Served With Divorce or Custody Papers
in Mississippi: What Happens Next

Thirty days. Under Mississippi Rule of Civil Procedure 12(a), a defendant must serve an answer within thirty days after the summons and complaint are served. The day you were served does not count, the last day does, and if the last day falls on a weekend, a legal holiday, or a day the clerk's office is closed, the deadline runs to the next business day. The thirty days can be extended once, for up to ten more days, by a written stipulation between the lawyers filed with the court, and a judge can enlarge the time for cause. Ask before the deadline passes; after it passes, an extension requires a showing of excusable neglect.

A Rule 81 summons is the paper you get in a chancery matter that Mississippi treats differently from an ordinary lawsuit. Under Rule 81(d), custody actions, child support actions, paternity, termination of parental rights, grandparents' visitation, and similar matters are triable thirty days after service, and temporary relief in a divorce or custody case, modification or enforcement of custody, support, or alimony, and contempt are triable seven days after service. No answer is required in these matters unless the court orders one. Instead, the summons commands you to appear and defend at a set date, time, and place. Your deadline is a hearing, not a filing.

It depends on what was filed. An original custody, paternity, or child support action is served with a Rule 81 summons that sets a hearing no sooner than thirty days after service. A petition to modify or enforce an existing custody or support order, a contempt petition, or a request for temporary relief is triable seven days after service. Read the summons: it names the date, time, and place you must appear. If the case is a divorce complaint that also asks for custody, the ordinary thirty-day answer deadline under Rule 12(a) applies, and any temporary custody hearing in that divorce can then be noticed under Rule 5 once you have been summoned.

The case goes on without you. Mississippi Code Section 93-5-7 says no judgment by default may be granted in a divorce, so your spouse still has to prove a ground, but nothing stops the court from hearing the evidence and ruling on custody, support, property, and alimony with only one side in the room. And if you respond without raising them, defenses such as improper venue or defective service are waived under Rule 12(h). An irreconcilable differences divorce under Section 93-5-2 works differently. If you were personally served and never contest or deny it, the complaint itself can be taken as proved without testimony, but nothing about custody, support, or property can be decided without a written agreement or a written consent that you sign, so a spouse who does nothing leaves those issues stuck and usually pushes the filing spouse onto one of the twelve grounds in Section 93-5-1, a slower and more expensive fight for everyone.

Rule 81(d)(3) says complaints and petitions in these matters shall not be taken as confessed, so missing the hearing does not automatically hand the other side everything it asked for. But the chancellor can hear the evidence that is presented and rule on it, and you will not be there to answer it. If the court ordered you to file an answer and you did not, Rule 81(d)(4) bars you from presenting evidence on your own behalf. Treat the hearing date on the summons as the deadline, because it is.

Not before a lawyer reads them. In an irreconcilable differences divorce under Section 93-5-2, the case moves on your signature: a joint complaint, a written waiver of process or entry of appearance, a written consent, or a property and custody agreement. A waiver of process under Rule 4(e) is legitimate and often sensible, but it must be signed after the day the case is filed, sworn or acknowledged, and it has the same effect as being served, so the clock starts. A settlement agreement you sign becomes the terms of your divorce if the chancellor finds it adequate and sufficient. Signing to be cooperative is fine once you know what you are agreeing to.

Yes, in specific ways. Rule 4 allows a summons and complaint to be sent by first-class mail with two copies of a notice and acknowledgment form and a return envelope; you have twenty days from the mailing to sign the acknowledgment under oath and send it back, and if you do not, the court will make you pay the cost of serving you another way unless you show good cause. Signing that acknowledgment does not give up any objection to jurisdiction or venue. Certified mail with a return receipt is allowed only for a person outside Mississippi. Service can also be made by a sheriff or by any adult who is not a party to the case, by leaving the papers at your home with a spouse or family member over sixteen who agrees to take them, followed by a mailed copy, when you cannot be served in person with reasonable diligence, or by publication in a newspaper when you cannot be found. In a chancery case, publication gives you thirty days from the first publication to appear.

No. Rule 6(e) adds three days to most deadlines when a paper is served by mail, but the rule says that extension does not apply to responses to a summons under Rule 4. If you accepted a summons and complaint by the notice-and-acknowledgment method, count thirty days from service. Note one wrinkle: when papers are left at your home with a family member and a copy is mailed afterward, service is not complete until the tenth day after that mailing, so the thirty days start then.

Raise it immediately. Insufficient service of process is a defense that must be included in your first Rule 12 motion or in your answer; under Rule 12(h)(1), it is waived if you leave it out. Rule 4(h) also gives the filing party 120 days after filing to serve you, and without good cause for the delay the case can be dismissed as to you without prejudice, which usually means it gets refiled. A defective-service defense is about timing and procedure; it rarely ends a divorce or custody case for good.

Seven days after service. Rule 81(d)(2) makes temporary relief in divorce, separate maintenance, custody, and support matters, along with modification, enforcement, and contempt, triable seven days after you are served. If you have already been summoned to answer a divorce complaint, Rule 81(d)(6) lets the other side notice a temporary hearing in that case by ordinary Rule 5 notice rather than a new summons. Temporary orders decide who has the children, who pays support, and who stays in the house while the case is pending, so the first week after service is the week to hire counsel.

Chancery court, and which one depends on the county. Forrest County cases are heard at the Paul B. Johnson Chancery Court Building in downtown Hattiesburg, a few minutes from our office at 525 Corinne Street. Lamar County cases, which include Oak Grove and other addresses on the west side of the Hattiesburg area, are heard at the Gamble Chancery Building, 403 Main Street, in Purvis. The summons and the caption on the complaint name the court. We handle divorce and custody cases in both, and across the Pine Belt.

Read the summons before anything else. If it tells you to answer within 30 days, it came with a divorce complaint and Rule 12(a) gives you thirty days from the day you were served, not counting that day. If it commands you to appear at a set date, time, and place, it is a Rule 81 summons for a custody, support, modification, or contempt matter, and the hearing date is your deadline; for a modification or contempt petition that can be seven days out. A Forrest County case is heard at the Paul B. Johnson Chancery Court Building in downtown Hattiesburg. Write down how and when you were served, keep every page together, do not sign anything, and call (601) 582-5015; our office at 525 Corinne Street is a few minutes from the courthouse. If you live in Oak Grove or elsewhere in Lamar County, the same rules apply, but the case is heard at the Gamble Chancery Building in Purvis.