STOPPAGE

6 definitions found across Law Mind sources

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STOPPAGEAuthored
The Law Mind • 945 words
Definition
In civil law, stoppage means compensation or set-off — the extinguishment of a debt or obligation by applying against it a cross-demand owed by the creditor to the debtor. It is the civil law counterpart to what common law systems call set-off or counterclaim: where two parties owe each other money, the mutual obligations cancel to the extent they overlap, and only the net balance remains enforceable. The term appears infrequently in modern American practice, having been largely displaced by "set-off," "offset," and "recoupment" in common law pleading traditions. Where civil law influence persists — particularly in Louisiana — the concept retains greater doctrinal significance.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A pause or halt of some activity; something that forms an obstacle to continued activity, such as a blockage or obstruction. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The act of stopping, or arresting progress, motion, or action; also, the state of being stopped — as in the stoppage of blood circulation or the stoppage of commerce. The gap between common and legal meaning here is substantive. Ordinary usage treats stoppage as an interruption or obstruction — something that halts a process. The civil law legal meaning is nearly the opposite in function: rather than halting an obligation, stoppage resolves it through mutual cancellation. A researcher seeing "stoppage" in a 19th-century civil law context should resist the instinct to read it as a temporary interruption and recognize it instead as a technical term for set-off.
Common Confusion
Stoppage (civil law) should not be confused with: - Set-off (common law): Functionally equivalent, but arising from different procedural traditions. Common law set-off requires assertion as a defense or cross-claim; civil law stoppage can operate by operation of law when mutual debts are liquidated and due. The terms are often used interchangeably in translated civil law sources, which can obscure doctrinal differences. - Stoppage in transitu: A distinct commercial law doctrine — the right of an unpaid seller to reclaim goods while they are still in transit to an insolvent buyer. This is an entirely separate concept, and the overlap in terminology is a genuine research hazard. See RELATED TERMS.
Why It Matters in Research
The primary research challenge with "stoppage" is disambiguation. The term carries at least two distinct legal meanings in historical sources — the civil law set-off sense treated here, and the commercial law doctrine of stoppage in transitu — and these appear in the same period sources without always being labeled clearly. When researching 19th-century commercial law materials, particularly shipping, sale of goods, or insolvency cases, "stoppage" almost certainly refers to stoppage in transitu rather than civil law compensation. When the source is a civil or Roman law treatise, or a Louisiana authority, the set-off meaning is the relevant one. The Rapalje & Lawrence entry for stoppage is notably compressed and appends what appears to be citation material for surrounding entries (STORE, STORE FIXTURES, STORES) in a way that suggests editorial truncation. Researchers using that edition should treat the citations as potentially belonging to adjacent headwords, not to stoppage itself. Because the civil law set-off doctrine predates the consolidation of American procedural codes, researchers working in pre-Field Code (pre-1848) sources will find "stoppage" used alongside "discount," "defalcation," and "compensation" in ways that are jurisdictionally variable. None of these terms map perfectly onto modern counterclaim or offset doctrine.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries — Black's (1st and 2nd editions) and Rapalje & Lawrence — define stoppage identically: compensation or set-off in the civil law. There is no divergence among them on the core definition, which reflects a settled understanding at the time of publication. What the historical dictionaries do not address is the relationship between this civil law stoppage and the common law set-off it resembles, nor do they distinguish stoppage from stoppage in transitu. This omission is significant: by the time Black's first edition appeared in 1891, stoppage in transitu was well-established in Anglo-American commercial law and had been treated extensively in English cases and treatises. The silence suggests the editors treated the two as sufficiently distinct to require separate headwords — but researchers may not always encounter them that way in primary sources. Neither Black's edition addresses the procedural mechanics of how civil law stoppage operated compared to common law set-off, which limits the utility of these entries for anything beyond identifying the basic equivalence.
Jurisdictional Note
Louisiana, as a mixed civil and common law jurisdiction, is the primary American context where the civil law compensation doctrine retains operative force. In other American jurisdictions, set-off and counterclaim under rules-based procedure (Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and state equivalents) have functionally absorbed the concept. Researchers working in civilian or comparative law materials should be attentive to the French and Spanish antecedents of Louisiana's compensation doctrine, which differ procedurally from both English set-off and modern American offset practice.
Related Terms
Stoppage in transitu — the commercial law right of an unpaid seller to reclaim goods in transit; distinct conceptshared terminology Set-off — common law equivalent; the term researchers are most likely to need in modern sources Recoupment — related common law doctrine; differs from set-off in requiring connection to the same transaction Compensation (civil law) — the civil law term more commonly used in European and Louisiana sources for the same concept Counterclaim — modern procedural mechanism that has absorbed both set-off and recoupment functions Defalcation — historical synonym for set-off or reduction of a claim; appears in early American equity sources Offset — modern commercial and statutory usage; functionally overlapping
STOPPAGEmain
Black's Law Dictionary • 1891
In the civil law. Compen- sation or set-off.
STOPPAGEmain
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910
In the civil law. Compensation or set-off.
STOPPAGEmain
Rapalje & Lawrence • 1883
- In the civil law, compensation or set-off. entry). (in a deed). 8 Allen (Mass.) 293. (in a lease). 128 Mass. 487. (premises described as, in a writ of 2 N. H. 9. (the breaking open of, is no burglary). 4 Johns. (N. Y.) 424. (in crimes act). 1 Mass. 516, 517. STORE FIXTURES, (in a policy of insurance). 16 Gray (Mass.) 359. 397. (what is). 19 Ala. 527. (in a penal statute). 12 Bush (Ky.) STORES.-The supplies of different articles provided for the subsistence and sengers. STORES, (in a devise). 41 Mich. 552. STORES, SEA, (what are not). Gilp. (U. S.) 299. STORING, (defined). 16 Barb. (N. Y.) 119; (in an insurance policy). 5 Minn. 492; 3 Harr. (N. J.) 480; 1 Hall (N. Y.) 226, 235; 6 Wend. (N. Y.) 628. STORM, FIRE OR, (in an insurance policy). 3 Phil. (Pa.) 38. STOPPAGE IN TRANSITU is the STOREHOUSE, (defined). 3 Ired. (N. C.) L. right which an unpaid vendor has to re570. sume the possession of goods sold upon credit, where the vendee has become bankrupt or insolvent before they come into his possession. Thus, if A. orders goods of B., and B. despatches them by carrier to A.'s address, but before they have been actually accommodation of a ship's crew and pasdelivered he hears that A. has stopped payment, then B. is allowed to countermand delivery before or at the place of destination, and to resume the possession of the goods, according to that equitable 3 N. Y. 122, 127. principle in the law of contract by which one party may withhold performance on the other becoming unable to fulfill his part of the contract. But it is not an unlimited right; for the vendor cannot exercise it if he has parted with documents sufficient to transfer the property, and the vendee, upon the strength of them, has sold the goods to a bonâ fide purchaser without notice. (Houst. St. in Tr. 1; Lickbarrow v. Mason, 2 T. R. 63; 1 H. Bl. 357; 6 East 21; Sm. Merc. Law 548 et seq.; Maud. & P. Mer. Sh. 309 et seq.) The vendor's right ceases as soon as the transitus is determined, whether by the goods arriving at their destination, or by being delivered to a person on behalf of the vendee, or by the carrier agreeing, between himself and the vendee, to hold the goods for him, not as carrier, but as his agent. Ex parte Cooper, 11 Ch. D. 78. 2. There is also a so-called right of stoppage in transitu in cases where there is no transit, as where goods are sold whilst in the possession of a warehouseman, and some act remains to be done for the completion of the sale. Maud. & P. Mer. Sh.
STOPPAGEn.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
The act of stopping, or arresting progress, motion, or action; also, the state of being stopped; as, the stoppage of the circulation of the blood; the stoppage of commerce.
stoppagenoun
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 pause or halt of some activity. | Something that forms an obstacle to continued activity; a blockage or obstruction.

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