The Man in Court

by Frederic DeWitt Wells

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.
Rule	VIII.	Pleadings should have their proper formal commencements and conclusions.
Rule	IX.	A pleading which is bad in part is bad altogether.

These are pleasant rules for a layman to understand, and any time he has a day off or a holiday he should study them.

"Shocking," cries the old-fashioned reactionary lawyer, "What! Do away with pleadings, you might as well do away with the whole case. Pleadings are like the rails for a train. No one on the train sees them, but take away the rails and the train would not go very far. Pleadings are the groundwork of the trial."

He grows more and more indignant.

"The trouble with the modern courts is that they do not know what they are about. If this business of loosening the forms of pleadings had not taken place, lawyers would be better prepared when they came into court and there would not be this floundering about. The good old common law pleadings were the thing. It was a great mistake when they were abandoned. Then everyone knew where they were. If there was a mistake in the pleading then the whole case was thrown out of court. That was as it should be. Men had to be good and careful lawyers in those days. The slipshod methods of the present time are abominable."

"You seem to be a little hard," says the modern lawyer. "Justice ought not to depend on forms."

"You can never have justice without formalizing and shaping the dispute," says the lawyer.

"Quite true," says the modern, "but there has been too much attention paid to the form of justice. Pleadings are the mere mechanics like printing the program or laying the rail."

However, this is all a question that does not come up in the court-room at a trial. Once or twice some reference is made to the pleadings. Perhaps there is some such dispute as this. The defendant attempts to swear that he "paid for the goods then and there." The other lawyer jumps up and says, "I object, your Honor. In his answer he does not plead payment. He only pleads a general denial." The judge puts on his spectacles. The lawyers gather, business stops while everyone looks at the pleadings.