Legal Definition of Stipulation

An agreement between parties to a dispute or court action that a certain fact is true or uncontested.2 min read

STIPULATION

An agreement between parties to a dispute or court action that a certain fact is true or uncontested. Also an agreement between parties to a specific procedure or action such as a stipulation to extend time to answer a complaint.

Roman Law

In the Roman law, the contract of stipulation was made in the following manner, namely; the person to whom the promise was to be made, proposed a question to him from whom it was to proceed, fully expressing tho nature and extent of the engagement and, the question so proposed being answered in the affirmative, the obligation was complete.

It was essentially necessary that both parties should speak, (so that a dumb man could not enter into a stipulation) that the person making the promise should answer conformably to the specific question, proposed, without any material interval of time, and with the intention of contracting an obligation.

From the general use of this mode of contracting, the term stipulation has been introduced into common parlance, and, in modern language, frequently refers to anything which forms a material article of an agreement; though it is applied more correctly and more conformably to its original meaning to denote the insisting upon and requiring any particular engagement.

In this contract the Roman law dispensed with an actual consideration.

Admiralty Courts

In the admiralty courts, the first process is frequently to arrest the defendant, and then they take the recognizances or stipulation of certain fide jussors in the nature of bail.

These stipulations are of three sorts, namely: l. Judicatum solvi, by which the party is absolutely bound to pay such sum as may be adjudged by the court. 2 De judico sisti, by which he is bound to appear from time to time, during the pendency of the suit, and to abide the sentence. 3. De ratio, or De rato, by which he engages to ratify the acts of his proctor: this stipulation is not usual in the admiralty courts of the United States.