§ 19-25 Contract - Recoupment

• Library: South Carolina Requests to Charge - Civil (SCBar) (2016 Ed.)

§ 19-25 Contract - Recoupment

Recoupment is the right of the defendant to cut down or diminish the claim of the plaintiff in consequence of his failure to comply with some provision of the contract sought to be enforced, or because he has violated some duty imposed upon him by law in the making or performance of that contract. The delinquency or deficiency which will justify the reduction of the plaintiff's claim must arise out of the same transaction and not out of a different transaction.

A recoupment, unlike a counterclaim, only reduces the plaintiff's claim. It does not allow recovery of an affirmative money judgment for any excess over that claim. Unlike set-off, it must grow out of the identical transaction that gave rise to the plaintiff's cause of...