If the Defence does not respond to an allegation at all, what happens?

• A. The claim will be struck out
• B. The defendant will be deemed to admit it
• C. The court will order a default judgment
• D. The claimant will automatically win

Answer: (B)

In civil procedure, if a defendant does not respond to a specific allegation in the claim, that particular fact is treated as admitted for the purposes of the case. This means the court will take the allegation as true unless the defendant later shows there was a valid reason to contest it. This mechanism helps move the case forward by removing disputes over undisputed facts, allowing the claimant to win on liability based on those admitted facts (while still needing to prove damages, if relevant).

So, if the defendant ignores an allegation, it’s treated as admitted, rather than the claimant automatically winning the whole case or the court striking out the claim or automatically issuing a default judgment. The other outcomes come from different procedural failures or contexts, not from simply not responding to an individual allegation.