Court Opinion

ID: 8799347
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 14:25:16.264971+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:03:49.004973
License: Public Domain

LEARNED HAND, District Judge.
I concur except that I think we should not review the earlier orders. Such orders as those making pleadings more definite and certain, or numbering the causes of action separately, or granting bill of particulars, should under no circumstances come before this court; they do not involve any final decision on.substantial rights and should be within the power of the court which prepares the cause for trial. An order striking out an allegation from a pleading may, however, go to the merits of the case, and in such a case should be reviewable. If, for example, in the case at bar, the third amended complaint had been sufficient, but only because of some allegation struck out in one of the prior orders, the correctness of so much of that order should be raised. However, the third amended complaint was sufficient as it stood, and it is not necessary to consider whether any allegations struck out earlier were material or not. If any of those allegations were erroneously stricken out, the plaintiff may still offer the proof on the trial, and take an exception to its exclusion. Such an exception will raise not only the technical validity of the order, but, what is much more important, whether the proof excluded was of enough consequence to affect the result; the question will come up like any other exception to the exclusion of evidence. As the case now comes up the orders striking out the allegations are moot, and should not be decided. The question whether by accepting the privilege of amendment conferred by the orders striking out, the plaintiff waived any rights to appeal, was not” urged upon the argument; it should not be decided, in my judgment.