Legal Definitions - miskenning

Definition: Miskenning (mis-ken-ing) is a wrongful summons or a pleading mistake or irregularity. It comes from the French word "misw" meaning "wrong" and the Saxon word "cennan" meaning "to declare."

For example, in the past, every defeated plaintiff could be punished for a false claim. Any fraudulent misuse of the law would be punished by imprisonment. Every mistake in pleading, every miskenning, brought a punishment on the pleader if the mistake was to be retrieved. A litigant who hoped to get to the end of his suit without a punishment must have been a very optimistic person.

This means that if someone made a mistake in their legal documents or summoned someone wrongly, they could be punished. This was common in the past, and people had to be very careful when they were involved in legal proceedings.