K.S.A. 60-210.Form of pleadings

Subsection (a) tells a party what belongs in a pleading's caption: the court's name, a title, a file number, and the chapter-60 designation required under 60-207(a). The petition's title must name every party, but later pleadings, after naming the first party on each side, may refer to the rest generally.

Subsection (b) requires claims or defenses to appear in numbered paragraphs, each limited as far as practicable to a single set of circumstances, and a later pleading may refer to an earlier paragraph by number. If doing so would promote clarity, each claim founded on a separate transaction or occurrence, and each defense other than a denial, must be stated in a separate count or defense. Subsection (c) lets a party adopt a statement from elsewhere in the same pleading, or from another pleading or motion, by reference, and treats a written instrument attached as an exhibit as part of the pleading for all purposes.

Subsection (d) covers what happens when a party's name changes after the action has already started, whether from marriage, divorce, adoption, a name-change proceeding, amended articles of incorporation, an assumed alias, or otherwise — including when an action was mistakenly filed against a party under a former name that party no longer uses. Any interested party can put that change on the record by filing a certified copy of the relevant marriage record, divorce decree, amended articles, or adoption or name-change order, or an affidavit or declaration from an informed person. Once that's done, the changed name must be used, in the alternative, in every later proceeding in the action.