Definition
A demand in reconvention is a claim asserted by a defendant against a plaintiff, arising out of or in consequence of the plaintiff's original action against that defendant. The concept is drawn from civil law and functions as the Louisiana equivalent of what common law jurisdictions call a counterclaim: a procedural device allowing a defendant to assert an affirmative claim for relief within the same proceeding rather than initiating a separate lawsuit.
The term is specific to Louisiana civil practice and reflects the state's civilian legal heritage. Under Louisiana procedure, a defendant who has a claim against the plaintiff growing out of the subject matter of the suit—or, in some circumstances, an independent claim—may assert it by way of reconvention rather than filing independently. The demand in reconvention is not merely a defense; it is an affirmative claim seeking judgment in the defendant's favor.
Common Confusion
"Demand in reconvention" and "counterclaim" are functionally parallel but are not interchangeable terms. Counterclaim is the common law label used in federal courts and the vast majority of state courts operating under rules derived from the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Demand in reconvention is the civil law label specific to Louisiana. The underlying mechanism is similar—a defendant asserting a claim against the plaintiff in the same action—but the governing rules, scope limitations, and procedural requirements differ. Researchers working across jurisdictions should not assume that doctrine developed under one label applies automatically under the other.
Reconvention should also be distinguished from intervention (a third party entering an existing suit) and from a plea in compensation or set-off (which reduces or extinguishes the plaintiff's claim rather than asserting an independent demand for affirmative relief).
Why It Matters in Research
The term is essentially a Louisiana-specific locator. If you encounter "demand in reconvention" in a case, treatise, or pleading, you are almost certainly in Louisiana state court practice or in a federal court applying Louisiana substantive law. This narrows your research significantly and flags that civilian doctrinal sources—not common law treatises on counterclaims—govern the analysis.
Historically, Louisiana procedural codes used reconvention terminology well before the state adopted modern procedural rules. Researchers using nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Louisiana reports will encounter this term frequently in procedural posture descriptions. The Louisiana Code of Practice (the predecessor to the Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure) governed reconventional demands for much of this period; citations to "La. Pr. Code, art. 374" in older secondary sources refer to that regime, not to current law. The Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure, which replaced the Code of Practice in 1960, reorganized and restated the reconventional demand rules. Researchers should not assume the older codal articles map cleanly onto current Louisiana CCP provisions without checking the transition.
One practical trap: because Louisiana civil procedure developed along civilian lines, common law secondary sources on counterclaims (including leading federal practice treatises) will not address reconventional demand doctrine. Conversely, Louisiana-specific practice materials may use "reconventional demand" and "demand in reconvention" interchangeably with "reconvention" as a shorthand. All three phrases point to the same procedural device.
The term has no meaningful foothold outside Louisiana in American practice. If you encounter it in a non-Louisiana context, verify whether the source is discussing Louisiana law directly or whether the author is using civilian terminology in an unusual way.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier and Rapalje & Lawrence are in close agreement on the core definition: a demand the defendant institutes in consequence of the plaintiff's action, identified as a civil law term in use in Louisiana, with Bouvier anchoring the definition to Louisiana Code of Practice article 374. This codal grounding is useful because it confirms the term was a term of art with a specific statutory home, not merely a descriptive phrase.
Black's Law Dictionary's entry as reproduced in the source material appears corrupted—the text runs together an entry on demand in reconvention with an unrelated entry on parturition in medical jurisprudence. This artifact of the source transcription should be noted: researchers relying on early Black's editions should verify that they are reading the correct entry in full.
None of the historical dictionaries elaborate on the scope of reconventional demands (whether compulsory or permissive, what subject-matter connections are required, or how reconvention interacts with jurisdiction and pleading), which reflects the modest treatment these reference works gave to procedural mechanics. For substantive doctrine, historical Louisiana practice manuals and annotated codes are more useful than the general law dictionaries.
Jurisdictional Note
Demand in reconvention is a term of Louisiana law. Other states and federal courts use "counterclaim" under rules derived from FRCP Rule 13. Puerto Rico, which also has a civil law heritage, uses different terminology under its own procedural rules. Researchers in multi-jurisdictional matters should be precise about which label—and which body of procedural law—applies to the claim at issue.