Rebut

To contradict, meet, or oppose allegations, charges, or evidence; to adduce counter-proofs. Rebutter: the name, in the system of common-law pleading, of the answer interposed by defendant to plaintiff's surrejoinder. Rebutting: that which contradicts or disproves. Thus, rebutting evidence is evidence introduced by one party to meet and overcome the effect of what has already been adduced by the other. Rebutting evidence is evidence adduced to rebut a presumption of fact or law; that is, to avoid its effect. But the word is also used, in a larger sense, to include any evidence adduced to destroy the effect of prior denial, or by an attack upon the character of the witness who has given it.

3 Steph. Com. 539.

Rebutter is also where a man, by deed or fine, grants to warranty any land or hereditament to another, and the person making the warranty, or his heirs, sues him to whom the warranty is made, or his heir or assignee, for the same thing. If he who is so sued plead the deed or fine with warranty, and pray judgment if the plaintiff shall be received to demand the thing which he ought to warrant to the party against the warranty in the deed, &c., this is called a rebutter (Termes de la Ley); and if I grant to a tenant to hold without impeachment of waste, and afterwards implead him for waste done, he may debar me of this action, by showing my grant, which is rebutter (Co. Entr. 284; Co. Lit. 365).

Jacob.