Color

In pleading. An apparent but legally insufficient ground of action admitted to subsist in the opposite party by the pleading of one of the parties to an action.

3 Sharswood, Bl. Comm. 309; 4 Barn. & C. 547; 1 Moore & P. 307.

To give color is to give the plaintiff credit for having an apparent or prima facie right of action, independent of the matter introduced to destroy it, in order to introduce new matter in avoidance of the declaration. ' It was necessary that all pleadings in confession and avoidance should give color.

See 3 Sharswood, Bl. Comm. 309, note; 1 Chit. PI. 531.

Express color is a feigned matter, pleaded by the defendant, from which the plaintiff seems to have a good cause, whereas he has in truth only an appearance or color of cause.

Bac. Abr. "Trespass" (I 4); 1 Chit. PL 530.

It was not allowed in the plaintiff to traverse the colorable right thus given, and it thus became necessary to answer the plea on which the defendant intended to rely. Implied color is that which arises from the nature of the defense, as where the defense consists of matter of law, the facts being admitted, but their legal sufficiency denied, by matters alleged in the plea.

1 Chit. PI. 528; Steph. PI. 206.

By giving color, the defendant could replea, which would otherwise oblige him to plead the general issue.

3 Bl. Comm, 309.

The colorable right must be plausible, or afford a supposititious right, such as might induce an unlearned person to imagine it sufficient, and yet it must be in legal strictness inadequate to defeat the defendant's title as shown in the plea.

Comyn, Dig. "Pleading;" Keilw. 1036; 1 Chit. PI. 531; 4 Dane, Abr. 552; Archb. PI. 211.