Definition
Half defence is a procedural term from common law pleading. It refers to the standard opening clause in a defendant's plea by which the defendant formally denies the plaintiff's claim but does so in an abbreviated form. The clause ran: "And the said defendant, by his attorney, comes and defends the wrong (or force) and injury, when, &c." The phrase "when, &c." is the abbreviation that gave rise to the name — the defendant defends the wrong and injury only "when and where it shall be necessary and convenient to do so," but the full language was shortened in practice to the truncated form, hence half defence as opposed to full defence.
The distinction between half defence and full defence was a formal technicality of common law pleading, not a substantive admission or concession of any kind. Neither form indicated strength or weakness of the defendant's position on the merits.
Common Confusion
Half defence is frequently misread by modern researchers as implying a partial or incomplete substantive defense — as if the defendant were conceding some portion of liability. This is incorrect. The "half" refers exclusively to the abbreviated form of the traditional pleading clause, not to any limitation on the defendant's legal position. The counterpart, full defence, contained the complete traditional formula: "defends the force and injury, and all manner of wrong and whatever else he ought to defend." The choice between the two forms carried procedural significance in classical common law pleading but had no bearing on what defenses the defendant could raise on the merits.
Why It Matters in Research
Half defence is a relic of formal common law pleading that largely disappeared with the procedural reforms of the nineteenth century — most prominently the Field Code in New York (1848) and the English Common Law Procedure Act of 1852 — which abolished the rigid formulary system of which half defence was a part. Researchers working with pre-reform pleading records, court rolls, or early American and English case materials will encounter the clause routinely. Misreading it as substantive is a common trap.
When reviewing historical plea rolls or printed reports, the clause appears almost mechanically at the head of a plea in bar or a plea in abatement. Its presence signals that the document is a formal common law pleading instrument, which helps date and classify the source. Its absence in post-reform documents confirms that the pleading was filed under a reformed code system.
Researchers should also note that in some historical sources the distinction between half defence and full defence carried real procedural consequences: full defence was required in certain actions (notably real actions involving freehold) while half defence sufficed in personal actions. Burrill notes the connection explicitly. This distinction can affect how one reads the structure and scope of an early pleading record.
The term appears in treatises on common law pleading — Chitty, Gould, and Stephen on Pleading are the standard references — and is cross-referenced in most of the major historical law dictionaries. It does not appear in modern procedural codes or practice guides, making historical dictionaries the primary research tool for this term.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary defines half defence concisely as the technical name for the abbreviated opening clause of a defendant's plea and explicitly directs the reader to the companion entry for full defence. This is the standard treatment across historical dictionaries: the term is defined by contrast with its opposite, and the explanation turns on the formal versus abbreviated character of the language.
Burrill's entry is brief but accurate. What historical dictionaries generally do not address is why the choice of form mattered procedurally — that explanation requires the pleading treatises, not the dictionaries. Researchers who rely solely on dictionary definitions of this term will understand what the clause looks like but may not appreciate when it was required and when it was permissible.
Jurisdictional Note
Half defence is a feature of English common law pleading and was carried into American practice in the colonial and early national periods. It was operative in all jurisdictions that followed the common law forms of action. Procedural reforms in the mid-to-late nineteenth century abolished it across virtually all American states and in England, though the timing varied by jurisdiction.