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Plaintiff   /plˈeɪntəf/  /plˈeɪnəf/   Listen
Plaintiff

noun
1.
A person who brings an action in a court of law.  Synonym: complainant.



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"Plaintiff" Quotes from Famous Books



... without his name as attorney, either for the petitioning creditors or the bankrupt, and no action for breach of contract of employment on the part of a designer or a salesman could successfully go to the jury unless Henry D. Feldman wept crocodile tears over the summing up of the plaintiff's case. ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass

... old man, very rich indeed, and the terror of the entire Dukala province. I like to watch him as he sits day by day under the wall of the Kasbah by the side of his own palace, administering what he is pleased to call justice. Soldiers and slaves stand by to enforce his decree if need be, plaintiff and defendant lie like tombstones or advertisements of patent medicines, or telegrams from the seat of war, but no sign of an emotion lights the old man's face. He tempers justice with—let us say, diplomacy. The other afternoon a French-protected subject was charged ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan

... to. No one raises the constitutional question, 'Are these half-reclaimed savages my peers?' And if he did, Justice would sternly reply, 'Yes.' The witnesses will forswear themselves, not, like our 'posters,' for half a crown, but gratis, because the plaintiff or defendant is a fellow-tribesman. The judge may be 'touched with a tar-brush;' but, be he white as milk, he must pass judgment according to verdict. This state of things recalls to mind the Ireland of the early nineteenth century, when the judges ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... one year, and thereupon a new application must be made. This gives the board a check on the dealer's operations the preceding year. The board requires him to cite all legal actions arising out of his real-estate business whether he was plaintiff or defendant. ...
— A Stake in the Land • Peter Alexander Speek

... be woven into one indissoluble substance. Several striking examples have been preserved of the mode of pleading in the reign of Edward II, in which the exceptions taken for the defendant, and the replies supporting the mode of proceeding on behalf of the plaintiff, in no respect fall short of the most admired shifts, quirks and subtleties of the great lawyers of ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... to the Carlisle documents we find one of the reign of Edward III., {24c} giving an agreement made in the King's Court at Westminster (20 Jan., 1353-4), "between Thomas, son of Nicholas de Thymelby, plaintiff, and Henry Colvile, knt., and Margaret his wife, deforciants," whereby, among other property, the latter acknowledge that certain "messuages, one mill, ten acres of land (i.e. arable), two pastures, and 7 pounds of rent, with appurtenances, in Horncastre, ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter

... case which recognized these expectancies of a labor market was Walker v. Cronin,[35] decided by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 1871. It held that the plaintiff was entitled to recover damages from the defendants, certain union officials, because they had induced his employes, who were free to quit at will, to leave his employ and had also been instrumental in preventing him from getting new employes. ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman

... Fred's countenance may possibly be imagined, but I cannot describe it. And when, in answer to the call, "Prisoner, stand up," he arose, his friend's—the plaintiff's—surprise was stupendous for a moment; and then breaking into a ...
— Edna's Sacrifice and Other Stories - Edna's Sacrifice; Who Was the Thief?; The Ghost; The Two Brothers; and What He Left • Frances Henshaw Baden

... undertake to sustain in evidence; and after a most exhausting peroration, he hauled in his ragged voice, and arrested its rumbling echoes, and gave way for a brief remark from the counsel for the prisoner. A son of the plaintiff, Welcome Bogle, was then introduced to the stand, and testified that his father had owned a log-chain with the initials of his name, "S. B." marked on one of the hooks; and the chain in court being ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee

... Gwynne's first client. In employing the young man to defend a suit brought by Silas Kenwright, he ingenuously announced that the plaintiff had a perfectly good case and that his only object in fighting the claim was to see how near Silas could come to telling the truth under oath. Mr. Kenwright was demanding twenty-five dollars damages for slander. In the complaint Mr. Billings was charged with having held Mr. ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... the left hand, the plaintiff first pointed to its face—or the place most suggestive of one, and then pressed his own ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... it, save that it was ill-spelled and ill-writ generally. In short, it was a summons for Tom to appear before the court at Danville on a certain day in the following week, and I made out that a Mr. Neville Colfax was the plaintiff in the matter, and that the suit had ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... excluded from the common benefits of this legal toleration. [70] The children embraced the law of their parents, the wife that of her husband, the freedman that of his patron; and in all causes where the parties were of different nations, the plaintiff or accuser was obliged to follow the tribunal of the defendant, who may always plead a judicial presumption of right, or innocence. A more ample latitude was allowed, if every citizen, in the presence of the judge, might declare the law under ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon

... in any court who believe that the most effective line of defense is to abuse the plaintiff. The Quakers, it was said, "notwithstanding their outward pretenses," had no "more virtue or religion than other people, nor perhaps so much." They had not made the Constitution, nor risked their lives and ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay

... Marathon to his new-born grandson. The exact value thereof Democrates inquired into sharply, and when a distant cousin talked of contesting the will, the orator announced he would defend the infant's rights. The would-be plaintiff withdrew at once, not anxious to cross swords with this favourite of the juries, and everybody said that Democrates was showing a most scrupulous regard for ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... to be "The Two Admirals," and says Weed: "I commenced reading it in the cars, and became so charmed that I took it into the court-room and occupied every interval that my attention could be withdrawn from the trial with its perusal." Mr. Howe adds: "Plaintiff and defendant have rarely faced each other under ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips

... the sheriffs seized Hansard's goods, and sold them to satisfy the judgment. Lord John Russell, as leader of the House, moved to bring to the Bar of the House all the parties concerned in the action—the plaintiff, his attorney, the sheriffs, and the under-sheriffs. He was opposed by nearly all the legal members of the House except the crown lawyers, Sir Edward Sugden especially warning the House that "a resolution of the House was of no avail in a court of justice;" while ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... Bacon, minors; and the case was carried to the Supreme Judicial Court. After many delays it was finally decided in favor of the validity of the will, March, 1885, R. M. Morse, jr., and S. J. Elder for the plaintiff, and B. F. Butler and F. L. Washburn for the defendants. The court's final decision, rendered by Hon. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... call before you his chauffeur. Both will tell you in detail that the dismantling of the engine was commenced at ten in the morning, and that by half-past twelve—a few minutes before the actual time of the accident—the operation was completed." That the plaintiff had suffered an injury he did not attempt to deny. As a fellow-motorist, he had Mr. Bladder's whole-hearted sympathy. His annoyance was justified, but he could not expect Mr. Bladder to pay the penalty ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... was probably between Anthony Needham and John Procter as tenant of the Downing Farm, as appears by an action at the Salem Court, Nov., 1685, for damage done to John Procter in claiming "land belonging to the plaintiff as being in possession of, and hiring the said land of the Worshipful Symon Bradstreet Esq.," said land being part of a farm "formerly belonging to Mr. Emanuel Downing"—Bradstreet married the ...
— House of John Procter, Witchcraft Martyr, 1692 • William P. Upham

... hostess disappeared; and the hostess accused her guest of having stolen it. The young lady, who had meanwhile married, brought an action for slander against her quondam friend. For several days the case continued, and everything seemed to be going in the plaintiff's favour. Major Blank, the defendant's husband, was ruthlessly cross-examined by Sir Charles Russell, afterwards Lord Chief Justice of England, with a view to showing that he was the real thief. He made a very bad witness, and things looked black ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... exclaimed, with a not unnatural asperity, 'Well, let him go,' and 'on hearing this,' said Mr. Seward, laughing, 'I did not read my dispatch.'" Many persons will think that the counsel for the defence has stated the plaintiff's case so strongly that there is nothing left for him but to show his ingenuity and his friendship for the late secretary in a hopeless argument. At any rate, Mr. Seward appears not to have made the slightest effort to protect Mr. Motley ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... summons was served on Jordan to appear before a justice who was a near neighbor and friend of the farmer. On the trial the justice gave judgment for the plaintiff for the full amount of the claim, and costs. As soon as the law would permit, execution was issued on this judgment, and placed in the hands of a ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... The plaintiff looked a little perplexed, as if she could not understand how it could be otherwise than wrong for a girl ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott

... triumphantly, that there were in the court-room "sixty of the victors at the Bastille led by the brave Santerre, who intended to interfere in the trial."—They intervene, indeed, and first against the plaintiff. M. Etienne is attacked at the entrance of the court-room and nearly knocked down He is so maltreated that he is obliged to seek shelter in the guard-room. He is spit upon, and they "move to cut ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... thing certain, there'd be a thundering law case for any clever solicitor to handle if the plaintiff were not too far gone in his mind to plead. Anyhow, the drugging is out of order—whole thing ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... will confer a favour upon the Venetian creditor of a deceased Englishman. This epistle is a dun to his executor, for house-rent. The name of the insolvent defunct is, or was, Porter Valter, according to the account of the plaintiff, which I rather suspect ought to be Walter Porter, according to our mode of collocation. If you are acquainted with any dead man of the like name a good deal in debt, pray dig him up, and tell him that 'a pound of his fair flesh' or the ducats are required, and that 'if ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... had a case in court: Shotwell vs. Western Pacific Co., damages for stock-killing; for the plaintiff—Hawk; for the defendant—Kent. With the thought that he was presently going to see Elinor again, Kent went gaily to the battle legal, meaning to wring victory out of a jury drawn for the most part from the plaintiff's ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... followed in a feudal court was largely based on old Germanic customs. The court did not act in the public interest, as with us, but waited until the plaintiff requested service. Moreover, until the case had been decided, the accuser and the accused received the same treatment. Both were imprisoned; and the plaintiff who lost his case suffered the same penalty which the defendant, had he been found ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... the suitors presented a commissioner with a couple of chickens, as a powerful argument to strengthen a feeble case; but the commissioner returned his present, and the plaintiff lost his cause; and no wonder, he sent a ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton

... that remarkable square-deal chairman, Joseph Pitt Mabee, the town of Trois Rivieres, Que., had a suit, through its Board of Trade, against the C.P.R., involving discrimination in rates. The counsel for the plaintiff was a French-Canadian who could read, but not comfortably speak, English. The further he went the more bewildered the chairman became, ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino

... person—that is to say, they are present, and are examined and cross-examined by the judge and his six assistants. All the preliminaries have been committed to writing and are read out by the clerk of the court, the only other official present. In a small inclosure sit the plaintiff and defendant and their witnesses; behind a railing, stand and sit the audience ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon

... whether Sabine or more truly Tiburtine, o'erjoyed was I to be within thy rural country-home, and to cast off an ill cough from my chest, which—not unearned—my belly granted me, for grasping after sumptuous feeds. For, in my wish to be Sestius' guest, his defence against the plaintiff Antius, crammed with venom and pestilent dulness, did I read through. Hence a chill heavy rheum and fitful cough shattered me continually until I fled to thine asylum, and brought me back to health with rest and nettle-broth. Wherefore, re-manned, I give thee utmost thanks, that thou hast not ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... know that they can be forced to obey. But to make the cases parallel, we must suppose that the rule of the court of law was, not to try the cause, but to give judgment always for the same side, suppose the defendant. If so, the amenability to it would be a motive with the plaintiff to agree to almost any arbitration, but it would be just the reverse with the defendant. The despotic power which the law gives to the husband may be a reason to make the wife assent to any compromise by which power is practically shared between the two, but it cannot be the reason ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill

... two friends ran their boat on shore, and fastened it to the furthest ring of the convenient pier, they caught the distant sound of the plaintiff "coo-cooing" ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... the red curtains before it ill conceal the paltry substructure. It is composed of several large tables, heavy and shapeless as benches, placed side by side to form a platform. The curtains are dingy and threadbare the walls dingy; the ceiling, though lofty, dingy; the boxes on either side for Plaintiff and Defendant are scratched and defaced by the innumerable witnesses who have blundered into them, kicking their shoes against the woodwork. The entire apparatus is movable, and can be taken to pieces in ten minutes, or part of it employed for meetings of any description. There ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies

... the names of plaintiff and defendant in the citation of legal cases; also the titles of proceedings containing such prefixes as in re, ex parte, In the matter ...
— The Uses of Italic - A Primer of Information Regarding the Origin and Uses of Italic Letters • Frederick W. Hamilton

... other class of men, no more and no less. And what other men dare pretend to be impartial where they have a strong pecuniary interest on one side? Nobody supposes that doctors are less virtuous than judges; but a judge whose salary and reputation depended on whether the verdict was for plaintiff or defendant, prosecutor or prisoner, would be as little trusted as a general in the pay of the enemy. To offer me a doctor as my judge, and then weight his decision with a bribe of a large sum of money and a virtual guarantee that if he makes a mistake it can never be proved against him, ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw

... object to the testimony offered as incompetent and thereupon ensued an argument between counsel, which was cut short by the judge ordering the testimony to be excluded, and directing a bill of exceptions to be sealed for the plaintiff. ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene

... though it is a bit like being at your own hanging..... not exactly, of course, but enough to make the anticipation peculiarly gruesome. Each searching question of the judge seems to draw the noose around the plaintiff's neck tighter and tighter; you will hold your breath: a word, and the six months' exile and more are all in vain..... Not until the final decision, "Judgment for the plaintiff," is pronounced do you heave a sigh ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton

... begged pardon of him, and our adventurers, for having abused them in his passion; and observed, that, as he had received a broken head, and paid two-and-twenty guineas for his folly, he could not be said to have escaped altogether without punishment, even if the plaintiff should agree ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... Japan, have consular courts for the trial of their own subjects according to the laws of their native lands. Mixed courts have also been established, that is, a defendant is tried in the court of his own nationality, the court giving its decision under the supervision of a representative of the plaintiff's nationality. In practice the Chinese have seldom sent representatives to sit on the bench of consular courts, but, as the Europeans lack confidence in the administration of Chinese justice, no suit brought by a foreigner ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... divorce you! There will be no defense possible,—as you know. If witnesses are needed, they are to be had in the persons of our own domestics. The co-respondent in the case will not refute the charge against him,—and I, the plaintiff, must win my just cause. Do you realize it all, Clara? You, the well-known leader of a large social circle—you, the proud beauty and envied lady of rank and fashion,—you will be made a subject for the coarse jests of lawyers,—the ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... necessary," observed the judge and he turned to Jurgis. "You admit attacking the plaintiff?" ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... cruelty alleged have sometimes been seemingly very trivial. Thus divorces have been pronounced in America on the ground of the "cruel and inhuman conduct" of a wife who failed to sew her husband's buttons on, or because a wife "struck plaintiff a violent blow with her bustle," or because a husband does not cut his toe-nails, or because "during our whole married life my husband has never offered to take me out riding. This has been a source of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... seemed more vast. High up in the dim space the punkahs were swaying short to and fro, to and fro. Here and there a draped figure, dwarfed by the bare walls, remained without stirring amongst the rows of empty benches, as if absorbed in pious meditation. The plaintiff, who had been beaten,—an obese chocolate-coloured man with shaved head, one fat breast bare and a bright yellow caste-mark above the bridge of his nose,—sat in pompous immobility: only his eyes ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... the Blue Star enterprise. The only new information conveyed in the letter was the fact of its showing Boyne, when he wrote it, to be still apprehensive of the results of the suit, though he had assured his wife that it had been withdrawn, and though the letter itself declared that the plaintiff was dead. It took several weeks of exhaustive cabling to fix the identity of the "Parvis" to whom the fragmentary communication was addressed, but even after these inquiries had shown him to be a Waukesha lawyer, no new facts concerning the Elwell ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... of one farthing for the plaintiff priest, and I do not think he derived as much advertisement out of it as Miss Marie Corelli obtained from a similar coin ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... apparatus by which offences are punished and rights vindicated? Look at the series of penal statutes, the most bloody and the most inefficient in the world, at the puerile fictions which make every declaration and every plea unintelligible both to plaintiff and defendant, at the mummery of fines and recoveries, at the chaos of precedents, at the bottomless pit of Chancery. Surely we see the barbarism of the thirteenth century and the highest civilisation of the nineteenth century side by side; ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... have ensured, seeing that neither of them understood German. Ollivier's argument for the defence was so energetic that he was almost on the point of proving the purely musical essence of my melody by singing the 'Abendstern.' Completely carried away by this, the judges rejected the plaintiff's claim, but requested me to pay him a small sum by way of compensation, as he seemed really to have taken some part in the work at the beginning. In any case, however, I could not have paid this out of the ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... there was nothing to be decided," said Doeninger, dryly. "The lawsuit was already decided; the supreme court had given judgment in favor of the plaintiff and awarded to him the sum of one thousand florins, which was at issue, and sentenced the defendant to pay that sum and ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach

... heads together and subscribed the small sum due from the Brahman. A deputation of five waited on him with entreaties to accept it, but he refused to take the money on any other footing than a loan. So Ramda paid his arrears and costs into Court, to the plaintiff's intense annoyance. ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea

... to be more effective. Thus the rifle and pistol were almost invariably the cow-hunters' court of first and last resort for disputes of every nature. Except in rare instances where there happened to be survivors among the families of the original plaintiff and defendant, this form of litigation was never prolonged or tiresome. When there were any survivors the case ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson

... case is taken into court, the editor complains that nobody asked him to rectify the mistake; but ask for redress, and he will laugh in your face and treat his offence as a mere trifle. The paper scoffs if the victim gains the day; and if heavy damages are awarded, the plaintiff is held up as an unpatriotic obscurantist and a menace to the liberties of the country. In the course of an article purporting to explain that Monsieur So-and-so is as honest a man as you will find in the kingdom, you ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... 1793, there came up in the Court of Appeal at Quebec a case involving slavery but nothing was really decided. The plaintiff Jacob Smith sued Peter McFarlane in the Court of Common Pleas for taking away his wife and her clothes and detaining them. McFarlane claimed that Smith's wife was his slave. The Court of Common Pleas gave the plaintiff ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... solemnly passed through; the counsel for the plaintiff made a statement, during which he read extracts from the will of Mr. Osborne. It was plain enough to everybody that the block of stores belonged to Mrs. Wittleworth, unless the trustee and defendant could produce his daughter. She was produced; but Fitz was still hopeful. The elegant young lady was ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic

... to have been so completely bewildered, that they lost sight, not only of the act of seventeen hundred and forty-eight, but that of seventeen hundred and fifty-eight also; for thoughtless even of the admitted right of the plaintiff, they had scarcely left the bar, when they returned with a verdict of one penny damages. A motion was made for a new trial; but the court, too, had now lost the equipoise of their judgment, and overruled the motion by a unanimous vote. The verdict ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer

... amendment was the outgrowth of the Supreme Court decision in the case of Chisholm v. The State of Georgia. In this case the court held, contrary to the interpretation given to the Constitution by Hamilton when defending it in The Federalist,[46] that a private plaintiff could sue a state in the Federal Court. This decision aroused a storm of indignation, and Congress in 1794 proposed the Eleventh Amendment, which counteracted the effect of this decision. The Twelfth Amendment, proposed by Congress in 1803, merely changed ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith

... of fraud; but the law gives him no power to show his own innocence. The Judge of the Sessions was competent to decide the question now raised, and to have prevented this reverting to a "special jury"—this giving the vindictive plaintiff a means of torturing his infirm victim. Had he but listened to the old man's tale of poverty, he might have saved the heart of that forlorn ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... out, Mrs. Wolff. You have absolutely no cause for it. Just remain calm, quite calm. You're not entirely unknown to me, after all. There isn't a human being who would undertake to deny your industry and honesty. So let us hear what you have to say in answer to the plaintiff. ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... Facing him, the plaintiff lounged against the partition; a man strangely improbable in appearance, with close-cropped grey hair, a young, fresh-coloured face, a bristling orange moustache, and a big, blunt nose. One could have believed him a soldier, a German, anything ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... the notices to quit are running.—Had we not taken these opinions, what a fearful state things might we have been brought to in this country! I am quite satisfied that no rent could be recovered until the expiration of the three months, from which time it would commence to run, and the plaintiff would in law be considered in possession of his lands again, which, in slavery, he was compelled to give to his slave for his support and maintenance. He must re-enter before he could demand rent, for it is impossible ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... time a very general subject of discussion. I found he had not studied it with much attention, but had only heard parts of it occasionally. He, however, talked of it, and said, 'I am of opinion that positive proof of fraud should not be required of the plaintiff, but that the Judges should decide according as probability shall appear to preponderate, granting to the defendant the presumption of filiation to be strong in his favour. And I think too, that a good deal of weight should be allowed to the dying ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... ingratitude of the unmerciful servant justified the king in revoking the pardon once granted. The man came under condemnation, not primarily for defalcation and debt, but for lack of mercy after having received of mercy so abundantly. He, as an unjust plaintiff, had invoked the law; as a convicted transgressor he was to be dealt with according to the law. Mercy is for the merciful. As a heavenly jewel it is to be received with thankfulness and used with sanctity, ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... the case was one of the first called on the morning in question. The receiver of the stolen book came forward, with much assurance, as defendant, and modest Dr. A—— as plaintiff; when Sir Spigot, putting his glass to his eye, and looking from the one to the other with his wink and grin as usual, ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... court-house seemed to him an excellent place for a lesson in the language; and the case the Kaid was deciding was to his taste. A man was suing for divorce, and for reasons which would have astonished Englishmen, and cause the plaintiff to be hurled out of civilised society; but in the Sahara the case did not strike anybody as unnatural; and Owen listened to the woman telling her misfortunes under a veil. But though deeply interested he was forced to leave the building; the flies plagued him unendurably, ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore

... forced into a lawsuit, of which the loss would leave them with a stain on their good name, the only thing they had in the world. Hence their anxiety was very great when the question first arose as to whether they should yield to the plaintiff's unjust demands, or should defend themselves against him. The matter came under discussion one autumn evening, before a turf fire in the room used by the tanner and his wife. Two or three relations were invited to this family council, ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac

... "foreigners," and therefore the plaintiff in this case would have occupied precisely the same position as "foreign" merchants who transgressed the customs of London. One of these was that they were not to attend any market or fair at a greater distance than three miles from the City, nor had ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell

... which a Chinaman was concerned as the accused, or plaintiff, or disinterested witness, but Tsing Hi took, if not an official, an officious part. Every new-comer from the Flowery Land passed through his hands. He knew what personal property each possessed, and ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... caused each plaintiff to repeat his story, but neither varied one jot from his original statement. He reflected for a moment, and then said, "Leave the money with me, and return to-morrow." The butcher placed the coins, which he had never let go, on the edge of the Cadi's mantle. After which ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... the plaintiff note of the Whip-poor-will from the mountain-side, or was startled now and then by the sudden leap and heavy splash ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce

... twenty cases, civil or criminal, since I came here, having always tried as much as I could to conciliate the opposing parties. The reason why I speak now of this matter is that very often, for twenty or thirty livres of principal, a plaintiff goes before the judge of first instance—which diverts the parties from the proper cultivation of their farms—and later on, by way of an appeal, before the Sovereign Council which likes to hear ...
— The Great Intendant - A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada 1665-1672 • Thomas Chapais

... will then require our lawyers and judges to read, and pass examinations on Browning's "Ring and the Book," and none other. And if we would follow the Aurelian suggestion of remitting all direct taxes to every citizen who had not been plaintiff in a lawsuit for ten years, we would gradually get something approaching pure justice. The people must be educated to decide quietly and calmly their own disputes, and this can be done only by placing an obvious penalty on litigation. Progress ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... damages, in the sum of half a million dollars, for the infringement of patents on machines, implements and processes, of which it was declared that the plaintiff was the first and only inventor. The answer to the complaint alleged the disappearance and death of Benedict, and declared the plaintiff to be an impostor, averred the assignment of all the patents in question to the defendant, and ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... of Wales. The duke of Norfolk brought an action in the court of King's Bench against Mr. Germaine, for criminal conversation with his duchess. The cause was tried, and the jury brought in their verdict for one hundred marks, and costs of suit, in favour of the plaintiff. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... effectual a remedy, and exactly commensurate to the defect? A British creditor, for example, sues for his debt in Virginia; the defendant pleads an act of the State, excluding him from their courts; the plaintiff urges the Confederation, and the treaty made under that, as controlling the State law; the judges are weak enough to decide according to the views of their legislature. An appeal to a federal court sets all to rights. It will be said, that this ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson

... Endurance, to excite commiseration, must be uncomplaining—an axiom the aggrieved of the gentle sex should remember. Sir Piers endured, but he grumbled lustily, and was on all hands voted a bore; domestic grievances, especially if the husband be the plaintiff, being the most intolerable of all mentionable miseries. No wonder that his friends deserted him; still there was Titus Tyrconnel; his ears and lips were ever open to pathos and to punch; so Titus kept his station. Immediately after her ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... stick again, and bowing his head left the court. Observing this, and how, without another word, he made off, and observing too the resignation of the plaintiff, Sancho buried his head in his bosom and remained for a short space in deep thought, with the forefinger of his right hand on his brow and nose; then he raised his head and bade them call back the ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... laugh, and cries in the negative, followed this somewhat technical retort and reply of the speaker—since, in trespass, according to the received forms of law, the first duty of the plaintiff is ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... But far more grave and solemn face; Grave as the Emperor of Pegu 155 Or Spanish potentate Don Diego. This leader was of knowledge great, Either for charge or for retreat. He knew when to fall on pell-mell; To fall back and retreat as well. 160 So lawyers, lest the bear defendant, And plaintiff dog, should make an end on't, Do stave and tail with writs of error, Reverse of judgment, and demurrer, To let them breathe a while, and then 165 Cry whoop, and set them on agen. As ROMULUS a wolf did rear, So he was dry-nurs'd by a bear, That fed him with ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... of the case by the Court no objection was made to this statement or claim. In the case of Root vs. Ball, 4 McLean 180, the learned judge instructed the jury that "if they should find that the defendants had infringed the plaintiff's patent by using substantially the same device as ornamental on the same part of the stove they would, of course, find the defendant guilty. To infringe a patent right it is not necessary that the thing patented should be adopted ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... gambling would seem to be just as airy as those against the alluring tavern. The "prohibition extremists" are like lawyers who can never make their case, yet are incessantly fuming against their own failure. These extremists forget that their shadowy moral client is plaintiff in a kind of curious divorce-suit, where the defendant is human nature and the co-respondent human will. It is most probable that men will continue to get drunk just so long as education remains for them an incident ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various

... one of the most honourable. None dealt with so many cases as he, nor behaved with such integrity; he usually remitted the charge customarily due from litigants (as before the formal entering of the suit the plaintiff pays into court three shillings, the defendant likewise, and it is incorrect to demand more). By this behaviour he won the deep affection of ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... of May, matters came to a crisis. The commissioners had given out that on that day they were going to hold a court to try a case in which the colony was to defend an action against a plaintiff. This, of course, would serve to indicate that the commissioners had power—whether the assembly conceded it or not—to control the internal economy of the settlement. Betimes in this morning, the rather that it was a very pleasant one—the trees on the Common ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... trade, called "the rag-trade," which is very profitable. I refer to the purchasing and selling of false bank-notes, which are, as in the lawyer's case, palmed upon any stranger suspected of having money. On such occasions, the magistrate and the plaintiff share the booty. I may as well here add a fact which is well known in France and the United States. Eight days after the Marquis de Saligny's (French charge d'affaires) arrival in Houston, he was summoned before a magistrate, and upon the oaths of the parties, ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... lawyers to wrangle amongst each other—a practice which of late years has become so much a legal fashion, that some of our Westminster Hall heroes, forgetting their clients' quarrels in their own, suddenly convert themselves into a new plaintiff and defendant, and brawl ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various

... plaintiff showed a desire to testify once more, and Teacher appointed three-thirty that afternoon as the hour most suitable for a thorough examination ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly

... members of the same union were enjoined by Supreme Court Justice Gildersleeve from "making any requests, giving any advice, or resorting to any persuasion ... to overcome the free will of any person connected with the plaintiff [a notorious anti-union publishing company] or its customers as ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo

... cuss who gets it. But I ain't goin' to be bluffed by any fancy legal readings of a position by city lawyers who don't know the north end of a steer goin' south from the cluckin' proposition of a blind hen motherin' a litter o' dormice. Peters here'll give you his case, seein' he's plaintiff, in an elegant flow of warm air, an' when he's through I'll sort of hand you a counterblast. An' when we finished you'll hand out your dope on the subject, that is if we ain't talked you into a home for incurable arbitrators. You'll get busy right ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum

... interesting to the public than this cause celebre. It is better known than many a real case: for every one knows the Judge, his name and remarks—also the Counsel—(notably Sergeant Buzfuz)—the witnessess, and what they said—and of course all about the Plaintiff and the famous Defendant. It was tried over seventy years ago at "the Guildhall Settens," and was described by Boz some sixty-three years ago. Yet every detail seems fresh—and as fresh as ever. It is ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald

... debts mount high—ye plunge in deeper waste; The tradesman duns—no warning voice ye hear; The plaintiff sues—to public shows ye haste; The bailiff threats—ye feel no idle fear. Who can arrest your prodigal career? Who can keep down the levity of youth? What sound can startle age's stubborn ear? Who can redeem from wretchedness and ruth Men true ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith

... advised instant proceedings at law. Accordingly, an action was brought for damages; but through some little informality, the plaintiff was defeated, and had to pay his own and Mr. Chanticleer's lawyers' costs. Mr. Sharpe Vulture advised a second action, which was tried, I remember, at the Assizes just twelve months after the assault complained of. Counsel were engaged ...
— Comical People • Unknown

... against the Court was at its height, Marshall handed down his decision in Gibbons vs. Ogden, and shortly after, that in Osborn vs. United States Bank. * In the latter case, which was initiated by the Bank, the plaintiff in error, who was Treasurer of the State of Ohio, brought forward Article XI of the Amendments to the Constitution as a bar to the action, but Marshall held that this Amendment did not prevent a state officer from being sued for acts done in excess of ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... flower holy serf borough capital canvas indict martial kernel carat bridle lesson council collar levy accept affect deference emigrant prophesy sculptor plaintive populous ingenious lineament desert extent pillow stile descent incite pillar device patients lightening proceed plaintiff prophet immigrant fisher difference presents effect except levee choler counsel lessen bridal carrot colonel marshal indite assent sleigh our stair capitol alter pearl might kiln rhyme shone rung hue pier strait wreck sear Hugh ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody

... and Aunt Edith, though always kind, was also invariably busy; while there was considerable hesitation in making an appeal to Aunt Temperance, who might answer it with a box on the ear instead of a comforting kiss, or at best had an awkward way of turning the tables on the plaintiff by making him out to be the offender instead of the defendant. But nobody ever hesitated to appeal to Grandmother, whose very rebukes fell as softly as rose-leaves, and were always so justly deserved that they had twice the effect of those which came from perpetual ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt

... Maitre Macaire soars from the cent ecus (a high point already) to the sublime of the boots, is in the best comic style. In another instance he pleads before a judge, and, mistaking his client, pleads for defendant, instead of plaintiff. "The infamy of the plaintiff's character, my LUDS, renders his testimony on such a charge as this wholly unavailing." "M. Macaire, M. Macaire," cries the attorney, in a fright, "you are for the plaintiff!" "This, my lords, is what the defendant WILL SAY. This is the ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... his shell plaintiff notes; Ape, parraquito, bee Flock where a shoe on the salt wave ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume II. • Walter de la Mare

... Counsel for the plaintiff (I presume) threw up his brief, for we heard no more of "Mr Flotsam ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat

... in the case of Somerset in England. The funds necessary for carrying on this suit were raised among the blacks themselves. Other suits followed in various parts of the Province; and the result was, in every instance, the freedom of the plaintiff. In 1773 Caesar Hendrick sued his master, one Greenleaf, of Newburyport, for damages, laid at fifty pounds, for holding him as a slave. The jury awarded him his freedom and ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... See libels, satires—here you have it—read. P. Libels and satires! lawless things indeed! But grave epistles, bringing vice to light, Such as a king might read, a bishop write; Such as Sir Robert would approve— F. Indeed? The case is altered—you may then proceed; In such a cause the plaintiff would be hissed; My lords the judges laugh, and ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope

... we, in this reasoning, made no request of the King of Portugal. And inasmuch as we were the defendant we neither wished to, nor ought we to have any desire to assume the duties of the plaintiff, because if the King wished anything from us for which he should petition us, we were quite ready to fulfil in entire good faith all the obligations ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair

... question frightened du Croisier. He asked what was meant by it, and whether he was supposed to be the defendant and M. le Comte d'Esgrignon the plaintiff? He called the magistrate's attention to the fact that if the money had been deposited with him, there was no ground for ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac

... alluding to. He had taken part, in company with various other law students, in a mock-trial, a breach of promise case, for the benefit of a certain London hospital, to him had fallen one of the principal parts, that of counsel for the plaintiff. "When I saw your name, I remembered it at once," she went on. "I was there—I was a probationer at St. Chad's Hospital at ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher

... is a labourer, who gets only fourteen shillings a week to support himself and his family. The defendant is his neighbour, and keeps a public-house. This was an action brought by the plaintiff to recover damages against the defendant for the loss of his son, who was bitten by the defendant's dog, and afterwards became affected with rabies, ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... to explain international banking to me as his share in my preparations, but I utterly discouraged him by asking the difference between a check and a note. He said I reminded him of the juryman who asked the difference between plaintiff and defendant. I soothed him by assuring him that I knew I would always find somebody to go to ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell

... number of dollars for which it was drawn would be cut in the check by a punching instrument. When Davis altered a check he would punch a new figure in front of those already appearing in the check. The checks so altered by Davis were charged to the account of the plaintiff s, which was balanced every two months and the vouchers returned to them from the bank. To Davis himself the plaintiffs, as a rule, intrusted the verification of the bank balance. This work having in the absence of Davis been committed to another person, the ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho

... them to elope. The spice of romance in an elopement takes their fancy, and they leave the homes of happy childhood to wander in the paths of pleasure. It has been well remarked that nothing good is ever heard of a girl who elopes. Now and then she figures in the divorce courts either as plaintiff or defendant, but ordinarily the world moves on, and leaves her to her fate. Occasionally the police records give a fragment of her life when the heyday of her youth and life has fled, and the man with whom she has eloped has taken to beating her in order to get up an appetite for breakfast. Here ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various

... it was made to figure as the injured party. Though there was little sympathy for the victim in his own person, Organized Society seemed to have received in his death a blow that called for the utmost avenging. Organized Society was plaintiff in the case, as well as police, jury, judge, and public. The single human creature who could not apparently gain footing within its fold was Norrie Ford himself. Organized ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King

... of a jurist who was trying a case, and who, after citing innumerable laws and reading twenty pages of incomprehensible judicial Latin, made an offer to the litigants to throw dice; if an even number fell then the plaintiff was right; if an odd number the defendant ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... answered, vividly: "This is a civil case. That is the plaintiff with a little mourning about her eyes and a touch of red about her lips, in the black hat with the aigrette, the pearls, and ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy

... wash'd her garments And upon a rose-tree hung; Whilst the garments there were drying She a plaintiff ditty sung. ...
— Targum • George Borrow

... known all over the British Isles than Mr. Dane-Latimer's. He has been fortunate enough to become a kind of specialist in "Society" cases. No divorce suit can be regarded as really fashionable unless Mr. Dane-Latimer is acting in it for plaintiff, defendant, or co-respondent. A politician who has been libelled goes to Mr. Dane-Latimer for advice. An actress with a hopeful breach of promise case takes the incriminating letters to Mr. Dane-Latimer. He knows the facts of nearly every exciting scandal. ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham

... the court from the true issue of the case. Portia, in what she says of mercy being 'twice blessed' and 'dropping like the gentle rain from heaven,' &c., &c., was, I fear, 'talking buncombe,' and all that part of her speech should be stricken from the record, especially as it was addressed to the plaintiff instead of the court, a highly indecorous proceeding. Instead of indulging in all this sentimentality, her true course would have been to have filed a bill in equity against Shylock, and have obtained an injunction on an ex parte affidavit, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... who was about to lose a certain number of dollars. Lincoln, as few other men would have done, felt a certain actual regret for them then and there; he felt it so naturally that he knew the same sympathy could be aroused, at least in twelve honest men who already wished they could find for the plaintiff. It has often been remarked that the cause of his later power was a knowledge of the people's mind which was curiously but vitally bound up with his ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... to submit to the decisions of the State tribunals; in fact, that national tribunals shall take cognizance of all matters as to which the general government of the nation is responsible. In most of such cases the national tribunals have exclusive jurisdiction. In others it is optional with the plaintiff to select his tribunal. It is then optional with the defendant, if brought into a State court, to remain there or to remove his cause into the national tribunal. The principle is, that either at the beginning, ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... erred in not discharging this plaintiff in error from the custody of said defendants in error and ...
— The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan - or: the Headless Horror. • Unknown

... collection of a bill. Believing in his client and in the justice of the claim, he pressed the matter in court and was about to obtain a judgment when he accidentally discovered, among his client's papers, a receipt which the plaintiff had signed for the very claim under consideration. Through some mistake the receipt had again got back into the man's possession, and he had taken advantage of the fact to institute a suit for the collection of the claim ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath

... suspected, they had prepared merely formal proof; and a verdict of the jury, obtained by a sort, of coup-de-main, pronounced the deed a forgery. Two tribunals have subsequently established the deed as authentic; but the plaintiff lived and died in the possession of the land in consequence of the verdict, while the law doubts, which form the only real questions in the case, are still proceeding, at the customary snail's pace, through our courts to their ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... the local events, then the court proceedings, and, if in the police court it reports that the defendant or plaintiff is a merchant, then Aristid Kuvalda sincerely rejoices. If someone has robbed the merchant, "That is good," says he. "Only it is a pity they robbed him of so little." If his horses have broken down, "It is ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky

... Henley-in-Arden, and he is first mentioned in the borough records as paying in that month a fine of twelve-pence for having a dirt-heap in front of his house. His frequent appearances in the years that follow as either plaintiff or defendant in suits heard in the local court of record for the recovery of small debts suggest that he was a keen man of business. In early life he prospered in trade, and in October 1556 purchased two freehold tenements at Stratford—one, ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... 'The plaintiff was the Rev. Dr. O'Fay, parish priest of Craughwell, in the county of Galway, and the defendant the landlord on whose estate the priest resided. About ten years ago the priest was induced to take a farm that had been held by a former parish priest; the previous proprietor, the ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... plaintiff's case: Observe the features of her face - The broken-hearted bride! Condole with her distress of mind - From bias free of every kind, This trial ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert



Words linked to "Plaintiff" :   litigant, law, jurisprudence, petitioner, plaintiff in error, suer, complainant, defendant, litigator



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