Issue [fr. exitus, Lat.], used in several senses:-(1) The legitimate offspring of parents. The word 'issue' in a will was either a word of purchase or of limitation, as would best answer the intention of the testator; and for the effect of the word in the case of a deed, see Norton on Deeds. Now the rule in Shelley's case (q.v.), having been abolished by s. 131, in instruments made or in wills upon death after 1925, 'issue' will be construed as a word of pur-chase [(English) Law of Property Act, 1925, s. 131], and s. 130, by implication abolishes the rule in Wild's case, (1599) 6 Co Rep 16 b, 17 a (q.v.), in such cases, 2 Fonbl. Eq. 69.
(2) The profits arising from lands or tenements, amerciaments, or fines.
(3) Event, consequence, evacuation, sending forth.
(4) The point in question, as the conclusion of the pleadings between contending parties in an action, when one side affirms and the other denies.
It is provided by the present rules of pleading that the plaintiff by his reply may join issue on the defence, and that if the plaintiff does not deliver a reply, or any party does not deliver any subsequent pleading, within the proper time, the pleadings are to be deemed closed and all the material statements of fact in the pleading last delivered will be deemed to have been denied and put in issue, so that a for-mal joined of issue is unnecessary. By Ord. XXXIII., r. 1, a judge may direct preparation of issues, and settle them if the parties differ. See Williams v. Stanley, (1926) 2 KB 37, as to the meaning of issue in regard to costs, and see PLEADING. Consult Odgers on Pleading; Bullen and Leake's Precedents of Plead-ings.
In Scottish practice, the question put to a jury in a civil case is termed an 'issue.