Definition
A Latin maxim meaning "in the alternative." The phrase describes a mode of pleading, obligation, or legal statement in which one of two or more possibilities is asserted or required — that is, one thing or another, rather than both conjunctively. A claim or relief framed sub disjunctione presents alternatives rather than a single mandatory outcome.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in early common law pleading contexts and is encountered most often in treatises and digests drawing on medieval sources, particularly Fleta. Researchers working in pre-modern English legal sources or tracing the history of pleading doctrine will encounter sub disjunctione as a technical descriptor for alternative pleading — a mode with significant procedural consequences, since common law pleading historically disfavored alternatives and required precision and certainty in writs and declarations.
The phrase is rarely used in modern American or English legal writing. When a researcher encounters it in an older text, it signals a discussion of whether a writ, plea, obligation, or grant was stated disjunctively (one thing or another) versus conjunctively (all things together). The distinction carried real doctrinal weight: a conjunctive obligation bound the promisor to deliver all items enumerated, while a disjunctive obligation satisfied upon delivery of any one. Misreading the disjunctive framing in a historical source can lead to misunderstanding the scope of the duty or relief described.
Researchers should note that the phrase connects to the broader doctrine of alternative obligations in contract and pleading, and to the related Latin construction sub conjunctione (in the conjunctive). The two are natural counterparts, and a source using one will often be distinguishing it from the other. The entry in Fleta (lib. 2, c. 60, § 21), cited by every major historical dictionary, is the primary locus classicus for this term; researchers tracing the phrase to its source should consult that chapter directly.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four historical dictionaries — Black's, Rapalje & Lawrence, Bouvier's, and Burrill's — are in complete agreement: sub disjunctione means "in the alternative," and all four trace the phrase to Fleta, lib. 2, c. 60, § 21 (Black's and Burrill's include the full citation; Bouvier's cites Fleta without the chapter detail; Rapalje & Lawrence supply the definition without citation). The unanimity here reflects the narrow, technical nature of the term — it carried a fixed, uncontested meaning in the legal Latin tradition and did not evolve or acquire competing senses.
No dictionary provides substantive elaboration beyond the bare translation, which is itself instructive: this was a term of art understood by trained lawyers through its Latin root and its pleading context rather than through extended definition. Burrill's, which is the most thorough in citation practice, confirms the Fleta provenance with the full book-and-chapter reference, making it the most useful of the four for source-tracing purposes.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the practical pleading doctrine that gave the phrase its significance — the rules governing when alternative pleading was permissible and what consequences followed from framing a writ or obligation disjunctively. Researchers seeking that context must look beyond dictionary entries to treatises on common law pleading, where the conjunctive/disjunctive distinction is developed substantively.
Jurisdictional Note
This phrase belongs to the common law pleading tradition and is essentially confined to English legal sources and American treatises written in that tradition. It has no distinct modern American statutory or procedural context. Modern civil procedure rules in both the United States and England now expressly permit pleading in the alternative, rendering the historical significance of the disjunctive framing largely obsolete in practice.