Also known as: spondesne · spondeo · stipulatio · stipulation
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A Latin phrase in Roman law by which one citizen formally asked whether another would undertake an obligation and received an affirmative response. The exchange created a sponsio or stipulatio that bound the parties under formal verbal contract.
Sarah Sullivan faced a felon-in-possession charge and offered to stipulate to her status as a felon. The prosecutor declined and sought to introduce the full record of her earlier conviction. The court weighed the probative value against the risk of unfair prejudice before deciding whether the detailed evidence could reach the jury.
Sydney Santos sued a New York museum in federal court for damage to a painting. The parties executed a stipulation fixing New York law as the governing standard for damage calculations. The court applied that stipulation when reviewing the jury award under state excessiveness standards.
William Gasperini, a journalist and photographer who had taken over 5,000 slide transparencies while reporting in Central America, agreed in 1990 to supply 300 of his original color transparencies to The Center for Humanities, Inc., for use in an educational videotape titled Conflict in Central America. After the project concluded, the Center could not locate or return the transparencies, prompting Gasperini to pursue legal remedies for their loss. Gasperini, a California citizen, sued the Center, a New York corporation with its principal place of business in New York, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. He invoked diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332 and alleged state-law claims for breach of contract, conversion, and negligence. The Center conceded liability, so the case proceeded to trial solely on damages. At the three-day jury trial, Gasperini's expert testified that the industry standard valued each lost transparency at $1,500 as the average license fee over the photographer's copyright term. Gasperini testified that his photography earnings from 1984 through 1993 totaled just over $10,000 and that he planned to publish a book of his best Central American photographs. The jury returned a verdict of $450,000, or $1,500 for each of the 300 slides. The Center moved for a new trial under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59, invoking both the federal standard and New York Civil Practice Law and Rules § 5501(c). The District Court denied the motion without comment. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated the judgment after applying the New York deviates-materially standard itself. The Second Circuit surveyed Appellate Division decisions on similar awards and concluded that the verdict materially deviated from reasonable compensation because many slides were generic and Gasperini had limited earnings. It ordered a new trial unless Gasperini accepted a reduction to $100,000. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve the conflict over the proper standard.
View caseSpencer Silver filed for divorce in Iowa after living there only six weeks. His spouse stipulated that the couple had not met the one-year residency requirement. The court accepted the stipulation and dismissed the action for lack of jurisdiction.
Carol Sosna married Michael Sosna on September 5, 1964, in Michigan. They lived together in New York between October 1967 and August 1971, after which they separated but continued to reside there. In August 1972 Sosna moved to Iowa with her three children. The following month she petitioned the District Court of Jackson County, Iowa, for dissolution of her marriage. Michael Sosna was personally served when he visited Iowa and made a special appearance to contest jurisdiction. The Iowa court dismissed the petition for lack of jurisdiction under Iowa Code § 598.6 because Sosna had not resided in the state for one year preceding the filing. Instead of appealing, Sosna filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa seeking injunctive and declaratory relief on constitutional grounds. A three-judge court was convened pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 2281 and 2284. While the federal action was pending, the Iowa Supreme Court decided In re Marriage of Williams, 217 N.W.2d 202 (1974), and upheld the statute's constitutionality. The three-judge court upheld the residency requirement. This Court noted probable jurisdiction. During the appeal Sosna obtained a divorce in New York, though custody and support issues remained unresolved from the Iowa proceeding. She returned to Iowa to prosecute the appeal. Sosna sought class certification under Fed. R. Civ. P. 23 to represent Iowa residents who had lived in the state less than one year and wished to initiate divorce actions but were barred by the residency requirement. The parties stipulated that numerous people were similarly situated, joinder was impracticable, her claims were representative, and she would adequately protect class interests. The district court approved the stipulation in a pretrial order.
View caseSelena Singh purchased a cruise ticket containing a clause requiring all disputes to be litigated in Florida. She later sued in Washington state court. The court enforced the stipulation as a valid forum-selection agreement between the parties.
Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc., a Florida corporation, sold passage tickets for a seven-day cruise aboard its ship the Tropicale to Eulala and Russel Shute, who resided in Washington. The Shutes purchased the tickets through a travel agent in Arlington, Washington. The agent forwarded the payment to Carnival's headquarters in Miami, Florida. Carnival then prepared the tickets and mailed them to the Shutes in Washington. The face of each ticket directed passengers to read the terms and conditions on the last pages. Contract page 1 stated that acceptance of the ticket constituted agreement to all terms and conditions. This included a provision that all disputes arising under or in connection with the contract would be litigated, if at all, in a court located in the State of Florida to the exclusion of the courts of any other state or country. The Shutes boarded the Tropicale in Los Angeles, California. The ship sailed to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and then returned to Los Angeles. While the vessel was in international waters off the Mexican coast, Eulala Shute slipped on a deck mat during a guided tour of the ship's galley and was injured. The Shutes filed a negligence suit against Carnival in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington. Carnival moved for summary judgment. It contended that the forum-selection clause required the suit to be brought in Florida or, alternatively, that the district court lacked personal jurisdiction because Carnival's contacts with Washington were insubstantial. The district court granted the motion on personal jurisdiction grounds. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. It first concluded that Carnival's solicitation of business in Washington established sufficient contacts for personal jurisdiction. It then held that the forum-selection clause was unenforceable because it was not freely bargained for and because the Shutes were physically and financially incapable of litigating in Florida. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseSylvia Santos owned an apartment building. The cable company installed equipment on the roof without permission. The parties later stipulated that the installation constituted a permanent physical occupation. The court treated the stipulation as establishing a taking under the Fifth Amendment.
In 1970, Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp. obtained a permit from New York City to operate a cable television system in Manhattan. It entered into an agreement with the prior owner of a five-story apartment building at 303 West 105th Street to install cables on the roof in exchange for a flat fee of $50 per year. The installation included a cable slightly less than one-half inch in diameter and approximately 30 feet in length running along the roof about 18 inches above the surface. It also included directional taps measuring approximately 4 inches by 4 inches by 4 inches on the front and rear of the roof. Two large silver boxes were placed along the roof cables. Additional cable was extended another 4 to 6 feet. All components were attached by screws or nails penetrating the masonry at approximately two-foot intervals. In 1971, Jean Loretto purchased the building. At the time of purchase the cable installation was already in place as part of a larger network serving adjacent buildings, though Loretto did not discover its existence until after she took possession. Two years later Teleprompter connected a noncrossover line by dropping a cable down the front of the building to serve Loretto's own tenants. In 1973 the New York Legislature enacted section 828 of the Executive Law, effective January 1, 1973, which prohibited landlords from interfering with cable television installations on their property, barred landlords from demanding payment from tenants for permitting service, and limited any payment from a cable company to an amount the State Commission on Cable Television determined to be reasonable; the Commission later set the presumptive fee at a one-time $1 payment. In 1976 Loretto filed a class action against Teleprompter in New York Supreme Court on behalf of all owners of real property in the state on which Teleprompter had placed cable components, alleging trespass and a taking without just compensation and seeking damages and injunctive relief; the City of New York, which had granted Teleprompter an exclusive franchise for parts of Manhattan, intervened as a defendant. The Supreme Court, Special Term, granted summary judgment to Teleprompter and the city. The Appellate Division affirmed without opinion. The New York Court of Appeals upheld the statute. The Supreme Court of the United States noted probable jurisdiction.
View caseSamantha Stone bought a new car whose purchase order contained a clause disclaiming all implied warranties. After the vehicle proved defective she sued the dealer. The court examined whether the stipulation in the contract validly excluded the implied warranty of merchantability.
In May 1955, Claus H. Henningsen purchased a new 1955 Plymouth Plaza Club Sedan from Bloomfield Motors, Inc., an authorized De Soto and Plymouth dealer for Chrysler Corporation. Mr. Henningsen intended the car as a Mother's Day gift for his wife, Helen Henningsen, and communicated that intention to the dealer. He alone signed a one-page printed purchase-order form. The reverse side contained, in fine six-point script type, a warranty clause limiting the manufacturer's obligation to replacement of defective parts within ninety days or four thousand miles and disclaiming all other warranties, express or implied. The front of the form contained two even smaller paragraphs directing attention to the back-side conditions. The form was a standardized document prepared by the manufacturer and used by all its dealers. No one called the fine-print provisions to Mr. Henningsen's attention, and he did not read them. The car was delivered on May 9, 1955, after the dealer performed the items listed in Chrysler's New Car Preparation Service Guide. On May 19, 1955, while Mrs. Henningsen was driving north on Route 36 in Highlands, New Jersey, at twenty to twenty-two miles per hour on a smooth, paved highway, she heard a loud noise from the front of the car. The steering wheel spun in her hands and the vehicle veered sharply into a highway sign and brick wall. The car had been driven only 468 miles, had required no servicing, and had exhibited no unusual behavior before the accident. An insurance appraiser with eleven years of experience examined the wrecked vehicle and concluded that something in the steering mechanism from the wheel down to the front wheels had broken or dropped off. Plaintiffs also presented expert testimony that the steering failure resulted from a latent manufacturing defect that could not have been discovered by reasonable inspection. The negligence counts against both defendants were dismissed at trial. The case was submitted to the jury solely on the implied-warranty claims. The jury returned verdicts for both plaintiffs against Chrysler Corporation and Bloomfield Motors, Inc. Defendants appealed and plaintiffs cross-appealed from the dismissal of the negligence claim. The Supreme Court of New Jersey certified the matter directly before consideration by the Appellate Division.
View caseThe phrase translates as Do you agree to undertake? followed by the response I undertake. It formed the verbal exchange that created a binding sponsio under Roman law.
Only Roman citizens could employ the phrase. Non-citizens lacked capacity to create a sponsio through this formal verbal contract.
The exchange created an enforceable stipulatio that bound the promisor to perform the stated obligation. Breach exposed the promisor to an action for damages under Roman law.
The phrase supplied the historical root for the concept of stipulation as a binding agreement. Modern procedural rules still recognize stipulations as party agreements that courts will enforce when properly made.