§ 73.058.Challenges to Correction, Clarification, or Retraction or to Request for Correction, Clarification, or Retraction

The procedure for litigating whether the correction machinery was properly used.

A defendant relying on a correction must state that intention, and the correction relied on, in a notice served on the plaintiff by the later of 60 days after service of citation or 10 days after the correction is made.

The correction is timely and sufficient unless the plaintiff challenges it within 20 days of that notice. A plaintiff who does challenge must state it in a motion served by the later of 30 days after the notice or 30 days after the correction is made.

The default runs against the plaintiff. Silence concedes that the correction was timely and sufficient, with the consequence that exemplary damages are barred absent actual malice.

Subsection (c) gives the defendant its own challenge. To contest the sufficiency or timeliness of the plaintiff's request, the defendant must move by the 60th day after service of citation.

Subsection (d) is the significant one. Unless there is a reasonable dispute about the actual contents of the request, its sufficiency and timeliness is a question of law, and the court shall rule as a matter of law at the earliest appropriate time before trial.

Making it a question of law decided early is what gives the Act practical force. Whether the claimant complied is settled by the judge at the outset rather than left as a jury issue at the end.