Rule 8.General Rules of Pleading.

A claim for relief needs only a short and plain statement showing the pleader is entitled to relief, plus a demand for judgment. In personal injury, property damage, or wrongful death cases, the pleading can’t state the dollar amount sought — it just has to say the amount is enough to put the case within the court’s jurisdiction. A party can demand alternative or several different types of relief in the same pleading.

On the other side, a party responding to a claim has to admit or deny each allegation in short, plain terms. Lacking enough knowledge or information to form a belief about an allegation is itself a way of denying it, as long as the party says so. A denial has to address the substance of what’s alleged, and a party who means to admit part of an averment and dispute the rest has to say which part is true and deny only what remains. A party can deny specific averments one by one, or deny everything except items it expressly admits, or issue a general denial of the whole pleading if it means to dispute all of it in good faith — subject to the certification obligations in Rule 11. Disputing that a signature is genuine takes a specific negative averment; a general denial alone doesn’t put a signature at issue.

Certain defenses have to be raised affirmatively in the response or they risk being lost, including accord and satisfaction, arbitration and award, assumption of risk, discharge in bankruptcy, duress, estoppel, failure of consideration, fraud, illegality, injury by a fellow servant, laches, license, payment, release, res judicata, statute of frauds, statute of limitations, waiver, and any other matter that would avoid the claim. If a party mislabels a defense as a counterclaim, or the reverse, the court can treat it as if it had been labeled correctly when justice calls for it.

Allegations that call for a response are deemed admitted if nobody denies them, except for the amount of damages claimed. Allegations that don’t call for a response are treated as denied or avoided. Every pleading should be simple, concise, and direct, without technical forms, and a party can plead inconsistent or alternative claims and defenses without weakening the pleading — if one alternative would be sufficient on its own, the pleading isn’t undercut by a weaker one stated alongside it. Courts read all of this to do substantial justice, not to trip up a case on form.