California jury fees: the deposit date that waives your jury trial
The 150 dollar jury fee is due on or before the date scheduled for the initial case management conference, and missing that date waives the jury. Relief is discretionary, not automatic, and since 2024 you can no longer win the point on appeal by observing that nobody would have been inconvenienced.
- The fee
- 150 dollars, nonrefundable, one payment per side. All plaintiffs are one side and everyone else is the other side CCP 631(b). A co-party on your own side who pays covers you
- When it is due
- On or before the date scheduled for the initial case management conference. Not the date the conference is held, the date it is scheduled for CCP 631(c). A calendar event, not a period running from service, so no extension under 1010.6 or 1013 applies
- No conference scheduled
- 365 calendar days after the initial complaint was filed CCP 631(c)(2)
- You appeared late
- First appearance after the initial conference, or more than 365 days after filing: at least 25 calendar days before the date initially set for trial CCP 631(c)(4). Runs backward from the trial date, so again no service extension
- Unlawful detainer
- At least 5 days before the date set for trial CCP 631(c)(1)
- Miss it
- The jury is waived by operation of the statute, with no order and no hearing CCP 631(f)(5), unless another party on the same side paid
- Getting it back
- Discretionary. The court "may, in its discretion upon just terms, allow a trial by jury although there may have been a waiver" CCP 631(g)
- On appeal
- Denial of relief from a valid waiver is not reversible per se. You must show prejudice TriCoast Builders, Inc. v. Fonnegra (2024) 15 Cal.5th 766, 790-791
On this page
Nothing about this deadline behaves like the other deadlines on this site. It does not run from service of a document, so the extensions practitioners reach for reflexively do nothing. It is not enforced by a motion, so nobody tells you it has passed. And it sits at the very front of the case, months or years before the jury it protects becomes real to anyone.
The result is that the waiver is usually discovered at the trial setting conference, by which point the only route back is a discretionary one.
When the fee is due
One general rule and three live exceptions. The trigger is always a court date or a filing date, never service.
| Situation | When the fee is due | Authority |
|---|---|---|
| The default. An initial case management conference is scheduled | On or before the date scheduled for that conference | CCP 631(c) |
| Unlawful detainer | At least 5 days before the date set for trial | CCP 631(c)(1) |
| No case management conference is scheduled in the action | No later than 365 calendar days after the initial complaint was filed | CCP 631(c)(2) |
| The party requesting a jury had not appeared before the initial conference, or first appeared more than 365 calendar days after the complaint was filed | At least 25 calendar days before the date initially set for trial | CCP 631(c)(4) |
Two things follow from the shape of that table and both get missed.
The statute says calendar days when it means calendar days. Subdivisions (c)(2), (c)(3) and (c)(4) each use the phrase. There are no court days anywhere in section 631.
No service extension applies to any of these dates. CCP 1010.6 and CCP 1013 extend periods that run from service of a document. Nothing here runs from service of a document. The default period runs to a scheduled court conference, (c)(2) runs forward from the filing of the complaint, and (c)(1) and (c)(4) run backward from a trial date. There is no served paper in the chain to extend from. No published California decision applies either section to a subdivision (c) deadline.
Subdivisions (c)(3) and (d) are spent
CCP 631(c)(3) sets the deadline for cases where the initial conference occurred before 28 June 2012 and the complaint was filed before 1 July 2011. The second half of CCP 631(c)(2) covers the companion category, a pre-28 June 2012 conference with a complaint filed on or after 1 July 2011.
CCP 631(d) is narrower still: it relieves a waiver for a fee that came due between 27 June 2012 and 30 November 2012, and only if the fee was paid by 31 December 2012 or 25 calendar days before the initial trial date, whichever came first.
All three are transitional provisions from the 2012 fee overhaul and none of them can be triggered by a case filed today. They are still in the section, which is why a subdivision count that treats section 631 as having four live exceptions is wrong. It has three.
The six ways to lose the jury
Subdivision (f) is an exclusive list, and the statute says so in its first subdivision.
"The right to a trial by jury as declared by Section 16 of Article I of the California Constitution shall be preserved to the parties inviolate. In civil cases, a jury may only be waived pursuant to subdivision (f)."
That sentence is the reason a court cannot find waiver by implication, by conduct, or by a party's silence outside the enumerated grounds. Cohill v. Nationwide Auto Service (1993) 16 Cal.App.4th 696 states the point, and it was cited approvingly for it in Rincon EV Realty LLC v. CP III Rincon Towers, Inc. (2017) 8 Cal.App.5th 1, 18.
| Ground | What it takes |
|---|---|
| CCP 631(f)(1) | Failing to appear at the trial |
| CCP 631(f)(2) | Written consent filed with the clerk or judge |
| CCP 631(f)(3) | Oral consent, in open court, entered in the minutes |
| CCP 631(f)(4) | Failing to announce that a jury is required, at the time the cause is first set for trial if it is set on notice or stipulation, or within five days after notice of setting if it is set without notice or stipulation |
| CCP 631(f)(5) | Failing to timely pay the subdivision (b) fee, unless another party on the same side of the case has paid it |
| CCP 631(f)(6) | Failing to deposit the daily sum required by subdivision (e), at the beginning of the second and each succeeding day's session |
Paragraph (4) is an independent ground and it is not the fee deadline. A party who paid the fee on time can still waive by failing to announce at setting. The two live in the same subdivision and get conflated constantly.
The daily deposit, which is a second waiver mid-trial
CCP 631(e) requires the parties demanding a jury to deposit with the clerk or judge, at the beginning of the second and each succeeding day's session, "a sum equal to that day's fees and mileage of the jury, including the fees and mileage for the trial jury panel if the trial jury has not yet been selected and sworn." Where more than one party has demanded a jury, the split is set by stipulation or by court order.
Miss one of those and CCP 631(f)(6) is available on its own terms, in the middle of a trial you are already conducting. The 150 dollar fee is not the last money the jury costs you.
Why the fee is not refundable, and what happened to CCP 631.3
Subdivision (b) calls the fee nonrefundable on its face, and says it exists to "offset the costs to the state of providing juries in civil cases." Under CCP 631(h) the court transmits it to the State Treasury for the Trial Court Trust Fund within 45 calendar days after the end of the month it was paid.
CCP 631.3 still exists and still governs forfeiture of jury fees deposited under the pre-2012 scheme, but its own subdivision (c) says the subdivision (b) fee "shall be nonrefundable and is not subject to this section." So settling the case the week after you pay does not get the 150 dollars back.
Relief under subdivision (g), and what TriCoast changed
The statute gives the court discretion. For forty years the case law read that discretion as nearly mandatory where the other side showed no hardship. In 2024 the Supreme Court said that reading was wrong.
CCP 631(g) is one sentence: the court "may, in its discretion upon just terms, allow a trial by jury although there may have been a waiver of a trial by jury."
The older line of authority treated an inadvertent waiver plus an absence of hardship to the opposing party as close to dispositive. Byram v. Superior Court (1977) 74 Cal.App.3d 648 (a secretary who did not make the deposit), Winston v. Superior Court (1987) 196 Cal.App.3d 600 (two statutes that conflicted on timing), Wharton v. Superior Court (1991) 231 Cal.App.3d 100 (a misunderstanding about the amount) and Massie v. AAR Western Skyways, Inc. (1992) 4 Cal.App.4th 405 (counsel unfamiliar with a local fast-track rule) all found an abuse of discretion in the denial of relief.
TriCoast Builders, Inc. v. Fonnegra (2024) 15 Cal.5th 766 affirmed the Court of Appeal and disapproved Bishop v. Anderson (1980) 101 Cal.App.3d 821, Simmons v. Prudential Ins. Co. (1981) 123 Cal.App.3d 833 and Mackovska v. Viewcrest Road Properties LLC (2019) 40 Cal.App.5th 1, to the extent their reasoning suggests a trial court is always required to grant relief from an express jury waiver where doing so would cause no hardship. The court held that subdivision (g) discretion is not confined to hardship, and that the relevant considerations include the timeliness of the request, the party's willingness to pay the fees, and the reasons offered for the lapse.
The decision cuts both ways and the second half gets less attention. TriCoast also holds that a party's failure to deposit the fees is not, by itself, a sufficient reason to deny relief. So the fact of the waiver is not an answer to the request, any more than the absence of hardship is an entitlement to it.
Gonzales v. Nork (1978) 20 Cal.3d 500, 508-509 is the older authority that fits the new framework best, and TriCoast cited it approvingly: timing of the request, motivation behind it, and hardship, weighed together, reviewed for abuse of discretion. Gann v. Williams Brothers Realty, Inc. (1991) 231 Cal.App.3d 1698 collects a non-exhaustive factor list to the same effect, including the delay involved in rescheduling a jury trial and the timeliness of the request.
No published California decision holds that a short delay in the deposit, standing alone, compels relief. Every case in the older line rests on inadvertence plus an absence of prejudice, not on the length of the delay. If your only argument is that you were a few days late, you do not have a case on point.
And no published California decision addresses whether simply tendering the fee late, with no motion, cures the waiver. That absence matters practically, because it is what most people actually do. The reported cases all run through a subdivision (g) request, so treat the motion as required rather than optional.
The most recent published application is Kiely v. HYPH (USA), Inc. (2025) 113 Cal.App.5th 95 (2d Dist., Div. 2, filed 29 July 2025), which held that plaintiffs waived a jury by failing to pay the fees under CCP 631(c) and CCP 631(f)(5). It applies TriCoast rather than extending it: the plaintiffs there never sought relief in the trial court, so the discretion and prejudice analysis was never reached.
Two different errors, and appellate courts treat them differently
Being denied a jury you never waived, and being denied relief from a waiver, are not the same error and do not carry the same remedy.
| What happened | On appeal |
|---|---|
| No valid waiver occurred and the court tried the case without a jury anyway | Structural error, reversible per se. No showing of prejudice required. Rincon EV Realty, 8 Cal.App.5th at 19; Martin v. County of Los Angeles (1996) 51 Cal.App.4th 688, 698; Valley Crest Landscape Development, Inc. v. Mission Pools of Escondido, Inc. (2015) 238 Cal.App.4th 468, 493 |
| A valid waiver occurred and the court denied relief under subdivision (g) | Abuse of discretion, and the appellant must show actual prejudice. Prejudice is not presumed. TriCoast, 15 Cal.5th at 790-791 |
The distinction is doing real work. TriCoast disapproved Mackovska in part precisely for conflating the two, and quoted the Court of Appeal below: a discretionary denial of relief where jury fees were not deposited as required "does not deprive the litigants of any constitutional right."
Predispute contractual jury waivers, briefly, because they come up
Rincon EV Realty LLC v. CP III Rincon Towers, Inc. (2017) 8 Cal.App.5th 1 held that a predispute contractual jury waiver is unenforceable in California even where the contract selects the law of a state that would enforce it. That holding is intact and was cited approvingly by the Supreme Court in EpicentRx, Inc. v. Superior Court (2025) 18 Cal.5th 58.
Which means a jury waiver clause in the contract you are suing on does not do the work opposing counsel may claim it does. Section 631(f) is still the only route to waiver.
What breaks if you get this wrong
Four ways to end up in front of a judge you expected to be a jury.
Relying on the other side's deposit
CCP 631(f)(5) excuses a party only where "another party on the same side of the case has paid that fee," and subdivision (b) defines all plaintiffs as one side and all other parties as the other side. Subdivision (b) then closes on the sentence that decides it: "Payment of the fee by a party on one side of the case shall not relieve parties on the other side of the case from waiver pursuant to subdivision (f)." A defendant's payment does nothing for a plaintiff. De Castro v. Rowe (1963) 223 Cal.App.2d 547 held the opposite under the predecessor statute and let a plaintiff rely on a defendant's deposit. That holding does not survive the current text. Once the date passes, the only route back is discretionary relief under CCP 631(g).
Paying late
Waiver attaches under CCP 631(f)(5) the moment the date passes, and paying afterward does not undo it by itself. You need an order under CCP 631(g). Ask early, offer to pay everything owed, and explain the lapse: TriCoast, 15 Cal.5th 766, names timeliness, willingness to pay and the reasons for the request as the factors that matter. No published decision requires the court to grant it.
Taking the bench trial and raising it on appeal
TriCoast, 15 Cal.5th at 790-791 holds that where the waiver was valid, prejudice from the denial of relief is not presumed and the appellant has to establish it. That is a different and much harder posture than the reversible-per-se rule that applies when no waiver ever occurred. Seek writ review when the denial happens.
Forgetting the daily deposit once trial starts
CCP 631(f)(6) makes failure to deposit the subdivision (e) daily sum at the beginning of the second and each succeeding day's session its own waiver ground. The same subdivision (g) discretion is available, and you are standing in front of the judge, which is the one advantage of this version of the mistake.
At the front of every case you intend to try
- Calendar the fee to the date the initial case management conference is set for, and pay it before that date, under CCP 631(c).
- If no conference is on the docket, calendar 365 calendar days from the filing of the complaint instead. CCP 631(c)(2).
- If you came into the case late, calendar 25 calendar days before the date initially set for trial and recount it after any continuance. CCP 631(c)(4).
- Pay your own side's fee even if you believe a co-party has. Confirm the receipt rather than the intention.
- Announce that a jury is required when the case is first set for trial, or within five days after notice of setting. That is a separate waiver ground under CCP 631(f)(4).
- If the date has passed, move under subdivision (g) immediately, offer the fees, and put the reason for the lapse in the declaration.
- If relief is denied, decide about a writ that week. An appeal after judgment carries a prejudice burden you probably cannot meet.
- Diary the daily deposit for the second and each later day of trial. CCP 631(e).
The local layer
Everything above is statewide, and section 631 sets the outer deadline rather than the earliest one. Individual courts schedule the initial case management conference on their own calendars, which is what actually fixes your date, and some departments raise the fee at the conference while others say nothing until trial setting.
This site does not state which counties require the deposit earlier than section 631 does. No statewide rule of court has been identified that sets an earlier date, so local rules and standing orders are where any earlier requirement would live. Read yours rather than relying on the Code alone.
The reason this deadline catches good lawyers is that it is the only significant deadline in a civil case that runs from a conference nobody thinks of as an event. Treat the case management conference date as a jury fee date that happens to have a hearing attached to it.