Allegation vs. Accusation

Allegation

In law, an allegation is a claim of a fact by a party in a pleading, charge, or defense. Until they can be proved, allegations remain merely assertions.There are also marital allegations: marriage bonds and allegations exist for couples who applied to marry by licence. They do not exist for couples who married by banns. The marriage allegation was the document in which the couple alleged (or frequently just the groom alleged on behalf of both of them) that there were no impediments to the marriage.

Generally, in a civil complaint, a plaintiff alleges facts sufficient to establish all the elements of the claim and thus states a cause of action. The plaintiff must then carry the burden of proof and the burden of persuasion in order to succeed in the lawsuit.

A defendant can allege affirmative defenses in its answer to the complaint.

Other allegations are required in a pleading to establish the correct jurisdiction, personal jurisdiction and subject matter jurisdiction.

Accusation

An accusation is a statement by one person asserting that another person or entity has done something improper. The person who makes the accusation is an accuser, while the subject against whom it is made is the accused. Whether a statement is interpreted as an accusation relies on the social environment in which it is made:

What counts as an accusation is often unclear, and what kind of response is warranted even less clear. Even a purely surface semantic analysis of accusatory language cannot be performed in the absence of social context, including who is making the accusation and to whom it is being made—often the subject of supposedly accusatory language might well interpret the utterance in question as something that he need not respond to.

An accusation can be made in private or in public, to the accused person alone, or to other people with or without the knowledge of the accused person. An accuser can make an accusation with or without evidence; the accusation can be entirely speculative, and can even be a false accusation, made out of malice, for the purpose of harming the reputation of the accused.