Definition
A short cause is a civil action or suit designated as unlikely to require substantial court time — typically confined to a simple legal point requiring only brief argument — that may be placed on a dedicated short cause list upon a party's application. Once listed, the matter is heard out of its regular order, accelerating resolution compared to the standard docket queue.
The designation is procedural, not substantive. It does not alter the legal claims or available relief; it merely determines how and when the court schedules the hearing. Historically the device was associated with chancery practice, where courts maintained specific sitting days — often Saturdays — reserved for short causes.
Common Confusion
"Short cause" and "summary proceeding" are sometimes confused but are distinct. A summary proceeding compresses or eliminates procedural stages (pleading, full evidence, jury trial) as a matter of substantive procedure. A short cause designation leaves all procedural rights intact; it simply predicts brevity and accelerates scheduling. A matter placed on the short cause list that proves more complex than anticipated may be removed or continued — the designation is provisional.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encounter short cause as a procedural category primarily in older English chancery materials, nineteenth-century American equity reports, and historical court rules. Several research traps exist.
First, the term is court-specific and era-specific. Not all American jurisdictions adopted the practice, and those that did often modified it to suit local docket structure. A reference to a "short cause calendar" in one state's rules may reflect different threshold criteria — time estimates, consent requirements, procedural triggers — than the English chancery original.
Second, short cause designations rarely appear in reported opinions because the cases resolved quickly and without contested legal questions. Researchers tracing procedural history will more often find short cause references in court rules, practice manuals, and equity treatises than in the case law reporters.
Third, the term has largely disappeared from modern American procedural vocabulary. Contemporary equivalents include expedited hearing tracks, motion calendars for uncontested matters, and consent judgment procedures. When reading historical sources, be alert to the possibility that a "short cause" reference describes what modern rules would call a different procedural vehicle entirely.
Fourth, Bouvier's notation that the English short cause list was heard on Saturdays is a useful artifact for dating and contextualizing English chancery practice materials. It also illustrates how the device functioned administratively — as a dedicated calendar block, not merely a priority notation.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four shelf sources are in close agreement on the core concept: a short cause is a matter of simple legal content, unlikely to require extended argument, eligible for expedited scheduling upon application. The definitions converge on two functional criteria — brevity of expected hearing time and the absence of a complex legal question — though they differ in specificity.
Bouvier provides the most operationally precise account, noting the ten-minute benchmark and the Saturday sitting day practice, and crediting Daniel's Chancery Practice (5th ed.) for the procedural detail. This granularity is useful for researchers working with English equity materials.
Rapalje & Lawrence adds a significant element absent from the Black's formulations: a matter may qualify as a short cause where all parties consent to the order or judgment, or where the court could make an order as of course. This broadens the category beyond brevity-based prediction and signals that uncontested matters had their own pathway onto the short cause list — a functionally distinct basis for the designation.
Both editions of Black's provide identical text, reflecting the stable treatment of this procedural term across the first and second editions. Neither Black's entry engages the consent pathway or the time estimate that Bouvier and Rapalje preserve, making those sources more useful for detailed practice research.
Notably, none of the historical sources address what happens when a short cause proves longer than anticipated — a gap that contemporary researchers may need to fill by consulting the specific court rules of the jurisdiction and period in question.
Jurisdictional Note
Short cause procedure originated in English chancery and was selectively adopted in American equity courts. Its survival into modern American practice is limited; most jurisdictions have absorbed equivalent functions into general case management rules, uncontested hearing calendars, or consent judgment procedures. Researchers working in pre-twentieth-century American equity practice should consult the local court rules of the specific state and era rather than assuming uniform adoption of the English model.