Allegation

In law, an allegation is a claim of an unproven fact by a party in a pleading, charge, or defense.

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.

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

In a complaint, disjunctive allegations are usually per se defective because such a pleading does not put the party on notice of which allegations they must defend.

[1] On the other hand, defendants often plead in the alternative by listing seemingly inconsistent defenses.