Responding to a Connecticut complaint: there is no 20-day answer deadline

If you came here looking for the number of days you have to answer a Connecticut complaint, the honest answer is that Connecticut does not work that way. Nearly every other state gives you a fixed period after service. Connecticut gives you a return day, a short deadline to file an appearance, and then a rolling thirty-day rhythm that governs every pleading afterward.

Getting this wrong is the most common way Connecticut defendants lose cases they could have defended.

First: the appearance

Conn. Practice Book § 3-2(a):

After the writ has been filed the attorney for any party to any action, or any party himself or herself, may enter his or her appearance in writing with the clerk of the court location to which such action is returnable. Except where otherwise prescribed herein or by statute, an appearance for a party in a civil or family case should be filed on or before the second day following the return day. Appearances filed thereafter in such cases shall be accepted but an appearance for a party after the entry against such party of a nonsuit or judgment after default for failure to appear shall not affect the entry of the nonsuit or any judgment after default.

Three points, in order of how much trouble they cause.

The return day is printed on the papers you were served with. It is a Tuesday. It is not the day you were served, and it is not a court date — nobody appears in person. Find it first; everything else counts from it.

Your appearance is due the second day after it. That is a very short fuse compared with the 20 or 30 days most states allow, and it comes before any answer is due.

A late appearance is still accepted — until it isn't. The rule says appearances filed later "shall be accepted," which sounds forgiving, and then takes it back: once a nonsuit or a judgment after default for failure to appear has entered, filing an appearance no longer disturbs it. The forgiveness lasts exactly as long as the plaintiff lets it.

Then: the thirty-day rhythm

Conn. Practice Book § 10-8:

Commencing on the return day of the writ, summons and complaint in civil actions, pleadings, including motions and requests addressed to the pleadings, shall advance within thirty days from the return day, and any subsequent pleadings, motions and requests shall advance at least one step within each successive period of thirty days from the preceding pleading or the filing of the decision of the judicial authority thereon if one is required, except that in summary process actions the time period shall be three days and in actions to foreclose a mortgage on real estate the time period shall be fifteen days.

So the structure is a ladder, not a deadline. You have thirty days from the return day to take your first step, thirty days from each ruling to take the next, and so on until the pleadings close.

What counts as a step is set by § 10-6, which fixes the order of pleadings: motion to dismiss, then motion to strike, then answer, and so on. Taking a step means filing the next thing in that order — or the answer, which is always available.

Two shorter clocks. Summary process — Connecticut's eviction procedure — runs on three days, not thirty. Mortgage foreclosure runs on fifteen. If you are being evicted, the ordinary rhythm does not apply and the margin for error is close to none.

Discovery does not stop the clock. The section says so expressly: filing interrogatories or discovery requests does not suspend these time requirements unless the court finds good cause on motion.

Default for failure to plead

Conn. Practice Book § 17-32:

(a) Where a defendant is in default for failure to plead pursuant to Section 10-8, the plaintiff may file a written motion for default which shall be acted on by the clerk not less than seven days from the filing of the motion, without placement on the short calendar.

(b) If a party who has been defaulted under this section files an answer before a judgment after default has been rendered by the judicial authority, the default shall automatically be set aside by operation of law unless a claim for a hearing in damages or a motion for judgment has been filed. If a claim for a hearing in damages or a motion for judgment has been filed, the default may be set aside only by the judicial authority. A claim for a hearing in damages or motion for judgment shall not be filed before the expiration of fifteen days from the date of notice of issuance of the default under this subsection.

This is the most useful paragraph in Connecticut civil procedure for a defendant who has fallen behind.

A default for failure to plead is not the end. File an answer before judgment and the default is set aside by operation of law — no motion, no hearing, no showing of good cause.

The window is real but bounded. The plaintiff cannot ask for judgment for fifteen days after notice of the default issues. That fifteen days is your opportunity, and it closes the moment a claim for a hearing in damages or a motion for judgment is filed. After that, only a judge can lift the default.

Failure to appear is different from failure to plead. Section 17-33(a) allows judgment against a defendant defaulted for failure to appear for trial to be rendered on evidence without notice. The automatic set-aside in § 17-32(b) is a remedy for the pleading default, not for absence.

Answering, or moving

Because § 10-6 fixes the order, choosing what to file is really choosing where to enter the ladder.

A motion to dismiss under § 10-30 raises the jurisdictional objections — lack of jurisdiction over the subject matter or the person, improper venue, insufficiency of process or of service. It comes first, and Connecticut is strict about that: file something else first and § 10-7 treats you as having waived the right to plead in the earlier position.

A motion to strike under § 10-39 is Connecticut's demurrer, testing the legal sufficiency of the complaint. It comes after the motion to dismiss and before the answer.

The answer closes the pleadings and is always a permissible step.

Each of these counts as advancing one step, and each restarts the thirty days once decided.

How Connecticut compares

A short checklist

1. Find the return day on the papers. Every deadline in the case counts from it, and it is not the day you were served.
2. File your appearance by the second day after the return day. This comes first and it is short.
3. File it late rather than not at all — late appearances are accepted, but only until a nonsuit or a judgment after default for failure to appear has entered.
4. Then advance one step within thirty days of the return day, and one step within thirty days of each ruling after that.
5. If this is an eviction, the period is three days, and if it is a mortgage foreclosure, fifteen.
6. Do not rely on discovery to buy time. Filing it does not suspend the schedule without a good-cause finding.
7. If you have been defaulted for failure to plead, file an answer immediately. Doing so before judgment sets the default aside by operation of law.
8. Watch for a claim for hearing in damages or a motion for judgment. It cannot be filed for fifteen days after notice of the default — and once it is, only a judge can help you.

Where these rules live

• Conn. Practice Book § 3-2 — Time To File Appearance
• Conn. Practice Book § 8-1 — Process
• Conn. Practice Book § 10-6 — Pleadings Allowed and Their Order
• Conn. Practice Book § 10-7 — Waiving Right To Plead
• Conn. Practice Book § 10-8 — Time To Plead
• Conn. Practice Book § 10-30 — Motion To Dismiss; Grounds
• Conn. Practice Book § 10-39 — Motion To Strike; Grounds
• Conn. Practice Book § 17-32 — Where Defendant Is in Default for Failure To Plead
• Conn. Practice Book § 17-33 — When Judgment May Be Rendered after a Default
• Conn. Practice Book § 17-42 — Opening Defaults where Judgment Has Not Been Rendered
• Conn. Practice Book § 17-43 — Opening Judgment upon Default or Nonsuit

This page explains what the Practice Book says. It isn't legal advice, and Connecticut's summary process timetable in evictions is compressed enough that the general rhythm described here does not safely apply to it.