Art. 1004.Denials

Article 1004 builds directly on Article 854's numbered-paragraph structure: the answer must go through the petition's factual allegations and admit or deny each one. Silence carries a consequence. An allegation the answer does not deny is treated as admitted — with one deliberate exception. Louisiana does not apply that default-admission rule to an allegation about the amount of damages, so a plaintiff can never rest a damages figure on the defendant's failure to specifically dispute it. The plaintiff still has to prove what the damages are worth, regardless of how the answer treats that particular allegation.

A defendant does not always know, one way or the other, whether something the petition alleges is true. Article 1004 gives that situation its own language: if the defendant lacks knowledge or information sufficient to justify a belief about an allegation's truth, the answer can say so, and that statement works the same as a denial. This lets a defendant respond in good faith to facts outside personal knowledge, without guessing at an admission or denial the defendant cannot support.

Denials also have to do real work. Article 1004 requires a denial to meet the substance of what it denies, rather than a technical or evasive response that leaves the real dispute unaddressed. And when a defendant means, in good faith, to dispute only part of an allegation, the article requires precision: admit whatever part is true and material, and deny or qualify the rest, instead of denying an entire paragraph that is only partly wrong.