Plea
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence · Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence
1.
Embraces several kinds of formal answer made by a defendant to a bill, complaint, declaration, or prosecution. It is a general term, for there are many kinds of pleas; yet all the responses to a plaintiff's pleading are not termed pleas. And the term is used differently in common-law and equity practice. In common-law practice, it signifies the defendant's answer to the merits of plaintiff's declaration, in distinction In a broad sense of the word, it may include a demurrer. When this answer or plea sets forth at large or in detail the subject-matter of the defence, it is denominated a special plea, in contradistinction to those direct and concise answers to the declaration, termed the general issues. In equity practice, plea and answer are used of two distinct modes of interposing defence. A plea has been defined as a short statement, in response to a bi Uin equity, of facts which, if inserted in the bill, would render it demurrable; while an answer is a complete statement of the defendant's case, and contains answers to any interrogatories the plaintiff may have administered. Hunt Eq. Pt. I. ch.
3.
See Wharton for a concise analytical statement of the pleas most in use in law and equity.
2.
Pleas, the plural, is used to signify suits or actions. Thus, " holding pleas " means entertaining or taking cognizance of actions or suits; "common pleas" signifies ordinary actions or suits between man and man, as distinguished from such as are promoted and prosecuted at the suit of the crown, which are thence denominated pleas of the crown.
Plea side
The plea side of a court is that branch or department of the court which entertains or takes cognizance of civil actions and suits, as distinguished from its criminal or crown department. Thus the court of queen's bench is said to have a plea side and a crown or criminal side: the one branch or department of it being devoted to the cognizance of civil actions, the other to criminal proceedings and matters peculiarly concerning the crown. So the court of exchequer is said to have a plea side and a crown side, the one being appropriated to civil actions, the other to matters of revenue.
Brown.