(verb) – In pleading. To declare; to recite; to state a case; to narrate the facts constituting a plaintiff’s cause of action. In a special sense, to set out the claim or count of the demandant in a real action. To plead orally; to plead or argue a case In court; to recite or read in court; to recite a count in court. Count noon a statute. Counting upon a statute consists in making express reference to it, as by the words “against the form of the statute” (or “by the force of the statute”) “in such case made and provided.”
(noun) – In pleading. The different parts of a declaration, each of which, if it stood alone, would constitute a ground for action, are the counts of the declaration. Used also to signify the several parts of an indictment, each charging a distinct offense. Cheetham v. Tillotson, 5 Johns. (N. T.) 434; Buckingham v. Murray, 7 Houst. (Del.) 176, 30 Atl. 779; Boren v. State, 23 Tex. App. 28, 4 S. W. 463; Bailey v. Mosher, 63 Fed. 490, 11 C. C. A. 304; Ryan v. Riddle, 109 Mo. App. 115, 82 S. W. 1117. Common counts. Certain general counts or forms inserted in a declaration in an action to recover a money debt not founded on the circumstances of the individual case, but intended to guard against a possible variance, and to enable the plaintiff to take advantage of any ground of liability which the proof may disclose, within the general scope of the action. In the action of assumpsit, these counts are as follows: For goods sold and delivered, or bargained and sold; for work done; for money lent; for money paid; for money received to the use of the plaintiff; for interest; or for money due on an account stated. See Nugent v. Teauchot 67 Mich. 571, 35 N. W. 254. General count. One stating in a general way the plaintiff’s claim. Wertheim v. Casualty Co., 72 Vt 326, 47 Atl. 1071. Omnibus count. A count which combines. in one all the money counts with one for goods sold and delivered, work and labor, and an account stated. Webber v. Tivill, 2 Saund. 122; Griffin v. Murdoch, 88 Me. 254, 34 Atl. 30. Money counts. A species of common counts, so called from the subject matter of them; embracing the indebitatus assumpsit count for money lent and advanced, for money paid and expended, and for money had and received, together with the insimul computassent count, or count for money due on an account stated. 1 Burrill. Pr. 132. Severn! counts. Where a plaintiff has several distinct causes of action, he is allowed to pursue them cumulatively in the same action, subject to certain rules which the law prescribes. Wharton. Special count. As opposed to the common counts, in pleading, a special count is a statement of the actual facts of the particular case, or a count in which the plaintiff’s claim is set forth with all needed particularity. Wertheim v. Casualty Co., 72 Vt 326, 47 Atl. 1071.
Law Dictionary – Alternative Legal Definition
pleading. This word, derived from the French conte, a narrative, is in our old law books used synonymously with declaration but practice has introduced the following distinction: when the plaintiff’s complaint embraces only a single cause of action, and he makes only one statement of it, that statement is called, indifferently, a declaration or count; though the former is the more usual term. 2. But when the suit embraces two or more causes of action, (each of which of course requires a different statement;) or when the plaintiff makes two or more different statements of one and the same cause of action, each several statement is called a count, and all of them, collectively, constitute the declaration. 3. In all cases, however, in which there are two or more counts, whether there is actually but one cause of action or several, each count purports, upon the face of it, to disclose a distinct right of action, unconnected with that stated in any of the other counts. 4. One object proposed, in inserting two or more counts in one declaration, when there is in fact but one cause of action, is, in some cases, to guard against the danger of an insufficient statement of the cause, where a doubt exists as to the legal sufficiency of one or another of two different modes of declaring; but the more usual end proposed in inserting more than one count in such case, is to accommodate the statement to the cause, as far as may be, to the possible state of the proof to be exhibited on trial; or to guard, if possible, against the hazard of the proofs varying materially from the statement of the cause of action; so that if one or more or several counts be not adapted to the evidence, some other of them may be so.