What Happens If You Miss Your Trial or Settlement Conference Date?

There are two very different problems that both get described, loosely, as "missing your court date," and it's worth being clear about which one you're actually facing. One is missing the deadline to file a Defence after being served with a claim — an earlier, paperwork-based deadline. The other, which this article is about, is failing to appear for a date that's already been scheduled in your case: a settlement conference or a trial. The two lead to different consequences and call for different responses.

Not the same as missing your Defence deadline

If you're worried about a Defence deadline specifically, that's a separate issue with its own process, generally resulting in the risk of a default judgment if it passes without a Defence being filed. This article assumes you're past that stage — a Defence is on file, the case has moved forward, and now there's an actual date on the calendar for a settlement conference or trial that you're at risk of missing.

What can happen if you miss a scheduled date

Simply not showing up, without notice to the court, carries real consequences, and they differ depending on which side of the case you're on. If you're the defendant and you don't appear, the court may proceed without you — meaning the trial or conference goes ahead in your absence, and a result can be reached against you without your side of the story being heard. If you're the plaintiff and you don't appear, the more common outcome is that your claim may be dismissed or struck entirely, since you're the one who brought the case forward and the court has no reason to keep it alive if you don't show up to pursue it. Neither outcome is automatic in every circumstance, but both are realistic risks of simply not appearing.

What to do the moment you realize you'll miss it

If you can see a problem coming — you're sick, something urgent has come up, you've realized a genuine conflict with the date — the right move is to contact the court as soon as possible, ideally before the scheduled date itself, rather than after. Explain the situation clearly and request an adjournment. Courts are far more receptive to a request made in advance, with a genuine reason behind it, than to an explanation offered after the fact for why nobody showed up. If there's any way to notify the other side as well, that also tends to help your position.

Genuine emergency versus simply forgetting

Courts generally do distinguish, at least in how they treat what happens next, between a genuine emergency and simply forgetting or disorganization. A sudden medical emergency, an accident, or some other unavoidable and serious event tends to be treated with real sympathy, particularly where you get word to the court as soon as reasonably possible. Simply losing track of the date, or not having taken it seriously enough to keep it top of mind, is treated far less generously — courts have limited patience for scheduled dates being missed without a genuine reason, given how much court time and the other party's preparation are affected. The lesson here isn't just about what happens after you miss a date; it's a strong argument for building in reminders and treating every scheduled date as fixed until you have an actual adjournment confirmed.

Can a missed hearing be reopened?

In some circumstances, yes — it's possible to ask the court to reopen a matter or set aside a result that came from a missed hearing, particularly where there's a genuine and well- documented reason for the absence. This isn't guaranteed, though, and courts weigh factors like how quickly you acted after learning what happened, whether the other side would be unfairly prejudiced by reopening the matter, and how credible and serious the reason for missing the date actually was. If you've missed a date and a result has already gone against you, the most important thing is to act quickly — the longer you wait to raise it, the harder it generally becomes to undo.

Frequently asked questions