CODE PLEADING
A statutory scheme that abolished the ancient common-law FORMS OF ACTION and replaced the overly technical system of COMMON-LAW PLEADING with simplified provisions for a plaintiff to bring a lawsuit and a defendant to answer the claims alleged against him or her.
As the COMMON LAW developed in England after the Norman Conquest in 1066, a plaintiff could start a lawsuit only by obtaining a writ from the king or the king’s chancellor. In time these writs took on fixed forms and a plaintiff could obtain one only if the words of the claim fit one of the established forms of action. There
was no room for variation in the words of
the plaintiff ’s complaint or the defendant’s
response. By the fourteenth century the forms of
action had become quite rigid and they took on
the same overly technical characteristics under
the common law in the United States. Frequently
a worthy claim was tossed out of court
because of some miscalculation or misstatement
in the pleadings and justice was ill-served.
In 1848 New York enacted a new code to
govern PLEADING in the courts of that state. It
was called the Field Code after DAVID DUDLEY
FIELD, the man who devised it. A number of
other states followed the lead of New York. This
pattern of pleading a CAUSE OF ACTION or a
response came to be called code pleading.
Common-law pleading had required reducing
every case to one claim and one response.
Since grievances did not always fit into common-
law forms, code pleading abandoned it. All
the old forms of action were abolished and the
extreme formality of common-law pleading was
abandoned. Under code pleading the plaintiff
has only to make a statement of facts that, if
true, justify legal relief. The only requirement is
that those facts fit the general pattern of some
established legal right and that they state a claim
on which relief can be granted. Furthermore, the
plaintiff can present alternative or even inconsistent
sets of facts and leave it to the trier of fact
to establish which are correct. This is allowed
when the plaintiff does not know all the facts
affecting the claim, so long as the pleading is
made honestly and in GOOD FAITH. More than
one cause of action can be alleged but they must
be stated as separate counts. For example, some
states allow a simplified form of pleading of a
breach of contract. The plaintiff may simply
state that money is owed but has not been paid
or services have been rendered but payment has
not been made.
Code pleading solved many of the problems
associated with common-law pleading but it
also spawned a new controversy. The requirement
that a plaintiff set out a claim by reciting
facts justifying relief left open the question of
what facts might be included. It has often been
said that a plaintiff need plead ULTIMATE FACTS,
not legal conclusions. Case after case has been
fought on this point. The distinction primarily
concerns how much detail must be given. A
plaintiff must be able to show that he or she has
a legal right, the defendant breached or violated
that right, and the plaintiff thereby suffered
some harm.
