Definition
A suggestion is a formal procedural device by which a party, attorney, or officer of the court places a material fact on the record when that fact cannot be introduced through ordinary pleading. The suggestion does not constitute sworn testimony or a pleaded allegation in the traditional sense; it is a statement entered upon the roll or record to inform the court of a circumstance that has arisen during the course of a proceeding and that affects how the action should proceed.
The term carries two distinct uses in legal sources:
1. Procedural suggestion (primary legal meaning): A formal entry on the court record notifying the court of a supervening fact — such as the death, bankruptcy, or insolvency of a party — that alters the posture of the litigation. Because such facts arise after pleadings have closed, they cannot be introduced through pleading in the ordinary course. The suggestion brings the fact to the court's attention so that appropriate orders may issue: a stay, substitution of parties, revival, or abatement.
2. Suggestion in the context of fraud (secondary meaning): In equity, suggestion carries the sense of a representation made to induce action. Suggestio falsi (a false suggestion) is an affirmative misrepresentation; suppressio veri (suppression of truth) is concealment of a material fact. Both may ground an action for fraud or vitiate a transaction.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): An idea offered for consideration; something implied that the mind may take as fact; also, in psychology, the communication of belief or impulse to a hypnotized subject.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The act of suggesting or presenting an idea; a hint or intimation; formerly, a secret incitement or temptation; also (now marked obsolete) a charge or complaint; and, by way of information without oath, an entry of a material fact on the record.
The common use of "suggestion" conveys informality — an idea tentatively offered, not asserted. The legal meaning inverts this: a suggestion on the record is a formal procedural act with real consequences for the litigation. Webster's 1913 actually preserves the legal sense as a discrete definition, confirming that the procedural meaning was once part of general educated usage and has since receded almost entirely from ordinary English.
Common Confusion
Suggestion vs. pleading: A suggestion is not a pleading. It introduces no new cause of action and does not frame any issue for trial. It is an informational entry, not a substantive allegation. Courts treated the distinction seriously because facts introduced by suggestion could not ordinarily be traversed or denied in the way pleaded facts could.
Suggestion vs. motion: A suggestion informs the court of a supervening fact; it does not itself request relief in the way a motion does. In modern federal practice, the procedural work once done by suggestion — particularly notice of a party's death — is now accomplished largely through formal notice or motion under procedural rules, and the word "suggestion" has been retained as a term of art in some jurisdictions without always being clearly distinguished from the motion that follows it.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with pre-twentieth-century common law records will encounter suggestion used as a technical term of art with procedural consequences. The entry on the roll labeled "suggestion" marked the point at which a supervening fact was formally communicated to the court, often triggering a procedural fork: revival of the action, substitution of parties, or abatement. Missing or misreading a suggestion entry in historical records can cause a researcher to misunderstand why an action stopped, changed form, or was dismissed.
In equity sources, suggestion appears in a different register entirely — tied to the suggestio falsi / suppressio veri pairing that runs through fraud doctrine. These two Latin phrases appear together consistently across Bouvier, Black's, and chancery practice sources. A researcher encountering one should search for the other; they are almost invariably treated as complementary doctrines.
The procedural suggestion has a direct modern descendant. In federal practice, Rule 25 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure governs substitution of parties upon death, and the "suggestion of death" filed under that rule is the direct procedural heir to the common law suggestion on the record. Practitioners and judges still use the phrase "suggestion of death" as a term of art, making this one of the few surviving uses of the word in active legal vocabulary.
In corpus research, note that suggestion in older sources may appear as a verb form ("to suggest upon the record") or as a noun entry ("a suggestion was entered"). The procedural context — timing relative to issue joined, whether the fact was admitted or disputed — often matters more than the label.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries converge on the procedural core: a suggestion is a statement formally entered on the record to bring a material supervening fact to the court's attention outside the ordinary course of pleading. Burrill, Black's (both editions), and Bouvier are consistent on this point. Rapalje & Lawrence frames it concisely as "an allegation entered on the roll."
Anderson's Dictionary of Law offers the most nuanced treatment, distinguishing between the looser sense (indirect introduction, informal intimation) and the more formal procedural sense, and flagging the connection to leading questions ("suggestive interrogatory"), which the other dictionaries omit.
Bouvier emphasizes that the fact suggested is typically admitted if true, after which the court issues the appropriate order — capturing the practical workflow more vividly than the other sources.
Black's 1st edition, in its equity discussion, supplies the suggestio falsi / suppressio veri pairing with a citation to 1 P. Wms. 240 (Peere Williams's Chancery Reports), which is a genuine and frequently cited equity source. Researchers following that thread will find it embedded in the broader chancery treatment of fraud in the inducement.
What the historical dictionaries collectively underserve is the transition: how the common law suggestion on the record mapped onto or was absorbed by modern procedural rules. None of the shelf sources address the twentieth-century transformation, and researchers should not assume continuity of form or label into contemporary practice without checking applicable procedural rules.
Jurisdictional Note
The "suggestion of death" survives explicitly in federal practice under Fed. R. Civ. P. 25, and many states have analogous provisions, though terminology varies. Some state courts have abandoned the word entirely in favor of "notice" or "motion." In jurisdictions that retain the older common law procedural vocabulary, particularly in probate and appellate practice, suggestion may still appear as a term of art with procedural significance distinct from a motion.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Pleading (for the distinction between pleading and suggestion as procedural vehicles); Abatement and Revival of Actions (for the procedural context in which suggestions of death, bankruptcy, and insolvency most commonly arose).