 497 (1872). Society v. Platt, 12 ConD. #187 (1837). • People v. Nichols, 19 Hun, 448 (1879). People ex rel. Munday v. Fire Commissioners, 72 Ν. Υ. 449 (1878), Allen, J. Haight v. Love, 30 N. J. L. 14 (1876): Rex v. Richardson, 1 Burr. 517 (1758). Bates v. State, 31 Ind. 75 (1869). 18 St. L. 470; R. S. $ 643. See this subject, as to a