2 Set-Off between Solvent Parties: Common Law

2.01 Prior to the enactment of the first Statute of Set-off in 1729,1 there was no general right of set-off available to a defendant in a common law action when he or she was being sued by a solvent plaintiff, as opposed to the assignees of a bankrupt.2 This denial of a set-off has been explained as being consistent with the adoption by the common law courts of strict rules of pleading and of forms of action, which were designed to reduce the question to be decided by the court as far as possible to a single, well-defined issue. It would have been contrary to that...