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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1968 (SND Vol. VII).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

RECOMPENSE, v., n. Sc. legal usage:

I. v. To put forward a counter-claim in an action for debt, to set off one debt against another. Hence recompensation, a counter-claim, a set-off (see 1773 quot.).Sc. 1711 Morison Decisions 2686:
“Your compensation cannot extinguish my debt; because I recompense you again, in so far as I am cautioner for you in a 3000 merks bond” . . . There can neither be retention nor recompensation, unless you were distressed and had paid the debt.Sc. 1773 Erskine Institute iii. iv. § 19:
A pursuer, when he is creditor to the defender by a separate debt, which has not been included in the libel, may, if the defender should plead any ground of compensation, elide his defence, by pleading recompensation upon that separate debt. . . . Where recompensation is pleaded, matters generally resolve into an action of count and reckoning.Sc. 1838 W. Bell Dict. Law Scot. 822:
Where one pursues for a debt, and the defender pleads compensation, to which the pursuer replies by pleading compensation also, this is termed recompensation.Sc. 1855 Scots Law Rep. XVII. D. 739:
The judicial factor in obtaining authority from the surviving partner was entitled to plead recompensation against the counter claims of the defenders.

II. n. A recompensation, see v. and quot.Sc. 1838 W. Bell Dict. Law Scot. 822:
Where one builds upon another's ground, in the belief that it is his own, the property of the builder goes to the proprietor of the ground; but he is liable in recompense, so far as lucratus.Sc. 1946 A. D. Gibb Legal Terms 73:
Recompense. A form of quasi-contract binding a person, who has made a gain out of what has caused loss to another, to recoup that other.