Definition
A pleading phrase used in indictments and criminal complaints to establish that a particular act occurred at the same time and place as a previously averred act or circumstance. The phrase operates as a cross-reference within a charging document: "then" ties the act to a moment already identified, and "there" ties it to a location already identified. Together, they assert precise co-occurrence — temporal and spatial — with the antecedent averment.
The phrase functions as a formal term of art in drafting rather than as substantive law. Its legal force depends entirely on the strength of what came before it. When a prior averment fixes a definite time and place, "then and there" binds the subsequent act to that same fixed point with precision. When the antecedent averment is indefinite, "then and there" carries the same indefiniteness forward and does not supply the specificity that the antecedent lacked.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Right at that moment in time and on the spot; immediately.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): No distinct entry; the phrase would have been understood in ordinary usage as equivalent to the modern meaning — simultaneously and on the spot.
The gap between common and legal meaning is subtle but consequential. In ordinary speech, "then and there" conveys immediacy and spontaneity. In pleading, it is a term of structural reference, not spontaneity — it points backward to a prior averment and draws its meaning from that antecedent. A reader approaching an indictment with only the common meaning risks misreading "then and there" as independently asserting timing and location, when in fact it asserts only that the timing and location match whatever was previously established.
Common Confusion
THEN AND THERE vs. AT THE TIME AND PLACE AFORESAID: Older indictments use both formulations. They are functionally equivalent but "at the time and place aforesaid" is an explicit backward reference, while "then and there" is the compressed form. Researchers sometimes read "then and there" as a freestanding allegation of time and place. It is not — it is always referential.
THEN AND THERE vs. FORTHWITH / IMMEDIATELY: In common usage these overlap. In pleading, "then and there" does not mean the act followed quickly — it means the act was co-occurring or co-located with the referenced event. Confusing these can distort the reading of a charging document.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with historical indictments, informations, or criminal complaints will encounter "then and there" as a near-universal formula in common law pleading. Its presence is not incidental — courts scrutinized the phrase when defendants challenged the sufficiency of an indictment, particularly whether the charging document described the offense with adequate certainty.
The critical research trap: the phrase is only as specific as its antecedent. An indictment that avers a vague time (e.g., "on a day in June") and then states "then and there committed" has not fixed a precise moment, despite appearances. Courts recognized this, and historical opinions analyzing defective indictments frequently turn on exactly this point — whether the antecedent averment supplied the definiteness that "then and there" purported to carry forward.
For researchers working in corpus sources, be alert to the phrase appearing in boilerplate. Its routine presence in a charging document does not guarantee that time and place were adequately pleaded. Conversely, in a well-drafted indictment, "then and there" does real work by collapsing multiple acts into a single time-and-place framework without re-averring those coordinates each time.
The phrase also appears in civil pleading, particularly in older common law declarations, though its role there is less formalized and the case law less developed than on the criminal side.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's is the primary historical source addressing this phrase as a term of art. Bouvier identifies the core principle cleanly: when "then and there" follows an averment that fixes a single, precise act, it establishes strict co-occurrence — the two acts must be understood as exactly simultaneous. When the antecedent is imprecise, the subsequent "then" is equally imprecise and does not independently supply definiteness.
Bouvier's entry, though fragmentary in the surviving text, captures the essential rule that historical courts applied when testing indictments for sufficiency. The entry does not develop the civil pleading use of the phrase, and no other major historical dictionary (Black's early editions, Burrill, Wharton) elevates this phrase to a standalone entry, treating it instead as self-evident drafting convention. This reflects how thoroughly the phrase was embedded in practice — practitioners understood it without needing definition. Researchers should not mistake that silence for irrelevance; the phrase generated real motion practice when indictments were challenged.