Definition
To place a matter before a tribunal, court, or decision-maker for resolution or approval. The term operates in two primary legal contexts:
1. Advocacy: To propound or put forward a legal proposition, argument, or request for a court's consideration. Counsel submits an argument to the court; the act of submission invites the tribunal's judgment on the matter advanced.
2. Dispute resolution: To refer or present a controversy, claim, or question to a tribunal — whether a court, arbitrator, or other adjudicative body — for determination. When a case is "submitted," it has been placed before the decision-maker and is ready for adjudication; no further argument or evidence is anticipated unless the tribunal directs otherwise.
In pleading and motion practice, to "submit" a matter may also denote the formal act of tendering documents, briefs, or evidence into the proceeding's record. In contract and transactional contexts, parties submit bids, proposals, or offers as a step toward acceptance or approval.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To yield or give way to another; to put forward for approval or consideration; to subject something to a process; to enter something for marking or review.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To yield, resign, or surrender to power, will, or authority; to place under; to lower or let down.
The common meaning of "submit" carries a strong connotation of yielding or subordination — surrendering oneself or something to another's will. The legal meaning is narrower and more neutral: to place a matter before a tribunal is an act of procedural initiation, not capitulation. An attorney who submits an argument to the court is not yielding to the court; the attorney is affirmatively invoking the court's authority to act. Researchers should not read passivity or concession into the legal use of the term.
Common Confusion
"Submit" is sometimes conflated with "stipulate" or "concede." Submission places a matter before a tribunal for decision; stipulation is an agreement between parties on a fact or procedural point; concession is an acknowledgment that an opponent's point is correct. A party may submit a dispute to arbitration without conceding anything about its merits. Similarly, in older equity and admiralty practice, a "submission to jurisdiction" had distinct procedural consequences — consenting to a tribunal's authority — that differ from the ordinary act of placing a motion before a court.
Why It Matters in Research
The verb "submit" appears across an enormous range of procedural contexts in the Law Mind corpus, and its meaning shifts with the procedural setting. In trial court records, a case "submitted on briefs" or "submitted without argument" signals that the court has taken the matter under advisement — a critical chronological marker when tracing the timeline of a decision. In appellate records, the date of submission often triggers or affects deadline calculations under court rules, making the term significant even in administrative context.
In arbitration materials, "submission" (the noun form) is a term of art with greater formality: a submission agreement defines the scope of the arbitrator's authority, and a tribunal's power is bounded by what was submitted to it. Researchers working with arbitration awards or commercial dispute records should treat "submission" as a document-level term, not merely a procedural verb.
In equity practice and older common law materials, "submission" could carry jurisdictional weight — a party's submission to a court's jurisdiction was sometimes the predicate for the court's authority to act at all. This usage appears in equity, admiralty, and ecclesiastical court records and should not be read as synonymous with modern voluntary appearance or waiver.
The Anderson's entry indexed under this term wanders into "subject" and "subject-matter" — a likely cross-reference artifact or editorial miscollection in that source. Researchers using Anderson's should treat that portion of the entry as pertaining to subject-matter jurisdiction and cause of action, not to the procedural act of submitting.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's (1st and 2nd editions) and Rapalje & Lawrence are in complete agreement: to submit is to propound a proposition for the court's approval, or to place a controversy before a tribunal for determination. The entries are brief and identical across editions, suggesting the term was not considered legally contested or complex at the time of compilation.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the noun form "submission" as a term of art in arbitration law, nor the procedural significance of a matter being "submitted" as a stage in litigation distinct from filing, hearing, or argument. Those meanings were likely too procedurally contextual for a general dictionary entry but are well-attested in practice materials of the same era. Researchers relying solely on dictionary sources for this term will miss the arbitration-specific usage that was already established in 19th-century commercial practice.
Jurisdictional Note
In U.S. federal practice, local rules of individual district courts often specify what it means for a motion to be "submitted" — some treat submission as automatic after a briefing period, others require a separate notice. State court practice varies widely. In arbitration, the term's meaning is frequently defined by the governing arbitration rules or the submission agreement itself.