RECOUPMENT - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

RECOUPMENTAuthored

The Law Mind • 1059 words

Definition

A defendant's right to reduce or eliminate the plaintiff's damages by asserting a claim arising from the same contract or transaction that forms the basis of the plaintiff's suit. Recoupment is an affirmative defense, not an independent cause of action: the defendant does not seek a net judgment against the plaintiff but instead asks the court to diminish what the plaintiff may recover by the amount of the defendant's own injury arising from the same dealing.

Recoupment operates on a straightforward principle: where the plaintiff has failed to perform cross-obligations or independent covenants under the same contract on which the plaintiff now sues, the defendant may "keep back" a corresponding amount rather than pay the full damages claimed. The defendant's countervailing claim must grow out of the identical transaction — this same-transaction requirement is the defining characteristic of recoupment and is what distinguishes it from set-off.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A recovery of what had been lost; reimbursement. Also, a reduction of the plaintiff's damages by keeping out a part.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The act of recouping.

In ordinary speech, recoupment carries a broad sense of recovering or being made whole for any loss. The legal meaning is narrower and more technical: it is not a freestanding recovery but a defensive reduction of an opponent's claim, available only when the defendant's injury arises from the same transaction as the plaintiff's suit. A party who "recoups" in the legal sense is not recovering independently — they are reducing what they owe.

Common Confusion

Recoupment vs. Set-Off: These terms are frequently conflated in older sources and sometimes treated as interchangeable in modern informal usage, but they are distinct. Set-off applies to any cross-demand the defendant holds against the plaintiff, regardless of whether it arises from the transaction being litigated. Recoupment is confined to claims arising from that same transaction. A further practical consequence: some jurisdictions hold that recoupment survives the expiration of the statute of limitations on the defendant's underlying claim, because the defendant is not affirmatively suing but defensively reducing — a principle with no counterpart in set-off doctrine.

Recoupment vs. Counterclaim: Modern procedural codes in most jurisdictions have absorbed both recoupment and set-off into the broader category of counterclaims, blurring these historical distinctions. Researchers working with modern civil procedure materials may find "recoupment" used loosely to describe any defensive cross-claim. In historical sources, the distinctions carry real procedural weight.

Why It Matters in Research

The same-transaction requirement is the analytical core of recoupment, and researchers must attend to how courts have defined that boundary over time. What counts as "the same transaction" has been contested — early cases applied it strictly to a single contract; later decisions extended it to interrelated agreements and courses of dealing. Corpus materials from different eras will reflect different versions of this boundary.

The absorption of recoupment into counterclaim procedure under modern codes (e.g., the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and comparable state rules) means that pre-code treatises and case law use "recoupment" as a substantive term of art, while modern sources may treat it as largely obsolete as a procedural category, even while the underlying doctrine persists. A researcher moving between 19th-century materials and modern federal litigation sources will need to translate.

The statute of limitations issue is a live research trap. Courts applying the principle that recoupment as a defense is not time-barred — because it is purely defensive — reach different conclusions than courts that have collapsed recoupment into counterclaim doctrine and apply limitations uniformly. The Law Mind corpus will contain authorities on both sides, and the key variable is often whether the jurisdiction retained pre-code recoupment doctrine or swept it into unified counterclaim rules.

Bankruptcy law presents a separate and active use of "recoupment" as a concept distinct from set-off. In bankruptcy, set-off is subject to the automatic stay and specific statutory limitations, while recoupment (being treated as a definitional reduction of a claim rather than an independent cross-claim) may be treated differently. Researchers approaching recoupment through bankruptcy materials enter a specialized doctrinal world that operates somewhat independently of common-law recoupment principles.

Historical Dictionary Support

The four historical sources agree on the essential definition: recoupment is a deduction or discount from the plaintiff's claim, grounded in the defendant's own injury arising from the same contract. All trace back to Tomlins for the formulation "a keeping back something which is due, because there is an equitable reason to withhold it" — a phrasing that underscores recoupment's equitable origins even when applied in courts of law.

Rapalje & Lawrence provides the clearest statement of the same-transaction rule and explicitly distinguishes recoupment from set-off, calling set-off applicable to "any cross-demand defendant may have against plaintiff, whether arising out of the transaction sued on or not." This distinction is the single most important line in the historical sources for a researcher trying to understand how the terms relate.

Burrill adds useful historical texture, noting that recoupment for "breach of warranty or defects in the performance" was being established in New York through recent cases at the time of writing — a reminder that what the historical dictionaries present as settled doctrine was, in the mid-19th century, still being worked out in the courts. Researchers should not read the calm, declarative tone of these entries as evidence that the doctrine was uncontested.

What the historical sources do not address: the absorption of recoupment into modern counterclaim procedure, the bankruptcy law application, or the statute of limitations defense implications. These are post-code developments that require modern sources.

Jurisdictional Note

Most common-law jurisdictions retain the conceptual distinction between recoupment and set-off even after procedural code reform, but the practical significance varies. Federal courts applying the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure treat most defensive cross-claims as compulsory or permissive counterclaims, making the recoupment/set-off distinction procedurally secondary — though courts still invoke it when the limitations defense is at issue. Some state courts have preserved the distinction more robustly. Researchers should not assume uniform treatment across jurisdictions or across the pre-code/post-code divide.

RECOUPMENTmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

In practice. Defalca- tion or discount from a demand. A keeping back something which is due, because there is an equitable reason to withhold it. Tom- lins. Recoupment is a right of the defendant to have a deduction from the amount of the plain- tiff's damages, for the reason that the plain- tiff has not complied with the cross-obliga- tions or independent covenants arising under the same contract. Code Ga. 1882, § 2909. It is keeping back something which is due be- cause there is an equitable reason to withhold it; and is now uniformly applied where a man brings an action for breach of a contract between him and the defendant; and where the latter can show that some stipulation in the same contract was made by the plaintiff, which he has violated, the defendant may, if he choose, instead of suing in his turn, recoupe his damages arising from the breach committed by the plaintiff, whether they be liquidated or not. See 3 Ohio St. 341; 12 Ark. 702; 28 22 Wend. 155. Vt. 415. In speaking of matters to be shown in defense, the term "recoupment" is often used as synony- mous with "reduction." The term is of French origin, and signifies cutting again, or cutting back, and, as a defense, means the cutting back on the plaintiff's claim by the defendant. Like reduction, it is of necessity limited to the amount of the plain- tiff's claim. It is properly applicable to a case where the same contract imposes mutual duties and obligations on the two parties, and one seeks a remedy for the breach of duty by the second, and the second meets the demand by a claim for the breach of duty by the first. 46 Vt. 207. "Recoupment" differs from "set-off" in this respect: that any claim or demand the defendant may have against the plaintiff may be used as a set-off, while it is not a subject for recoupment unless it grows out of the very same transaction which furnishes the plaintiff's cause of action. The term is, as appears above, synonymous with "reduc- tion," but the latter is not a technical term of the law; the word "defalcation," in one of its meanings, expresses the same idea, and is used interchangeably with recoupment. Recoupment, as a remedy, corresponds to the reconvention of the civil law.

RECOUPMENTmain

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910

In practice. Defalcation or discount from a demand. A keeping back something which is due, because there is an equitable reuson to withhold it. Tomlins. ' Recoupment is a right of the defendant to have a deduction from the amount of the plaintiff's damages, for the reason that the plaintiff has not complied with the cross-obligations or independent covenants arising under the same contract. Code Ga. 1882, § 2909. It is keeping back something which is due because there is an equitable reason to withhold

RECOUPMENTmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1883

- The act of recouping. When a defendant has a claim against the plaintiff arising out of the transaction upon which plaintiff bases his suit, he may set up such claim as a recoupment or reduction of plaintiff's damages. In this respect recoupment differs from set-off (q. v.), which applies to any crossdemand defendant may have against plaintiff, whether arising out of the transaction sued on or not, and is more nearly allied to counter-claim (q. v.); but counterclaim seems to be merely the name of the remedy by which recoupment may be secured, and is only in use in courts whose practice is governed by reformed codes of procedure. RECOUPMENT, (defined). 46 Vt. 200, 207. (right of, arises when). 38 Conn. 48. RECOVER, (equivalent to "collect" or "obtain"). 7 Pet. (U. S.) 128. (equivalent to "adjudged and re22. In English law, the recorder of a borough is a barrister appointed by the crown under the Municipal Corporations Act to act as a jus- (in a statute). 2 Cai. (N. Y.) 213, 214; tice of the peace in a borough having a separate 4 Serg. & R. (Pa.) 401, 404; 12 Price 734; 1 Court of Quarter Sessions; he receives a salary, Saund. 33 n. requires no property qualification, and takes preRECOVERED, (defined). 3 Barn. & C. 491, cedence after the mayor. By virtue of his office 493. he is in ordinary cases judge of any court of record existing within the borough. (Pritch. Quar. Sess. 15; Stat. 5 and 6 Will. IV. c. 76, 22 103, 118; see BOROUGH COURTS.) There are also recorders in cities and boroughs not subject to the Municipal Corporations Acts (e. g. the city of London), whose office has existed from time immemorial, and who are appointed by the respective corporations. Pull. Laws Lond. 9, 113. See CITY OF LONDON COURT; COMMISSION OF THE PEACE; MAYOR'S COURT OF LONDON.

RECOUPMENTn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

The act of recouping.

recoupmentnoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

A recovery of what had been lost; reimbursement. | A reduction of the plaintiff's damages by keeping out a part.

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