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Alternative pleading (or pleading in the alternative) is the legal term [1] [2] in the law of the United States for a form of pleading that permits a party in a court action to argue multiple possibilities that may be mutually exclusive by making use of legal fiction.
If a party makes alternative statements, the pleading is sufficient if any one of them is sufficient. A party may state inconsistent (even mutually exclusive) claims or defenses. In addition to notice pleading, a minority of states ( e.g. , California ) use an intermediate system known as code pleading , which is a system older than notice ...
Forum non conveniens (Latin for "an inconvenient forum" [1] [2] [3]) (FNC) is a mostly common law legal doctrine through which a court acknowledges that another forum or court where the case might have been brought is a more appropriate venue for a legal case, and dismisses the case.
Government agencies may also be a party to civil actions. Civil and criminal cases are usually heard in different courts. In jurisdictions based on English common-law systems, the party bringing a criminal charge (in most cases, the state) is called the "prosecution", but the party bringing most forms of civil action is the " plaintiff " or ...
Originating in the legal profession, argument in the alternative is a strategy in which a lawyer advances several competing (and possibly mutually exclusive) arguments in order to pre-empt objections by his adversary, with the goal of showing that regardless of interpretation there is no reasonable conclusion other than the advocate's. [1]
Early federal and state civil procedure in the United States was rather ad hoc and was based on traditional common law procedure but with much local variety. There were varying rules that governed different types of civil cases such as "actions" at law or "suits" in equity or in admiralty; these differences grew from the history of "law" and "equity" as separate court systems in English law.
Code pleading sought to abolish the distinction between law and equity. [7] 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). [8]
Notice pleading is the dominant form of pleading used in the United States today. [2] In 1938, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were adopted. One goal of these rules was to relax the strict rules of code pleading. [2] The focus of the cause of action was shifted to discovery (another goal of the FRCP). [2]