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Rule 185. Suit on Sworn Account (1950)

TEXT

When any action or defense is founded upon an open account or other claim for goods, wares and merchandise, including any claim for a liquidated money demand based upon written contract or founded on business dealings between the parties, or is for personal service rendered, or labor done or labor or materials furnished, on which a systematic record has been kept, and is supported by the affidavit of the party, his agent or attorney taken before some officer authorized to administer oaths, to the effect that such claim is, within the knowledge of affiant, just and true, that it is due, and that all just and lawful offsets, payments and credits have been allowed, the same shall be taken as prima facie evidence thereof, unless the party resisting such claim shall, before an announcement of ready for trial in said cause, file a written denial, under oath, stating that such claim is not just or true, in whole or in part, and if in part only, stating the items and particulars which are unjust; provided, that when such counter-affidavit shall be filed on the day of the trial the party asserting such verified claim shall have the right to postpone such cause for a reasonable time. When the opposite party fails to file such affidavit, he shall not be permitted to deny the claim, or any item therein, as the case may be.

Source: Art. 3736, unchanged.

Amended by order of Oct. 12, 1949, eff. March 1, 1950: The rule has been extended to include a claim for "labor done or labor or materials furnished"; and the provision that when a counter-affidavit is filed on the day of the trial the party asserting the claim shall have the right to continue the cause until the next term of court has been changed to the following: "the party asserting such verified claim shall have the right to postpone such cause for a reasonable time." Several textual changes not affecting the substance of the rule have also been made.