Good lawyers are good
thinkers and usually plain talkers. The present-day revolt against the
confused pleadings may go to the opposite extreme and abolish them
all, leaving the case to be presented as formless and loose. The vexed
question of the proper form of a pleading may delay justice until it
is determined on appeal from the City Court to the Supreme Court, then
to the Appellate Division, then to the Court of Appeals. In the
meanwhile the clients may die, the money in suit may be lost, while
the audience is waiting merely for the programs to be printed.
In Perry on _Common Law Pleading_, reprinted in 1897, chapter thirteen
is devoted to rules which tend to prevent obscurity and confusion in
pleading.
RULE I. Pleadings must not be insensible or repugnant.
RULE II. Pleadings must not be ambiguous or doubtful.
RULE III. Pleadings must not be argumentative.
RULE IV. Pleadings must not be hypothetical or in the alternative.
RULE V. Pleadings must not be by way of recital, but must be
positive.
RULE VI. Things are to be pleaded according to their legal effect.
RULE VII. Pleadings should observe the known forms of expression as
contained in approved precedents.
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