- 92 -
limiting the recoupment. However, it is not Greenstreet's
treatment of the single-transaction issue that makes it
significant for the case at hand. Rather, In re Greenstreet,
Inc. is a striking example of a refusal by a court to look beyond
the single transaction in deciding what effect to give to
recoupment as a defense. It is with this in mind that we should
look at the language in In re Greenstreet, Inc. quoted by the
majority (majority op. p. 6 n.8) against my view of the
overpayment issue. There would have been no affirmative recovery
by the debtor if all its counterclaims had been allowed, provided
that one looks beyond the single transaction. After all, the
Government's claims in total substantially outweighed the
counterclaims. In saying that there could be no affirmative
recovery through recoupment, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh
Circuit was clearly thinking of affirmative recovery with respect
to the single transaction.
It should further be noted that the Supreme Court in Reiter
v. Cooper, supra, said that it basically made no difference
whether recoupment was a defense or a counterclaim (according to
the Supreme Court, it was in fact a counterclaim in the context
of that case, but the defendants' characterization of it as a
defense was inconsequential, and the plaintiff's argument that,
38(...continued)
such a development.
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