Art. 1001.Delay For Answering

Louisiana measures a defendant's time to answer from service of citation — the formal delivery of the petition and the court's summons to appear — rather than from the date the suit was filed. Article 1001 sets that period at twenty-one days as the general rule, but stretches it to thirty days when the plaintiff files and serves written discovery requests along with the petition, since responding to both the merits and the discovery at once takes more preparation. Paragraph A also opens the door for other statutes to set a different deadline for a particular kind of proceeding, so the twenty-one-day period functions as a default rather than an absolute floor.

The article resets the clock when a defendant files a preliminary exception instead of an answer. If the exception is overruled, or referred to the merits for later decision, the defendant then has fifteen days from that ruling to answer. If the exception is sustained and the court orders the petition amended, the defendant instead gets fifteen days from service of the amended petition. Either way, a defendant who raises an exception first does not lose the opportunity to answer once the exception is decided — the fifteen-day window replaces the original one.

Paragraph C gives the trial court discretion to grant more time to answer beyond any of these periods, whether on a motion or by agreement of the parties. That flexibility matters in practice, since parties often need — and courts often grant — brief extensions while an answer is drafted or a settlement is explored, without pushing the case toward a default.