Scire Facias

• Author: Jeffrey Lehman, Shirelle Phelps

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[Latin, Made known.] A judicial writ requiring a defendant to appear in court and prove why an

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existing judgment should not be executed against him or her.

In the law, scire facias is a judicial writ that is brought in a case that has already been before a court. Writ is the old English term for a judicial order. Some states still use the term. A scire facias writ commands the person against whom it is brought to appear before the court and show why the record should not be resolved in favor of the party who brought the writ.

The scire facias writ originated in England, and its use was adopted by the American colonists. In eighteenth-century England, the writ was used to repeal letters patent. Letters patent were letters written by the king or queen that granted inventors exclusive patent rights over their inventions. Any person who thought a patent was invalid based on false information or the existence of a prior invention could ask the royal Court of Chancery to request the presence of the patent holder to justify the patent. If there was a genuine...