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What happens if a civil case is incorrectly filed? Is there recourse to request that the case be dropped and make the petitioner refile the case?

For example, in Indiana, a petition for a protective order must be accompanied with a statement by an affidavit, but it seems that judges often schedule a hearing for these petitions without such a statement. Can the respondent do anything if such a statement is not attached? If there is an affidavit, then isn't it the right that they should know their statement before the hearing?

The second example is about if there is obviously contradictory information in the filed case. To use a petition for a protective order example again, suppose that the petitioner checks the box that violence has happened, but then claims latter that violence did not happen and that they are filing the petition for harassment. Does this not fail to properly notify the respondent to what is being claimed against them? (Also, isn't this an obvious case of perjury?)

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    Not familiar with Indiana but the petitioner could seek leave of the court to address the issues and then refile once corrected. Alternatively, any case that is dismissed can be refiled unless it is dismissed with prejudice. Judges will often do that if a file is lacking required information.
    – hszmv
    Commented Nov 9, 2022 at 22:30
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    As for purgery, that is the case where someone makes a sworn statement with intent to knowingly deceive the court in the nature of material fact. Statements made in error may frustrate the court, but not intentionally do so. If you said something happened on a Friday when it was actually a Thursday, it's not that your lying, but you might have misremembered (maybe you took that Friday off and remembered, It happened on the last day of work that week... it must be on a Friday.).
    – hszmv
    Commented Nov 9, 2022 at 22:34

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If the case is filed improperly, the opposing party should file a motion to dismiss.

If the opposing party merely disagrees with the allegations, they will likely have to litigate to address those differences. The inconsistency is not an obvious case of perjury, because it could just as easily be a clerical error.

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