JOHN DOE

John Doe.A fictitious name used in a legal proceeding to designate a person whose identity is unknown, to protect a person’s known identity, or to indicate that a true defendant does not exist. Cf. JANE DOE; RICHARD ROE. [Cases: Federal Civil Procedure 101; Parties 67, 73.C.J.S. Parties §§ 170, 172.]

“Sheriffs in time growing remiss in their duty, allowed of any persons as pledges, sometimes returning the names of fictitious persons as pledges, at others, neglecting to require or return any at all…. And the legislature, to supply the want of real persons as pledges, and recompense the defendant where he has been unjustly or vexatiously sued, has by various statutes, either given him the costs he has incurred in making his defence; or else deprived the plaintiff of recovering those costs he is entitled to by law, in cases of obtaining a verdict, by leaving it to the judge at the trial to certify on the record, that he had little or no cause of action. Since these statutes for allowing the defendant his costs, where the plaintiff fails, or is nonsuited, the writ to the coroner to affeer the pledges has fallen into disuse, and two good-natured personages, John Doe and Richard Roe, from their universal acquaintance and peculiar longevity, have become the ready and common pledges of every suitor.” 1 George Crompton, Rules and Cases of Practice in the Courts of King’s Bench and Common Pleas xlvii (3d ed. 1787).

“The fictitious names John Doe and Richard Roe regularly appeared in actions of ejectment … at common law. Doe was the nominal plaintiff, who by a fiction was said to have entered land under a valid lease; Roe was said to have ejected Doe, and the lawsuit took the title Doe v. Roe. These fictional allegations disappeared upon the enactment of the Common Law Procedure Act of 1852…. Beyond actions of ejectment, and esp. in the U.S., John Doe, Jane Doe, Richard Roe, Jane

Roe, and Peter Poe have come to identify a party to a lawsuit whose true name is either unknown or purposely shielded.” Bryan A. Garner, A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage 290–91 (2d ed.

1995).

[Blacks Law 8th]