Civil procedure consists of the rules by which courts conduct civil trials. In the U.S., civil procedure usually takes the form of a series of rules and judicial practices. The federal courts follow the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

The sixth edition, first published as an ebook, and this seventh edition carry forward the philosophy and structure of the earlier editions. This book is not a comprehensive treatise on the subject of civil procedure, yet it provides a mixture of expository text, cases, and self-testing questions in nearly all of the major areas of the subject.

This chapter covers the Civil Procedure topic of Pleading: The Plaintiff’s Complaint. The chapter takes approximately four class periods to cover in detail.

The student is exposed to cases, presented with questions that are designed to both guide class discussion and to help the student focus his reading of the materials, pleadings from cases, and the applicable Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.