A complaint in the legal world refers to the first document that is filed by the plaintiff in a case. This document lists all of the facts and reasons why the plaintiff believes he is justified in bringing his case against the defendant. For example, a complaint filed in a civil case may detail the ways in which the plaintiff believes the defendant defrauded him, and why the plaintiff is entitled to a damages award as a result. To explore this concept, consider the following complaint definition.
Origin
1350-1400 Middle English (compleynte)
A legal complaint, or civil complaint, is the first document filed in a case, and it is often served along with a summons. The purpose of a legal complaint is to lay out all of the facts and reasons why the plaintiff decided to bring the suit, along with the case law that supports his decision to bring the suit. Some of the information that is typically listed in these documents includes:
The person filing the lawsuit should either white-out or black-out sensitive text. There should also be a note on the paper to indicate that the information was, in fact, redacted.
An alternative to redacting information in the complaint is to request that the court permit the document to be filed under seal. When a document is filed under seal, this means that the document will not become part of the public record. Documents that are not filed under seal are viewable by the public. However, if the information contained in the document is to remain confidential, then the court may grant a filing under seal.
The confidentiality of the information within the document may be temporary or permanent. For instance, in some cases, the filing party will specify when it is okay for the information in the document to be made public. However, in the event a complaint is filed with, say, someone’s Social Security number in it, this document will more than likely remain permanently under seal.
A criminal complaint, also known as a felony complaint, is only slightly different from the civil version. Rather than an individual filing the document, a criminal complaint is typically filed against an individual by the government. However, some states do permit individuals to file criminal complaints as well.
A criminal complaint charges an individual with a crime. Normally, in a criminal case, the defendant is arrested first, then the police submit a report to the local prosecutor. The prosecutor then decides whether to file charges against the individual. His decision is based on whether there is enough evidence to charge that person with a crime, and whether the case is worth his time to prosecute it. In some states, however, such a document must be filed before the court will issue an arrest warrant.
The structure of a complaint is generally the same, no matter the action. In fact, there is a form available on every state’s website that a plaintiff can use to draft a complaint. He simply fills in the blanks with his own information, or uses the basic outline and tailors it to his own situation.
The structural elements that tend to remain the same include:
An example of a complaint being the central issue of a case before a state’s Supreme Court is The People v. Harding, which was decided by the Supreme Court of Illinois in 1966. Here, Laverne Harding was arrested in November 1965 for the crime of reckless driving, to which he pled guilty. A week later, Harding was fined $200, plus costs, and was sentenced to 90 days in jail at the Illinois State Farm.
That same day, Harding requested from the court that an attorney be appointed for him. The court approved his request, and his attorney filed a motion, also that same day, for Harding’s sentence to be thrown out. The court granted this request, quashed the complaint, and discharged Harding. The prosecution appealed the court’s decision to the Supreme Court of Illinois, raising the question as to whether such a decision was unconstitutional.
In its decision, the Court noted that the complaint which charged Harding with the crime was an “Illinois Uniform Traffic Ticket and Complaint.” Harding’s motion to vacate his sentence made the argument that both Illinois’ state constitution and the U.S. Constitution required that a criminal complaint that included jail time as punishment be verified in order to be considered a valid document. The document filed against Harding was not verified, and so he argued that it was invalid, that the trial court did not have jurisdiction to hear the matter, and that the vacature of his sentence was proper.
The Supreme Court of Illinois ultimately rejected the prosecution’s appeal and ruled in Harding’s favor, stating:
“The adoption by this court of the rule which authorized the use of the unverified form of Illinois Uniform Traffic Ticket and Complaint was not intended to dispense with the statutory requirement of a verified complaint, and we hold that a defendant who does not waive, by plea of guilty or by proceeding to trial without objection, the defective verification of a complaint, is entitled to be prosecuted upon a complaint which states upon the oath of the complainant the facts constituting the offense charged. In the case before us the People were accorded an opportunity to file an amended complaint after the objection was raised. They did not do so, but elected to stand by the unverified complaint.
In this case the defendant had entered a plea of guilty. Ordinarily that plea would have waived his right to attack the sufficiency of the unverified complaint. But the motion to vacate alleged that the defendant had pleaded guilty without adequate admonition as to the consequences of his plea and in response to the arresting officer’s representation that the usual penalty for a first offense was a $25 fine.
In addition, the opinion of the trial judge indicated that he entertained doubts as to the mental competency of the defendant to stand trial. For the reasons stated the judgment of the circuit court of Carroll County is affirmed.”