Court Procedures / Evidence / Service

In general, if a petitioner who files a petition asking the judge for specific legal relief does not show up to court, the judge generally has the option to dismiss the petition or sometimes a judge may adjourn (postpone) the court date to give the person another chance to appear. However, even if a petition is dismissed, depending on many factors, many petitions are dismissed “without prejudice,” which basically means that the petitioner is not prevented (prejudiced) from bringing the case back to court and requesting the same legal relief. Sometimes, a petition may be dismissed “with prejudice,” which makes it harder to re-bring the same petition. Often times, there are limited reasons why a petition may be dismissed with prejudice such as if there were multiple court dates where the case was litigated and after spending much time and resources on the case, the petitioner withdraws the petition. Another possible reason is if the petition didn’t have any merit to it and the judge wants to prevent the person from re-filing the same petition. However, the majority of petitions where the petitioner doesn’t show up or withdraws the petition are generally dismissed without prejudice. I cannot speak to your particular situation but perhaps it may be possible to find by going to the courthouse to check the court file (if that is something that you want to do). Often times, the way someone finds out if s/he can re-file is basically by going to court to re-file and seeing if the clerk and judge accept the petition or not. If you want legal advice on your specific situation, we have a link to lawyers on our website here: LINK