A motion to dismiss does not pause your obligations. It moves the answer deadline to a date nobody can calculate on the filing day, stays disclosure for both sides under CPLR 3214(b) unless the court orders otherwise, and leaves contract interest running. Here is the clock, in order, from the day you were served.
How long do I have to respond after being served in New York?
CPLR 320(a) gives a defendant twenty days to appear when the summons was delivered personally within New York. Service by the methods listed in CPLR 320(a), including CPLR 308(2) through (5) and delivery to an authorized state official, carries thirty days, measured from the date service is complete.
An appearance is made three ways. Serving an answer. Serving a notice of appearance. Or making a motion that has the effect of extending the time to answer, which is the pre-answer motion to dismiss.
Appearing and answering are not the same deadline. CPLR 320(a) fixes the appearance. CPLR 3012(a) sets the answer at twenty days after service of the pleading it responds to, and CPLR 3012(c) gives thirty days where service was made by the methods it lists. If the summons arrived without a complaint, CPLR 3012(b) lets you demand one, and the answer clock runs from service of that complaint.
The phrase that trips people is “after service is complete.” Personal delivery inside New York under CPLR 308(1) starts the twenty-day clock on the day of delivery. The listed alternatives start a thirty-day clock that begins when service is complete under the statute governing that method, which is not always the day a process server handed papers to someone at your office. I calendar the appearance date before I read a single allegation in the complaint, because the date is the only thing in the file that cannot be argued about.
Law: CPLR 320(a); CPLR 3012(a), (b), (c).
Does a motion to dismiss extend the time to answer?
CPLR 3211(f) extends the time to serve a responsive pleading until ten days after service of notice of entry of the order deciding the motion. The extension is statutory, not discretionary, but it attaches only where the notice of motion is served before service of a pleading responsive to the claim attacked.
That condition sits in subdivision (f) itself. CPLR 3211(e) imposes a separate one: a party may move on one or more of the grounds in subdivision (a) at any time before service of the responsive pleading is required, and no more than one such motion is permitted. The one-motion bar is not absolute. CPLR 3211(e) still allows a later motion on paragraphs two, seven and ten of subdivision (a), which are subject matter jurisdiction, failure to state a cause of action, and failure to join a necessary party. A motion on that later footing does not deliver the subdivision (f) extension.
A motion aimed at part of a pleading extends the time to respond to all of it. Levine v Singal, 172 A.D.3d 402 (1st Dep’t 2019).
So the motion buys time. It does not erase the obligation. The answer deadline detaches from the calendar and reattaches to an event: service of notice of entry of the order on your motion.
Law: CPLR 3211(e), (f); Levine v Singal, 172 A.D.3d 402 (1st Dep’t 2019).
When is the answer actually due if the motion is denied?
The answer is due ten days after service of notice of entry of the order deciding the CPLR 3211 motion, unless the order itself directs otherwise. That date cannot be computed on the day the motion is filed. It depends on when the court decides and on when a party serves notice of entry.
Notice of entry is an affirmative step somebody has to take, and the plaintiff controls it as much as you do. Ten days is short, and it arrives after a quiet stretch. A denial on a Friday can mean an answer, affirmative defenses and any counterclaims drafted inside a week and a half.
Where notice of entry is served by mail, CPLR 2103(b)(2) adds five days. That is the only cushion the rules hand you without asking. Anything more is an application: CPLR 2004 on good cause shown, or CPLR 3012(d) on reasonable excuse. Both are discretionary.
The motion does not buy you a later deadline. It buys you an unknown one, and then hands you ten days.
Draft the answer while the motion is pending, not after it is decided. The pleading is written on the same facts either way.
Law: CPLR 3211(f); CPLR 2103(b)(2); CPLR 2004; CPLR 3012(d).
How long does briefing a motion to dismiss take under CPLR 2214(b)?
CPLR 2214(b) offers two schedules. The default requires the notice of motion and supporting affidavits to be served at least eight days before the return date, with answering affidavits served at least two days before. The alternative requires service at least sixteen days before, and lets the movant demand answering papers seven days out, with reply papers one day before.
The choice is made in the notice of motion. A movant who wants a guaranteed reply has to serve sixteen days out and demand the longer schedule there. Serve on the eight-day default and the right to reply is not fixed by CPLR 2214(b).
Those numbers assume personal service of the papers. Where the moving papers go by mail, CPLR 2103(b)(2) adds five days, so the eight-day track becomes thirteen and the sixteen-day track twenty-one.
| Step | Default schedule | Sixteen-day schedule |
|---|---|---|
| Notice of motion and supporting affidavits | At least 8 days before the return date | At least 16 days before the return date, with a demand in the notice |
| Answering affidavits | At least 2 days before | At least 7 days before |
| Reply affidavits | Not provided for by CPLR 2214(b) | At least 1 day before |
| Cross-motion | At least 3 days before the return date, or 7 if the movant demanded the longer schedule (CPLR 2215) | |
These are service minimums, not a calendar. Part rules, adjournments on consent and the court’s own schedule sit on top of them. The return date is the date the motion is submitted, not the date it is decided, and the gap between the two is the part of the clock you do not control.
Law: CPLR 2214(b); CPLR 2215; CPLR 2103(b)(2).
How long can the motion papers be?
Rule 202.8-b of the Uniform Civil Rules for the Supreme Court and County Court caps computer-prepared attorney affidavits or affirmations, briefs and memoranda of law in chief at 7,000 words each, and replies at 4,200 words each, unless the court permits more. Typewritten or handwritten papers are capped at twenty pages in chief and ten in reply.
Four details carry weight.
- The word count excludes the caption, table of contents, table of authorities and signature block.
- Computer-prepared papers need a certification attached at the end, signed by the counsel who filed the document, stating the word count and certifying compliance.
- Reply papers may not contain arguments that do not respond or relate to those made in the papers in chief.
- Cross-motion papers are subject to the same limits under Section 202.8-b, even though their timing comes from CPLR 2215.
Check the current text before you rely on an older memo. Section 202.8-b was amended effective July 7, 2025, and the amendment makes clear that the limits do not apply to evidentiary materials such as affidavits, affirmations or reports from lay or expert witnesses. The same administrative order repealed Section 202.8-g on statements of material facts. The section governs Supreme Court and County Court, and part rules and the Commercial Division rules can be stricter.
Rule: 22 NYCRR 202.8-b, as amended effective July 7, 2025; Administrative Order amending Section 202.8-b and repealing Section 202.8-g, eff. July 7, 2025.
Does a motion to dismiss stop discovery in New York?
CPLR 3214(b) stays disclosure from the moment a notice of motion under rule 3211 is served, and the stay runs until determination of the motion, unless the court orders otherwise. Where the motion rests solely on the defense that the summons and complaint were not properly served, disclosure is not stayed.
Note the trigger. Service of the notice of motion, not the court’s acceptance of it, not the return date. The subdivision does the same work for motions under rule 3212 and section 3213. Note the escape hatch. The words “unless the court orders otherwise” govern the stay and the service carve-out alike, so neither is immovable. A plaintiff showing a legitimate need can ask the court to let disclosure proceed, and some parts modify the stay by standing order.
The carve-out is narrow and it is worth reading literally. It applies where the motion rests solely on improper service. Pair a service objection with a failure-to-state-a-claim ground and it no longer applies.
Law: CPLR 3214(b).
What does the disclosure stay actually cost a business?
The CPLR 3214(b) stay is symmetrical, and symmetry is the cost. No document demands from the plaintiff and no deposition of you while the motion is pending. Also no document demands from you, no deposition of the plaintiff, and no subpoenas to the third parties whose records may decide the case.
Weigh the stay against what is alleged. On a contract claim at law, CPLR 5001(a) provides that interest shall be recovered upon a sum awarded because of a breach of performance of a contract; in an action of an equitable nature, interest and the rate and date are in the court’s discretion. Under CPLR 5001(b) interest runs from the earliest ascertainable date the cause of action existed, except that interest on damages incurred later runs from the date incurred, and damages incurred at various times may run from a single reasonable intermediate date.
The rate is nine percent per annum under CPLR 5004(a), except where another statute provides otherwise. That same subdivision sets two percent in an action arising out of a consumer debt where a natural person is a defendant, and CPLR 5004(b) defines consumer debt.
Interest does not care that the case is stayed. Every month the motion sits undecided is a month of accrual on a claim that may well survive.
The stay stops the lawyers from working. It does not stop the meter on a contract claim.
Law: CPLR 5001(a), (b); CPLR 5004(a), (b).
Is a motion to dismiss worth the delay?
A CPLR 3211 motion is worth filing when a ground in subdivision (a) would end a claim outright or strip out the counts that drive the exposure. It is not worth filing to buy quiet. Quiet is what the CPLR 3214(b) stay produces, and quiet is a cost when the facts that help you sit in somebody else’s files.
I price the interest on the claim before I decide whether the pause is worth buying.
| Question | Serve an answer | Make a CPLR 3211 motion |
|---|---|---|
| When is the pleading due | Fixed date under CPLR 3012(a), (c) | Ten days after notice of entry of the deciding order |
| Is the date predictable | Yes | No |
| Disclosure | Proceeds | Stayed until determination, unless the court orders otherwise |
| Your own discovery | Available | Frozen with everyone else’s |
| Chance to end a claim before pleading | No | Yes, on the grounds in CPLR 3211(a) |
| Contract interest | Running under CPLR 5001 | Running under CPLR 5001 |
So the decision is not “motion or answer.” It is whether a specific ground kills a specific claim, and whether killing it is worth freezing the file for however long the court takes.
What should you do in the next few days?
The first task after being served in New York is fixing the appearance date under CPLR 320(a) and the answer date under CPLR 3012, because every later option depends on them and a CPLR 3211 motion must be made before the responsive pleading is required. Work the list in order.
- Find the affidavit of service and identify the method. That determines whether you have twenty days or thirty, and when the clock started.
- Calendar the appearance date, then calendar a date one week earlier as the real deadline.
- Name and pull the operative documents. Not “the agreement.” The distribution agreement. The personal guaranty. The promissory note. Read them before you read the complaint again.
- Identify which records you would want from the other side, a bank, a vendor or an escrow agent. Those are the records a CPLR 3214(b) stay puts out of reach while the motion is pending.
- Calculate the interest exposure on any contract claim from the earliest ascertainable date it existed, so the cost of delay is a number and not a feeling.
- Decide the motion question on the strength of a ground, not on the appeal of a pause.
- Draft the answer in parallel, including any counterclaim, so the ten-day window is a formality rather than a scramble.
Do not let the appearance date pass while you decide. A motion served after the responsive pleading was required is untimely under CPLR 3211(e) and carries no subdivision (f) extension, and the fix is a discretionary application under CPLR 2004 or CPLR 3012(d).
Law: CPLR 320(a); CPLR 3012; CPLR 3211(e), (f); CPLR 3214(b); CPLR 2004.
Keep reading
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Before founding Prencipe International, Joe practiced at the top law firms in the world, including Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Baker McKenzie, Morgan Lewis & Bockius, and served at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He has spent his career on high-stakes disputes and transactions for businesses that cannot afford to lose. When a New York business owner gets sued, he answers the same day and is on the docket within the week.
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