Definition
An archaic spelling variant of "recoup." To deduct, discount, set off, or withhold part of a demand — particularly to retain or deduct a portion of what is owed on a claim because the opposing party owes a countervailing sum arising from the same transaction. The term appears in older legal texts and pleadings as the verb form corresponding to the doctrine of recoupment.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Archaic form of recoup. In modern ordinary English, "recoup" means to recover a loss or regain something previously expended.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To recoup carries two senses — first, to deduct or withhold from a payment something to which one is entitled as a counterclaim; second, more generally, to reimburse or indemnify oneself for a loss.
The gap between common and legal meaning is meaningful. In everyday use, "recoup" simply means to get something back — a person recoups their investment or recoups their losses. In legal usage, recoupe/recoup is a term of art describing a specific procedural and substantive right: the defendant's right to reduce the plaintiff's recovery by an amount the plaintiff owes arising from the same contract or transaction. It is not a freestanding claim but a defensive reduction of the opposing party's demand.
Common Confusion
Recoupe (recoup) and set-off are frequently conflated but are technically distinct doctrines. Recoupment is confined to demands arising from the same transaction or contract as the plaintiff's claim; a set-off may arise from a separate, independent transaction. The distinction carries procedural consequences in some jurisdictions, including rules about which defenses may be asserted as of right versus requiring leave of court. Recoupe is also sometimes confused with counterclaim, which is an affirmative claim for relief that may survive even if the plaintiff's claim fails — recoupment is purely defensive and cannot exceed the plaintiff's demand.
Why It Matters in Research
Recoupe is an orthographic variant that will appear in older English and American legal sources — particularly pleadings, treatises, and reported cases from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries — where the terminal "e" was standard. Researchers searching digitized historical corpora for the doctrine of recoupment should run searches on both "recoupe" and "recoup" to avoid missing relevant sources. The variant spelling largely disappears from American legal writing after the late nineteenth century, so its presence in a document can itself serve as a rough dating signal.
Because Black's 2nd Edition treats recoupe as a headword in its supplemental material rather than a cross-reference, researchers working with that edition should be aware the substantive doctrine is developed under recoupment and related entries. The entry in Black's 2nd does not elaborate on elements or limitations — it functions as a definitional bridge to the fuller treatment.
Researchers tracing the historical development of recoupment as a defense should note that early English common law treated the right narrowly, tied closely to covenants and leases, before American courts expanded it to contract claims generally. Sources using "recoupe" as the verb form tend to predate this expansion.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) — Supplemental defines recoupe as: "To deduct, defalk, discount, set off, or keep back; to withhold part of a demand." The entry is brief and definitional rather than analytical, grouping recoupe with defalk and set-off as near-synonyms. This reflects the period usage, in which these terms were sometimes used interchangeably in practice even though courts of equity and common law were beginning to distinguish them with more precision. The inclusion of "defalk" — itself an archaic term for deduction or embezzlement of funds — alongside set-off suggests that the 2nd Edition entry reflects older, looser usage rather than the more technically precise doctrine that later American case law would develop. Researchers should not read the Black's 2nd entry as settling the boundaries between recoupment and set-off; those boundaries require consultation of later editions and primary sources.
Jurisdictional Note
The technical distinction between recoupment and set-off — and the procedural rules governing each — varies across jurisdictions and has been substantially altered in many states and in federal practice by the adoption of unified civil procedure rules, under which both are often treated as forms of counterclaim. Researchers working in jurisdictions that retain common law pleading distinctions should verify local rules before treating the terms as interchangeable.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: RECOUPMENT