Rule 402.Parties, Filing and Service

One and one. There is only one petitioner and one respondent per petition. Where both are within the protected class, the petition may allege abuse against the petitioner or their minor children, and protection may be given to either or both. Where jurisdiction rests only on the relationship between a minor child and the respondent, protection for the child must be sought under Rule 408.

Pleading. Each petition must allege facts sufficient to give reasonable notice of the abuse alleged — including when and where it happened — and the respondent's full name, date of birth and address, except where the case proceeds by publication.

The specificity requirement protects both sides. A respondent cannot answer “he has been abusive”; a court cannot decide it.

Service, and appearing anyway. Service follows Rule 5. A respondent who appears — in person or remotely, for case review or a hearing — or who files a responsive pleading, a continuance request, a request to participate remotely, or a counter-petition, has made a voluntary appearance and can stop arguing about service.

When they cannot be found. Where the respondent does not appear voluntarily and has not been served personally or by signed-receipt mail, and there is no other satisfactory evidence of actual receipt, notice by regular mail together with publication may be deemed sufficient. Regular mail may go to any address the petitioner supplies, to addresses held by the motor vehicle and criminal justice information systems, and to the most recent address the respondent gave this court or that was confirmed in other litigation here.

A case may go forward on publication alone only after every one of those addresses has been tried and the petitioner has diligently attempted to locate the respondent, proved by sworn testimony or affidavit. Publication is genuinely last.

Nonresidents. Where the respondent does not live in Delaware, the petition must allege with particularity their contacts with the State, if any, and how those contacts relate to the abuse. An absence of contacts is not a ground for dismissal, but it may limit the relief available — a distinction Rules 404 and 405 carry through: the court can protect, even where it cannot order money.

Amendments. Despite the ordinary amendment rule, a PFA petition may be amended without leave until the day before case review, even if the other side has been served or appeared. After that, Rule 15 governs. Petitions here are usually drafted by frightened people without lawyers, and early correction should not require a motion.

Counter-petitions. A respondent who says the abuse ran the other way files their own petition rather than a counterclaim. It is timely if filed before, or within 7 days after, the first case review at which personal jurisdiction over the respondent is confirmed — or the day before trial, whichever comes first. The court serves it by regular mail on the original petitioner or their attorney, and mails the original service packet to a counter-petitioner who never received it.

A timely counter-petition filed before case review is presumptively consolidated for trial. One filed later is consolidated if the parties stipulate, or if the court finds consolidation can reasonably be accommodated. And except through a timely counter-petition, abuse arising out of transactions already alleged in an earlier petition cannot be the factual basis for a protective order, unless that earlier petition was dismissed without prejudice — the compulsory-counterclaim principle, applied to a proceeding where both people usually have a story.