James D. HODGSON, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor, Appellant, v. VIRGINIA BAPTIST HOSPITAL, INC., Appellee.
No. 72-1191
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit
June 19, 1973
Rehearing Denied Sept. 10, 1973
482 F.2d 821
Ineffectiveness of counsel is easy to charge, but difficult to prove. No such claim can prevail “unless what was done or not done by the attorney for his client made the proceedings a farce and a mockery of justice, shocking to the conscience of the Court.” Hayes v. Russell, 405 F.2d 859, 860 (6th Cir. 1969). No such situation existed here.
Affirmed.
Argued March 8, 1973.
William B. Poff, Roanoke, Va. (Ronald M. Ayers, and Woods, Rogers, Muse Walker & Thornton, Roanoke, Va., on brief), for appellee.
Before BRYAN, Senior Circuit Judge, and WINTER and BUTZNER, Circuit Judges.
BUTZNER, Circuit Judge:
The single issue presented by this appeal is whether the district court erred in ordering the United States Secretary of Labor to amend his complaint against the Virginia Baptist Hospital, Inc. to include a more definite statement of his claim. When the Secretary declined to expand his complaint, the district court dismissed the action, and the Secretary appealed this order of dismissal. Because we conclude that the complaint furnished sufficient information to permit the hospital to prepare an answer, we vacate the judgment of the district court and remand the case for further proceedings.
The Secretary‘s complaint alleged that the hospital had its place of business in the western district of Virginia, that it engaged in interstate commerce, and that the Fair Labor Standards Act,
The hospital moved for a more definite statement. It requested the Secretary to specify the names of the employees paid less than the minimum wage and the wages paid each of these employees; the jobs in which the hospital practiced sex discrimination, the employees in those jobs, and the wages paid to each employee; the names of the employees who did not receive overtime pay and the weeks in which these employees were entitled to overtime pay; the particular records that the hospital had failed to maintain as required by the Act; and the names of employees whose employment constituted oppressive child labor, the hours worked by each of these employees, and the particular manner in which their employment violated the Act. The district court, ruling that a plaintiff must plead the facts within his knowledge on which he bases his claim, ordered the Secretary to amend his complaint to allege all the information requested by the hospital.
The district court‘s order, we believe, misconstrued the role of pleading under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Rule 12(e), which authorizes the motion for a more definite statement, must be read in conjunction with Rule 8, which establishes the general rules for pleading.
A major aim of American procedural reform has been to reduce reliance on pleadings to refine the evidentiary basis for a litigant‘s claim.3 The early state procedure codes, modeled after the New York code drafted by David Dudley Field, tried to simplify common law pleading by requiring a complaint to state “the facts constituting each cause of action.”4 Judicial hostility to the codes, however, generated complex distinctions between law, facts, and evidence to nullify the attempt to simplify pleading.5 To avoid these technicalities, the drafters of the Federal Rules substituted the word “claim” for “cause of action,” dropped the requirement that the complaint allege “facts,” and expanded discovery procedures,6 but even these changes were not entirely successful.7 To clarify the original intent of the rules, the bill of particulars was abolished by the 1946 amendments which became effective in 1948. The same amendments restricted the motion for a more definite statement to pleadings so vague or ambiguous that the opposing party could not frame an appropriate response.8
Judged by the standard set forth in
Before 1948, district courts differed over whether defendants were entitled to have the Secretary‘s boiler plate Fair Labor Standards Act complaint amplified by allegations of the facts.9 But since the amendment of
We do not hold that requiring a limited expansion of a complaint is never appropriate under
Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. The government shall recover its costs.
ALBERT V. BRYAN, Senior Circuit Judge (dissenting):
No fault can be found in the majority‘s precise and comprehensive exposition of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. However, the Rules are there considered entirely in the abstract. My point is that, in the actualities of this case the District Judge correctly sustained the defendant‘s motion for a more definite statement. In holding to the contrary, the decision disregards the overriding and practical aim of the Rules—to simplify pleading and to expedite the cause.
The Secretary pressed in argument that the District Judge should be reversed solely because he granted the defendant‘s motion instead of requiring
No one questions that discovery is the usual course; that is hornbook. But where this cumbersome procedure can be avoided, I see in it no affront to the Rules. The Rules are not so inflexible as not to tolerate any deviation from some of their steps when to do so will, because of exceptional circumstances, achieve the Rules’ aims—simplicity and expedition—without the merest prejudice to any party. Otherwise, the overall ambition of the Rules is thwarted by the Rules themselves. Moreover, any information given responsively to the motion would not have constituted proof. Apparently this was the District Judge‘s construction.
The logic of his stance upon the Secretary‘s refusal to obey the Court‘s orders in the Hospital‘s motion is starkly revealed by recounting the impediments the Secretary interjected into the progress of the suit. Instead of obtaining the information at once or within 10 days,
- State in its answer that the Hospital was “without knowledge or information” as to the truth of any averment in the complaint in that category, all of which would have been furnished at once on the Hospital‘s motion.
- Prepare and serve interrogatories, or take depositions, to gain this knowledge or information.
- Wait 30 days for objections or answers to interrogatories.
Rule 33(a) . - Seek a hearing before the Court on the objections, if any.
- Await the decision of the Court on the objections.
- Await the answer by the adversary party to any interrogatory found unobjectionable.
- Examine all answers to ascertain if they were sufficient.
- Except to any answer believed insufficient.
- Seek a hearing before the Court on the exceptions.
- Await decision thereon.
Pursuit of such prolongation of procedure is costly both in money and in time. It should not be imposed upon a defendant when, as in the special circumstances of this case, the whole of it could have been obviated through the Secretary‘s compliance with the Hospital‘s motion, which he could do at once, easily and without a shadow of prejudice. The Rules are not so sacrosanct that we dare not apply them practically.
I would affirm.