Definition
A Law French adverb meaning "afterwards" or "since," used principally as a prefix in compound legal terms of English procedural law. The term has no independent modern legal significance but survives in the phrase puis darrein continuance, which names a procedural mechanism allowing a defendant to plead new matter arising after the last continuance in an action.
Common Confusion
PUIS vs. PUIS DARREIN CONTINUANCE: The standalone term puis is almost never encountered on its own in English legal sources. When researchers encounter the word, it nearly always appears as part of the compound phrase puis darrein continuance. A reference to puis in isolation is typically an artifact of abbreviated indexing or cross-reference formatting, as in Anderson's instruction to "See CONTINUANCE."
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
PUIS DARREIN CONTINUANCE: The principal and essentially sole surviving compound. Translates from Law French as "since the last continuance." It names a plea — sometimes called a plea puis darrein continuance — that a defendant may interpose after having already pleaded and after issue has been joined, when new matter of defense arises subsequent to that joinder. Classic examples of such new matter include payment of the debt sued upon, a release by the plaintiff, or the discharge of the defendant in bankruptcy after the action commenced. Because the new matter could not have been raised in the original plea, the law allowed a supplemental plea outside the ordinary sequence of pleading.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in English common law pleading materials from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries will encounter puis darrein continuance with some frequency, particularly in treatises on common law procedure and in equity practice guides. The concept belongs to a pleading system — the formal common law system of declarations, pleas, replications, and continuances — that was largely swept away in England by the Common Law Procedure Acts of the mid-nineteenth century and in American jurisdictions by the adoption of code pleading (beginning with the Field Code of 1848) and later by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 1938.
After code pleading and especially after modern notice pleading took hold, the mechanism was absorbed into rules permitting amended or supplemental pleadings. A researcher encountering puis darrein continuance in a nineteenth-century American case or treatise should understand it as the predecessor to what modern civil procedure calls a supplemental pleading — a pleading that sets forth transactions or events occurring after the original pleading was filed.
The Anderson's entry directing readers to "See CONTINUANCE" reflects the organizational logic of that era: puis darrein continuance was catalogued under the doctrine of continuances rather than as a standalone plea, because the triggering event (a continuance of the proceeding) was central to its availability. Researchers using nineteenth-century indices should look under both CONTINUANCE and PLEADING to locate relevant materials.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's first edition captures the dual content efficiently: puis as a Law French adverb meaning "afterwards" or "since," and the compound pound-breach entry in proximity, reflecting the compressed alphabetical formatting of that edition. The second edition expands meaningfully on puis darrein continuance, giving the substance of the plea — new matter arising after issue joined, illustrated by payment or release — and connecting it to reported American cases. Anderson's takes the minimalist approach of a pure cross-reference, which itself signals that by the late nineteenth century the term's significance was understood to lie entirely within the doctrine of continuances rather than in the word itself.
None of the three source dictionaries address the decline of the plea under code pleading, an omission that is historically understandable given their publication dates but that matters for researchers tracing the concept forward into modern procedure.