How to Respond to a Lawsuit in Rhode Island: Answer a Summons (2026)

An answer responds to each numbered paragraph of the complaint by admitting it, denying it, or stating you lack enough information to admit or deny, and then lists your affirmative defenses. In small claims you may use the District Court Small Claims Answer form. In a general civil case you type the answer on 8.5 by 11 inch paper with the court, parties, and case number in the caption required by Super. R. Civ. P. 10(a).

Under Super. R. Civ. P. 55(a), the court can enter your default once you miss the answer deadline, and a default judgment can follow for what the complaint requests. You can file a Motion to Vacate Judgment under Super. R. Civ. P. 60(b) within a reasonable time, and in no case more than one year, by showing mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect. Act quickly, because the one-year outer limit is strict.

Often yes. Parties commonly agree in writing to extend the response deadline, and you can ask the court for more time. Filing a Rule 12(b) motion that challenges the complaint can also change the response timeline. Get any extension in writing, because the default clock keeps running until the plaintiff agrees, the court grants more time, or you file a response.

Rhode Island does not charge a fee to file an answer to a complaint, so the answer itself costs nothing to submit. For other court costs you cannot afford, you can file a Motion, Affidavit, and Order to Proceed In Forma Pauperis based on indigency or inability to pay. If the court grants it, you can proceed without paying those fees.

Yes. Improper service of process is a recognized defense in Rhode Island. A defendant can raise insufficiency of service and ask the court to find that service did not follow the rules. If service was defective, the time to answer may not have started to run. Raise a service problem promptly rather than ignoring the case, because ignoring it still risks a default.

Common affirmative defenses include the statute of limitations, payment, accord and satisfaction, release, fraud, statute of frauds, and discharge in bankruptcy. To assert your own claims against the plaintiff, you plead a counterclaim. Under Super. R. Civ. P. 13(a), a claim that arises out of the same transaction or occurrence as the plaintiff's claim is compulsory and generally must be pleaded in your answer or it is lost.

Yes. Unlike many states where a small claims defendant just appears at the hearing, Rhode Island requires a written Defendant's Answer within 20 days under Dist. Ct. R. Small Claims P. 2.05, and the clerk assigns the trial date only after that answer is filed. If you fail to answer after proper service, the court automatically enters a default and judgment against you without further notice.

Respond the same way as any civil complaint: file a timely answer that admits or denies each allegation and raises your defenses. In debt cases, check the ten-year statute of limitations for written contracts under R.I. Gen. Laws § 9-1-13(a) and whether the collector validated the debt under the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1692g. Do not ignore the summons, because silence leads to a default judgment for the full amount claimed.