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The party that initiates a lawsuit (also known as an 'action') before a court. By doing so, the claimant seeks a legal remedy; if successful, the court will issue a judgment in his favour and make the appropriate court order (e.g. an order for damages). Following the Woolf reforms of the civil justice system in the late 1990s, the term 'claimant' is now preferred to 'plaintiff', but has precisely the same meaning.