24 Ind. App. 519 | Ind. Ct. App. | 1900
This action was commenced by a complaint in two paragraphs. Each paragraph was separately challenged by demurrer in the lower court. The demurrers were overruled. This action of the lower court is assigned as error. It is contended by counsel for appellant that the court erred in overruling appellants’ demurrer to the first paragraph of complaint. Appellants’ objection is well taken. We will not encumber the reports with any part of this voluminous pleading. It contains, as a part of it, three distinct and separate contracts. It avers the violation in divers ways of each and all of them by appellants separately and jointly. We are unable, after a very careful study of the pleading, to determine upon what theory appellee was proceeding, and under no theory to which the facts together could be applicable would the complaint be sufficient to withstand a demurrer for want of facts. A complaint should contain a succinct and definite statement of the facts relied upon to constitute a cause of action, and they should be stated by direct averment, and not by way of recital, so that the defendant may be apprised by the complaint itself of the facts upon which the plaintiff expects to rely. Lincoln v. Ragsdale, 7 Ind. App. 354; Pennsylvania Co. v. Zwick, 1 Ind. App. 280. Neither does the complaint contain a plain statement of the facts constituting a cause of action in such manner as to enable a person of common understanding to know what is intended. See §338 Horner 1897.
If it was intended to count upon the violation of the first agreement, the complaint is bad, because the pleader has stated a valid defense without avoiding it. In Western Union Tel. Co. v. Yopst, 118 Ind. 248, 3 L. R. A. 224,
The judgment is therefore reversed, with instructions to the lower court to sustain the demurrer to the first paragraph of complaint.