Only One plea was
admitted:
Formerly there were forms
of action outside which the Plaintiff could not go.
One Record was one history
of a particular litigation. Indeed, the earlier times, only one plea was
admitted; and until the Statute of Anne (The Law Amendment Act, 1705) a person
was compelled to base his whole defence on one plea, and could not raise more
than one.
All that is changed.
It is clear that all those
rules are now inappropriate, and that the learning and phraseology applicable
to them have passed away.
Rightly or wrongly, the
Legislature has enacted that the Statement of Claim shall be a simple narrative
of the facts upon which the Plaintiff relies, and it is for the Judge to decide
the himself as to nature of the legal liability which is disclosed, not upon
appropriate legla averment, but upon the facts described in the Statement of
Claim.
(Privy Council Decisions,
Alexander McDonald v. Frank J Belcher and others (Canad) (1904) UKPC 18 (28
April 1904).
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