Rule 97.05.Preliminary Order--Contents--Service.

Once a court decides to grant a preliminary order under Rule 97.04, Rule 97.05 fills in what that order must say and how it reaches the respondent. The order issues in the name of the state, on the relation of the relator, language that reflects prohibition's character as a remedy exercised through the state's own courts instead of a purely private demand.

Two substantive commands can appear in the order. First, it must direct the respondent to file an answer within a time the court fixes, so the case has a concrete deadline instead of an open-ended obligation. Second, it may order the respondent to refrain from all action in the matter until the court says otherwise, giving the preliminary order real teeth: it can pause the proceeding the relator is challenging while the prohibition case is decided.

Getting the order to the respondent is handled through the clerk, who must forthwith deliver a copy of the preliminary order along with a copy of the petition for service. Service falls to the sheriff or to another person specially appointed to serve it, following the methods set out in Rule 54. That reliance on Rule 54 ties prohibition service back into the same service framework used across ordinary civil litigation.