Definition
A formal pleading phrase, derived from the Latin *venit et defendit*, traditionally placed at the opening of a defendant's plea or demurrer in response to the plaintiff's declaration. The phrase operates in two parts: "comes" signals the defendant's appearance before the court, acknowledging the court's jurisdiction over the person; "defends" signals that the defendant contests the action on the merits or by demurrer rather than submitting to judgment. Together, the phrase functions as a ritualized statement that the defendant is present, answerable, and prepared to resist the claim.
The full formula typically read: "And the said defendant comes and defends the wrong and injury, when, etc., and says that..." The words were not substantive argument — they were threshold formality, marking the boundary between the plaintiff's declaration and the defendant's responsive pleading.
Common Confusion
"Comes and defends" is sometimes loosely associated with general appearances or with modern answers, but the correspondence is imprecise. A general appearance in modern practice serves the same jurisdictional acknowledgment function as "comes," but the modern answer carries no equivalent to the ceremonial "defends the wrong and injury" formula. Researchers should not read "comes and defends" as a synonym for any current procedural filing; it belongs to the formal pleading system abolished in most jurisdictions by the mid-nineteenth century.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a term of historical pleading practice, not living doctrine. Researchers encounter it almost exclusively in pre-Field Code materials — English common law pleading treatises, early American state court records, and digests compiled before the procedural reforms of the 1840s–1850s. Its presence in a source is itself a dating signal: a document using "comes and defends" is operating under the formal common law pleading system, which demands different interpretive rules than code pleading or notice pleading that followed.
The phrase survived unevenly in American jurisdictions. Some states retained ceremonial common law pleading language long after structural reforms; others shed it almost immediately. When researching nineteenth-century state court records, the presence or absence of this phrase can help locate a document within the procedural transition. Do not assume its presence indicates substantive content — it carries no independent legal effect beyond the formal acknowledgment it expresses.
Researchers working on the history of civil procedure, the reception of English pleading forms in American courts, or early state practice will find this phrase appearing routinely in sources like Stephen's *Principles of Pleading*, Chitty's pleading treatises, and early American adaptations thereof. It is cited in digests and law dictionaries primarily as a term of art requiring identification, not analysis.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries are in close agreement on both meaning and function. Black's (both editions) and Burrill converge on the same core explanation: "comes" means appearance, "defends" means contestation of the action. Burrill adds the most texture, quoting the full formula from Stephen's *Principles of Pleading* and emphasizing the phrase's antiquity while noting it was "hitherto always used" — a phrasing that itself signals awareness of its declining currency at the time of writing.
None of the source dictionaries offer analysis beyond identification and translation. This is appropriate to the term's nature: it is a formula, not a doctrine. Historical sources do not disagree; they simply vary in the amount of pleading context they provide. Researchers needing deeper treatment should go directly to Stephen's *Principles of Pleading*, which the dictionaries themselves cite as the authority.
Jurisdictional Note
The phrase belongs to English common law pleading and was received into American practice in varying degrees. After the New York Field Code of 1848 and subsequent state code adoptions, formal pleading formulas including this one were largely abandoned. A handful of jurisdictions retained ceremonial survivals longer. For any jurisdiction-specific question about whether the phrase appeared in local practice, consult that state's early procedural history directly.