Rejoining Gratis
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
Signifies rejoining without a notice from the opposite party to do so. Before the common-law procedure act, 1852, if a defendant delayed his rejoinder, the plaintiff might apply for a rule requiring him to rejoin in four days; and the condition of rejoining gratis meant rejoining without the usual four-day rule. By section 53 of that act, rules to rejoin were abolished, and a notice to rejoin jdig gratis, therefore, came to mean rejoining without notice from the plaintiff to do so. To do so is one of the conditions which the common-law courts hare been accustomed to impose upon a defendant who asks for further time to plead.
L-ush Pract. 450, 451; Smith Act. Law, ch. 4.
A rejoinder, though not expressly mentioned in the judicature acts, is implicitly recognized in order 19, rule 21, and in order 24, rule 2. By the last-cited rule, no pleading subsequent to reply, other than a joinder of issue, can be pleaded without leave of the court or a judge. A party, therefore, who wishes to " rejoin " otherwise than by " joining issue," must obtain the leave of the court or a judge for the purpose. Modey ^ W.