calcivilguideCalifornia civil procedure Search ⌘K

28 guides, written and checked

All guides

One row per guide, grouped by where the case is. Every row carries the section it turns on and what happens if you get it wrong.

28 of 28 guides, grouped by stage. 26 carry a consequence no court can fix.

Before the complaint2

  1. The two six-month clocks in a public entity caseBoth periods say six months and behave in opposite ways. One is a statute of limitations and can be tolled. The other is not, and cannot. Gov. Code 911.2(a) Fatal
  2. Suing a public entity before the claim is rejectedWhether an amended complaint cures it turns on one fact: whether you served the original first. Review is pending in Harland. Gov. Code 945.4 Fatal

Pleadings and parties5

  1. What a demurrer can and cannot reachThe face of the pleading, plus judicially noticeable matter, and nothing else. The declaration attached to the demurrer is not evidence of anything. CCP 430.30(a) Fatal
  2. Amending a complaint: filing it vs needing leaveOne free amendment, three windows, and an unresolved split over whether one co-defendant's answer closes the door on everyone. CCP 472(a) Curable
  3. Serving a defendant you cannot find3 years from filing and the dismissal is mandatory. Reasonable diligence, the entity shortcut that needs none, the Secretary of State order, and why publication is the last thing to ask for. CCP 583.210(a) Fatal
  4. Serving a California business entity: who you actually hand it toService on an entity is delivery to a person the Code names. Substituted service under CCP 415.20(a) needs no diligence, the Secretary of State route needs a court order, and AB 747 rewrites the chapter in 2027. CCP 416.10(b) Fatal
  5. Substituting into a case before trialThe duties start at the fee agreement. The standing starts at the filing. What you inherit: a firm trial date, closed discovery, a five-year clock, and a lien nobody has to tell you about. CCP 284 Fatal

Discovery7

  1. Serving a second set before the first is answeredNothing in the Act makes the next set wait, and 2030.030(b) says so in terms. The 35 is one budget per responding party across every set, the declaration counts what you have propounded rather than what is pending, and the Act never mentions withdrawing a set. CCP 2030.030(b) Fatal
  2. The 45-day deadline to compel furtherQuasi-jurisdictional. Unverified responses may never have started the clock. CCP 2031.310(c) Fatal
  3. When opposing counsel stops respondingNo response and a bad response are two different motions on two different clocks. The cheap one has no 45-day limit and needs no meet and confer declaration, and almost nobody files it. CCP 2023.010 Fatal
  4. Auditing a meet and confer letterThe dangerous ones are mostly right. The correct parts pressure you into conceding the parts that are wrong. CCP 2030.220(c) Fatal
  5. When you cannot instruct your client not to answerIrrelevance is not a ground. The objection everyone makes is preserved anyway, and the one they skip is the only one that waives. CCP 2025.460 Curable
  6. What is actually privileged at a depositionThe tender defines the medical waiver, not the complaint. The lien-doctor referral is not privileged, and immigration status is the one clean instruction. CCP 2025.460(a) Fatal
  7. Destructive testing on your own client's propertyThe inspection chapter reaches property held by another party, so the letter demanding your protocol cites two sections that do not apply. What they are owed comes from the CMO, their own demand, the expert exchange, and a preservation duty you cannot answer by sending a protocol. CCP 2031.010(a) Fatal

Law and motion4

  1. The 16-court-day motion clockSixteen, nine and five, all counted backward from the hearing. Section 1013 is excluded by name, and the electronic extension is an open question. CCP 1005(b) Fatal
  2. Ex parte applicationsMost applications that fail do not fail on the merits. They fail on the reservation, the notice, or the filing deadline. CRC 3.1203(a) Fatal
  3. Summary judgment timing and the separate statementEighty-one days of notice since 2025, what the service extensions do to it, and why a ground missing from the separate statement is not in the motion. CCP 437c(a)(2) Fatal
  4. Replying to an opposition separate statementYou cannot file one, and since 1 January 2025 the statute says so by name. What goes in the ten-page reply instead, and the rule of court that still says otherwise. CCP 437c(b)(4) Fatal

Trial setting4

  1. The five-year ruleDismissal is mandatory, tolling is narrower than it looks, and a party over 70 can force trial in 120 days. CCP 583.310 Fatal
  2. The jury fee deposit that waives your jury trial150 dollars, due on or before the date the initial case management conference is set for. No service extension reaches it, relief is discretionary, and TriCoast changed what you have to show on appeal. CCP 631(b) Fatal
  3. The statement of decision, and the objection that preserves itTen days after the tentative decision, none at all after a short trial, and why requesting one preserves nothing without a section 634 objection. CCP 632 Fatal
  4. Entry of judgment, notice of entry, and the clocks they startEntry makes a judgment effectual. Service of notice of entry starts the new trial, JNOV, vacatur, costs and appeal clocks, and neither CCP 1013 nor CCP 1010.6 extends the ones that matter. CCP 664.5(a) Fatal

Settlement and costs4

  1. The policy limits demandIt strips the limit only if refusing it was unreasonable and you can prove the refusal. Made for the first time inside a mediation, you probably cannot. Ins. Code 999.1 Fatal
  2. CCP 998 offers to compromiseSix ways an offer dies. A written acceptance will not save a missing acceptance provision. CCP 998(b) Fatal
  3. Sharing a demand with a co-defendantThey cannot compel it and you may share it. What almost everyone gets wrong is the price: the subdivision that lets you disclose is the one that ends the protection on that letter. Evid. Code 1119(b) Fatal
  4. The memorandum of costs, and the motion to taxFifteen days each way, and only one of them gets a service extension. Hoover and Russell have never been reconciled on how a late memorandum gets excused. CRC 3.1700 Fatal

Sanctions and conduct2

  1. Sanctioning obstructive opposing counselWhere the conduct happened picks the statute, and picking wrong is usually not curable once the safe harbor has run. Conduct inside a mediation is effectively unreachable. CCP 2023.030 Fatal
  2. You cited a hallucinated case. Now what?The correction is yours to make from the moment you learn of it. Five published California sanctions, $1,500 to $10,000, and the 30-day self-report. CCP 128.7(b) Fatal

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