Court Opinion

ID: 9550552
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:37:04.616104+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:21:45.903473
License: Public Domain

WOLFE, Chief Justice
(concurring).
I concur in the holding that the motion to dismiss was improperly granted, but I assume that it is not meant thereby that conclusions of law can be pleaded nakedly without underlying facts from which the pleaded legal conclusion follows. It was always permissible to plead the legal effect of underlying facts, but not the legal conclusion devoid of the facts from which it is claimed to flow. I think the same is still true.
I also concur with the holding that the motion for a more definite statement should, under the circumstances, be granted. The way is clear for that motion since the pleading is held not vulnerable to the motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted.
The case of U. S. v. United Shoe Machinery Co., D. C., 76 F. Supp. 315, 316, held not that “motions for a more definite statement” are not favored but that under Federal Rule 12(e), 28 U. S. C. A. the practice was to “narrowly restrict” the granting of such motions. Certainly such motions have a definite purpose and, if not used for delay but actually to clear up pleadings, are very useful. The *463new rules do not, I surmise, do away with the necessity of building up the pleading structure of a case by the framing and joining of issues. Allegata must still precede probata.
Certainly, the motion should not be used to obtain evidence from the pleader. It is to the interest of the court which must try the case, however, that there be no latent issues in the pleadings. If a pleading is such that on the surface it appears definite and certain, but within the scope of reasonable interpretation it is revealed that two or more meanings could be taken from the pleading, then the motion for a more definite statement or for clarification to pin the pleading down so as not to be ambulatory would appear in order. The pre-trial order may obviate uncertainties but the joining of issues precedes the pre-trial order and that should be accomplished by clear and definite pleadings which still have a very useful and important place in a law suit despite a tendency to place dispatch and expediency above all else.
I have been moved to speak as I have because of what I understand to be a growing tendency of some trial judges to deny motions of this kind because of discovery provisions of the new rules which were not meant to be used to obtain information necessary to make a responsive pleading any more than a motion for a more definite statement was meant to obtain evidence. Each has its sphere of use.
I agree that trial courts have wide discretion in applying Rule 12(e), U. R. C. P. I think that discretion may be wisely used to the end of assisting the court and counsel in framing clear and definite issues and- preventing complaints from being used to trouble the waters with the object of fishing in them.
HENRIOD, J., having disqualified himself, did not participate.