General Issue

in Pleading. A plea which denies or traverses at once the whole Indictment or declaration, without offering any special matter to evade it It is called the general issue because, by importing an absolute and general denial of what is alleged in the Indictment or declaration, it amounts at once to an issue.

2 Bla. Com. 306.

In the early manner of pleading, the general issue was seldom used except where the party meant wholly to deny the charges alleged against him. When he intended to excuse or palliate the charge, a special plea was used to set forth the particular facts.

See 2 Poll. & Maitl. 617.

But now, since special pleading is generally abolished, the same result is secured by requiring the defendant to file notice of special matters of defence which he intends to set up at the trial, or obliging him to use a form of answer adapted to the plaintiff’s declaration, the method varying in different systems of pleading. Under the English Judicature Acts, the general issue is no longer admissible in ordinary civil actions, except where expressly sanctioned by statute. In criminal cases the general issue Is, not guilty. In civil cases the general Issues are almost as various as the forms of action: in assumpsit, the general issue Is non assumpsit; In debt, nil debet; in detinue, non detinet; In trespass, non culpabilis (not guilty); in replevin, non cepit, etc. Steph. PI.

232.