Definition
Trespass quare clausum (often shortened to trespass quare clausum fregit, or "trespass q.c.f.") is the common law form of action brought to recover damages for an unlawful entry upon the plaintiff's land. The full Latin phrase means "why he broke the close" — the writ demanding that the defendant explain why he entered and disturbed the plaintiff's enclosed ground without right.
"Close" in this context does not require a physical enclosure. It refers to any defined interest a person holds in a particular piece of ground — enclosed or open — so long as the plaintiff has a possessory interest in the soil itself. Entry without right upon such a close, however slight, constitutes the trespass. No actual damage to the land was required; the unlawful entry was itself the actionable wrong.
Where the plaintiff held only an interest in the profits of the land (such as an easement or profit à prendre) rather than in the soil itself, the action trespass quare clausum fregit was not available; a different form of action was required to vindicate that lesser interest.
Common Language
This term has no meaningful counterpart in ordinary modern or historical English. "Trespass" does appear in common usage, but the Latin form trespass quare clausum is pure legal terminology of the common law pleading system. See the entry for TRESPASS for the gap between common and legal usage of that parent term.
Common Confusion
TRESPASS QUARE CLAUSUM FREGIT vs. TRESPASS VI ET ARMIS: These are distinct common law forms. Trespass quare clausum fregit addressed injuries to real property through unlawful entry. Trespass vi et armis ("by force and arms") addressed direct injuries to persons or personal property. The distinction mattered critically under the old forms of action because pleading the wrong form was fatal to the plaintiff's case.
TRESPASS QUARE CLAUSUM vs. TRESPASS ON THE CASE: Where the injury to land was indirect — consequential rather than immediate — the proper action was trespass on the case (or simply "case"), not trespass quare clausum fregit. The line between direct and consequential entry was often contested and generated substantial early common law litigation.
Core Elements
To maintain trespass quare clausum fregit at common law, the plaintiff needed to establish:
1. POSSESSION OR RIGHT TO POSSESSION: The plaintiff held a possessory interest in the soil at the time of entry. A freehold owner, a leaseholder, and certain licensees with possessory rights all qualified. An interest in profits only did not suffice.
2. UNLAWFUL ENTRY: The defendant entered the plaintiff's close without license, justification, or legal authority. Entry could be by the defendant's person, by agents, by animals under the defendant's control, or by objects placed by the defendant.
3. WITHOUT CONSENT: The entry was not authorized by the plaintiff, by law, or by any right the defendant independently held in the property.
4. ACTUALITY OF ENTRY: Some actual crossing of the close was required — the action did not lie for threatened entry alone.
No proof of actual damage was required. The law presumed damages from the unlawful entry itself, making nominal damages available as of right.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering this term in historical sources should note several navigational points.
The Latin abbreviation varies across sources. You will find "trespass q.c.f.," "quare clausum fregit," "trespass to close," and simply "trespass to land" used interchangeably depending on the era and jurisdiction. Pre-nineteenth-century English and American pleading records will use the full Latin form or its abbreviations; post-common law reform sources (post-1848 in U.S. code pleading states, post-1873 in England under the Judicature Acts) shift to "trespass to land" or fold the action into general tort pleading.
The survival of the writ form matters for reading older cases. Many reported decisions from the seventeenth through early nineteenth century turn not on the substantive law of property but on whether the plaintiff chose the correct writ. A case that appears to be "lost" on trespass grounds may in fact have been dismissed for pleading trespass quare clausum when trespass on the case was required — or vice versa. Researchers tracing the development of the law of land entry must account for this procedural filtering.
The "close" concept is broader than modern readers expect. Because close encompasses unenclosed land in which the plaintiff has a soil interest, historical cases use the term in ways that can appear to conflict with the plain meaning of "enclosure." This is not inconsistency; it reflects the technical legal definition. Bouvier notes the distinction explicitly: interest in soil supports the action; interest in profits only does not.
American jurisdictions adopted trespass quare clausum fregit from English common law but diverged in how long they retained the writ forms. Southern and mid-Atlantic states tended to preserve the Latin pleading vocabulary longer than New England states, which moved toward code pleading earlier. Federal equity practice retained distinct traces of the old forms even after state law reforms.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary provides the foundational entry under the heading FREGIT, treating the term as part of the compound phrase quare clausum fregit and defining it as the form of action lying to recover damages for injuries to realty consequent on entry without right. Bouvier explicitly addresses the "close" definitional issue — confirming it covers unenclosed ground — and flags the limitation where the plaintiff holds only an interest in profits rather than the soil itself. This is a careful and technically precise entry consistent with the treatise tradition of the period.
Older English dictionary sources (not included in this corpus) treat the term similarly but with greater emphasis on the pleading mechanics of the original writ. Blackstone's Commentaries addressed the action in the context of the forms of action generally, noting the breadth of the "close" concept and the availability of nominal damages for bare entry.
What historical dictionary sources characteristically omit is the procedural history of how courts resolved the line between trespass quare clausum fregit and trespass on the case. That doctrinal history — essential to understanding why the cases came out as they did — must be reconstructed from reported decisions and treatises such as Chitty on Pleading rather than from dictionary entries alone.
Jurisdictional Note
In England, trespass quare clausum fregit as a distinct writ form was effectively abolished by the Common Law Procedure Act 1852 and the Judicature Acts 1873–75, replaced by unified civil procedure. In the United States, abolition was state-by-state through code pleading reform beginning with the New York Field Code of 1848. The modern equivalent is simply the tort of trespass to land, but in states that retained common law pleading longer, the Latin terminology persisted in case law well into the twentieth century.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Trespass to Land
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Forms of Action at Common Law
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Possessory Interests in Real Property