student asking question

What does "filed by" mean?

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

Excellent question. "Filed by" here is a legal term used to mean to start a court action. In this example, you could replace the term "filed by" with "started by" and the meaning of the sentence would remain the same. The word filed is used because a written complaint or petition (a file) has to be given to the court as the opening steps in a lawsuit. This creates the base of the "case file" which all other documents to do with the lawsuit go into. Ex: When are you going to file the complaint. Ex: The answer will be filed tomorrow.

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