Definition
A special traverse is a form of pleading used in common law practice to deny an opponent's allegation indirectly — not by flat contradiction, but by first setting out new affirmative matter that explains or qualifies the denial. Where a common traverse says, in effect, "that is not true," a special traverse says, in effect, "because of these facts, that cannot be true."
The special traverse has two structural parts:
1. The inducement: the affirmative portion, in which the pleader sets forth new factual matter that provides the context or ground for the denial. This is the explanatory backbone of the pleading.
2. The traverse proper (absque hoc): the negative portion, which formally denies the opponent's allegation in light of the matter stated in the inducement. The denial is introduced by the technical phrase absque hoc ("without this"), signaling that the allegation being denied is incompatible with the affirmative matter already stated.
Together, the two parts create a denial that is conditional in logic — the affirmative matter is offered to the court as the reason the opposing allegation must fail — while remaining formally sufficient as a denial in law.
Common Confusion
SPECIAL TRAVERSE vs. COMMON TRAVERSE: A common traverse is a direct, unqualified denial of the opponent's allegation. A special traverse accomplishes the same denial but approaches it indirectly, first laying a factual foundation (the inducement) before invoking the denial. The two are not interchangeable: the choice between them could affect which party bore the burden of proceeding at trial and how issues were framed for the jury. A researcher encountering a pleading that begins with affirmative assertions followed by absque hoc is reading a special traverse, not a common traverse mislabeled.
SPECIAL TRAVERSE vs. CONFESSION AND AVOIDANCE: Both pleading forms introduce affirmative matter alongside a denial of some effect. The distinction is that confession and avoidance admits the truth of the opponent's allegation but offers new matter to defeat its legal consequence. A special traverse does not admit the allegation — it denies it, using new matter only to explain or qualify the grounds for denial. Conflating the two is easy in older sources and produces misreadings of what issue was actually joined.
Core Elements
The special traverse requires both structural components to be valid:
Inducement: New affirmative matter, not previously pleaded by either party, that contextualizes or qualifies the denial. The inducement must be responsive to the allegation being denied — it cannot be purely extraneous. Because the inducement is affirmative, the opponent was generally required to answer it.
Absque hoc clause: The formal negative clause that completes the traverse. The phrase absque hoc (or its English equivalents, "without this" or "and not") introduces the denial and locks it to the inducement. Without this clause, the pleading would be an affirmative pleading only, not a traverse at all.
Why It Matters in Research
The special traverse belongs almost entirely to the common law system of formal pleading that prevailed before the Field Code reforms of the mid-nineteenth century in the United States and before the Judicature Acts in England. Researchers working with pre-reform American or English pleading records — whether in chancery records, common law court files, or reported cases — will encounter special traverses in operative documents where misreading the structure distorts understanding of what the parties were actually contesting.
The technical vocabulary is dense. The word inducement in this context means something precise and structural, not merely "motivation." Absque hoc is a term of art. A researcher unfamiliar with these markers may read a special traverse as a confused or redundant pleading when it is in fact a carefully constructed one.
After code pleading replaced common law forms, the special traverse ceased to exist as a distinct procedural category. Modern pleadings have no equivalent structure. This creates a temporal cliff: sources from after roughly 1850 in American jurisdictions, and somewhat later in England, will not use the term operatively. Treatise discussions of the special traverse in nineteenth-century works (including Chitty on Pleading and Stephen's Principles of Pleading) are retrospective or instructional rather than descriptive of live practice.
The relationship between the special traverse and issue formation matters for understanding jury trial records. Because the inducement was traversable by the opponent, a special traverse could generate a secondary issue in addition to the primary one. Identifying what issue was actually sent to the jury requires tracing the full pleading sequence, not just the initial allegation and the traverse clause.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary and Burrill's Law Dictionary present essentially identical definitions, which reflects the settled nature of the doctrine by the time both were compiled — the special traverse was already a historical form when these dictionaries were written, and both drew from the same English pleading tradition and treatise sources.
Both dictionaries identify the two-part structure (inducement and traverse) and the function of qualification or explanation as the distinguishing feature relative to the common traverse. Neither source adds nuance about when a special traverse was required as opposed to merely permitted, or about the procedural consequences of choosing one form over the other — gaps that a researcher must fill by consulting Chitty, Stephen, or Gould on pleading directly.
Neither dictionary adequately flags the absque hoc clause as the technical marker of the traverse proper, referring instead to the general two-part structure. For researchers trying to identify a special traverse in a primary source document, the presence of absque hoc or its English equivalent is the most reliable signal.
Jurisdictional Note
The special traverse was a feature of common law pleading in England and in American jurisdictions that followed English pleading practice. American code pleading states abolished the form beginning with New York in 1848. England reformed pleading practice under the Judicature Acts of 1873–1875. Researchers working in jurisdictions that adopted code pleading early will find the special traverse disappearing from practice records before it disappears in English sources.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Pleading (Common Law Forms); Traverse; Absque Hoc