TIIS - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

TIISAuthored

The Law Mind • 601 words

Definition

A Latin abbreviation appearing in older legal texts and court records, standing for the phrase *transactis iis negotiis* — "laying aside all other businesses" or "all other matters having been set aside." The phrase signals that a court or judicial proceeding has cleared its docket of other pending matters in order to address the matter at hand. It functions as a procedural notation indicating priority or focused attention on a specific case or question.

Why It Matters in Research

TIIS is a relic term appearing almost exclusively in older English and early American case law and treatise annotations. Researchers encountering it in historical legal materials — particularly pre-19th century English reports — should treat it as a procedural marker rather than a substantive legal concept. Its appearance does not signal a legal doctrine or rule; it signals that the court has formally set aside competing business.

The primary citation anchoring this term across the historical dictionaries is 9 East 347, a reference to the English King's Bench reports compiled by Edward East, published in the early 19th century. Researchers working with early English case law will recognize this reporter series; the citation is consistent across all dictionary sources and provides a reliable anchor for confirming the term's usage in context.

Because TIIS carries no ongoing doctrinal weight, it will not appear in modern legal indices, headnotes, or statutory compilations. Its value to corpus researchers is purely interpretive: when encountered in a transcribed or scanned historical document, it should be read as a procedural gloss rather than a legal term of art requiring analysis. Researchers transcribing or indexing historical materials should flag it as Latin abbreviation rather than misreading it as a party name, case identifier, or substantive legal term.

Historical Dictionary Support

All three historical sources consulted — Black's (1st and 2nd editions) and Burrill's — provide essentially identical treatment: a Latin gloss followed by the single citation to 9 East 347. None of the sources elaborates on the term's doctrinal context, procedural history, or frequency of use, which itself is instructive. The term was included in legal dictionaries primarily as a reference tool for practitioners reading older reports rather than as a living term of practice.

Burrill's Law Dictionary adds a secondary cross-reference directing readers to "De consuetudinibus et servitiis," a separate entry dealing with customs and services — an apparent editorial artifact from a neighboring entry rather than a substantive connection to TIIS. Researchers should disregard this cross-reference as editorially incidental.

The 2nd edition of Black's embeds the TIIS entry within a cluster of maxim entries, including several *omne* maxims, which appears to be a formatting artifact of dictionary pagination rather than any thematic grouping. Nothing in the surrounding material qualifies or extends the meaning of TIIS.

No disagreement exists among the sources on meaning. The uniformity of treatment suggests the term had a fixed, narrow definition by the time these dictionaries were compiled, with no recorded dispute about its usage or scope.

TIISmain

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910

Lat. Laying aside all other busi- . nesses. 9 Hast, 347. OMITT.AN CE. Forbearance; omission. Omne actum ab intentione agentis est judicandum. Every act is to be judged by the intention of the doer. Branch, Prine. » Omne crimen ebrietas et incendit et detegit. Drunkenness both inflames (or aggravates) and reveals every crime. Co. Litt. 247a; 4 Bl. Comm. 26; Broom, Max. 17. Omne jus aut consensus fecit, aut ne« cessitas coustituit aut firmavit consuetudo. Every right fg either made by consent, or is constituted by necessity, or is established by custom. Dig. 1, 3, 40. ‘ Omne magis dignum trahit ad se mimus dignum, quamvis minus dignum sit antiquius. Every wortbier thing draws to it the less worthy, though. the less worthy be the more ancient. Co. Litt. 3550. Omne magnum exemplum habet aliHob. 279. Every great exwhich is compensatur. ample has some portion of evil, compensated by the public utility. _ Omne majus continet in se minus. Every greater contains in itself the less. 5 Coke, 115a. The greater always contains the less. aii max 174. Omne =e oe fieawsi continet in se minus dignum. Co. Litt. 43. The more worthy contains in itself the less. worthy. Omne majus minus in se soeciseiitas: Every greater embraces in itself the less. Jenk. Cent. 208. Omne Baer ere fs ‘trahit ad se accessorium. Every principal thing draws to it- ‘by the testator himself. In order: to be valid