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A plaintiff (Π in legal shorthand) is the party who initiates a lawsuit (also known as an action) before a court. By doing so, the plaintiff seeks a legal remedy . If this search is successful, the court will issue judgment in favor of the plaintiff and make the appropriate court order (e.g., an order for damages ).
In legal terminology, a complaint is any formal legal document that sets out the facts and legal reasons (see: cause of action) that the filing party or parties (the plaintiff(s)) believes are sufficient to support a claim against the party or parties against whom the claim is brought (the defendant(s)) that entitles the plaintiff(s) to a remedy (either money damages or injunctive relief).
Often, a plaintiff can bring a matter either to state court or to federal court, because it arises under federal law, or involves a substantial monetary dispute (in excess of $75,000 as of October 26, 2007) arising under state law between parties that do not reside in the same state. If a plaintiff files suit in state court in such a case, the ...
plaintiff (person filing suit), defendant (person sued or charged with a crime), petitioner (files a petition asking for a court ruling), respondent (usually in opposition to a petition or an appeal), cross-complainant (a defendant who sues someone else in the same lawsuit), or; cross-defendant (a person sued by a cross-complainant). [1]
A lawsuit may also involve issues of public law in the sense that the state is treated as if it were a private party in a civil case, either as a plaintiff with a civil cause of action to enforce certain laws or as a defendant in actions contesting the legality of the state's laws or seeking monetary damages for injuries caused by agents of the ...
For example, suppose State X has a law that limits recovery in a tort suit, and state Y has no such limit. A plaintiff from State X suing a defendant from State Y will want the rule of State Y to apply rather than the limit imposed by state X; the defendant will want the State X's limit to apply. In such a case, the law of the forum will prevail.
Perhaps the best known case creating an implied cause of action for constitutional rights is Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971). In that case, the United States Supreme Court ruled that an individual whose Fourth Amendment freedom from unreasonable search and seizures had been violated by federal agents could sue for the violation of the Amendment itself, despite the lack ...
In the United States, the class representative, also called a lead plaintiff, named plaintiff, or representative plaintiff is the named party in a class-action lawsuit. [61] Although the class representative is named as a party to the litigation, the court must approve the class representative when it certifies the lawsuit as a class action.