plaintiff in error

9.9

A person or side who asks a higher court to change a lower court's decision

noun
/ˈpleɪn.tɪf ɪn ˈɛr.ər/

Archaic

: demandante en apelación

Examples

Indeed, we do not understand that the Thirteenth Amendment is strenuously relied upon by the plaintiff in error in this connection.

Academic text (2006)
In the case of Thompson v. State, the plaintiff in error appealed the lower court's decision regarding the contract dispute.
After reviewing the evidence, the lawyer prepared a brief for the plaintiff in error to challenge the previous ruling in higher court.
The plaintiff in error argued that the judge had misinterpreted the law during the trial, leading to an unjust verdict.

Synonyms

appellant

vsplaintiff in error

Specialized

9 9.4

A person who asks a higher court to change a lower court's decision

often uses a writ of error to bring the appeal

Surface Forms

plaintiff in error singular

plaintiffs in error plural

Morphology

plaintiff + in + error

The literal parts ('plaintiff' + 'in' + 'error') do not transparently yield the technical legal sense 'the party who appeals a lower-court decision'; a B1 learner would more likely interpret it as a plaintiff associated with a mistake rather than an appellant. This is specialized legalese with a conventionalized meaning that is not predictable from the constituents, so it would be opaque to most learners.

Etymology

Plaintiff in error comes from old court language where error simply meant a 'mistake' in a lower court's decision. If someone thought the judge had made that mistake, they became the plaintiff who asked a higher court to correct it, so today plaintiff in error means the party who appeals a lower court's ruling.