Definition
A procedural plea in Scots law. When a plaintiff brings an action for debt and the defendant responds by pleading compensation (the Scots law equivalent of a set-off), the plaintiff may answer by alleging a compensating claim of their own against the defendant. That counter-allegation by the plaintiff is called recompensation. In effect, it is a set-off to a set-off — the plaintiff neutralizes the defendant's defensive compensation plea by asserting a cross-demand that cancels or reduces it.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Either a synonym for compensation generally, or specifically a plea by which a plaintiff counters a defendant's compensation claim in a debt collection proceeding.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Marked as obsolete; described as a case where a set-off pleaded by the defendant is met by a set-off pleaded by the plaintiff.
The common-language entry in Wiktionary partially captures the legal meaning but blurs an important distinction. In ordinary usage, "recompensation" suggests simply compensating again or more fully. In Scots legal procedure, the term is technical and directional: it is specifically the plaintiff's responsive counter-plea to the defendant's compensation defense, not a freestanding claim or a general synonym for compensation.
Common Confusion
Recompensation is easily confused with compensation (Scots law) and set-off (English law and most common law jurisdictions). All three involve one party's claim reducing or extinguishing another's, but they occupy different procedural positions. Compensation and set-off are defensive pleas raised by defendants. Recompensation is the plaintiff's answer to that defense — structurally a second layer of pleading, not a first. Researchers using English-law sources should not treat recompensation as interchangeable with set-off, counterclaim, or recoupment, none of which carry the same procedural posture.
Why It Matters in Research
Recompensation is a term of Scots law specifically, and researchers encountering it in historical legal materials should read it within that jurisdictional frame. It will not appear in English common law pleading records with the same technical meaning, and it has no direct modern counterpart in U.S. civil procedure terminology, where the analogous mechanics are handled under rules governing counterclaims, set-off, and recoupment.
The term's useful life in legal writing was largely confined to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Webster's 1913 already marks it as obsolete, and it does not appear as an active term of art in contemporary Scots law practice materials. Researchers working in nineteenth-century Scottish legal treatises, especially those following Bell's Commentaries and Principles (the source cited in both editions of Black's), will encounter it in discussions of the law of compensation and debt recovery procedure.
A practical trap: because all four historical dictionaries essentially reproduce Bell's formulation verbatim, and because Wiktionary's entry partially obscures the directional nature of the plea, researchers relying solely on those sources may miss that recompensation is not merely a synonym for compensation but a specific responsive act by the plaintiff at the pleading stage. The directionality — plaintiff answering defendant's defense — is the operative content of the term.
Corpus researchers should look for recompensation in proximity to compensation, set-off, and liquid debt in Scottish legal materials. It will rarely appear in English chancery or common law pleading records.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four historical sources are in close agreement, with minimal variation. Black's (1st and 2nd editions) and Rapalje & Lawrence all track Bell's language nearly word for word, identifying recompensation as the plaintiff's counter-allegation of compensation in response to the defendant's compensation plea. Bouvier's is the most precise, making explicit that the term describes an allegation made "in answer to a compensation or set-off pleaded by the defendant in answer to the plaintiff's demand" — a formulation that clarifies the layered procedural sequence better than the other entries.
No historical dictionary provides doctrinal analysis, illustrations, or limits on the plea's availability. Bell is the underlying authority across all sources, and researchers needing substantive depth should consult Bell's Commentaries on the Law of Scotland directly. The historical dictionaries collectively confirm the term's narrow jurisdictional scope (Scotland) and its procedural character, but they do not address questions such as whether recompensation required the plaintiff's cross-demand to be liquid, a requirement that Scottish compensation doctrine generally imposed.
Jurisdictional Note
Recompensation is a term of Scots law and has no recognized technical equivalent in English common law, U.S. federal procedure, or the civil procedure systems of most common law jurisdictions. Researchers should not import the term into English or American legal analysis without explicit qualification.