Definition
A resummons is a second or renewed summons issued to compel a party to appear and answer an action when the original summons has been defeated or rendered void. The need for a resummons arises when the first summons fails not through the plaintiff's fault but by operation of circumstance — most commonly the death of a party after service but before appearance, or some procedural defect that nullifies the original process. The resummons starts the summoning process anew, restoring the court's ability to bring the defendant before it.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Third-person singular simple present indicative of the verb "resummon" — as in, "she resummons the witness."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A second summons.
The common usage treats "resummons" primarily as a verb form, while the legal term is a noun designating a specific procedural instrument. The legal meaning is narrower than the common one: a resummons is not merely any repeated call to appear but a formal writ issued under defined circumstances after the first summons has been legally defeated, not simply ignored or evaded.
Common Confusion
Resummons should not be confused with an alias summons or a pluries summons. An alias summons is issued when the first summons was returned unserved — the defendant was not reached. A resummons, by contrast, presupposes that the first summons was properly issued but was subsequently defeated by an extrinsic event (such as a party's death). The distinction matters procedurally: alias process continues an existing summons sequence, while a resummons begins fresh after the prior summons has been nullified.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in pre-twentieth-century procedural records will encounter resummons most often in common law pleading contexts where the death of a plaintiff or defendant intervened after the action was commenced. The term appears in older practice manuals and court records as a routine procedural step — its absence from modern civil procedure codes (which handle the same problem through substitution of parties or revivor) can cause confusion when reading historical pleadings or writs.
The key research trap is anachronism: modern procedural rules under codes like the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not use this term. A researcher expecting to find "resummons" in twentieth-century practice guides or modern court filings will not find it. The concept survives in substance — courts still address failed process — but the vocabulary has changed entirely. When reading nineteenth-century equity or common law records, the resummons signals that something disrupted the original process, and identifying what that disruption was is often the more important historical question.
Corpus connections: Resummons appears in close proximity to terms governing process, appearance, abatement, and revivor. Finding a resummons in a historical record is a flag to look for an abatement event — death, dissolution, or procedural irregularity — that preceded it.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries are in close agreement, and their entries are essentially identical in substance. All three define the term as a second summons issued when the first is defeated, and all three identify the death of a party as the paradigm case. Black's first edition cites Cowell; the second edition repeats the same language with minor reorganization. Bouvier cites Chitty's Archbold's Practice (1847 edition), grounding the term in English common law practice.
None of the historical dictionaries offers significant analytical depth — this is a narrow procedural term without doctrinal complexity. What they collectively confirm is that the term was well-established in Anglo-American practice vocabulary through the mid-nineteenth century and that its scope was limited to situations where the first summons was defeated rather than merely unserved. Webster's 1913 reduces it to "a second summons," which is accurate but strips the legal qualification that distinguishes it from alias process.
Jurisdictional Note
Resummons as a named procedural instrument belongs to the era of common law pleading and early code pleading. It does not appear as a term of art in modern American federal practice or in most current state procedural codes. Researchers working in English legal history or early American state court records will encounter it more frequently than those working in post-code-reform jurisdictions.