Affidavit Of Spousal Equivalency: Fill & Download for Free

I wouldn’t have any clue whether it’s a “red flag,” given the information provided by the question.A “bill of particulars” isn’t a very commonly-used pleading. As Hazen Hammel remarks, it doesn’t exist at all in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or in the thirty or so states who have adopted local rules based on the Federal Rules. It’s been abolished in civil practice in Pennsylvania, but it still exists—in the rule book, at least—in divorce cases (Pa. R.C.P. No. 1920.21) and criminal cases (Pa. R.Cr.P. No. 572).I’ve never actually found occasion either to demand one or to respond to a demand for one, but the general function of the bill is to fill in the gaps in the divorce complaint¹ or the information² since both of these areas of law are exceptions to Pennsylvania’s usual “fact-pleading” régime³) so that the defendant can have a fair picture of what facts the plaintiff or the Commonwealth hopes to prove by way of a cause of action. In types of cases where the bill is not used (ordinary civil litigation, for instance), a preliminary objection in the nature of a motion for more definite statement would be the approximate equivalent of the demand for bill of particulars.So, all I get out of this question is: the initial pleading was insufficiently specific, and the respondent objected. The plaintiff is pretty much required to change the pleadings (or otherwise respond to the demand for the bill per the local procedural law). So, that’s not a “red flag,” in itself. It might, though it does not have to, mean that the attorney should have done a better job at initial consultation and drafting.⁴Of course, if the client had said one thing at consultation and in the process of preparing the bill of particulars, gives inconsistent information, or especially if their whole story changes after the pleadings are answered in substance by the defendant, these would be a potential red flag.Notes:¹ The primary purpose, I imagine, of this rule is to oblige the plaintiff in a fault-based divorce to identify the conduct alleged to amount to marital fault so that the defendant can respond to it prior to hearing. However, fault-based divorces are vanishingly rare any more, and while marital fault is still a potential thing in spousal support cases, there is no provision for the bill in the Support Rules. (Something I would change if I were in charge of the Rules, but I’m not.)² I’ve never felt motivated to bother with a bill of particulars in a criminal case—while the informations are usually pretty vague, a criminal case is actually instituted by a “police criminal complaint,” which has attached to it a narrative affidavit of probable cause, and that is normally more than adequate to figure out why the defendant was charged.³ See also: John Gragson's answer to Can a cause of action be pleaded only generally in a complaint?⁴ If the demand for the bill is the local equivalent of a motion to dismiss for insufficient specificity, this might even have been the lawyer’s fault in the first place, since knowing the pleading rules in your jurisdiction is a pretty basic threshold of legal competence. But if the demand is in the nature of a Divorce Rule 21 demand, it’s just a procedure provided by the rules.