Responding to an Action Basics

However, if a person has difficulty serving you, the rules provide for other ways for you to be served. If the claim is against a company, the company may be served through its registered office or its officers.

Once you have been served, procedural time limits relating to your lawsuit begin to run.

Time limits

Once you have been served with a notice of civil claim, you need to file a Response to Civil Claim.

A response to civil claim lets the plaintiff know that you are going to defend the claim started against you. It also provides the plaintiff with your address for service.

You will need to prepare, file and serve a response to civil claim within 21 days (if you live in Canada). How long you have to respond depends on where you live and were served:

When you calculate the number of days you have to file a response, you do not include the day you were served.

What Happens If You Are Late, or Do Not File a Response?

If you wish to defend yourself but have filed your response late, the registry will still accept it for filing. However, there is a risk that a “default judgment” may made against you.

See Rule 3-8. A default judgment means you lose the chance to tell the Court your side of the story before they give the other side an order for what they asked.

For more information on default judgment, see Avoiding Trial.

If a plaintiff obtains default judgement against you, it may still be possible to mount a defence. However, you would have to make an application to the Court to set aside the default judgment.

In order to set aside a default judgment, you must convince the Court that:

1. You did not willfully or deliberately fail to file a defence to the plaintiff’s claim.
2. You made the application to set aside the default judgment as soon as reasonably possible after learning that judgment had been given (or providing an explanation for the delay); and
3. That you have a defence to the claim worth investigating.

You need to prove this with affidavit evidence. For more information on preparing an affidavit, see Affidavits. For more information on bringing an application, see Chambers Applications.

Remember

Having a lawsuit started against you is stressful. However, it is important to remember a few key things:

• Most lawsuits never go to trial: Just because you were served with a claim does not necessarily mean that you are going to a trial. In fact, most lawsuits either settle, are withdrawn, or are abandoned without going to trial. For more information on how to settle a lawsuit, see Alternatives to Going to Court
• You have not told your side of the story: You may feel like unfair allegations are being made about you. However, at this point, they are just allegations, not proven. You have not had your chance yet to tell the other side of the story
• You do not have to tackle all of the lawsuits at once: There are a lot of steps leading up to trial in order to respond to a lawsuit. However, you do not have to do them all at once. Rather, as long as you stay organized, you can take the challenges one at a time as they arise

If it is possible, it is a good idea to get professional legal advice as soon as possible after you are served with a lawsuit. A lawyer can let you know if the lawsuit has any merit, and can tell you the next steps. For more information on how to find a lawyer, see Get Help.