Definition
Riens en arrere (Law French: "nothing in arrear") is a defensive plea in which the defendant asserts that no sum remains unpaid or outstanding — that nothing is owed in arrears. The plea operates as a denial of the plaintiff's claim that money has accumulated and gone untendered.
The plea appears in three related but distinct procedural contexts:
1. In an action of debt for arrearages of account, the defendant pleads riens en arrere to deny that any balance remains due on a settled or running account.
2. In an action of debt for rent, the defendant pleads riens en arrere to assert that all rent has been paid and that no arrearages exist.
3. As a plea to an avowry in replevin, the defendant uses the plea to deny that any rent or service is in arrear, thereby challenging the plaintiff's justification for distress.
In all three uses, the plea functions as what the sources describe as a "quasi general issue" — it does not confess and avoid the claim but denies the essential factual foundation upon which the action rests.
Common Language
This term is pure Law French legal jargon with no meaningful counterpart in ordinary English. The component word "arrear" (or "arrears") does survive in modern common usage to mean an overdue debt or outstanding obligation, and Webster's 1913 defines "arrear" as "that which is behind in payment, or which remains unpaid, though due." The legal term riens en arrere, however, is not a description of a condition but a formal pleading that negates that condition. A researcher encountering "arrears" in ordinary text and "riens en arrere" in a pleading record should not treat them as interchangeable: one describes the alleged debt; the other is the formal denial of it.
Why It Matters in Research
Riens en arrere is an archaic common law pleading term found almost exclusively in pre-nineteenth-century English and early American legal records. Researchers working in Law Mind's historical corpus — particularly in records of common law real property actions, landlord-tenant disputes, and replevin proceedings — may encounter it in plea rolls, court reports, and practice manuals without any explanatory gloss.
Several navigational points matter:
The plea's classification as a "quasi general issue" is significant for understanding the procedural posture of historical cases. Unlike a true general issue (such as nil debet, "he owes nothing"), riens en arrere does not deny the underlying obligation wholesale; it admits the relationship — the tenancy, the account, the service — while denying that any balance has fallen due. This distinction affects how evidence was framed and what remained contested at trial.
The plea appears across at least three distinct action types. Researchers should not assume that every instance of riens en arrere in a historical record arises from a rent dispute; it may appear equally in account or replevin contexts. Identifying the surrounding action type is necessary before interpreting the plea's function.
In replevin specifically, the plea responds to an avowry — the defendant in replevin who has distrained property must "avow" (justify) the distress, and riens en arrere attacks that justification by denying arrears existed. This places the plea at the intersection of distress law, landlord-tenant doctrine, and replevin procedure, all of which have separate treatment in historical practice manuals.
The plea is effectively extinct in modern American practice. Code pleading reforms of the nineteenth century and subsequent procedural modernization replaced the formal Law French plea system. If riens en arrere appears in a source dated after the mid-nineteenth century, it is almost certainly a historical reference or quotation, not a live pleading.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary and Burrill's Law Dictionary agree on the core definition — "nothing in arrear," a plea in an action of debt for arrearages of account — and both cite Cowell's legal glossary as authority, reflecting the term's deep roots in Law French pleading tradition.
Burrill provides meaningfully more coverage. Where Black's limits the entry to the account-debt context, Burrill extends the plea to debt for rent (citing Tidd's Practice and Roscoe's Real Actions) and to the avowry-in-replevin context (citing Greenleaf's Evidence). Burrill also provides the analytically useful characterization of the plea as a "quasi general issue," citing a New York court report (2 Selden's Reports 141), which is the only indication in either source that American courts engaged with the plea's procedural classification.
Neither source addresses the historical development of the plea or its relationship to the abolition of common law pleading forms. Researchers needing context on how this plea fit within the broader system of common law pleading — and how that system was displaced — will need to look beyond both dictionaries to treatises such as Tidd's Practice and Stephen on Pleading.
Jurisdictional Note
Riens en arrere is a common law plea of English origin. Its use in American courts was limited to jurisdictions that preserved common law forms of action before code pleading reforms. New York's Field Code (1848) and subsequent state procedural reforms rendered the plea obsolete. In English practice, the Judicature Acts of 1873–75 achieved the same result.