District of Columbia procedural guides

Plain-English guides to the District of Columbia Superior Court Rules of Civil Procedure, each one tied to the rules it relies on. Every rule named in a guide has its own page with the official text.

• Responding to a D.C. complaint: 21 days, and a 14-day grace on defaultsD.C. Superior Court Rule 12(a) gives 21 days after service to answer, 60 days for government defendants — and a default entered on the court's own initiative does not take effect for 14 days.
• Setting aside a DC default: fourteen days before it even takes effectA District of Columbia default entered on the court's own initiative does not take effect for 14 days, and the clerk cannot enter judgment at all in a consumer debt collection action.
• The DC motion to dismiss: six grounds, and sixty days if you are suing the governmentD.C. Superior Court Rule 12 lists six defenses — venue is not among them — and gives the District and its officers 60 days to answer instead of 21.
• D.C. summary judgment: numbered statements of fact, and a special rule for debt-collection casesD.C. Superior Court Rule 56 requires numbered statements of fact from both sides and blocks summary judgment in consumer debt collection actions until the plaintiff supplies everything D.C. Code § 28-3814 demands.
• The D.C. motion to compel: meet in person, then say when and where you metD.C. Superior Court Rule 37(a)(1) requires the parties to meet in person before any motion to compel, and the certification must give the date, time and place of that meeting and sit immediately below the signature.
• Enforcing a D.C. money judgment: four weeks, four weeks, fifteen weeksD.C. Superior Court Rule 69-I sets three different deadlines for taking judgment against a garnishee, and dismisses the garnishment outright if none of them is met.
• D.C. subpoenas: service reaches 25 miles past the District lineD.C. Superior Court Rule 45 allows service within the District or within 25 miles of the place of compliance, and requires notice to every party before a records subpoena is served.
• D.C. dismissal: the clerk can end your case for a missing proof of serviceD.C. Superior Court Rule 41 lets the clerk dismiss a case on its own initiative where no proof of service has been filed, and requires failure-to-prosecute dismissals to be without prejudice absent a finding of prejudice.
• D.C. restraining orders: a certificate is not enough, the court has to find you triedD.C. Superior Court Rule 65 replaces the federal certificate of efforts to give notice with a court finding that the movant made reasonable efforts to furnish actual notice and all the papers.

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