RESCEIT - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

RESCEITAuthored

The Law Mind • 791 words

Definition

An obsolete English procedural device by which a third party — one not originally named in a suit — was admitted by the court to plead their own right in a cause already pending between two other parties. The classic application arose in real property actions: where a tenant for life or years was sued by a demandant for the land, the reversioner or remainderman could petition to be received into the action, defend the land on their own behalf, and plead alongside the existing defendant. The third party's intervention was not automatic; it required a prayer to the court requesting admission.

Burrill traces the Latin root to receptio and notes that civilian lawyers called the same procedure admissio tertii pro suo interesse — admission of a third party for their own interest — signaling that the concept was recognized across both common law and civil law traditions, though the procedural mechanics differed.

Common Confusion

The Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) entry in the source material reproduces maxims relating to res judicata rather than resceit, suggesting a typographical or indexing error in that edition. Researchers consulting the second edition should not confuse those Latin maxims — which concern the binding effect of judgments — with resceit, which concerns pre-judgment intervention by a third party. The two concepts are procedurally opposite: res judicata addresses what happens after a judgment is final; resceit addresses who may be admitted to participate before judgment is rendered.

Why It Matters in Research

Resceit is a term of purely historical significance. It appears in medieval and early modern English plea rolls, abridgments, and procedural treatises, and has no direct counterpart in modern civil procedure. Researchers will encounter it almost exclusively in:

— Pre-nineteenth-century English common law sources, particularly in the context of real property litigation and actions involving divided estates (life tenancies, remainders, reversions).
— Brooke's Abridgment (Bro. Abr. Resceit), cited by Burrill, which collects the relevant case authorities and is the most concentrated primary source for the doctrine.
— Cowell's Interpreter, cited by both Black's editions, which provides a contemporaneous lexical treatment.

The procedural function resceit served has been absorbed by modern intervention doctrine. In U.S. federal practice, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24 governs intervention of right and permissive intervention, and in English practice the equivalent is found in the Civil Procedure Rules. When reading historical sources, researchers should resist mapping resceit directly onto modern intervention without accounting for the differences: resceit was specific to real property actions, tied to the feudal structure of land tenures, and operated within a writ-based system that no longer exists. The reversioner's right to be received was grounded in their future possessory interest in the land — not merely a general interest in the litigation's outcome — which gave resceit a narrower scope than modern intervention of right.

A secondary research trap: because resceit is phonetically and orthographically similar to "receipt" and "receit," word-search queries in digitized historical corpora may return false positives. Manual review of surrounding context is advisable.

Historical Dictionary Support

Black's (1st Ed.) and Burrill are in close agreement on the core definition, both drawing on Cowell. Burrill adds the civilian parallel (admissio tertii pro suo interesse) and the citation to Brooke's Abridgment, making it the more useful starting point for a researcher tracing the doctrine's development.

The Black's (2nd Ed.) entry as reproduced in the source material does not address resceit at all, reproducing instead res judicata maxims. Whether this reflects a genuine omission of resceit from that edition or a data error, the 1st edition and Burrill remain the controlling historical dictionary authorities for this term.

Neither dictionary traces how frequently resceit was actually invoked in practice or when it fell into disuse. The term is absent from Bouvier's Law Dictionary (later editions) and from American treatise literature, consistent with its non-adoption in U.S. common law procedure.

Jurisdictional Note

Resceit was an exclusively English common law procedure and was never transplanted into American practice as a distinct doctrine. American courts developed intervention rules independently through equity practice and eventually codified intervention by rule and statute. Researchers working in English legal history before approximately 1850 will find the term operative; in any American jurisdiction, it is a historical curiosity only.

RESCEITmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

In old English practice. An admission or receiving a third person to plead his right in a cause formerly commenced be- tween two others; as, in an action by tenant for life or years, he in the reversion might come in and pray to be received to defend the land, and to plead with the demandant. Cowell.

RESCEITmain

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910

Res inter alios judicate nullum aliis prejudicium faciunt. Matters adjudged in a cause do not prejudice those who were not parties to it. Dig. 44, 2, 1. Res judicata facit ex albo nigrum; ex nigro, album; ex curvo, rectum; ex recto, curvam. A thing adjudged [the solemn judgment ofa court] makes white, black; black, white; the crooked, straight; the straight, crooked. 1 Bouv. Inst. no. §40. Res judicata pro veritate accipitur. A matter adjudged fs taken for truth. Dig. 50, 17, 207. A matter decided or passed upon by a court of competent jurisdiction is received as evidence of truth. 2 Kent, Comm. 120. Res per pecuniam sstimatur, et non peounia per rem. 9 Coke, 76. The value of a thing is estimated according to its worth in money, but the value of money is not estimated by reference to a. thing. Res propria est quss communis non est. <A thing is private which is not common. LeBreton vy. Miles, 8 Paige (N. Y.) 261, 270. Res qu intra presidia perducts nondum sunt, quanquam ab hostibus occupats, ideo postliminii non egent, quia dominum nondum muturunt ex gentium jure. Things which have not yet been introduced within the enemy’s lines, although held by the enemy, do not need the fiction of postliminy on this account, because their ownership by the law of nations has not yet changed. Gro. de Jure B. 1. 3, c. 9, § 16; Id. 1. 3, c. 6, § 3. Res sacra non recipit sstimationem. A sacred thing does not admit of valuation. Dig. 1, 8, 9, 5. Res sua nemini servit. 4 Macq. H. L. Cas. 151. No one can have a servitude over his own property. Res transit cum suo onere. The thing passes with its burden. Where a thing has been incumbered by mortgage, the incumbrance follows it whefever it goes. Bract. fols. 470, 48. In old English practice. . An admission or receiving a third person to plead his right in a cause formerly com- -RESCEIT menced between two others; as, in an action by tenant for life or years, he in the reversion might come in and pray to be received to defend the land, and to plead with the demandant. Cowell. —Reseeit of homage. The lord’s receiving homage of his tenant at his admission to the land. Kitch. 148.

RESCEITmain

Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1870

[Lat. receptio.] In old English practice. An admission or receiving a third person to plead his right in a cause formerly commenced between two others. As, in an action by tenant for life or years, he in the reversion might come in and pray to be received to defend the land, and to plead with the demandant. Cowell. Bro. Abr. Resceit. Called by the civilians, admissio tertii pro suo interesse, (the admission of a third person, on account of his interest.) RESCEU, Rescue. L. Fr. Received. Nova Narr. 5 b. Kitchin. Resceux, (plur.) Britt. c. 2.

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