Rule 81.Relief heretofore available by common law writs.

Before Rule 81, someone who wanted a court to order an official to act, stop a lower tribunal from exceeding its authority, or challenge a person's right to hold office had to invoke one of several old common-law writs by name: mandamus, prohibition, scire facias, quo warranto, or an information in the nature of quo warranto. Each writ came with its own technical rules for how to ask for it.

Rule 81 opens the regular civil action as a route to all of that relief. A person seeking what a writ of mandamus or prohibition used to provide may file an original action in the appropriate court, using the same procedural rules that govern any other civil case. The rule speaks to how the relief may be obtained; it does not shut down any other route to it.

This matters for anyone trying to compel a public official to perform a duty, stop a court or agency from acting beyond its authority, or contest someone's authority to hold an office. The relief is available, and Rule 81 makes an ordinary lawsuit in the appropriate court a way to get it.