Recoup

or BECOUPE. To deduct or keep back; to withhold part of a demand, from equitable reasons. Recoupment, or recoupement: discount; abatement or reduction of a demand. These words are nearly synonymous with defalk or defalcation, in their innocent sense, and not as implying embezzlement or breach of trust. They imply that something is to be taken off from a demand, on the ground of equities growing out of the whole transaction, which wai Tant a reduction. Recoup is a term of French origin, and signifies cutting again, or cutting back; and, in application to matter of defence in a suit, a defence means the cutting back on the plaintiff's claim by the defendant. Like reduction, it is of necessity limited to diminishing the amount of the plaintiff's claim, and does not give defendant a right to an affirmative judgment for a sai-plus. It is properly applicable to a case where the same contract imposes mutual duties and obligations on the two parties, and one seeks a remedy for the breach of duty by the second, and the second meets the demand by a claim for the breach of duty by the first.

Davenport v. Hubbard, 46 Vt. 200.

There is an important distinction between recoupment and set-off or counter-claim. Recoupment applies to equities growing out of the veiy affair from which the principal demand arises, set-off to cross-demands which may be independent in origin. The case of an employer sued for the agreed price of work done for him, who claims an abatement from the contract sum by reason of damages he has sustained through the unskilful or unfaithful performance of the work, is an example of recoupment; for the demand and the deduction have their foundations in the same transaction. The case of independent judgments judged a satisfaction, as far as its amount admits, of the larger, is an example of set-off. Counter-claim (j. v.) is the name of the way by which, under codes of reformed procedure, a right of set-off or recoupment may, in a proper case, be set up; it is a term relating to the remedy, not to the substance of the right.