RESPONDEAT - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

RESPONDEATAuthored

The Law Mind • 795 words

Definition

Respondeat is a Latin imperative meaning "let him answer." In legal usage, it appears almost exclusively as the first word of the maxim respondeat superior — "let the superior answer" — which is the foundational doctrine of vicarious liability holding an employer or principal liable for the torts committed by an employee or agent acting within the scope of their employment or authority.

Standing alone, "respondeat" has no independent doctrinal content. It is a fragment of a legal maxim, not a standalone term of art. Researchers encountering it in historical sources are almost certainly encountering an abbreviated or truncated reference to respondeat superior, or occasionally to the related phrase respondeat ouster (a now-obsolete procedural command requiring a defendant to answer further after a dilatory plea was overruled).

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Common Confusion

Two distinct phrases lead with "respondeat" and researchers should not conflate them:

RESPONDEAT SUPERIOR — The vicarious liability rule. An employer answers for the wrongful acts of employees committed in the course and scope of employment. This is the dominant modern usage and the subject of the encyclopedia entries linked above.

RESPONDEAT OUSTER — A historical common law procedural term. When a defendant's dilatory plea (such as a plea to the jurisdiction) was overruled, the court issued a command that the defendant "answer over" — that is, respond to the merits. Respondeat ouster was the name of the judgment or order directing this. It appears in older pleading treatises and historical records but has no meaningful survival in modern practice.

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Why It Matters in Research

The term "respondeat" as a bare entry in historical legal dictionaries is almost always an artifact of how Latin maxims were indexed — either alphabetically by the first word or as shorthand in judicial opinions and pleadings that assumed reader familiarity with the full phrase. When you encounter "respondeat" without a following word in a historical source, your first task is to determine which maxim is being invoked.

For respondeat superior research, the doctrine's contours have shifted considerably over time. The scope-of-employment limitation was contested and variably applied through the nineteenth century. Modern jurisdictions have in some contexts expanded vicarious liability through concepts like apparent authority and, in limited circumstances, non-delegable duties — developments that older dictionary sources will not capture.

The Rapalje & Lawrence entry surfaced in this corpus is a significant mismatch: the snippet concerns a sheriff's account addressed to the Exchequer and the mechanics of ordinary versus special resolutions in corporate law. This appears to be a cataloging artifact — the surrounding text does not define respondeat in any doctrinally useful way. Researchers should treat the Rapalje & Lawrence entry for this term as unreliable for substantive guidance and rely instead on primary sources and the encyclopedia entries above.

For respondeat ouster specifically, the relevant research terrain is historical common law pleading manuals — Gould on Pleading, Stephen on Pleading, and equivalent treatises — rather than modern tort or agency authorities.

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Historical Dictionary Support

The Rapalje & Lawrence entry associated with this term in the corpus does not provide a usable definition of respondeat as a legal term. The text retrieved concerns a sheriff's Exchequer account and corporate resolution mechanics — content that appears to be adjacent material from the source volume rather than a substantive entry on respondeat. This is a known hazard with historical legal dictionaries that were typeset in dense, multi-column formats: neighboring entries can be captured together or in place of the intended entry.

Historical dictionaries generally do not treat "respondeat" as a standalone term requiring definition. Black's Law Dictionary (various editions) and Bouvier's Law Dictionary index it as part of the maxim respondeat superior, with the doctrinal weight carried by the full phrase. The absence of a standalone entry in most major historical dictionaries is itself informative: the word was understood as a grammatical component of a maxim, not an independent legal concept.

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Jurisdictional Note

Respondeat superior is recognized across all U.S. jurisdictions and in common law systems generally, but the definition of "scope of employment" varies. Some jurisdictions apply the traditional Restatement (Second) of Agency framing; others have moved toward the broader Restatement (Third) formulation. Independent contractor exclusions are universally recognized but are applied with varying strictness when courts suspect the independent contractor classification is being used to evade liability.

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RESPONDEATmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1883

(1116) sheriff's account addressed to the treasurer and barons of the Exchequer.-Reg. Orig. 139. ordinary. An ordinary resolution is one passed by a simple majority in number at an ordinary meeting. A special resolution requires first to be passed by a majority of three-fourths of the members present at a meeting summoned for the purpose, and then to be confirmed by a simple majority at a meeting held for the purpose pursuant to notice between a fortnight and a month from the first meeting. (Companies Act, 1862, 251; Thr. Jt. S. Co. 167. The Friendly Societies Act, 1875, § 24, and the Industrial and Provident Societies Act, 1876, 216, contain similar provisions.) An extraordinary resolution is a resolution passed by a majority of threefourths of the members present at a meeting RESPITE.-(1) To discharge or dissummoned for the purpose; it is, therefore, the 129. unconfirmed special resolution. same as an Respiciendum est judicanti, ne quid aut durius aut remissius constituatur quam causa deposcit; nec enim aut severitatis aut clementiæ gloria affectanda est (3 Inst.): The judge must see that no order be made, or judgment given, or sentence passed either more harshly or more mildly than the case requires; he must not seek renown, either as a severe or as a tender-hearted judge. pense with. Thus, a lord is said to respite fealty when he does not exact it from his 3. Bankruptcy. In bankruptcy and tenant. (See FEALTY; HOMAGE, 2.) (2) liquidation proceedings, an ordinary resolution A temporary suspension of the execution is one decided by a majority in value of the of a sentence upon a criminal; a reprieve creditors present (personally or by proxy) at the meeting, and voting on the resolution. (Bankr. (q. v.) Act, 1869, s. 16, 7.) A special resolution is one passed by a majority in number and threefourths in value of the creditors present (personally or by proxy) at the meeting, and voting on the resolution. (Id. 28.) An extraordinary resolution is one passed by a majority in number and three-fourths in value, and confirmed by a majority in number and value at a subsequent Meeting; (Id. s. 126;) certain requirements as to notices, and the interval between the two meetings, have to be observed. (Bankr. Rules (1870), 282.) Debts amounting to £10 and under are not taken notice of in computing a majority of value on a resolution for liquidation or composition (q. v.) Bankr. Act, 1869, ss. 125, 126. Resoluto jure concedentis resolvitur jus concessum (Mack. Civ. L. 179): The grant of any right comes to an end on the termination of the right of the grantor.