Ghosts Of The Past - The Rule In Pigot's Case

For slightly over 400 years most common law jurisdictions have laboured under the strictures of the decision of Sir Edward Coke in Pigot's Case. Yet despite the risks that this rule presents, very few lawyers are familiar with the rule or its effect.

For all of the strengths that common law legal systems have, one of the weaknesses is ghosts of past in the form of ancient case law which rears its head in unwelcome circumstances. For slightly over 400 years most common law jurisdictions have laboured under the strictures of the decision of Sir Edward Coke in Pigot's Case (1614) 1 Co Rep 26b, 77 ER 1177. Yet despite the risks that this rule presents, very few lawyers - let alone lay persons - are familiar with the rule or its effect.

Background to Pigot's Case

In 1611 Henry Hudson was suffering the indignities of a mutiny after naming Hudson Bay after himself, and Shakespeare's last play (The Tempest, also ironically about a shipwreck) was debuting. In the same year, with rather less fanfare, a certain Mr Henry Pigot executed a bond acknowledging his indebtedness to one Benedict Winchcombe. Three years passed, and Winchcombe was subsequently...