State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Riley

In State Farm's (plaintiff) interpleader action, defendant Nancy DeMarco filed an answer that the court, acting sua sponte, found riddled with common pleading errors — including improperly qualified denials lacking the specific 'belief' or 'information' language Rule 8(b) requires, references to 'strict proof' (not a recognized pleading concept), refusals to admit or deny allegations on the ground they stated 'legal conclusions' or that a document 'speaks for itself,' a list of unexplained affirmative defenses, and formatting failing to track the complaint's paragraph numbering — with only one of the answer's 21 paragraphs properly formatted.