Definition
A special rule is a court order or procedural direction granted upon an actual motion made by counsel before the court, as distinguished from a common rule (or rule of course), which issues automatically or upon an assumed motion without genuine judicial deliberation. In the traditional common law practice from which the term derives, special rules required counsel to appear, make an oral or written motion, and obtain the court's considered grant — making them more formal, more deliberate, and more resistant to routine opposition than their counterpart.
In modern usage, the term has broadened and appears in several distinct contexts:
1. Historical procedural law. A rule (i.e., a court order governing procedure in a pending matter) that issues only upon actual motion in open court or in term, not as a matter of routine clerk's action.
2. Legislative and regulatory practice. A provision in a statute, regulation, or administrative code that carves out an exception or special procedure applicable to a defined class of persons, transactions, or situations — as opposed to the general rule governing all other cases.
3. Congressional procedure. In the U.S. House of Representatives, a "special rule" is a resolution reported by the Rules Committee that sets the terms for floor debate on a particular bill — governing time, amendments, and order of consideration. This is a discrete, technical usage largely confined to legislative process.
Common Confusion
The term "special rule" and "common rule" are mirror opposites in historical procedural vocabulary, but the distinction has faded almost entirely from modern practice. Researchers encountering "special rule" in 18th- or 19th-century English or American legal materials should read it in the narrow procedural sense (a rule obtained on actual motion) and resist importing the modern statutory or legislative meaning. Conversely, modern regulatory and legislative materials use "special rule" with no awareness of the historical procedural distinction.
Additionally, "special rule" should not be confused with a "standing rule" (a permanent rule of a court or deliberative body) or a "local rule" (a rule adopted by a specific court to govern practice before it).
Why It Matters in Research
The primary research trap is anachronism. In sources predating the mid-19th century procedural reforms — Tidd's Practice, early American practice manuals, and pre-code pleading materials — "special rule" carries the specific technical meaning identified by Burrill and Black: a rule obtained on actual motion, not a rule of course. This distinction mattered practically because it affected the procedure for challenging or setting aside the rule, the timing of compliance, and the record made in the proceeding.
After the Field Code reforms (1848) and the subsequent wave of American procedural codification, the old common rule / special rule dichotomy largely disappeared from practice. Modern researchers working in post-code sources will rarely encounter the historical usage.
In regulatory and statutory research, "special rule" appears frequently as a drafting term identifying exception provisions. Its meaning in any given statute is entirely context-dependent and carries no technical legal content beyond what the enacting body defines. Researchers should treat each regulatory use as its own defined term and look for the operative definition within the instrument itself.
In congressional research, the Rules Committee's "special rules" (also called "special orders" or simply "rules") are a specialized and well-documented category. They are indexed in the Congressional Record and Rules Committee reports and are essential to understanding the procedural history of major legislation.
Cross-corpus note: The Law Mind corpus includes procedural, contracts, and estates materials that use "special rule" in the regulatory/exception sense. The historical procedural usage is most relevant to materials in the civil procedure and common law pleading collections.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries converge cleanly on the historical procedural meaning, though with varying depth.
Burrill offers the most complete and useful entry, defining a special rule as "a rule granted upon the actual motion of counsel in court; as distinguished from a common rule, or rule of course," and citing Tidd's Practice at page 485 — a primary authority on English common law procedure that confirms this was settled usage, not Burrill's invention.
Black's restates the same distinction from the opposite direction, describing common rules as those "granted without any motion in court, or when the motion is only assumed to have been made, and is not actually made" — which by contrast defines what makes a rule "special."
Bouvier's entry is unhelpfully cross-referential, directing readers to "RULE OF" without independent content. This is a gap: Bouvier is otherwise thorough on procedural vocabulary, and the absence of a substantive entry here means researchers relying on Bouvier alone will miss the distinction.
None of the three dictionaries address the modern statutory or legislative meanings of "special rule," which emerged and proliferated after their relevant editions were compiled. This is expected but worth flagging: historical legal dictionary authority is complete for the procedural usage and silent on everything else.
Jurisdictional Note
The procedural distinction between special rules and common rules was inherited from English practice and was recognized across American jurisdictions that followed common law pleading. After code pleading reforms took hold state by state through the latter half of the 19th century, the distinction ceased to have practical significance in most American courts. The congressional usage of "special rule" is entirely domestic and has no counterpart in other common law systems.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
civpro_119: Receivership and Appointment of Special Masters — Rule 53 (The Law Mind Civil Procedure & Evidence Encyclopedia) — relevant for understanding how modern federal practice handles specialized procedural orders.