The complaint is the initial charging document that begins a lawsuit. The plaintiff is the person suing and the defendant is the person being sued. The complaint lays out the parties' names and addresses, the jurisdiction of the court, underlying facts of why there is a suit, the legal claims asserted in the suit and the relief sought by the plaintiff.
Each statement in a complaint is given a number. Thus, a complaint is written in number form in different sections. This document is then served on the defendant. This is called service of process.
A defendant must file a response to the complaint - usually within 30 days - called an answer. The answer responds to each and every allegation contained in a complaint. The defendant must admit, deny, or respond that he or she does not have sufficient knowledge to answer the allegation.
Many times defendants will admit basic information in a complaint like the parties' names, the court's jurisdiction (sometimes) and a few of the underlying facts (such as plaintiff worked for the defendant) but deny the substance of the allegations and the legal claims.
Most lawsuits seek some type of monetary relief or damages. Plaintiffs often ask for what are known as compensatory damages - to compensate them for the harm that they have suffered. Often plaintiffs will seek attorneys' fees. This means that the plaintiff wants the court to order the defendant to pay the plaintiff's attorney fees.
Many statutes (such as civil rights, employment discrimination statutes) are feeshifting statutes in that they allow a prevailing plaintiff (the plaintiff-litigant who wins the case) to have the defendant pay his or her attorney fees. In cases involving alleged egregious or very bad conduct, a plaintiff may also seek what are known as punitive damages.
In other cases, a plaintiff may seek injunctive or declaratory relief. Injunctive relief means that the plaintiff petitions the court to enjoin (or prohibit) the defendant from engaging in certain conduct. Declaratory relief means that the plaintiff asks the court to declare a certain law, regulation, or policy unconstitutional or void. The key point, however, is that the plaintiff must declare the relief he or she is seeking in the complaint.
The case then proceeds to what is known as the discovery phase of a case. In discovery, each side uses certain tools - such as interrogatories or depositions - to discover more about the case. If the plaintiff's case is weak, the defense might file a motion to dismiss.
Sometimes motions to dismiss are filed in conjunction with an answer or shortly after the answer. Some motions to dismiss are called motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim. This motion asserts that the plaintiff's claim does not advance a recognizable legal claim for recovery.
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