Definition
Short notice is procedural notice given in less than the ordinary time prescribed by court rules or practice for a particular proceeding. In historical English practice, it meant notice of trial or motion given within a compressed timeframe — classically defined as half the ordinary notice period. Where full notice might require eight days, short notice would require four. The term carries two related but distinct applications:
1. General procedural practice: Notice of any proceeding given in less than the standard required time, typically half the ordinary notice interval. The recipient is entitled to act on the compressed timeline or, in many contexts, object to the adequacy of notice.
2. English common law practice (notice of trial): A specific term of art meaning four days' notice of trial. Where short notice of trial was given, a corresponding abbreviated period — typically two days — was recognized as sufficient notice of continuance.
In modern U.S. practice, "short notice" as a fixed term of art has largely dissolved into broader procedural frameworks governing expedited notice, emergency orders, and orders to show cause. Courts and rules now address compressed notice through specific motion procedures rather than a single doctrine called "short notice."
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Short notice" in ordinary English means a brief or minimal advance warning of something — as in "hired on short notice" or "canceled with short notice." The phrase conveys inadequacy or urgency of preparation time.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's 1913 does not treat "short notice" as a discrete entry, but "short" in combination denotes brevity or insufficiency of time or measure.
The gap matters: In everyday English, "short notice" is purely relative and informal — it means whatever feels rushed in context. In historical legal practice, it was a term with a defined, quantified meaning: a specific fraction of the ordinary notice period (half), and in English trial practice, a fixed number of days (four). A researcher reading a 19th-century pleading or practice manual must treat "short notice" as a technical term with a calculable content, not merely a colloquial gesture toward urgency.
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Why It Matters in Research
The primary research challenge with short notice is temporal displacement. The term appears with precision in 18th- and 19th-century English practice manuals and in American sources drawing directly from those authorities, but it has no fixed analog in modern federal or state procedural codes. A researcher encountering "short notice" in historical pleadings, equity practice records, or early American court rules must recognize that the term refers to a specific procedural regime — typically governed by English chancery or common law court practice — and cannot be mapped onto modern notice requirements without understanding the underlying rule structure.
The Tidd reference (2 Tidd, Pr. 757) appearing in both editions of Black's anchors this term to William Tidd's treatise on the practice of the Court of King's Bench, an indispensable source for understanding early English and American procedural doctrine. Researchers consulting pre-Civil War American cases that cite Tidd or Chitty on practice should be alert to the specific notice regimes those sources presuppose.
In Bouvier's version, the four-day rule for trial notice and the two-day rule for continuance following short notice reflect English nisi prius practice, not a universal standard. American courts adapted these rules inconsistently, and local court rules often displaced them early. Relying on Bouvier's specific day counts for American practice after the mid-19th century would be unreliable without confirming local rules.
For modern research, short notice appears most frequently in: (1) historical procedural disputes where sufficiency of notice is contested; (2) equity practice records where notice of motion or hearing was given under compressed timelines; and (3) contract and commercial contexts where notice of breach or performance conditions required timely communication. The contracts connection is the most durable in contemporary research — notice requirements in commercial agreements often specify what constitutes adequate or short notice for various triggering events.
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Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries converge on the core definition: short notice is notice given in less than the ordinary time, generally half. Black's (both editions) and Burrill share nearly identical language, each citing Tidd as the primary authority; Burrill adds Chitty's General Practice and Burr's Practice for additional support, indicating the definition was well-settled across the major practice treatises of the period.
Bouvier diverges usefully by specifying a fixed count — four days for trial notice — grounded in English practice and citing Wharton's Law Dictionary and a reported case. This specificity reflects Bouvier's orientation toward working practitioners who needed actionable numbers, while Black's and Burrill were content with the proportional formula (half of ordinary time). Neither approach is wrong; they address different levels of the question.
What the historical dictionaries do not address: the mechanism for consenting to or objecting to short notice, the consequences of proceeding under defective notice, or how American courts adapted the English framework. For those questions, the practice treatises themselves — Tidd, Chitty, and their American counterparts — remain necessary.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
contracts_62: Breach — Notice of Breach Requirements (The Law Mind Contracts & Commercial Law Encyclopedia)
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