COUNTERCLAIM. In pleading, an affirma tive cause of action asserted by the defendant against the plaintiff and introduced in connec tion with his answer or defense proper. The counterclaim is a modern statutory device for enabling a person who is sued on a claim against him to procure an adjudication, at the same time. of a legal claim which he has against the party suing him. Its purpose is to consolidate the causes of action which two parties may have against one another, reducing the amount and cost of litigation and compelling the adjudica tion, so far as possible, of all open controversies between them. No such practice existed at common law, but every claim, no matter how closely related to another and opposing claim, constituted a separate cause of action and had to be separately prosecuted. As early as the year 1729, however, an act of the British Parliament introduced the principle of the set-off ( , whereby, in ease of mutual indebtedness growing out of the same transaction, the defendant was enabled to set his claim off against that of the plaintiff and have it allowed on the judgment. It was not until the Judicature Acts in 1575, however, that the defendant acquired the right of setting up a cross-claim, constituting a dis tinct cause of action.
Both the set-off and the counterclaim exist in the United States, the forTher generally, but the latter only in the so-called 'code States,' which have adopted the reformed procedure. These differ among themselves, however, as to the na ture of the actions which can be pleaded by way of counterclaim, some following the modern English practice, under which any cause of ac tion, however divergent from that alleged in the complaint, may be set up, and others, like New York, limiting the right of counterelaim to a matter arising out of the same transaction as that on which the action is based, or, in an action on contract, any other cause of action on con tract. (New York Code of Civil Procedure,
§ 501.) See PLEA; PLEADING; RECOUPAI ENT; and consult the authorities referred to tinder PLEADING.
COUNTERFEITING(from counterfeit, from OF., Fr, contrefait, counterfeit, from ML. con irafacere, to imitate, from Lat. contra, against faccre. to make). The criminal offense of falsely and fraudulently making an article in the semblance of another with the intent to in duce the acceptance and use of such spurious article fur the genuine one. It is used tinost frequently of imitations of coined money, but is applied also to spurious trade-marks. or The most important British statute on this topic is the Coinage Offense Act, 1861 (24 and 25 Viet, c. 09). In this country the subject is dealt with in the Revised Statutes of the United States (§ 5413 et seq.), especially so far as it re lates to Federal coinage and securities and the money or securities of foreign nations; and other forms of counterfeiting are made punishable by State legislation. See COINAGE; FORGERY.