Definition
A plea in common law civil procedure allowing a defendant to introduce new matter of defense that arose after the issue was joined — that is, after the initial pleadings had established the dispute for trial. Because the new matter could not have been raised in the original pleading, the defendant was permitted to plead it fresh, as if starting a new round of pleading, at the next continuance of the case.
The name derives from Law French: puis (since) + darrein (last) + continuance — meaning "since the last continuance." Under the older practice of frequent adjournments, each continuance marked a procedural interval; new matter arising within that interval could be introduced by this plea rather than being forfeited because the defendant had already pleaded.
Classic examples include payment of the debt after the original plea was filed, a release executed by the plaintiff, or a discharge in bankruptcy or insolvency obtained by the defendant after issue joined. The plea operated as an acknowledgment that the original pleading stood, while asserting that subsequent events had extinguished or altered the plaintiff's right to proceed.
Common Confusion
Puis darrein continuance is sometimes loosely grouped with dilatory pleas, but the distinction matters. Dilatory pleas delay or defeat the action on procedural grounds without addressing the merits. A puis darrein continuance plea is properly a plea in bar — it asserts new substantive matter that defeats the plaintiff's claim outright — but it is procedurally unusual because it is interposed after pleadings have closed. Researchers should not assume that every source treating it alongside dilatory pleas is classifying it as one; some historical authors discuss it in that context only because both categories involve supplemental or exceptional pleading practice.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in historical common law pleading materials. It is a creature of the formal writ-and-pleading system and has no direct analog in modern American civil procedure under the Federal Rules or their state equivalents. Rule 15 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure — governing amended and supplemental pleadings — handles functionally similar situations, but the structural logic and terminology are entirely different. Researchers working in pre-twentieth-century case law, English equity records, or early American state court decisions may encounter this plea by name; researchers working in modern practice will not.
The key navigational trap is assuming that a puis darrein continuance plea is simply an amended answer. It is not. Under common law pleading, it was a distinct procedural step with its own rules about timing, verification, and the treatment of earlier pleadings. A defendant who filed this plea was not withdrawing or revising prior pleadings; the original issue remained, and the new plea was layered onto the existing record.
Historical sources vary in their treatment of the verification requirement. Bouvier cites the requirement that every dilatory plea be proven by affidavit or matter apparent on the record, drawing on the statute of 3 & 4 Anne, c. 16. Whether that verification requirement applied with full force to a puis darrein continuance plea — which, as noted, is technically a plea in bar rather than a dilatory plea — is a point on which practitioners and commentators did not always agree. Researchers relying on a single source for the procedural rules governing this plea should cross-check.
Burrill notes that the plea is "so called with reference to the ancient" practice — a fragment that points toward the continuance system of the old common law courts, where cases were regularly adjourned by continuances and the intervals between them created a natural structure for the introduction of new matter. Understanding this procedural architecture is necessary to understand why the plea existed as a named form.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's, Bouvier's, and Burrill's are in substantive agreement on the core definition: a plea allowed after issue joined, introducing new matter arising since the last continuance. All three cite Blackstone's Commentaries, Book III, page 316, and Tidd's Practice as the primary authorities. Burrill adds a citation to Burr's Practice.
The Bouvier entry is the most explicit about classification, identifying this as a pleading device introduced "for the purpose of introducing new matter, or matter which has come to the knowledge of the party pleading it subsequently to such joinder." This framing — knowledge as the trigger rather than objective date of occurrence — is worth attention. It suggests that even matter predating the joinder of issue might qualify if the defendant only learned of it afterward, though this reading was not universally accepted.
None of the three dictionary entries engages meaningfully with the equity side, where analogous problems were handled differently, or with the American state court variations that developed as common law pleading was modified by code pleading reforms in the mid-nineteenth century.
Jurisdictional Note
This plea is rooted in English common law pleading practice and was carried into American courts in the colonial and early national periods. Following the Field Code reforms beginning in 1848 and the eventual adoption of notice pleading systems, the formal puis darrein continuance plea disappeared from American practice. It survives as a useful research concept for interpreting pre-code American and English case law, not as a living procedural device.