Definition
In Scots law, the defendant's answer to the plaintiff's replication. DUPLY functions as both a noun and a verb:
1. (n.) The pleading submitted by the defender (defendant) in response to the pursuer's (plaintiff's) replication. It occupies the fourth position in the formal pleading sequence and corresponds to what English common law practice calls the rejoinder.
2. (v.) To submit such a pleading; to rejoin. Used in Scots practice records in constructions such as "it is duplyed by the pannel."
The term derives from the Latin duplicatio, reflecting the Roman and civilian influence on Scots procedural law.
Common Confusion
DUPLY is occasionally conflated with DUPLICATION or with the English-law term REJOINDER, but the terms are not interchangeable across jurisdictions. Rejoinder is the proper English common-law term for the defendant's answer to the plaintiff's replication; duply is its functional Scots-law equivalent. The underlying procedural concept is the same, but researchers working across Scottish and English sources should not treat the terms as identical — Scots pleading followed a distinct civilian-influenced sequence with its own nomenclature at each stage.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering duply in historical Scottish court records, state trials, or Scots procedural treatises need to orient themselves within the Scots pleading sequence. That sequence runs: summons → defenses → replication (pursuer's answer to defenses) → duply (defender's answer to the replication) → triply (pursuer's answer to the duply), and so on. Misreading duply as a general synonym for "reply" or conflating it with the replication itself will produce errors in understanding who is speaking and at what stage of the dispute.
The term appears in published State Trials records and in Scottish form books, where it surfaces in its verbal form. Because Scots procedural law drew heavily on Roman and civilian sources rather than English common law, researchers using English legal dictionaries as their primary reference may find the term missing or inadequately explained. Bouvier, Burrill, and Black all acknowledge the Scots context, but none provides extended treatment of where duply fits within the full pleading chain.
For corpus researchers: duply as a standalone entry is uncommon in English-language legal literature. When it appears, it is almost always in one of three contexts — (1) Scots procedural manuals and form books, (2) State Trials reporting Scottish criminal proceedings, or (3) comparative pleading discussions contrasting civil-law-influenced and common-law-influenced systems. Absence from a source is therefore informative: its omission from an English pleading treatise is expected, not an oversight.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three shelf sources agree closely. Bouvier identifies duply as the Scotch-law equivalent of duplicatio and references Maclaurin's Forms of Practice. Burrill adds the verbal usage and the State Trials citation, demonstrating that duply was a live term of practice, not merely a textbook abstraction. Black's second edition preserves both the noun and verb forms, quoting the same State Trials passage as Burrill.
None of the three sources places duply within the full pleading sequence, nor do they distinguish the criminal-proceedings usage (where "pannel" — the accused — is the relevant party) from the civil-proceedings usage. Researchers should note that "pannel" in the State Trials quotation refers to the accused at the bar, not a civil defendant, which confirms that duply carried procedural force in both Scottish civil and criminal pleading.
What the historical dictionaries miss: they do not address when duply fell out of active use in Scottish practice or how later procedural reforms affected the formal pleading sequence. Researchers tracing the term into 19th-century Scottish procedure should consult sources addressing the impact of Court of Session procedural reforms on the classical civilian pleading structure.
Jurisdictional Note
DUPLY is a term of Scots law exclusively. It has no equivalent usage in English common law, Irish law, or American practice. Researchers working in jurisdictions outside Scotland will encounter it only in comparative or historical discussions.