echnical statement of a case is
not a matter to be laughed at; no clear thinking is possible without
it. No plain understanding of what the drama is about, nor what the
issues of the battle are, can be grasped. 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.
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 kn