Legal Dictionary of Pakistan
Quick lookup for English, Urdu, and Latin legal terms used in Pakistani jurisprudence.
Indebitatus assumpsit
[latin "being indebted, he undertook"] 1. Hist. A form of action in which the plaintiff alleges that the defendant contracted a debt and, as consideration, had undertaken (i.e., promised) to pay. 0 the action was equivalent to the common-law action for debt (an action based on a sealed instrument), but could be used to enforce an oral debt. Indebitatus assumpsit was abolished in 1873 by the judicature act. See concessit solvere. 2. See general assumpsit. "[i]f i verbally agree to pay a man a certain price for a certain parcel of goods, and fail in the performance, an action of debt lies against me; for this is a determinate contract: but if i agree for no settled price, i am not liable to an action of debt, but a special action on the case, according to the nature of my contract. And indeed actions of debt are now seldom brought but upon special contracts under seal .... [t]he plaintiff must recover the whole debt he claims, or nothing at all. For the debt is one single cause of action, fixed and determined; and which therefore, if the proof varies from the claim, cannot be looked upon as the same ... Action of debt .... But in an action on the case, on what is called an indebitatus assumpsit, which is not brought to compel a specific performance of the contract, but to recover damages for its non-performance, the implied assumpsit, and consequently the damages for the breach of it, are in their nature indeterminate; and will therefore adapt and proportion themselves to the truth of the case which shall be proved, without being confined to the precise demand stated in the declaration." 3 william blackstone, commentaries on the laws of england 154 (1768).
indebitatus
p.pl. [Law Latin] Indebted. See NUNQUAM INDEBITATUS.
indebitatus assumpsit
See ASSUMPSIT.
nunquam indebitatus
n. [Latin "never indebted"] Hist. A defensive plea in a debt action, by which the defendant denies any indebtedness to the plaintiff. Cf. CONCESSIT SOLVERE.