The following posting is made with
permission from the State Bar of Wisconsin who originally printed it as an
article with the same name included in Young Lawyer Division News,
State Bar of Wisconsin, June 2014, Vol. No. 17, Issue No. 3:
For the majority of the nine
years since I graduated law school, I have been primarily a civil ligation
attorney. I have handled CERCLA
Superfund litigation, complex civil matters, commercial litigation, construction
litigation, real estate disputes, trust and estate matters and various other
matters. I have appeared in
federal courts, circuit courts, probate courts and district courts in Michigan
and Wisconsin. There are basically
three different ways I have seen complaints be answered and I use all three
approaches for different reasons.
The Traditional Approach.
The traditional approach is the method where the Complaint is answered
in numbered paragraphs similar to how the complaint is formatted. For example, the first three paragraphs
of the answer might read:
- Defendant admits the allegations contained in paragraph 1 of the Complaint.
- Defendant denies the allegations contained in paragraph 2 of the Complaint as untrue.
- Defendant is without knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief as to the truth of the allegations contained in paragraph 3 of the Complaint, and therefore, leaves Plaintiff to its proofs.
When you have a long complaint,
reading an answer like this can get tedious because you have to constantly
refer back to the complaint. When
I receive an answer like this I either don’t spend much time with it, or I
immediately give it to my assistant and tell her to make a document combining
the complaint and the answer into one document so it can be more readily
understood. I use this type of
answer for a number of different reasons such as when I am buying time because
I have not developed my theory of defense yet, when I am not yet ready to reveal
my theory of defense, when opposing counsel would not give an extension to
answer the complaint in a more thorough manner, or when other reasons exist to
make the answer a less used document in the case.
Brevity. Another
approach to answering the complaint is to do so in three paragraphs, one for
each type of answer to the individually numbered paragraphs of the complaint.
For example, the first three paragraphs of the answer might read:
- Defendant admits the allegations contained in paragraphs 1, 3, 6, 14, and 21 of the Complaint.
- Defendant denies the allegations contained in paragraphs 4, 7-10, 15, 18, and 20 of the Complaint as untrue.
- Defendant is without knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief as to the truth of the allegations contained in paragraphs 2, 5, 11-13, 16-17, and 19 of the Complaint, and therefore, leaves Plaintiff to its proofs.
Reading an answer like this is
much less tedious than the traditional approach, and it is a good format for
when there is nothing remarkable to say other than Defendant denies certain allegations
of the compliant. It more directly
signifies a desire to say there is not much to be learned from the pleadings
other than which particular paragraphs are in dispute. This method can be so brief that it
leaves the impression that the complaint does not merit a long response. For example, answering a complaint with
over 100 paragraphs with a single page answer.
Briefing Your Defense.
My favorite way to answer a complaint is to treat it like a brief to the
Court. This method is useful when
you know (or essentially know) the critical issues (or some of them) and you
have good responses to the allegations and/or theories asserted in the
complaint. When using this method,
I am trying to persuade the Court.
I will usually begin the answer with an introduction that cuts to the
heart of the issues that are immediately apparent and outlines the defenses
that will be later asserted in greater detail through a subsequent motion or
otherwise. For example, an
Introduction might say something to the effect of:
Plaintiff is suing
under the wrong contract.
Plaintiff’s whole theory in this case is not only factually inaccurate
because Defendant did not do the things that the Plaintiff is alleging, but it
is also legally inaccurate because the contract Plaintiff is referring to in
the Complaint was replaced by subsequent signed agreements between the parties
that completely contradict Plaintiff’s allegations about the terms of the
agreement.
After the introduction, I repeat
(quote) each individual allegation of the complaint and insert an answer
following each quoted paragraph (similar to how discovery requests are usually
answered). Not only do I answer
the allegations made, I also affirmatively assert relevant facts when it would
be helpful to the reader (the Court).
For example, an answer to two paragraphs may read as follows:
Complaint paragraph
1: ABC, Inc. is a Michigan corporation with a principal place of business in
Marquette, Michigan.
Answer: Defendant denies the allegations as
untrue. Defendant affirmatively
states that it is a Delaware corporation with a principal place of business in
New York, New York, and that there is no comma in its name. However, Defendant has operations, and
does business, in Marquette, Michigan.
Complaint paragraph
2: XYZ, LLC is a Michigan
corporation with a principal place of business in Marquette, Michigan.
Answer:
Defendant is without knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief as to
the truth of the allegations contained in this paragraph, and therefore, leaves
Plaintiff to its proofs. However,
Defendant currently does not know of any other reason to dispute this
allegation, and expects to enter into stipulations with the Plaintiff to narrow
the issue in dispute.
The effect of this type of answer
is to make it the most useful pleading because all of the information from the
complaint is restated in the answer.
The biggest problem with this type of answer is that answers can become
significantly lengthy.
So those are the three methods of
answering a complaint that I have seen and used and each has its own strengths
and weaknesses.
© June 2014 Brandon J. Evans
