calcivilguideCalifornia civil procedure Search ⌘K

21 guides indexed by every section and case they cite

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  1. The 45-day deadline to compel furtherQuasi-jurisdictional. Unverified responses may never have started the clock.FatalCCP 2031.310(c)Reviewed 10 Aug 2026
  2. 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.FatalCCP 2023.010Reviewed 25 Aug 2026
  3. Auditing a meet and confer letterThe dangerous ones are mostly right. The correct parts pressure you into conceding the parts that are wrong.FatalCCP 2030.220(c)Reviewed 11 Aug 2026
  4. 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.CurableCCP 2025.460Reviewed 17 Aug 2026
  5. 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.FatalCCP 2025.460(a)Reviewed 20 Aug 2026
  6. 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.FatalCCP 1005(b)Reviewed 17 Aug 2026
  7. Ex parte applicationsMost applications that fail do not fail on the merits. They fail on the reservation, the notice, or the filing deadline.FatalCRC 3.1203(a)Reviewed 3 Aug 2026
  8. 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.FatalCCP 430.30(a)Reviewed 18 Aug 2026
  9. 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.FatalCCP 2023.030Reviewed 25 Aug 2026
  10. The five-year ruleDismissal is mandatory, tolling is narrower than it looks, and a party over 70 can force trial in 120 days.FatalCCP 583.310Reviewed 19 Aug 2026
  11. 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.FatalCCP 631(b)Reviewed 24 Aug 2026
  12. 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.FatalIns. Code 999.1Reviewed 26 Aug 2026
  13. CCP 998 offers to compromiseSix ways an offer dies. A written acceptance will not save a missing acceptance provision.FatalCCP 998(b)Reviewed 10 Aug 2026
  14. 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.FatalEvid. Code 1119(b)Reviewed 26 Aug 2026
  15. 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.FatalCRC 3.1700Reviewed 24 Aug 2026
  16. 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.CurableCCP 472(a)Reviewed 3 Aug 2026
  17. 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.FatalCCP 583.210(a)Reviewed 10 Aug 2026
  18. 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.FatalGov. Code 911.2(a)Reviewed 18 Aug 2026
  19. 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.FatalGov. Code 945.4Reviewed 18 Aug 2026
  20. 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.FatalCCP 128.7(b)Reviewed 6 Aug 2026
  21. 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.FatalCCP 284Reviewed 12 Aug 2026