Alternative pleading

Okay kiddo, imagine you have two choices for dinner tonight: pizza or spaghetti. But you don't know which one you want yet. So what do you do? Well, you can ask for both! That way you can have both options and decide later which one you really want. That's kind of like alternative pleading.

Alternative pleading is when someone has two different claims or arguments they could make in a court case, but they're not sure which one is better. So instead of just picking one, they ask the court to consider both options. This way, they can argue for both possibilities and see which one works out better.

Just like with the pizza and spaghetti, the person making the alternative pleading isn't committing to one option over the other. They're just keeping their options open and letting the court decide which argument is stronger. And that's how alternative pleading works!