Definition
Si faret is a Latin phrase meaning "if it appears" or "if it shall appear." In Roman law, it was a conditional formula used by the praetor when appointing a judge (iudex) and issuing procedural instructions for deciding a cause. The formula functioned as a directive: the judge was authorized to render judgment contingent on whether specified facts were found to be true. If the condition set out in the formula was satisfied — if the matter "appeared" as alleged — the judge was to rule accordingly.
The si faret clause was embedded within the broader Roman formulary system of civil procedure, in which the praetor framed the legal and factual issues in writing before sending the dispute to a judge for resolution. The phrase defined the threshold condition under which liability or relief would follow.
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Why It Matters in Research
Si faret is a narrow technical term from Roman procedural law with essentially no independent life in English common law or modern American legal doctrine. Researchers are most likely to encounter it in two contexts: historical treatments of Roman law and its influence on civil procedure, and in older comparative or civil law scholarship where the formulary system is discussed at length.
The phrase does not appear as operative language in any common law pleading tradition. If it surfaces in a historical source, it is almost certainly being used descriptively or illustratively — explaining how Roman praetors structured adjudication — rather than as a term of art with direct legal effect in the jurisdiction under study.
Researchers working on the Roman formulary procedure or tracing the intellectual lineage of conditional pleading and conditional judgments may find si faret useful as a conceptual anchor. The formulary system it belongs to was a predecessor to later civil procedure traditions absorbed into canon law and, indirectly, into early equity practice. However, drawing a direct doctrinal line from si faret to any English or American procedural rule requires significant scholarly mediation and should be done with care.
Because the phrase appears in only supplemental materials in Black's 2nd Edition, it received minimal treatment in the mainstream Anglo-American legal dictionary tradition. Researchers should not expect to find it indexed or cross-referenced in most standard legal reference works.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed., Supplemental) provides the only dictionary entry in the Law Mind corpus for this term. The definition is spare: "Lat. If it appears. In Roman law. Words used in the formula by which the praetor appointed a judge, and instructed him how to decide the cause."
This entry captures the essential function of the phrase but does not elaborate on the broader formulary context. It does not explain the structure of the Roman formula as a whole — which typically included the demonstratio (statement of facts), intentio (the plaintiff's claim), condemnatio (authorization to condemn or acquit), and exceptio (defendant's defense) — or how si faret operated within that structure as the conditional trigger for the intentio or condemnatio.
No other historical dictionary in the Law Mind corpus addresses this term. The entry in Black's appears to be a gloss entry rather than a developed definition, consistent with its placement in supplemental materials rather than the main body of the dictionary.
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