St. Louis, MO (KMOX) - KMOX News and Total Information AM report on many court cases as part of the coverage we provide for listeners. If you're not in the legal realm every day, you may not be familiar with some of the terms that you hear in news stories.
Megan Lynch asked KMOX Legal Analyst Brad Young, Partner at Harris, Dowell, Fisher & Young to explain some common legal terms you may have heard on our air recently. You can find them below.
Lynch: Why is legal language sometimes so different than what we would speak in everyday life?
Young: Well, the biggest reason is, is that a lot of these terms are terms that have been around for the last 400 or 500 years. A lot of our legal system comes from common law, it comes from England, it was originated literally before the founding of our country.
So as language changes over time, these legal terms do not change because they have a very specific meaning and application, and so those words don't change over time like our regular everyday language tends to change. That's one reason. The other reason is, is that a lot of the legal terms have an origination in Latin, and so not a lot of Latin being talked about today.
And so that, again, as we move further and further away from that as our conversations and language evolves, it seems more and more archaic for terms to have a Latin base.
Plaintiff
Young: A 'plaintiff' is the person who's filing the lawsuit, and that's only in civil courts. So for example, you don't really have in criminal court, you don't have a plaintiff because you have the prosecution and the defense, but in civil cases, you have the plaintiff who is literally trying to complain to the court about some wrong. And so that's why the plaintiff is the one who initiates the lawsuit.
Complaint
Young: That's one of the things that's also kind of confusing here, and that is different states call things different legal terms.
So for example, a lot of times we hear 'complaints'. If you're in New York, it's a complaint. But if you file something in circuit court in Missouri, that's called a 'petition'.
So you have a different term for the same thing in different states, which only adds to the confusion that we're talking about here.
Temporary Restraining Order
Young: A temporary restraining order is designed to be an order that only lasts for a very short period of time. So for example, in Missouri and Illinois, if a party gets a temporary restraining order, the other side may not even be aware of it. In other words, a plaintiff on their own can go to court, ask for a temporary restraining order or a 'TRO', and the other side may not even be there. But because the court recognizes that, listen, there's two sides to every story, a temporary restraining order is literally a very short period of time just to allow time for the court to address all the issues and hear from both sides of the dispute.
Preliminary Injunction
Young: That's like a temporary restraining order only for a longer period of time. So when you have a preliminary injunction that is issued in the case, and we've seen that a lot with the Trump administration. And in fact, that's part of the issue that's going to be argued at the Supreme Court tomorrow is whether courts can issue a preliminary injunction that affect the entire country.
If some judge down in Texas or in Maryland issues a preliminary injunction, does it really apply to the entire country? That's going to be the focus of tomorrow's case before the Supreme Court. But a preliminary injunction, unlike a temporary restraining order, lasts for the duration of the case or the lawsuit. So it's a little more permanent in nature when compared to a temporary restraining order.
Writ of Habeas Corpus
Young: That's something that's also at the Supreme Court or will be. A writ of habeas corpus says literally it's Latin for 'produce the body'. So if someone is being held a prisoner, if someone's in jail, a writ of habeas corpus is what's filed to get that person on the process of being released from prison. So it literally means produce the body or produce the person. And that's an issue right now when it comes to whether or not people who are being deported a right to due process.
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