Estate of Goodspeed

Unusual labor has been imposed upon the court, in this preliminary phase of a will contest, by reason of the multifarious and multiform grounds of the motion and demurrer. There are over sixty specific objections to the contest included in the motion, and as many more grounds of demurrer, most of them different from those covered by the motion,- forty typewritten pages in all, and all of them requiring a most careful examination of a complaint of fourteen typewritten pages in length.

As to many of the points, it is not unlikely that if they stood alone or were isolable upon this motion the court would disregard them as too tenuous and technical, but it must be said in justice to the pleader that the form employed in this contest is not without precedent, and I find upon scrutiny of the records in this class of cases many complaints similar in form, so it cannot be said, in face of the facts, that “the complaint in this case, as a pleading, has no precedent” (Green *147 v. Palmer, 15 Cal. 414 , 76 Am. Dec. 492 ), although it may be remarked' that the time has come when, under the objections and demurrer presented, the principles of pleading applicable to ordinary civil actions…