1. A commission issuing from the court before which a case is pending, authorizing a person named in the commission to compel the attendance of certain witnesses, to take their testimony on the written interrogatories and cross-interrogatories attached to the commission, to reduce the answers to writing, and to send it sealed to the court issuing the commission.
2. In England, a chancery writ commissioning the persons named in the writ to take certain actions, including administering oaths to defendants and justices of the peace. • The writ was formerly used to commission a person to take action such as acknowledging a fine and appointing an attorney for representation in court. Before the Statute of Westminster (1285), an attorney could not appear on behalf of a party without this writ.
— Also termed dedimus potestatem de attorno faciendo.
“Dedimus potestatem is a writ that lies where a man sues in the king’s court, or is sued, and cannot well travel, then he shall have this writ directed to some justice, or other discreet person in the country, to give him power to admit some man for his attorney, or to levy a fine, or to take his confession, or his answer, or other examination, as the matter requires.” Termes de la Ley 148 (1st Am. ed. 1812).
