Definition
A separate general verdict is a verdict rendered by a jury on each individual issue in a case when multiple distinct issues have been submitted for determination. Rather than resolving the entire case in a single finding, the jury returns a separate verdict — in favor of plaintiff or defendant — on each issue independently. The result is a set of discrete general verdicts, one per issue, rather than a single omnibus resolution.
This form of verdict arises most often in cases involving multiple counts, multiple parties, or distinct claims that are tried together but must be resolved separately. Each separate general verdict operates as a complete general verdict in its own right: it does not explain the jury's reasoning or identify specific factual findings, but it does declare a winner and loser on that discrete issue.
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Common Confusion
A separate general verdict should not be confused with a special verdict. A special verdict requires the jury to answer specific written questions of fact, leaving the court to apply the law to those findings. A separate general verdict, by contrast, simply applies the general verdict form — for the plaintiff or for the defendant — to each issue in turn. The distinction matters procedurally: challenges to special verdicts and challenges to separate general verdicts involve different standards of review and different preservation requirements. Researchers encountering "special verdict" and "separate general verdict" used interchangeably in older sources should not assume they refer to the same procedural mechanism.
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Why It Matters in Research
The phrase "separate general verdict" appears infrequently in modern procedural terminology. Contemporary practice under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and most state analogs organizes jury findings under three categories: general verdict, special verdict, and general verdict with interrogatories (the latter sometimes called a "general verdict accompanied by answers to written questions"). The separate general verdict, as a distinct named form, is largely a creature of older common law pleading environments where multiple independent issues could be framed and submitted discretely under the rules of joinder and traversal then in force.
Researchers working in pre-twentieth-century state court records — particularly in jurisdictions with complex common law pleading traditions — are most likely to encounter this term. The Kentucky citation in Bouvier (83 Ky. 27) suggests active use in late nineteenth-century state practice. Researchers should be alert to the possibility that "separate general verdict" in historical sources refers to what modern courts would simply call a verdict on a specific count or claim, not a distinct procedural category with its own rules.
The term presents a trap for researchers who apply modern procedural frameworks backward: the absence of a distinct "separate general verdict" category in current federal and most state practice does not mean the historical sources were using the term loosely. In the older pleading system, separating issues and obtaining independent verdicts on each had specific technical consequences for judgment, appeal, and res judicata.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary defines a separate general verdict as "the finding, upon any of the issues, in favor of the plaintiff or the defendant," citing 83 Ky. 27. This is a minimalist entry — Bouvier treats the term as self-explanatory within the pleading framework of the era, offering no extended discussion of procedure or effect.
The brevity of the entry is itself informative. Bouvier's audience would have understood the structural context: under common law pleading, a single action might present multiple traversable issues, each capable of independent resolution. The separate general verdict was the mechanism by which each such issue received its own decisive finding without requiring the jury to detail its factual reasoning. What Bouvier does not address — and what modern researchers will need to supply from procedural treatises and case law of the period — is the downstream effect of mixed separate general verdicts on judgment entry and appellate review.
No substantial treatment appears in other historical dictionaries reviewed for this entry. The term's practical significance was likely assumed rather than explicated in the literature of the period.
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Jurisdictional Note
Use of the separate general verdict as a named procedural category was more prevalent in nineteenth-century state court practice than in federal courts. Researchers should consult jurisdiction-specific pleading manuals and practice guides contemporary with the source materials under examination, as procedural nomenclature varied across states.
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