Definition
A Latin maxim of old English law meaning "relief is given" or "succor is given." The term appears most prominently in the compound maxim *succurritur minori; facilis est lapsus juventutis* — "a minor is to be aided; a mistake of youth is easy" — which encapsulates the equitable principle that courts will extend protection and relief to minors who, by reason of their age and inexperience, have entered into disadvantageous transactions or suffered legal prejudice. The maxim operates as a foundational justification for the common law's longstanding policy of treating minors as a protected class in contract, property, and procedural contexts.
Common Confusion
SUCCURRITUR is sometimes treated as if it were simply a synonym for equitable relief generally. It is not. The maxim carries a specific reference to minority and the susceptibility of youth to error. Its scope is narrower than the general equity principle that courts will relieve against hardship; it is anchored to age-based incapacity and the corrective role of law in shielding those who cannot yet adequately protect themselves.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers will encounter SUCCURRITUR almost exclusively in two contexts: (1) historical equity and common law treatises addressing the legal capacity and protection of minors, and (2) citation strings from English cases and institutional writers invoking the maxim as authority for setting aside contracts, conveyances, or judgments where a minor's interests were prejudiced.
The maxim is characteristic of the Latin-maxim citation style dominant in English legal writing through the eighteenth century. When tracing the doctrine of minority protection backward through the historical corpus, researchers should treat SUCCURRITUR as a keyword that unlocks earlier layers of equity jurisprudence predating the cleaner statutory and case-law frameworks that would eventually replace maxim-based reasoning.
A practical trap: the maxim does not appear in modern case law or statutes under this Latin form. Researchers working from modern sources backward into historical materials will need to recognize that contemporary doctrines governing minors' contracts, voidability, and the infancy defense are the functional descendants of the principle SUCCURRITUR once expressed. The lineage is real, but the terminology has entirely changed.
Burrill cites Fleta (lib. 2, c. 62, § 1; c. 63, § 4) and Jenkin's Centuries (Cent. 47, case 89) as the primary sources. Researchers consulting these works should note that Fleta is a thirteenth-century treatise of English law, and Jenkins' Centuries is a seventeenth-century collection of equity cases and maxims — both representative of the institutional-writing tradition that carried maxims like SUCCURRITUR as living legal authority rather than mere aphorism.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the core entry: "Relief (or succor) is given," with the extended form of the maxim translated as "A minor is to be aided; a mistake of youth is easy" and glossed as "youth is liable to err." This is consistent with the maxim's appearance in Jenkins' Centuries, where it functions as shorthand for the equity court's jurisdiction to intervene on behalf of minors who have been disadvantaged through inexperience.
Burrill does not elaborate on the doctrine beyond the maxim and its citations, which is characteristic of the dictionary tradition's treatment of Latin maxims — recording the phrase and its standard gloss without expounding the body of law that grew from it. Researchers should not mistake the brevity of Burrill's entry for a narrow or minor doctrine; the principle the maxim expresses was foundational to equity's treatment of minority for centuries.
No meaningful divergence appears across historical sources on the core meaning. The maxim was standard in English legal education and institutional writing, and its meaning was treated as settled.
Jurisdictional Note
The maxim and its associated doctrine originate in English common law and equity. American law absorbed the underlying principle — that minors occupy a protected legal status and may void contracts entered during infancy — but shed the Latin maxim form early in the development of American legal writing. Researchers working in American historical sources from the nineteenth century onward will find the doctrine expressed in case law and statute rather than through citation to SUCCURRITUR.