Definition
Darrein continuance (Law French: "the last continuance") is an archaic common law pleading term referring to the most recent continuance in a proceeding — that is, the last adjournment or postponement granted by the court before the current stage of litigation. The phrase is encountered almost exclusively in the context of the plea *puis darrein continuance* (also rendered *puis darrien continuance*), which was a special plea asserting a new matter of defense that arose after the last continuance of the case. Standing alone, "darrein continuance" simply identifies the temporal reference point — the last continuance — from which the availability and timeliness of such a plea was measured.
Common Confusion
DARREIN CONTINUANCE is not itself a plea or procedural device. It is a descriptive phrase that forms the second half of the compound term *puis darrein continuance*. Researchers encountering "darrein continuance" in isolation in historical sources are almost certainly reading a fragment of that longer term. The two should not be treated as distinct doctrines. Additionally, "continuance" in this context means an adjournment or postponement of proceedings — not a continuing or ongoing obligation, which is the sense carried by "continuance" in modern contract and administrative law contexts.
Why It Matters in Research
This term surfaces almost exclusively in pre-twentieth-century common law pleading sources, English and American alike. Researchers working in historical pleading records, equity practice manuals, or early American civil procedure materials will encounter it as part of the plea *puis darrein continuance* — a mechanism that allowed a defendant to introduce new matter arising after the pleadings had closed, provided the new matter emerged after the last continuance rather than before it. The temporal boundary was critical: a defendant who sat on a defense that existed before the last continuance could not invoke the plea.
The practical importance of identifying "the last continuance" was therefore doctrinal, not merely administrative. In an era before modern notice pleading and liberal amendment rules, the plea *puis darrein continuance* was one of the few devices allowing a party to inject post-pleading facts into a case. The precise moment of the last continuance determined whether the plea was available at all.
Modern researchers should be alert to two traps. First, the term appears in Black's with what is likely a printing or scanning artifact: the Black's entry appended text about "gift" and "dation" that belongs to a different entry entirely and has no relationship to darrein continuance. Do not rely on that appended language. Second, because formal common law pleading was largely abolished by the Field Code reforms beginning in 1848 and displaced federally by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 1938, the procedural context in which this term operated no longer exists in American practice. Encountering it in post-reform sources almost always signals a historical discussion, a quotation from older authority, or a jurisdiction that retained common law pleading forms longer than most.
Corpus connections: Researchers following this term will quickly arrive at the parent doctrine of *puis darrein continuance* and from there into broader questions of common law pleading sequence, the role of continuances in structuring the pleading record, and the historical treatment of after-arising defenses.
Historical Dictionary Support
Both Black's and Burrill's treat "darrein continuance" briefly, agreeing that it means "the last continuance" and that its significance lies in its relationship to the plea *puis darrein continuance*. Burrill's cross-references that plea explicitly, which is the more useful editorial choice; Black's entry, as noted above, appears to contain extraneous text from an adjacent entry that corrupts the record. Neither source elaborates on the substantive doctrine here — both correctly treat this as a definitional fragment rather than a standalone concept.
Historical treatises on common law pleading — Gould's *A Treatise on the Principles of Pleading* and Chitty's *A Treatise on Pleading* among them — provide fuller treatment of the operative plea and supply the procedural context that dictionary entries compress. Researchers wanting more than the bare definition should move directly to those pleading treatises rather than expecting dictionary-level sources to carry the full doctrinal weight.
Jurisdictional Note
Darrein continuance as a live procedural concept belongs to the common law pleading tradition of England and the pre-reform American states. Its relevance in any modern jurisdiction is historical. Some states retained common law pleading forms well into the nineteenth century, meaning the term may appear in state court records or appellate opinions later than one might expect.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
No Law Mind Encyclopedia entry directly addresses common law pleading forms or the plea puis darrein continuance. The closest thematic neighbor in the corpus — continuing obligations in contracts or administrative compliance — operates in an entirely different doctrinal register and should not be consulted as background for this term.