People v. McCumber

The language of the code, (sec. 152,) is without qualification that “sham and irrelevant answers and *633defenses may be stricken out on motion.” It does not therefore seem proper to limit its application to answers and defenses setting up new matter. Nor would this accomplish the object doubtless intended by the legislature, to wit: to uproot defenses not resting on truth and good faith. Improper delays and contrivances to defeat justice may be as effectually carried out through the agency of pleadings containing mere denials of the plaintiffs’allegations as by those setting up affirmative…