RECOVER

10 definitions found across Law Mind sources

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RECOVERAuthored
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Definition
To recover, in legal usage, means to obtain something — a judgment, damages, money, or property — through the successful prosecution of a legal action. The term operates both as a procedural description (to succeed in a lawsuit) and as a substantive one (to actually receive the benefit awarded). 1. To succeed in an action at law; to obtain a favorable judgment. A plaintiff who prevails on the merits is said to recover against the defendant. 2. To obtain money, property, or a specific remedy by virtue of that judgment. Recovering a judgment and recovering on a judgment are related but distinct: the first is the legal determination; the second is actual receipt of what was awarded. 3. More loosely, to collect or obtain a debt, sum, or obligation — sometimes through legal process, sometimes by demand or settlement without resort to formal adjudication. Context determines which sense is operative.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To get back something lost; to regain health, composure, or a prior state; to salvage or extricate. Also, specifically, to obtain a positive judgment in a lawsuit or to gain compensation by legal process. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "To cover again." (The 1913 Webster's primary entry treats the word in its physical sense of re-covering a surface, reflecting a different lemma entirely.) The gap between common and legal meaning here is a matter of precision, not contradiction. Ordinary usage treats recovery as regaining something previously held. Legal usage is broader and more technical: a plaintiff who has never possessed a thing — who sues for money never owed before the cause of action arose — still recovers in the legal sense when judgment is entered in their favor. The legal term centers on the judicial process and its outcome, not on restoration of a prior state.
Common Confusion
Recover vs. recover judgment vs. recover on a judgment: These three phrases are often used interchangeably but carry different meanings at different stages of litigation. To recover (or to recover judgment) is to obtain a favorable verdict or court order. To recover on a judgment is to actually collect the sum awarded — a subsequent and separate process that may involve enforcement, execution, or collection proceedings. Many historical sources conflate these, and older pleading forms used "that he do recover" as the formal conclusion of a plaintiff's judgment without distinguishing between the award and its satisfaction. Recover vs. recoup: Recoupment is a specific defensive remedy by which a defendant reduces the plaintiff's recovery by asserting a countervailing claim arising from the same transaction. A defendant may recoup; a plaintiff recovers. The terms are not interchangeable.
Why It Matters in Research
The term recover saturates legal texts across every era and almost every subject area, which creates research hazards of its own. Pleading forms: In common-law pleading, the formal judgment for a prevailing plaintiff concluded with the phrase "that the plaintiff do recover" (Latin: quod recuperet) a specified sum or thing. Researchers reading early case reports, year books, or form books will encounter this formula constantly. It is a term of art, not a description of actual receipt of anything. Substantive vs. procedural meaning: A statute allowing a party to "recover" damages may be construed as conferring a right of action, setting a damages measure, or both. Courts have frequently had to determine whether a "recovery" provision speaks to liability, to remedy, or to the enforcement mechanism. This ambiguity appears in fee-shifting statutes, insurance subrogation clauses, and consumer protection regimes. Historical usage and the common recovery: Researchers working in property law before the 19th century will encounter the Common Recovery, an elaborate common-law fiction used to bar entails on land. That device — discussed under its own head — uses recover in a technical sense entirely disconnected from modern damages practice. Conflating the two is a serious error. Damage caps and recovery limits: Statutes limiting recovery (e.g., tort reform legislation, sovereign immunity waivers) use recover as a term defining the ceiling on what a successful plaintiff can actually obtain. The word in this context has maximum-amount implications that pure procedural uses do not carry. Insurance and subrogation: Insurers who pay claims and then pursue subrogation against tortfeasors are said to recover what they paid. Here recover means recoupment of an outlay, not vindication of a previously held right. The distinction matters for standing analysis and for calculating set-offs.
Historical Dictionary Support
Anderson, Bouvier, and Burrill are in close agreement on the core definition: to obtain by course of law, to succeed in an action, to obtain by the judgment rendered. Burrill adds the Latin cross-references (recuperare, quod recuperet) that illuminate the common-law pleading formula. Anderson extends the term to cover collection of notes and demands generally, acknowledging that recover in commercial usage sometimes refers to obtaining payment through ordinary demand or informal process rather than formal adjudication — a looser sense the other dictionaries do not emphasize. None of the three historical dictionaries adequately addresses the modern distinction between recovering a judgment and recovering on (or collecting) a judgment. That gap reflects the era: in older common-law practice, the formal judgment and its satisfaction were conceptually closer. Modern civil practice, with its separation between merits adjudication and post-judgment enforcement, makes the distinction essential. Burrill's cross-reference to Quod recuperet is genuinely useful for researchers encountering historical pleading records. Anderson's note connecting recover to debt collection reflects commercial practice of the period and foreshadows later statutory usage in commercial codes.
Jurisdictional Note
The word recover appears in statutes across all U.S. jurisdictions and in federal law, and its precise legal effect is always context-dependent. Some jurisdictions distinguish by statute between "recovering" a judgment and "collecting" or "satisfying" it; others treat them interchangeably. In insurance and subrogation law, whether a party has a right to recover against a third party may turn on state-specific doctrines of equitable subrogation or statutory assignment.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Remedies (damages, equitable relief, enforcement) Law Mind Encyclopedia — Civil Procedure (pleading, judgment, post-judgment enforcement) Law Mind Encyclopedia — Common Recovery (historical property law device)
Related Terms
Recovery (n.) — the noun form; the thing obtained or the process of obtaining it Judgment — the court's determination from which a right to recover flows Damages — the monetary remedy most commonly recovered Recoupment — defensive reduction of a plaintiff's recovery Subrogation — a party's right to recover what it has paid on another's behalf Common Recovery — the historical conveyancing fiction; distinct from damages recovery Quod recuperet — the Latin form of the formal common-law judgment for a plaintiff Enforcement / Execution — the process of collecting on a judgment already recovered Restitution — recovery aimed at disgorging unjust gain rather than compensating loss Satisfaction — the actual fulfillment of a judgment; what follows recovery
RECOVERmain
Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890
To obtain by judicial action or proceeding. Referring to a note: to collect or obtain the amount, possibly by a suit at law.6 Applied to debt and demands generally intends action by process and course of law." See RECUPERARE. Recovery. Obtaining by legal process or proceeding; restoration of a right by judicial award. The actual possession of anything or its value, by judgment of a legal tribunal.8 Implies adjudication, and receipt of the thing. As to "recover" is to obtain by course of law, "recovery" is obtaining a thing by judgment of a court, as the result of an action brought for the purpose. 10 Davenport v. Hubbard, 46 Vt. 207, 206 (1873), Ross, J., citing 2 Pars. Contr. 247, 28 Vt. 414; Roberts v. Donovan, 70 Cal. 113 (1886). 2 [Parker v. Hart, 32 Ν. J. E. 230 (1880): Batterman v. Pierce, 3 Hill, 174 (1842), Bronson, J. 3 Emery v. St. Louis, &c. R. Co., 77 Mo. 345 (1883), cases, Martin, C. See also 7 Am. Law Rev. 389-416 (1873), cases; 27 Ala. 574; 17 Ark. 270; 95 Ill. 476; 9 Ind. 470; 39 Me. 382; 4 Mich. 619; 54 Miss. 563; 49 Mo. 572; 2 Ν. Υ. 286; 13 id. 151; 6 Barb. 391; 28 Vt. 413; 4 Wis. 440; 2 Pars. Contr. 760. Re-course'. See Byles, Bills, 154, note by Sharswood; 100 U. S. 714; 18 Iowa, 202; 12 Mass. 14; 2 Allen, 434; 18 Ohio St. 515; 8 Pa. 468. • See Douglass v. Reynolds, 7 Pet. *128 (1833), Story, J. 7 [Jones v. Walker, 2 Paine, 719 (1790?), Jay, C. J. • Strohecker v. Farmers' Bank, 6 Pa. 45 (1847). Common recovery. A mode of transferring title to land. Abolished in England by 3 and 4 Wm. IV (1834), c. 74. In the United States, either expressly abrogated or fallen into disuse. Consisted of a suit, actual or fictitious, invented to elude the statute of mortmain and to unfetter inheritances. The land was recovered against the tenant of the freehold This recovery, as a supposed adjudication of the right, bound all persons, and vested an absolute fee-simple estate in the recoverer. 1 A religious house, for example, set up a fictitious title. The tenant, by collusion, making no defense, judgment was given for the plaintiff. This was a recovery by sentence of law upon a supposed prior title. In time, the procedure became a common assurance, and a legal mode of conveyance by which a tenant in tail could dispose of his land and tenement. Compare FINE, 1. Former recovery. Previous adjudication; former judgment. Upon a question directly involved, a former recovery is conclusive in another suit.3 A plea of former recovery, whether it be by confession, verdict, or demurrer, is a bar to any new action of the same or the like nature for the same cause. There must be at least one decision on the right. The reason of the rule is, there must be an end to litigation after the merits of a cause have been determined.4 See further ADJUDICATION.
RECOVERmain
Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928
To obtain by course of law; to obtain by means of an action; or by the judgment rendered in an action; to succeed in an action.
RECOVERmain
Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1870
[from L. Fr. recoverer, from Lat. recuperare, qq. v.] To obtain by course of law; to obtain by means of an action, or by the judgment rendered in an action; to succeed in an action. The ordinary judgment for a plaintiff in an action at law is "that he do recover." See Quod recuperet.
RECOVERv.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
To cover again. Sir W. Scott.
RECOVERv.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
To get or obtain again; to get renewed possession of; to win back; to regain. David recovered all that the Amalekites had carried away. 1. Sam. xxx. 18. To make good by reparation; to make up for; to retrieve; to repair the loss or injury of; as, to recover lost time. "Loss of catel may recovered be." Chaucer. Even good men have many failings and lapses to lament and recover. Rogers. To restore from sickness, faintness, or the like; to bring back to life or health; to cure; to heal. The wine in my bottle will recover him. Shak. To overcome; to get the better of, -- as a state of mind or body. I do hope to recover my late hurt. Cowley. When I had recovered a little my first surprise. De Foe. To rescue; to deliver. That they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him. 2. Tim. ii. 26. To gain by motion or effort; to obtain; to reach; to come to. [Archaic] The forest is not three leagues off; If we recover that, we're sure enough. Shak. Except he could recover one of the Cities of Refuge he was to die. Hales. To gain as a compensation; to obtain in return for injury or debt; as, to recover damages in trespass; to recover debt and costs in a suit at law; to obtain title to by judgement in a court of law; as, to recover lands in ejectment or common recovery; to gain by legal process; as, to recover judgement against a defendant. Recover arms (Mil. Drill), a command whereby the piece is brought from the position of "aim" to that of "ready."
RECOVERv.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
To regain health after sickness; to grow well; to be restored or cured; hence, to regain a former state or condition after misfortune, alarm, etc.; -- often followed by of or from; as, to recover from a state of poverty; to recover from fright. Go, inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover of this disease. 2 Kings i. 2. To make one's way; to come; to arrive. [Obs.] With much ado the Christians recovered to Antioch. Fuller. To obtain a judgement; to succeed in a lawsuit; as, the plaintiff has recovered in his suit.
recoververb
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
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To get back, to regain (a physical thing; in astronomy and navigation, sight of a thing or a signal). | To salvage, to extricate, to rescue (a thing or person). | To replenish to, resume (a good state of mind or body). | To obtain a positive judgement; to win in a lawsuit. | To gain as compensation or reparation, usually by formal legal process. | To reach (a place), arrive at. | To restore to good health, consciousness, life etc. | To make good by reparation; to make up for; to retrieve; to repair the loss or injury of. | To regain one's composure, balance etc. | To get better, to regain health or prosperity. | To recover from.
recovernoun
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
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Recovery. | A position of holding a firearm during exercises, whereby the lock is at shoulder height and the sling facing out. | The forward movement in rowing, after one stroke to take another (recovery).
recoververb
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
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To cover again. | To add a new roof membrane or steep-slope covering over an existing one.

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