§ 751.17.Applicability of Rules and Law Relating to Civil Actions

Chapter 3.5 sets out a distinctive procedure for summons, service, and judgment, but it doesn't try to reinvent every rule of civil litigation. This section fills in the rest: except where this chapter says something different, the ordinary rules governing evidence, pleading, practice, new trials, and appeals in other civil actions apply here too.

That default matters for anything the chapter doesn't specifically address — for example, general civil discovery practices, standard rules of evidence at trial, or the ordinary path for appealing an adverse judgment. Litigants and courts fall back on the familiar civil rulebook except for the pieces this chapter has deliberately customized, like the ban on default judgments in § 751.14 or the special jurisdiction rule in § 751.11.