- 88 -
Nothing in Bull v. United States, supra, indicates that we
need consider anything other than the single transaction at issue
when we set out to determine whether recoupment is being used
defensively, and there is plenty of other authority to the effect
that we should only consider that single transaction. As the
Supreme Court said in Rothensies v. Electric Storage Battery Co.,
329 U.S. 296, 299 (1946):
Equitable recoupment has never been thought to allow
one transaction to be offset against another, but only
to permit a transaction which is made the subject of
suit by a plaintiff to be examined in all its aspects,
and judgment to be rendered that does justice in view
of the one transaction as a whole.
That sentence was cited at a critical point in United States v.
Dalm, 494 U.S. at 611, to support the Supreme Court's central
holding that equitable recoupment requires an independent basis
for jurisdiction. By limiting recoupment as respondent wants,
the majority, to that extent, are failing to do justice in view
of the one transaction as a whole.
iv. Barring recoupment would be inconsistent with other
precedent
In Reiter v. Cooper, 507 U.S. 258, 265 (1993), a bankruptcy
case and the Supreme Court's latest pronouncement on recoupment,
the Supreme Court reaffirmed Bull v. United States, 295 U.S. 247
(1935),36 and cited it for the proposition that recoupment claims
36Equitable recoupment entered bankruptcy law under the
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