Editing Pleading (section)

===Code===
'''Code pleading''' was first introduced in 1850 in [[New York (state)|New York]] and in 1851 in [[California]], and eventually spread to 26 other states.<ref name="Hepburn_Page_15">{{cite book |last1=Hepburn |first1=Charles McGuffey |title=The Historical Development of Code Pleading in America and England |date=1897 |publisher=W.H. Anderson & Co. |location=Cincinnati |page=15|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZAk-AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA15 |access-date=18 November 2023}}</ref>  Code pleading sought to abolish the distinction between law and equity.<ref>e.g., ''[[Hurwitz v. Hurwitz]]'', 78 U.S. App. D.C. 66, 136 F.2d 796, 799 (1943)</ref> It unified civil procedure for all types of actions as much as possible.  The focus shifted from pleading the right form of action (that is, the right procedure) to pleading the right cause of action (that is, a substantive right to be enforced by the law).<ref name="Hepburn_Page207">{{cite book |last1=Hepburn |first1=Charles McGuffey |title=The Historical Development of Code Pleading in America and England |date=1897 |publisher=W.H. Anderson & Co. |location=Cincinnati |page=207|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZAk-AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA207 |access-date=4 August 2020}}</ref>

Code pleading stripped out most of the legal fictions that had encrusted common law pleading by requiring parties to plead "ultimate facts."  This means that to plead a cause of action, the pleader has to plead each element and also allege specific facts which, if proven with evidence at trial, would constitute proof of that element.  Failure to provide such detail could lead to dismissal of the case if the defendant successfully [[Demurrer|demurred]] to the complaint on the basis that it merely stated "legal conclusions" or "evidentiary facts."

Code pleading also drastically shortened the pleading process.  Most of the old common law pleadings were abolished.  From now on, a case required only a complaint and an answer, with an optional cross-complaint and cross-answer, and with the demurrer kept as the standard attack on improper pleadings.<ref name="Hepburn_Page118">{{cite book |last1=Hepburn |first1=Charles McGuffey |title=The Historical Development of Code Pleading in America and England |date=1897 |publisher=W.H. Anderson & Co. |location=Cincinnati |page=118|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZAk-AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA118 |access-date=4 August 2020}}</ref>     Instead of piling layers and layers of pleadings and averments on top of each other, a pleading that was attacked by demurrer would either be completely superseded by an amended pleading or would proceed immediately "at issue" as to the validly pleaded parts.<ref name="Hepburn_Page119">{{cite book |last1=Hepburn |first1=Charles McGuffey |title=The Historical Development of Code Pleading in America and England |date=1897 |publisher=W.H. Anderson & Co. |location=Cincinnati |page=119|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZAk-AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA119 |access-date=4 August 2020}}</ref>  This meant that to determine what the parties were currently  fighting about, a stranger to a case would no longer have to read the entire case file from scratch, but could (in theory) look ''only'' at the most recent version of the complaint filed by the plaintiff, the defendant's most recent answer to that complaint, and any court orders on demurrers to either pleading.

Code pleading was criticized because many lawyers felt that it was too difficult to fully research all the facts needed to bring a complaint ''before'' one had even initiated the action, and thus meritorious plaintiffs could not bring their complaints in time before the [[statute of limitations]] expired. Code pleading has also been criticized as promoting "hypertechnical reading of legal papers".<ref>''[[United States v. Uni Oil, Inc.]]'', 710 F.2d 1078, 1080-81 n.1 (5th Cir. 1983)</ref>