Home > West's Encyclopedia of American Law > Common-Law Pleading

The system of rules and principles that governed the forms into which parties cast their claims or defenses in order to set an issue before the court.

The system prevailed in the common-law courts and in many U.S. states until it was replaced by statute with a procedure called CODE PLEADING in the nineteenth century. Those states that do not have systems of code pleading today follow the pleading procedures established by the rules of CIVIL PROCEDURE adopted for the federal district courts in 1938.

During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries a person with a grievance sought a writ from the king's chief minister, the chancellor. The writ ordered the defendant to submit to the plaintiff's demands or to appear and answer the charge made against him or her. Over a period of time,...