Plaintiff

What Is A Plaintiff In A Civil Lawsuit?

The plaintiff is the party who brings the case. Under the North Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure a civil action begins when a complaint is filed with the court, and the person named as bringing that complaint is the plaintiff. The person or company being sued is the defendant. In criminal cases there is no plaintiff: the State prosecutes, and the injured person is a witness.

A plaintiff does not have to be one individual. Spouses can sue together, a business can be a plaintiff, and several people hurt in the same crash can join in one case. What they share is that each claims a legal right was violated and asks the court to award a remedy.

Who Can Be The Plaintiff In A North Carolina Injury Case?

North Carolina requires every claim to be prosecuted in the name of the real party in interest. N.C. R. Civ. P. 17 states the rule and its exceptions: an executor, administrator, or guardian may sue in their own name for the benefit of someone else. For an adult with a clear mind, the real party in interest is simply the injured person.

Three situations change the name on the complaint. A child under 18 or an incompetent adult cannot sue alone and must appear through a guardian or a court-appointed guardian ad litem. When an injury is fatal, the wrongful death claim belongs to the personal representative of the estate under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 28A-18-2, not to individual family members, even though the family ultimately receives the recovery. And when an insurer has paid part of a loss, it may hold a right to recover that amount through the plaintiff’s case.

• Injured adult: sues in their own name.
• Injured child or incompetent adult: appears through a guardian or guardian ad litem.
• Fatal injury: the personal representative of the estate is the plaintiff.
• Spouse of the injured person: may join the case with a loss of consortium claim.

What Does A Plaintiff Have To Prove In North Carolina?

In a negligence case the plaintiff must prove four things: the defendant owed a duty of care, the defendant breached it, the breach was a proximate cause of the injury, and the plaintiff suffered actual damages. The standard is the greater weight of the evidence, which means more likely than not. It is a far lower bar than the criminal standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

North Carolina then adds a rule that most states abandoned. If the defendant proves that the plaintiff’s own negligence contributed to the injury in any degree, the plaintiff recovers nothing. That is contributory negligence. It is an affirmative defense under N.C. R. Civ. P. 8, and § 1-139 puts the burden of proving it on the defendant, so the plaintiff does not have to prove their own carefulness. In practice, though, every plaintiff’s case in this state is built to answer that defense before it is raised.

What Rights And Deadlines Does A North Carolina Plaintiff Have?

The plaintiff controls the start of the case. That includes the choice to settle or go forward, and the deadline for filing: three years for most injury claims under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 1-52(16) and two years for wrongful death under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 1-53(4). In a negligence case worth more than $25,000, the complaint does not name a dollar figure. It states only that the damages exceed $25,000, and the amount is proved later.

A plaintiff also has a tool many people do not know about. Under N.C. R. Civ. P. 41, a plaintiff may voluntarily dismiss a case by filing a notice any time before resting at trial, and if the original case was filed on time, a new case on the same claim may be filed within one year. The rule can be used once; a second notice of dismissal ends the claim on the merits. Along the way the plaintiff must answer written discovery, sit for a deposition, attend a mediated settlement conference in superior court cases, and keep the evidence that supports the claim.