Rule 89.01.Procedure--Service of Process.

Ejectment is the civil action used to recover possession of real property from someone wrongfully holding it. Rule 89.01 does not create special procedural rules for that action. Instead, it folds ejectment into the general procedural framework that governs every other civil case in Missouri.

The rule states that the institution, prosecution, trial, and determination of ejectment actions must conform in all respects to the rules of procedure covering ordinary civil actions. In other words, filing, pleading, discovery, trial practice, and judgment in an ejectment case proceed under the same rules that apply generally, instead of under a separate set of ejectment-specific procedures.

The rule then addresses one procedural point directly: service of process. In an ejectment action, service must be made in the same manner provided in Rule 54, the general rule governing service of process in Missouri civil cases. This confirms that a plaintiff seeking to eject someone from real property serves the defendant using the standard methods available in any civil suit, with no separate service procedure unique to ejectment.

Because Rule 89.01 incorporates ordinary civil procedure wholesale, understanding how an ejectment case proceeds means looking to the rules that govern civil actions generally — pleadings, motions, discovery, and trial — instead of to any specialized ejectment rule beyond this cross-reference.