Definition
Tati is a Latin abbreviation used in older common law pleading and procedure, drawn from the phrase *de bonis testatoris* ("of the goods of the testator") or *de bonis intestati* ("of the goods of the intestate"). It appears as a shorthand label for a class of judgment directing execution against the assets of a deceased person's estate — that is, the property held by an executor or administrator in their representative capacity — rather than against the personal property of the executor or administrator as an individual.
When a creditor of an estate obtained judgment, the resulting writ of execution could reach only what the personal representative held on behalf of the estate. The abbreviation *tati* (or *tati, &c.*) marked this limitation, signaling that satisfaction must come from estate assets and not from the representative's own pocket.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): An alternative spelling of *tatty*, meaning a woven mat or screen, particularly in South Asian contexts.
Historical common usage: No relevant entry in Webster's 1913 for this spelling in a common-language sense.
The overlap between the legal abbreviation and the weaving term is purely coincidental. The legal *tati* is not an English word at all but a truncated Latin tag drawn from estate administration vocabulary. A researcher encountering *tati* in a legal context should not look to ordinary dictionaries for guidance.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term functions almost exclusively as a shorthand tag within older English and American common law pleading records, writ registers, and practice manuals. Researchers working in pre-twentieth-century probate litigation, creditors' actions against estates, or common law execution practice are the most likely to encounter it.
The critical navigational point: *tati* does not stand alone. It is a fragment of a longer Latin formula. Burrill's entry points to the extended phrase *de bonis testatoris si, &c., et si non, &c., de bonis propriis* — a compound judgment formula allowing execution first against estate goods and, if those proved insufficient, against the representative personally. Seeing *tati* in isolation in a court record or pleading form is a cue to look for the full formula, not to treat the abbreviation as a self-contained term.
American researchers should note that *Wheaton's Reports* (cited by Burrill at 8 Wheaton's R. 675) locates this doctrine in early federal court practice, confirming the formula crossed from English common law into American courts and was not purely an English procedural artifact.
Because the term appears mainly in abbreviated form in manuscript court records and printed practice books, full-text search of digitized legal sources will underperform here. Researchers should search for the underlying Latin phrase *de bonis testatoris* alongside the abbreviation.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill and Black (2nd Ed.) are in close agreement, nearly word for word, on the core definition: a judgment directing execution against estate property rather than the representative's personal property. Neither source goes beyond this basic framing.
Burrill is the more useful of the two for research purposes because he gestures toward the compound judgment formula (*de bonis testatoris si, &c., et si non, &c., de bonis propriis*), which is the operationally important legal concept. Black's entry is truncated and stops short of the fuller formula. Neither source provides meaningful historical development or traces the formula's evolution in English or American courts, which limits their usefulness for doctrinal history work.
Both sources treat this as a procedural label rather than a substantive doctrine, which is accurate: the term has no independent legal content beyond identifying the target of execution.
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Jurisdictional Note
The formula originates in English common law practice and was adopted in early American federal and state courts following English precedent. Its practical significance declined as equity practice, statutory probate procedure, and modern civil rules displaced the old writ-based execution system. Researchers working in jurisdictions that abolished common law pleading early will find this term relevant only to historical sources.
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