Definition
A plement (also rendered as "bill of plement") is an equity practice device that combines the functions of a supplemental bill and a bill of revivor into a single pleading. It serves two purposes simultaneously: (1) it revives a suit that has abated—typically because of the death, disability, or changed status of a party—and (2) it supplements the original bill to account for new facts or events that arose after the original bill was filed, which are necessary to entitle the surviving or continuing party to full relief on the merits.
The plement was thus the appropriate instrument when, for example, a complainant died mid-suit and the cause of action did not fully survive without adjustment, or when the party seeking revival also needed to incorporate material developments that had occurred since the original filing. A bill of revivor alone could not introduce new matter; a supplemental bill alone could not cure an abatement. The plement resolved both deficiencies in one combined filing.
Common Confusion
PLEMENT vs. BILL OF REVIVOR vs. SUPPLEMENTAL BILL: These three instruments are closely related and historically conflated. A bill of revivor restores a suit that has abated without adding new matter. A supplemental bill adds new facts or parties to a live suit without addressing abatement. A plement does both—it is the appropriate form only when abatement and the need for new matter coincide. Researchers finding references to any of these in historical equity records should not assume they are interchangeable; the choice of instrument reflects the specific procedural posture of the case.
Why It Matters in Research
Plement is a term that appears almost exclusively in historical equity practice materials and will surface in pre-merger chancery records, equity treatises, and older American state court equity proceedings. Researchers should be alert to several issues:
First, the term is rare and its spelling is inconsistent across historical sources. It may appear as "plement," "bill of plement," or be described only by function without the label. Bouvier's entry is truncated in some editions, which can obscure the full procedural context.
Second, because plement is a compound procedural device, it presupposes familiarity with both revivor and supplemental bill practice. A researcher encountering a plement in chancery records who is not already familiar with those underlying instruments may misread the nature of the pleading.
Third, this term is essentially extinct in modern practice. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and their state equivalents, replaced the technical equity pleading system with unified civil procedure. Modern equivalents—substitution of parties under Rule 25, amended and supplemental pleadings under Rule 15—accomplish what the plement once did, but without the formal label or the strict procedural boundary between revivor and supplementation.
Fourth, the Johns. Ch. 334 reference in Bouvier's points to New York chancery practice, which was among the most developed and influential equity systems in early American law. New York chancery records are a productive corpus for tracing how these devices were actually deployed.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary and Rapalje & Lawrence are in close agreement on the core definition: both identify the plement as a compound of a supplemental bill and a bill of revivor, and both note its dual function of continuing an abated suit while also supplying defects from subsequent events. Neither source provides extended analysis beyond this structural description.
Bouvier's is more useful to researchers because it appends a reference to Mitford's Equity Pleading and Beach's Modern Equity Practice—two standard treatises—alongside a New York chancery citation, giving the term some doctrinal grounding. Rapalje & Lawrence is terser and cross-references only the bill of revivor entry without independent development.
Neither dictionary addresses the plement's practical frequency of use, its relationship to the English Chancery practice from which it derived, or the circumstances under which courts required it versus accepting simpler forms of revival. Mitford's Equity Pleading remains the better primary source for understanding the English doctrinal background; Story's Equity Pleadings similarly addresses the American development.
Jurisdictional Note
The plement was a creature of equity jurisdiction and was most fully developed in states with distinct chancery courts—New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and the federal equity system. States that merged law and equity early, or that operated with less formalized equity procedure, may show little or no recorded use of the term.