Common Tenthlining Mistakes That Get Pleadings Rejected

Most tenthlining mistakes aren't dramatic. They're small, mechanical errors that a court clerk or the Judiciary of Kenya E-Filing System catches instantly but that are completely invisible to whoever prepared the document. This post is a diagnostic list: the specific things that actually go wrong, and how to catch each one before upload rather than after rejection.

If you haven't read What Is Tenthlining and Why Kenyan Courts Require It yet, start there for the underlying requirement. This post assumes you know what tenthlining is and want to know why yours keeps getting flagged.

Wrong format for the receiving court

Kenyan courts don't all specify identical formatting. A document correctly formatted for the High Court isn't automatically correct for the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court, since font, margin, and numbering requirements can differ by court. This is the single most common mistake, because it's invisible until someone actually compares the filed document against that specific court's practice directions.

If you're processing documents for multiple courts, don't rely on memory or a saved template from the last matter. Tenthliner's Quick Presets (Court of Appeal, High Court, Supreme Court, or Custom) apply the correct font, and page number position for the selected court in one step, specifically to remove this as a manual judgment call.

Re-filing an amended document with stale line numbers

If a document is amended after it's already been tenthlined, for example after a judge directs a correction at a mention, and it gets re-filed without being re-tenthlined, the line numbers on the page no longer correspond to what a fresh numbering pass would produce. Any edit that adds or removes a line shifts everything below it. Treat tenthlining as the last step before filing, not a step you do once per document regardless of how many times it changes.

Tenthlining a Word document instead of the final PDF

Line numbers should be applied to the final PDF, not to the editable Word file. If you tenthline a Word document and then export to PDF, formatting conversion (page breaks, font substitution, pagination) can shift line positions after the numbers were already placed. How to Tenthline a Legal Document in Under 5 Minutes covers the correct order of operations in detail.

Using the wrong page number position

Courts commonly specify where the page number itself sits, separately from where the line numbers sit. Tenthliner supports top-right or bottom-right placement for this reason. Confirm which one the receiving registry expects rather than defaulting to whichever position was used on the last matter for a different court.

Inconsistent line color across a batch

If you're processing multiple documents for the same filing, for example a plaint and its supporting affidavits, using a different line color (red versus black) across documents in the same batch is a visible inconsistency, even though each individual document may be internally correct. When using Tenthliner's multiple PDF upload mode, the same preset applies across the whole batch specifically to prevent this kind of mismatch between documents that are meant to be filed together.

Applying pagination when the document already has it, or viceversa

Pagination (page numbers) and tenthlining (line numbers) are separate settings, and not every document needs both. Confirm what's actually required rather than leaving whatever the last preset defaulted to. This is a small setting, but it's exactly the kind of detail the e-filing system checks and a rushed final read-through misses.

The pattern behind all of these

Almost every mistake on this list comes down to the same root cause: formatting a document once and assuming that format is portable to any court, any matter, any point in the document's lifecycle. It isn't. The fix isn't more careful manual work, it's removing the manual judgment call entirely by using a consistent, court-specific preset every time, which is the difference between Tenthlining vs. Line Numbering: Are They the Same Thing? covers conceptually and what actually prevents rejection in practice.

If your firm handles this across multiple advocates or support staff, A Lawyer's Guide to Tenthlining Court Documents in Kenya covers how to make the process consistent at the firm level, not just per document.

Try Tenthliner free: 50 credits, no card required, enough to run a real pleading through it and see which of these mistakes you've been making without knowing it.