The defendant shall answer within ten days of the service of citation, except that, when the citation is served through the secretary of state, the delay, as to all defendants, shall be fifteen days after service.
Art. 4920.Delay For Answering; Justice of the Peace Courts; District Courts With Concurrent Jurisdiction
Book VIII. Trial Courts of Limited Jurisdiction · Title II. Procedure In Trial Courts of Limited Jurisdiction · Chapter 2. Civil Jurisdiction For Justice of the Peace Courts · Enacted 1986 · no amendments on record · Last verified July 30, 2026
In one sentenceArticle 4920 gives a defendant in justice of the peace court ten days from service of citation to answer, extended to fifteen days for every defendant when citation was served through the secretary of state.
Full Text of Art. 4920
Amendment History
Acts 1986, No. 156, §1.
Plain-English Summary
Once citation is served, the clock starts running on the defendant's obligation to respond. Article 4920 sets that window at ten days from service, whether the answer takes the oral form Article 4917 allows or a written one the defendant chooses to file instead.
Service through the secretary of state, typically used to reach a defendant located outside Louisiana or otherwise not readily served in person, gets extra time built in to account for the added steps that method of service involves. When any defendant in the case is served that way, the delay for answering stretches to fifteen days, and Article 4920 applies that longer delay to every defendant in the case, not just the one served through the secretary of state.
Missing this delay carries the same consequence it does throughout Louisiana small-claims-style procedure: a defendant who fails to answer within the delay for answering, without the case first having been set for trial under Article 4921.1, risks a default judgment under Article 4921.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does a defendant have to answer in justice of the peace court?
Ten days from service of citation, under Article 4920, or fifteen days for every defendant if any defendant was served through the secretary of state.
Why does service through the secretary of state get extra time?
That method typically reaches an out-of-state or otherwise hard-to-serve defendant, and Article 4920 builds in additional time to account for the extra steps involved.
Does the longer fifteen-day delay apply to every defendant, or just the one served through the secretary of state?
Every defendant in the case gets the fifteen-day delay once any defendant has been served through the secretary of state.
Source & verification. Article text is reproduced verbatim from
the Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure (legis.la.gov). Enacted by the Louisiana Legislature.
Last verified July 30, 2026.
· Official source
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