Definition
A special request is a demand or solicitation made at a specific, identified time and place. It is distinguished from a general request, which carries no requirement that the time or location be stated. The specificity of a special request is its defining characteristic: it anchors the act of requesting to a particular moment and setting, which can be legally significant in establishing the sequence of events, notice, or the triggering of an obligation.
Common Confusion
Special request is easily confused with general request, but the distinction is substantive rather than semantic. A general request imposes no obligation on the requesting party to identify when or where it was made. A special request, by contrast, requires that the time and place be fixed and demonstrable. In pleading and proof contexts, the distinction matters: a party relying on a special request may need to establish those specifics, while a party relying on a general request does not bear that burden. The terms are not interchangeable, and treating them as such risks failing to satisfy the applicable evidentiary or pleading standard.
Why It Matters in Research
The term appears most frequently in older common law pleading contexts, particularly in actions where a request was a condition precedent to liability — such as actions on contracts, actions for the conversion of goods, or situations where a party had to demand performance before suit could be brought. In those settings, whether a request qualified as "special" (time- and place-specific) or "general" could determine whether a necessary element was adequately alleged or proven.
Researchers working in historical case law and treatises should note that the special/general request distinction was a live pleading concern in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when common law pleading demanded precision about the circumstances of any foundational act. As code pleading and later notice pleading displaced common law forms, the formal significance of the distinction diminished. Modern courts rarely use the term "special request" in this technical sense; when it appears in contemporary sources, it is more likely used loosely to mean a particular or specific request, without the historical pleading implications.
The cross-reference in both Black's and Bouvier's to Bouvier's Institutes (volume 3, number 2843) signals that the concept was treated as an element of pleading doctrine rather than substantive law. Researchers tracing the term into primary sources should look to treatises on common law pleading — Chitty's Pleading and Stephen's Principles of Pleading are natural companions — rather than to statutory or constitutional sources.
Researchers should also be alert to the term "special request" appearing in a wholly different and modern procedural context: jury instructions. In practice, attorneys speak of making a "special request" for a jury instruction not included in standard or pattern charges. This usage is procedural and jurisdiction-specific, and it has no connection to the historical pleading definition recorded in Black's and Bouvier's. The two uses share a label but not a meaning.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary and Bouvier's Law Dictionary are in near-identical agreement on this term, with Black's essentially tracking Bouvier's language verbatim. Both define special request as a request made at a particular time and place, contrasted with a general request where no such specificity is required. Both cite the same source: Bouvier's Institutes, volume 3, number 2843, confirming a common origin in Bouvier's own treatise work.
Neither dictionary elaborates on the consequences of the distinction — what happens when a party pleads or proves a special request versus a general request — leaving that analysis to the pleading treatises. The brevity of both entries suggests the distinction was considered well understood by practitioners of the era and did not require extensive exposition in a dictionary format.
Neither source addresses the modern procedural usage of the term in the jury instruction context, which is a gap researchers should keep in mind when a source predating the twentieth century uses the term.