Which court papers actually need to be both filed with the court AND served on the other party?

The categories covered

Section 4 enumerates the papers subject to the filing-and-service requirement broadly: every judgment, resolution, order, pleading subsequent to the complaint, written motion, notice, appearance, demand, offer of judgment or similar papers. This spans documents originating from the court itself (judgments, resolutions, orders) as well as documents filed by the parties (pleadings after the complaint, motions, notices, and the like). The overall breadth of the list reflects a basic due-process concern: any paper genuinely capable of affecting a party's rights in the litigation should reach both the official court record and that party's actual attention. The rule binds every litigant and counsel of record who generates one of these papers, not merely the party who first initiated the action, so the duty travels with whoever files the next paper in sequence.

Both filing and service are required, not just one

The section requires each of these papers to be both filed with the court, and served upon the parties affected. This dual requirement matters — filing alone puts the document on the court record but does not put the opposing party on notice, while service alone informs the other party but does not by itself create the official court record. Rule 13 requires both steps for each of the enumerated categories of papers. A pleading filed with the court but never actually served on the adverse party, or vice versa, does not fully satisfy what this section demands. Because the two obligations serve different functions, compliance with one cannot substitute for compliance with the other, and a paper missing either step remains incomplete under the rule's own terms.

'Pleadings subsequent to the complaint' and the open-ended close

Note carefully that the list specifically covers pleadings subsequent to the complaint — the complaint itself is governed by its own service rules for initiating a case (through summons), which is different from the rule governing papers filed afterward, over the course of the litigation itself. The list also ends with 'similar papers,' signaling that the enumeration is illustrative of the kind of court submissions covered rather than an exhaustive, closed list limited only to the items expressly named in the text itself. This distinction makes practical sense, since summons exists to bring a defendant who has not yet appeared into the case, while Section 4 assumes the parties are already before the court and simply need to stay informed of each subsequent step.

Related provisions

• Rule 13, Section 4 — Papers required to be filed and served
• Rule 13, Section 1 — Coverage
• Rule 13, Section 5 — Modes of [s]ervice