Editing Form of action (section)

===Abolition of the forms===

Because the forms of action remained largely static from the 13th century, English lawyers and judges formulated a number of [[legal fiction]]s in order to fit new types of cases within the existing forms.<ref name="Hepburn_Page_25">{{cite book |last1=Hepburn |first1=Charles McGuffey |title=The Historical Development of Code Pleading in America and England |date=1897 |publisher=W.H. Anderson & Co. |location=Cincinnati |page=25|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZAk-AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA25 |access-date=18 November 2023}}</ref>

For example, in a writ of debt ''sur contract'', the defendant could generally elect between having a jury trial or [[wager of law]]. The latter was a particularly undesired option for a plaintiff because the defendant could ''hire'' oath-helpers. This and other restrictions (for example, that the sum the plaintiff sued for had to be a fixed rather than an [[Liquidated damages|unliquidated]] sum) made debt ''sur contract'' undesirable for enforcing oral contracts. In the 16th century, litigants began to bring an action on the case instead: an action of assumpsit. The plaintiff would allege that, because the defendant was indebted to the plaintiff, the defendant had undertaken (''assumpsit'') to pay the money. The Court of King's Bench gradually accepted that the subsequent promise did not need to be proven: the defendant's alleged promise to pay the antecedent debt would be supplied by law. This view was vindicated in ''[[Slade's Case]]'' (1602).

The forms themselves remained unchallenged. The Court of Chancery eventually ceased to be the answer to the restrictive approach at common law. By the 16th century the intervention of the [[Lord Chancellor]] was increasingly said to depend on principles, rather than on some unbounded discretion. Chancery developed a stronger system of precedent and, in the words of [[John Baker (legal historian)|Professor Sir John Baker]], "hardened into a kind of law".<ref name="Baker_Page_119">{{cite book |last1=Baker |first1=John |author1-link=John Baker (legal historian) |title=An Introduction to English Legal History |date=2019 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=9780198812609 |page=119 |edition=5th |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0S0zEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA119 |access-date=August 26, 2023}}</ref>

During the 19th century, [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|Parliament]] passed several laws to simplify legal procedure, and the old forms of action were gradually swept away:
* For personal forms of action, the [[Uniformity of Process Act 1832]] ([[2 & 3 Will. 4]]. c. 39) imposed a single uniform process. The older forms of writ were abolished and a new form of writ was to be used, although the writ had to state the form of action that was being used.<ref name="Baker_Page_75">{{cite book |last1=Baker |first1=John |author1-link=John Baker (legal historian) |title=An Introduction to English Legal History |date=2019 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=9780198812609 |page=75 |edition=5th |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0S0zEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA75 |access-date=August 26, 2023}}</ref>
* The next year, most real and mixed actions were abolished, by section 36 of the [[Real Property Limitation Act 1833]] ([[3 & 4 Will. 4]]. c. 27).<ref name="Baker_Page_75" />
* There then followed the [[Common Law Procedure Act 1852]] ([[15 & 16 Vict.]] c. 76), which dropped the requirement that any particular form of action should be mentioned within a writ.<ref name="Baker_Page_75" /> 
* With the passage of the [[Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873]] ([[36 & 37 Vict.]] c. 66), most of the last vestiges of the forms of action were removed. The flexible bill procedure of Chancery was adopted by the common law courts. It was now only necessary to state the facts sufficient to give rise to one's [[cause of action]].{{cn|date=August 2023}}
The final vestige of the forms of action was abolished in 1980 by Chancellor [[Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone|Hailsham]]: the language of the original writs in which the sovereign commanded the defendant to appear in court and answer, or else.  Lord Hailsham felt that "sending a command from [[Elizabeth II|the queen herself]] was too intimidating" for ordinary laypeople. The last original writ in the name of the queen was issued on 2 June 1980.<ref name="Baker_Page_75" />