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ROLL Definition & Legal Meaning

Definition & Citations:

A schedule of parchment which may be turned up with the hand in the form of a pipe or tube. Jacob. A schedule or sheet of parchment on which legal proceedings are entered. Thus, in English practice, the roll of parchment on which tlie issue is entered is termed the “issue roll.” So the rolls of a manor, wherein the names, rents, and services of the tenants are copied and enrolled, are termed the “court rolls.” There are also various other rolls; as those which contain the records of the court of chancery, those which contain the registers of the proceedings of old parliaments, called “rolls of parliament,” etc. Brown. In English practice, there were formerly a great variety of these rolls, appropriated to the different proceedings; such as the war- rant of attorney roll, the process roll, the recognizance roll, the imparlance roll, the pica roll, the issue roll, the judgment roll, the scire facias roll, and the roll of proceedings on writs of error. 2 Tidd, Br. 729, 730. In modern practice, the term is sometimes used to denote a record of the proceedings of a court or public ollice. Thus, the “judgment roll” is the file of records comprising the pleadings iu a case, and all the other proceedings up to the judgment, arranged in order. In tiiis sense the use of the word has survived ils appropriateness; for such records are no longer prepared in the form of a roll.

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