Definition
A Latin phrase meaning "both of us." Historically used as operative language in bonds to express joint — rather than several — obligation, signifying that the liability described ran to both obligors together, not to each independently.
Common Confusion
Utrumque nostrum stands in deliberate contrast to quemlibet nostrum, meaning "each of us" or "any one of us." The distinction is not merely stylistic. Utrumque nostrum created a joint obligation requiring both obligors to be bound together, while quemlibet nostrum created a joint and several obligation allowing a creditor to proceed against either obligor individually. Confusing the two phrases in historical documents will produce a fundamental misreading of the nature and enforceability of the underlying bond obligation.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in historical bond instruments and the cases and treatises interpreting them. Researchers working with early English legal records, pleadings in debt, or pre-modern bond instruments should recognize utrumque nostrum as a signal that the draftsman intended joint — not several — liability. The phrase had practical procedural consequences: under early common law, a joint obligation required all obligors to be joined in an action, and the death of one obligor could extinguish the survivor's liability in ways that several obligations did not.
The term is unlikely to appear in modern instruments, where joint and several liability is typically expressed in plain English and governed by statute. Its research relevance today is almost entirely historical — appearing in Year Book cases, early Chancery records, and in treatises like Wingate's Maxims, which Burrill cites directly. Researchers using Law Mind's corpus of historical legal materials should be alert to the paired terminology: the presence of utrumque nostrum in a bond document is only fully understood when read against the alternative formulation quemlibet nostrum. A document using the former phrase set a different legal course than one using the latter, and mistranslating or overlooking either term can distort analysis of the parties' obligations entirely.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree on the core translation — "both of us" — and on the functional context: words used formerly in bonds. The definitions are brief and consistent, reflecting that by the time these dictionaries were compiled the phrase had already passed out of active legal use and survived only as an artifact of historical drafting practice.
Burrill's entry is the most instructive. It adds the critical comparative note that Burrill attributes to Wingate's Maxims and a reference to Dyer 19b, distinguishing utrumque nostrum from quemlibet nostrum and thereby clarifying that the significance of the phrase lies not in its isolated meaning but in the contrast it establishes within a recognized terminological pair. Black's first and second editions reproduce only the bare translation and context note, without the comparative gloss. Researchers relying solely on Black's would miss the functional legal distinction that gives the term its analytical weight.
No historical dictionary source elaborates on the procedural consequences of the distinction or traces its evolution across the common law — a gap that makes Burrill's citation to Dyer and Wingate the most useful research entry point for anyone pursuing the term's doctrinal history.
Jurisdictional Note
The phrase is a feature of English common law bond practice and appears in English legal records and treatises. American courts and instruments did not adopt it as a term of art, and its practical relevance is confined to English legal history and early colonial period documents that followed English drafting conventions.