Return Day Of Summons in United States

Practical Information

Note: Some of this information was last updated in 1982

The final date that a defendant (in U.S. law) must answer a summons (in U.S. law) or file a notice (in U.S. law) of Appearance in accordance with civil practice and procedure codes and statutes. Thus if the defendant is required to answer “within 20 days” from the service of the summons, the 20th day is the return day. In some jurisdictions, certain days, designated as return days or rule days, are set aside for filing papers in court. In these jurisdictions, the rules provide that the defendant shall appear “by the next rule day,” if the summons is served a certain number of days before rule day; otherwise, the defendant will appear on the following rule day. Thus the return date is always a rule day. These return dates are very important, and you should always enter them in your diary, whether your office is serving the summons or has received a summons for a client.

How to compute the time

The statutes and codes also provide how the time must be computed. The usual method is to exclude the date from which the period begins to run, but to include the last day of the period of time. If it falls on Sunday or a legal holiday, the next business day is the return date. Intermediate Sundays or holidays are included in the computation, unless the period allowed is less than seven days. The period begins to run the day the summons is served, not the day it is dated. This method of computation of time applies to the time for filing all pleadings as well as to the return day of the summons. See also alias summons (in U.S. law) .

(Revised by Ann De Vries)

What is Return Day Of Summons?

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