Definition
In civil law, repetition is a demand or action for the recovery of money paid, or goods delivered, under a mistake of fact or law, or upon a condition that was never performed. The right of repetition arises when a person has made a payment or transfer to which the recipient had no legal entitlement — typically because the underlying obligation was void, the condition precedent failed, or the payment was made erroneously. The remedy is closely tied to the principle against unjust enrichment: the payor may seek restoration of what was wrongly transferred.
Two closely related uses appear in historical sources:
1. Condictio / Action for recovery: The primary civil law meaning. Repetition names both the right and the action by which that right is vindicated. Bouvier notes that repetition lies to recover a payment made by mistake "when nothing was due," but that it is not available to recover voluntary payment of a natural obligation — the debtor who freely discharges a moral debt cannot later reclaim what was paid.
2. Scotch law / Witness examination procedure: In Scots law, repetition refers to the procedural act of reading back a witness's deposition so that the witness may confirm, correct, or adhere to it before it is finalized. Black's Law Dictionary (both editions) identifies this as the Scottish equivalent of recolement in French practice.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The act or an instance of repeating or being repeated; in fitness contexts, a single controlled exercise motion.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The act of repeating; iteration; recital from memory; in rhetoric, reiteration of the same word or sense for emphasis.
The common meaning — doing or saying something again — has no meaningful overlap with either legal use of the term. In civil law, repetition is not about repeating anything at all; it is a technical action for restitution. The Scots procedural use comes closer to the common sense of the word (a deposition is read again), but even there the legal term carries specific procedural consequences that distinguish it from ordinary rereading.
Common Confusion
Repetition is frequently confused with related restitutionary actions. The term solutio indebiti (payment of what is not owed) is the underlying doctrine; repetition is the action or remedy that vindicates it. Black's directs readers from repetition to solutio indebiti, signaling that the two work in tandem but are not identical — solutio indebiti describes the wrong, repetition describes the remedy. Researchers may also encounter condictio indebiti in Roman and civil law sources; this is the formal Roman action covering substantially the same ground, and the terms are often used interchangeably in secondary literature.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is a navigational hazard precisely because it means different things in different legal traditions and carries almost no signal in its ordinary English form. Researchers working in:
Civil law jurisdictions and historical equity: Repetition will appear in discussions of unjust enrichment, quasi-contract, and mistake. The Digest (12.6) is the root source; Story's Equity Jurisprudence (§111 and note) carries the doctrine into American equity. Sources using "repetition" in this sense are drawing on civilian tradition and may appear in Louisiana materials, early American equity treatises, and international commercial law sources more often than in common law case law.
Scots law and comparative procedure: The witness-deposition meaning of repetition is specific to Scots practice. If this term surfaces in a procedural context in a Scottish or comparative source, it signals the recolement-equivalent procedure, not a restitutionary claim. Conflating the two meanings in a research trail will send the researcher in entirely the wrong direction.
Historical sources: The term largely drops out of American common law treatise writing after the mid-nineteenth century, displaced by "restitution," "quasi-contract," and "unjust enrichment." Modern researchers who encounter repetition in an older source should not assume the modern restitution framework maps cleanly onto what the historical author meant. The civilian roots of the doctrine carried specific limitations (notably the natural obligation bar Bouvier describes) that the modern restitution framework handles differently.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries are in agreement on the core civil law definition but differ in emphasis. Rapalje & Lawrence gives the shortest possible entry — recovery of money paid under mistake — without the condition-failure dimension that Bouvier develops. Bouvier is the most complete, correctly noting that repetition covers both mistake and failed condition, and critically flagging the natural obligation exception. Burrill emphasizes mistake of law specifically, citing Story, which reflects the equity court's particular interest in the doctrine.
Black's (both editions) is alone in providing the Scots law procedural meaning, with the citation to Bentham's Rationale of Judicial Evidence (Vol. 2). No other source on the shelf addresses this secondary meaning, making Black's the necessary starting point for any research into the Scots procedural usage.
None of the historical sources address the modern restitution law framework or the doctrine's transformation under twentieth-century common law development. Researchers should treat these entries as civil law and equity sources, not as guides to contemporary restitution doctrine.
Jurisdictional Note
In the United States, the doctrine underlying repetition survives primarily in Louisiana, which follows civil law tradition and uses civilian terminology more consistently than other states. In common law states, the concept is absorbed into restitution and quasi-contract doctrine, and the word repetition as a term of art is rarely used in modern judicial opinions or statutes.