1. And also. • These words introduced a genuine claim in a pleading in a common-law case in which a fictitious claim had to be alleged to give the court jurisdiction. In other words, the phrase ac etiam directed the court to the real cause of action. — Also spelled acetiam.
“[T]o remedy this inconvenience, the officers of the king’s bench devised a method of adding what is called a clause of ac etiam to the usual complaint of trespass; the bill of Middlesex commanding the defendant to be brought in to answer the plaintiff of a plea of trespass, and also to a bill of debt: the complaint of trespass giving cognizance to the court, and that of debt authorizing the arrest.” 3 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 288 (1768).
“[Once] it was established that the King’s Bench was not exclusively a court for ‘crown cases,’ but could also be used for civil litigation, it was not difficult to extend the jurisdiction a step further by allowing the ordinary citizen to allege that the defendant had committed a trespass or other breach of the peace ‘and also’ that the defendant was under some obligation to the plaintiff, and to treat the allegation concerning breach of the peace as a mere fiction which need not be proved, and to allow the suit to be maintained solely on the basis of the civil obligation. The Latin words ‘ac etiam’ were the crucial ones in the old complaint that stated the fictitious breach of the peace ‘and also’ the actual civil obligation.” Charles Herman Kinnane, A First Book on Anglo-American Law 269 (2d ed. 1952).
2. The clause that introduced the real allegation after a fictitious allegation of trespass.
— Also termed (in sense 2) ac etiam clause.
