ULTRA MARE - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

ULTRA MAREAuthored

The Law Mind • 777 words

Definition

Latin and Law Latin phrase meaning "beyond the sea." In historical English common law procedure, ultra mare denoted one of the recognized essoins — formal excuses accepted by a court for a party's failure to appear at the return of process. A litigant or defendant who was beyond the sea at the time required for appearance could plead this excuse to obtain a delay without incurring default or other procedural penalty. The excuse acknowledged that the physical impossibility of crossing the sea in time justified the absence.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): No independent entry exists for ultra mare as an ordinary English phrase. The component words are familiar Latin: ultra ("beyond") and mare ("sea").

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): No entry for ultra mare as a standalone phrase. Webster's treats "beyond seas" as a compound having legal significance in the law of limitations and excuses for appearance.

Editorial note: The phrase carries no modern common meaning. It belongs entirely to the technical vocabulary of historical common law procedure, where "beyond the sea" had precise legal consequences that extended well beyond the geographic observation of someone being at sea.

Common Confusion

Ultra mare is easily conflated with two related but distinct concepts. First, "beyond seas" (the English-language equivalent) appears in a different legal context — statutes of limitations — where being beyond the seas could toll the running of a limitations period. That tolling doctrine is separate from the procedural essoin of ultra mare, though both rest on the same geographic premise. Second, ultra mare is sometimes loosely associated with ultra vires, a superficially similar Latin-prefixed term encountered in the same historical sources. The two are unrelated: ultra vires concerns excess of legal authority; ultra mare concerns physical absence across water.

Why It Matters in Research

Researchers working in pre-nineteenth-century English common law sources will encounter ultra mare primarily in discussions of essoins — the procedural mechanism for excusing non-appearance. The essoin system was largely abolished by English procedural reform in the nineteenth century, making ultra mare a term of historical significance rather than active doctrine.

Two research traps deserve attention. First, the phrase appears inconsistently across historical sources: Burrill's entry preserves the Law French parallel (outre meer), which may be the form found in older Year Books and plea rolls. Researchers working in medieval or early modern records should recognize both forms as equivalent. Second, ultra mare appears in close proximity to discussions of ultra vires in several historical dictionaries, most notably in Rapalje & Lawrence, where the entries are physically adjacent. This proximity has occasionally generated bibliographic confusion. The terms share only a Latin prefix; their doctrines are entirely unconnected.

For corpus researchers, ultra mare will surface in sections treating common law pleading, the law of essoins, and procedural history. It is unlikely to appear in modern sources except in legal history scholarship or historical notes on statutes of limitations — where "beyond the seas" as a tolling concept survived the abolition of essoins themselves.

Historical Dictionary Support

All four shelf sources agree on the core definition: ultra mare means "beyond the sea" and was one of the old essoins or excuses for non-appearance at the return of process. Burrill's is the most complete entry, preserving the Law French form outre meer and citing Bracton folio 338, the primary medieval authority. Bouvier's and Black's track Burrill's substance closely, each citing Bracton. Rapalje & Lawrence provides the barest treatment, noting the definition and directing to the ESSOIN entry for fuller context.

None of the four sources elaborates on the procedural mechanics — how the essoin was pled, how long a delay it might obtain, or how courts verified the claimed absence. Researchers needing that level of detail should consult Bracton directly or the secondary historical literature on the essoin system. The historical dictionaries treat ultra mare as a settled, minor term requiring only identification, not analysis.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

See: Corporate Formation — Corporate Purpose, Powers, and Ultra Vires Doctrine (The Law Mind Business Organizations & Corporate Law Encyclopedia) — for the distinct doctrine of ultra vires, useful background when distinguishing between these superficially similar Latin phrases.

ULTRA MAREmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1883

- Beyond sea. the old essoins or excuses for failing to appear in been given in the manner required by its court. See ESSOIN. constitution. Thus, where a company delegates certain powers to its directors, ULTRA VIRES, in the law of corpoall acts done by the directors beyond the rations, is used in two senses. scope of those powers are ultra vires, and not binding on the company, unless it subsequently ratifies them. An act which is ultra vires in the primary sense of the word (1) is incapable of ratification. 1. Of a corporation itself.-A contract or similar act is said to be ultra vires of a corporation when it purports to be entered into or done in pursuance of the powers conferred on the corporation, but is really beyond them. Thus, if a company is incorporated for the purpose of constructing a railway, it cannot, under the powers thereby conferred on it, construct a harbor, and any act done in the name of the company with that object is wholly void, even if sanctioned by all the members of the company; à fortiori, therefore, a majority of the shareholders cannot bind a dissentient minority by any such act. (Hodg. Railw. 60 et seq.; Brice U. V. 52 et seq.; Ashbury, &c., Co. v. Riche, L. R. 7 H. L. 653.) But the doctrine does not apply to those things which are fairly incidental to what the company is empowered to do, although they may not be expressly authorized. (Att.-Gen. v. Great Eastern Rail. Co., 5 App. Cas. 473.) It is said that the term "ultra vires" is used in another sense to signify that a certain act is not void as being beyond the powers of the corporation, but that it is not binding on the members who dissent from it because it is contrary to some provision, express or implied, for the protection of the shareholders; on this principle, if a not to take advantage of his own wrong. ULTRA VIRES, (as used in reference to corporate acts). 37 Cal. 543; 43 Iowa 48; 71 Me. 472, 474.