(735 ILCS 5/2-613) (from Ch. 110, par. 2-613)
Sec. 2-613.
Separate counts and defenses.
(a) Parties may plead as
many causes of action, counterclaims, defenses, and matters in reply
as they may have, and each shall be separately designated and
numbered.
(b) When a party is in doubt as to which of two or more statements
of fact is true, he or she may, regardless of consistency, state them in the
alternative or hypothetically in the same or different counts or
defenses. A bad alternative does not affect a good one.
(c) Defenses to jurisdiction of the subject matter or in abatement
or in bar may be pleaded together, without waiving any defense so
pleaded, but the court may order defenses to jurisdiction of the subject
matter or in abatement to be tried first. An answer containing only
defenses to jurisdiction of the subject matter or in abatement does not
constitute an admission of the facts alleged in the complaint,
counterclaim or third-party complaint.
(d) The facts constituting any affirmative defense, such as payment,
release, satisfaction, discharge, license, fraud, duress, estoppel,
laches, statute of frauds, illegality, that the negligence of a
complaining party contributed in whole or in part to the injury of which he
complains, that an
instrument or transaction
is either void or voidable in point of law, or cannot be recovered upon
by reason of any statute or by reason of nondelivery, want or failure of
consideration in whole or in part, and any defense which by other
affirmative matter seeks to avoid the legal effect of or defeat the
cause of action set forth in the complaint, counterclaim, or third-party
complaint, in whole or in part, and any ground or defense, whether
affirmative or not, which, if not expressly stated in the pleading,
would be likely to take the opposite party by surprise, must be plainly
set forth in the answer or reply.
(Source: P.A. 84-624.)
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