Almost as a matter of course an answer to a complaint asserts a number of defenses for which there is no possibility of any factual basis (nor was there any contemplated) and equally as often the defenses have some amorphous phrasing such as "to the extent that plaintiff did not mitigate her damages."
Almost never are these meaningless recitations ever questioned by the Court. It is plain that it is almost never because the Court in Santiago v. Pulido, No. 02-C-1160, questioned these rote recitations in a sua sponte order as follows:
After all, it is really meaningless to say that a plaintiff may not recover "to the extent" that some defect may exist, without in any way identifying how that hypothetical possiblity relates to the case at hand.
The judge, Hon. Milton Shadur of the Northern District of Illinois, also questions whether defendant truly means its blanket denials of particular and specific allegations in the plaintiff's complaint, asking and directing as follows:
Does District really know that those charges are untrue, so that it can flat out deny them in good conscience, or is it rather opting to believe Pulido in a situation in which only the two protagonists know the real facts? ... As long as District's counsel must return to the drawing board in any event, she should give careful consideration to each responsive paragraph to avoid the rote repetition of outright denials where they are inappropriate.
A copy of this remarkable memorandum order can be read here.
