Definition
SUPER STATUTO FACTO POUR is a Latin writ phrase meaning, roughly, "upon the statute made for" a particular purpose or class of persons. As a writ form, it named a class of remedial writs that were founded directly upon a specific enabling statute, invoked to enforce rights created or confirmed by that statute rather than by common law alone. The full phrase typically appeared as the opening words of the writ's formal recitation, identifying the statutory authority under which relief was sought. Because English writs were often named by their opening Latin words, this phrase functioned as a classification label as much as a legal term of art.
Common Confusion
SUPER STATUTO FACTO POUR is sometimes conflated with statutory prerogative writs generally, or with writs whose names begin with the word "super" (such as SUPERSEDEAS). The distinction matters: "super statuto" writs are specifically grounded in parliamentary or royal statute, not in common law or equity. A researcher encountering the phrase should resist reading it as a generic descriptor for any writ touching a statute; it signals a formal procedural category with distinct pleading requirements tied to the enabling legislation itself.
Why It Matters in Research
This term belongs to the procedural vocabulary of medieval and early modern English common law writ practice, a domain where precise Latin terminology carried jurisdictional weight. Researchers working in pre-1800 English legal materials, Year Books, or early chancery and common pleas records will encounter writ phrases of this class as both procedural gatekeepers and substantive signals — the writ's name told the court which statute governed and, by extension, which forum had jurisdiction and what remedy was available.
Several navigational traps await the corpus researcher. First, the phrase does not appear as a standalone writ name in most standard modern references; it is more likely to surface as the opening clause of a writ recited in full within a treatise, Year Book report, or register of writs. Second, the class of "super statuto" writs expanded and contracted as Parliament produced new legislation; a writ that was current in the reign of Edward III might be obsolete or superseded by the time of Elizabeth I. Dating the source is therefore essential. Third, because Black's Law Dictionary's entry under this general heading cross-references the related writ SENESCHAL ET MARSHAL DE ROY — itself a specialized writ against royal household officers for jurisdictional overreach — researchers should treat that entry as the primary corpus anchor when tracing specific instances of statutory writ practice in household court contexts.
The connection to SENESCHAL ET MARSHAL DE ROY is instructive for scope: it illustrates that "super statuto" writs were not abstract instruments but arose in response to identifiable institutional abuses, in that case the steward and marshal's court exceeding its proper jurisdiction over pleas of trespass or contract not arising within the king's household. That writ's existence presupposes a statutory framework that both created the household court's jurisdiction and simultaneously constrained it, making the super statuto formula the mechanism by which common law courts policed the boundary.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary does not provide a freestanding entry for SUPER STATUTO FACTO POUR as a defined term. The phrase appears only incidentally, in structural proximity to related writ entries, most directly SENESCHAL ET MARSHAL DE ROY, which Black's attributes to Wharton and describes as a writ lying against a steward or marshal for holding plea in his court or for trespass or contracts not made or arising within the king's household. This attribution to Wharton's Law Lexicon situates the term in the secondary glossarial tradition rather than in primary statutory or case law.
The historical dictionaries collectively treat writs of this class as procedural relics whose practical significance had largely expired by the time systematic legal lexicography began in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As a result, coverage is thin and derivative — Wharton cites institutional practice, not living doctrine. Researchers should treat historical dictionary entries for such writs as finding aids pointing toward older primary sources (registers of writs, Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium, and comparable compilations) rather than as authoritative doctrinal statements.
Jurisdictional Note
This writ form is exclusively an artifact of English legal history and has no operational counterpart in American, Scottish, or other common law jurisdictions. American courts never adopted the formal writ register system in which "super statuto" designations functioned, and the writ system as a whole was substantially abolished in England by the Judicature Acts of the 1870s.