Definition
A subsequent action is a second or later lawsuit commenced by the same party on the same or related matter while an earlier action is still pending — that is, after a writ or initial pleading has issued but before final judgment has been entered in the first proceeding.
The term is primarily procedural. It arises most often in contexts where a plaintiff, dissatisfied with the progress of an existing suit, files a new action involving overlapping parties, claims, or subject matter. Courts have treated the existence of a subsequent action as relevant to questions of abatement, election of remedies, res judicata, and lis pendens.
The term also appears, though less formally, in broader procedural and substantive contexts to mean simply "a later lawsuit" — for instance, a damages action filed after an injunction proceeding, or a new suit following an unsuccessful appeal. Researchers should be careful about which usage appears in a given source.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Subsequent" means coming after or following in time or order. "Subsequent action" in ordinary English simply means any action taken after a prior one.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Subsequent" — following in time; coming or being after something else; as, subsequent events.
The gap matters here. In common usage, "subsequent action" is purely temporal — any later act. In legal usage, particularly in procedural law, the term carries a more precise charge: it describes a second lawsuit filed before the first is resolved, which triggers specific doctrines about whether both can proceed, whether the first must be discontinued, and whether the plaintiff has made an election. Treating "subsequent action" as merely "a later lawsuit filed at any point" misses the operative procedural tension the term is meant to capture.
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Common Confusion
SUBSEQUENT ACTION vs. SUCCESSIVE ACTION: These terms are sometimes used interchangeably, but they carry different implications in strict usage. A subsequent action is filed while the first action is still pending. A successive action typically refers to a second suit filed after the first has concluded — raising res judicata or claim preclusion questions rather than abatement or lis pendens. Mixing the two obscures which procedural doctrine applies.
SUBSEQUENT ACTION vs. CROSS-ACTION / COUNTERCLAIM: A subsequent action is a separate proceeding, not a pleading filed within the original suit. A counterclaim or cross-action is filed inside the existing case. Courts will sometimes treat a separately filed subsequent action as a reason to consolidate, but the two are structurally distinct.
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Why It Matters in Research
The primary trap with this term in historical sources is temporal precision. Bouvier defines a subsequent action by a specific moment: after the writ issues but before judgment. This narrow window is the procedurally loaded one. If a researcher is working with older English or early American materials, this timing question governs whether the first action is subject to abatement (a plea in abatement being the historical remedy for a pending prior suit) and whether the subsequent action itself can survive a challenge.
In modern American practice, the procedural stakes have shifted. Abatement as a formal plea is largely abolished or absorbed into motions to dismiss, consolidation motions, and lis pendens doctrine. A researcher moving from 19th-century English reporters into 20th-century American materials will find the vocabulary preserved but the procedural mechanism transformed.
Corpus connections to watch: the term overlaps with lis pendens doctrine (the principle that a pending suit gives notice of a claim on property), with election of remedies (filing a subsequent action may constitute an election that forecloses return to the first), and with compulsory joinder rules in modern procedure (which may require that claims now be brought in a single action, making a subsequent action procedurally barred rather than merely disfavored).
The Bouvier citation to 51 L.J. Q.B. 279 reflects English Queen's Bench authority. American courts adopted the underlying concept but through their own doctrinal pathways; do not assume that English procedural authority translates directly into American jurisdictions without checking local reception.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's is the sole historical dictionary source available for this entry, and its treatment is brief: a subsequent action is a second action commenced after a writ issues but before judgment in the first. The citation to the Law Journal Queen's Bench grounds this in English procedural authority from the latter half of the 19th century.
What Bouvier does not address — and what researchers should not assume is covered — is the substantive effect of filing a subsequent action. The definition establishes the timing threshold, not the consequences. Those consequences (abatement, consolidation, election of remedies, bar) are doctrinal and jurisdiction-specific. Bouvier's brevity here reflects the era's assumption that the reader would understand the procedural mechanics from practice; modern researchers should treat the definition as a starting point, not a complete account.
No other historical dictionary in the Law Mind corpus addresses this term with independent depth. The absence of competing definitions means there is no meaningful divergence to report, but also no independent corroboration.
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Jurisdictional Note
English common law doctrine on subsequent actions — particularly abatement for pending prior suit — was received unevenly across American jurisdictions. Most American states modernized their procedural codes in the 20th century in ways that replaced the formal plea in abatement with motion practice, and many have specific rules on claim splitting and compulsory joinder that now govern the practical equivalent of the "subsequent action" problem. Researchers should not assume uniform treatment.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
contracts_45: Interpretation — Conditions (Express, Implied, Constructive; Precedent, Concurrent, Subsequent) in The Law Mind Contracts & Commercial Law Encyclopedia. Relevant for distinguishing the procedural term from the substantive use of "subsequent" in condition-subsequent doctrine.
property_3: Estates in Land — Defeasible Fees in The Law Mind Property Law Encyclopedia. Relevant for the same reason: "condition subsequent" in property law is a substantive doctrine entirely distinct from a subsequent action in procedure.
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