Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 2).pdf/106

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80
NORTH DAKOTA REPORTS.

perfectly; that it is not sufficiently full, specific, definite, and certain. These objections should be met by a motion requiring an amendment. In Kelly v. Barnett, 16 How. Pr. 135, which was an application for judgment on an alleged frivolous pleading, the court said: "Vagueness of pleading, it is well settled, is not frivolousness. It is to be corrected by an amendment, and not by judgment. It is enough on this application that a good defense is shadowed forth." See, also, Dagal v. Simmons, 23 N. Y. 491. For the error pointed out, the trial court will reverse its judgment, and proceed with the case in accordance with this opinion. Reversed.

WALLIN, J., (concurring.) I agree with my associates in holding that the judgment must be reversed.. The answer is meager and vague, but it embodies a material issue of fact, and hence it cannot be ignored as wholly worthless. The district court erred in granting the motion for judgment on the pleadings. Upon such a motion every reasonable intendment must be indulged in support of the pleading which is assailed by the motion. I express no opinion concerning the other features of the case contained in the views of my Brother BARTHOLOMEW.

Corliss, C. J. I concur in the result, but feel constrained to withhold my assent to the doctrine enunciated in Cunningham v. Jones, 37 Kan. 477, 15 Pac. Rep. 572. I do not at present believe that the adjudications warrant the broad doctrine of that case. Nor can I see any foundation for it in principle, keeping in view the reason for the rule which condemns the purchase by an attorney of an interest adverse to his client pending the litigation. It is sufficient for the protection of the client that he should have the right to treat the act of his counsel as void, or to claim the benefit of all that the counsel has secured. That an utter stranger to the client and the interests of the client in the litigation should have the power, officiously, to interfere and vindicate the right of the client to his attorney's zealous aid, unaffected, whether consciously or unconsciously, by any hostile interest, would seem anomalous. If the purchase of an adverse interest by the attorney is utterly void, as held in the Cuningham Case, then, no matter how willing the