Imperial County trial binder and trial document requirements

A failure to appear at the trial management conference may, in the discretion of the trial judge, be deemed a waiver of jury by the party failing to appear.

The Trial Management Conference, TMC, is the anchoring pretrial conference in Imperial civil and it has no rule of its own. It appears only as the deadline anchor in Rules 3.1.7 and 3.1.10, as the sanction trigger here, and as a date to be reset in Rule 3.1.20. Nothing in the civil rules says when the court holds it relative to trial, what is lodged at it, whether a conference statement is required, or who must appear. Rule 3.1.19 states a consequence, not a command, so treating the TMC as a mandatory personal appearance is a practical read of the sanction rather than a published requirement. The sanction is real and specific, so make the appearance anyway. Adopted 01/01/2015, amended 07/01/24.

If a party makes a timely request for a trial following an arbitration award, a settlement conference will be scheduled. If a case does not settle at the settlement conference, the case may be ordered to trial on the next available date.

Read the division heading before relying on this. It sits in Division 5, Arbitration, and fires only on a request for trial de novo after a judicial arbitration award. It is not a general civil settlement conference rule. Imperial's civil rules carry no general mandatory settlement conference provision, so an MSC in an unlimited civil case comes from the assigned department's own order. Rule 3.5.0, subd. (a) sends non-exempt unlimited civil cases under $50,000 and all limited civil cases to arbitration, and subd. (b) puts that determination at the case management conference, so a construction defect case over the threshold never reaches Rule 3.5.4. Rule 3.5.2 exempts limited civil cases with no jury demand and a one day trial estimate, and collection actions.

On the scheduled trial date, the parties shall submit the full text of proposed jury instructions to the Court.

Later than most California superior courts, which want instructions days or weeks out. Full text means the complete instruction, not a list of CACI numbers. The rule requires nothing else: no advance exchange with opposing counsel, no meet and confer, no joint set, no clean and annotated versions, no electronic copy, no index. It says nothing about verdict forms. Read the trial date as a floor and expect the assigned department to want them sooner in a long trial.

Trial Briefs and a Statement of the Case must be submitted to the Court at least five (5) court days before the Trial Management Conference in the case of a jury trial, or the trial date in the case of a court trial.

Same sentence as the trial brief row, carried separately because it is a separate required document. The rules nowhere define what the statement of the case must contain, how long it may be, whether it is joint, or what it is used for. Anything said about its purpose in this court is a guess. The court publishes no form for it: the civil local forms are CV-01, CV-02Info, CV-03Info, CV-04, CV-04A, CV-06 and CV-07, and none is a trial document. FL-08 Trial Brief and FL-09 Trial Brief for Custody/Support/Parentage are family law forms. Ask Department 5 or Department 9 what they want.

Trial Briefs and a Statement of the Case must be submitted to the Court at least five (5) court days before the Trial Management Conference in the case of a jury trial, or the trial date in the case of a court trial.

One sentence covering two documents. The anchor splits by trial type, so the trc_date anchor is the jury trial case and a bench trial counts 5 court days back from trial. The rule says submitted to the Court, not filed or served, and sets no page limit, content requirement or service requirement. History confirmed in the court's own bracket line: the prior Rule 3.1.7 was repealed 07/01/19 and this text was adopted new July 1, 2024, so any secondary source describing a pre-2019 Imperial trial brief rule is stale. Warning on the search path: a keyword search of this PDF for trial brief hits Chapter 5 Family Law Rule 5.1.20 first, which requires a trial brief filed and served at least fifteen (15) days before trial on local form FL-08 and lists sixteen content items. That rule is family law and does not reach a civil case. Do not import the 15-day figure.

All written in limine motions must be submitted to the Court at least five (5) court days before the Trial Management Conference date in the case of a jury trial, or the trial date in the case of a court trial.

The discretion clause is in the same paragraph, quoted verbatim: "The Court, in its discretion, may order that the motions in limine be filed at an earlier time." Five court days is thin, because the opposition is due at 2 court days, which leaves 3 court days of turnaround. Ask at the case management conference whether the department wants them earlier rather than waiting to be told. Rule 3.1.10 was amended 07/01/24.

Written opposition must be submitted to the Court no later than two (2) court days before such date.

"Such date" refers back to the date in the preceding sentence, so the deadline tracks whichever anchor the trial type produces. The rule sets no reply deadline and does not say replies are permitted.

The following motions will be automatically granted and need not be put in writing: (1) motions to exclude evidence of a collateral source, (2) motions to exclude evidence of offers to settle and/or settlement discussions.

No deadline attaches because no paper is required. Do not spend a written motion on either subject in this court. The rule does not say whether the automatic grant has to be confirmed on the record, so raising it orally at the Trial Management Conference costs nothing.

If the parties wish to use juror questionnaires, the questionnaires must be submitted to the Court for review two (2) court days prior to the trial.

Optional, not mandatory. The rule does not say whether a joint questionnaire is required, whether competing versions are accepted, or what standard the court applies on review. Two court days is thin for a construction defect panel questionnaire, so raise it at the Trial Management Conference.

The application will also include a proposed order listing the proposed new trial date and proposed new trial management date.

Get dates before drafting. The rule says how: "Moving party may contact the Civil Department at (760) 482-2240 to inquire as to proposed new trial dates for a specific department." It also rewards a stipulation, because "If a declaration of non-opposition signed by opposing parties/counsel is submitted/filed with the application for ex parte relief, the application for ex parte relief will be ruled on in Chambers." This is the only place the rules link the TMC to the trial date, and it confirms the TMC moves when the trial moves. Separate 24-hour rule applies to the papers: Local Rule 3.3.1 provides that "All documents in support of an ex parte application must be filed twenty-four (24) hours prior to the time for hearing." Rule 3.1.20 adopted 01/01/2022.

It is the policy of the Court that parties are limited to one expert per field of expertise per side, absent a court order to the contrary.

No deadline attaches, but this bites at designation rather than at trial, so it belongs on a trial preparation checklist. It is a hard constraint in a construction defect case that would normally carry an architect, a waterproofing consultant, a plumbing expert, a cost estimator and a geotechnical engineer. Whether "per side" means aligned defendants share one allotment is an inference from the words, not something the rule states, so confirm it with the department instead of assuming it. Seek relief by motion early rather than fighting it at the Trial Management Conference. Quoting note: the sentence immediately before this one in the court's own PDF reads "Parties will be permitted to designate call at trial," which appears to be a typographical omission in the published text and is quoted here as published. Subdivision (b) also publishes advisory expert hourly rates, including $300 for engineers and architects, $300 for attorneys, $300 for economists and $400 for physicians. Rule 3.1.4 amended 07/01/19.

Trials may be taken off calendar only if: (1) all unserved parties not participating in settlement will be dismissed; and (2) all parties agree the case has been settled in its entirety. If one or more of the above conditions is not met, the trial will not go off calendar without an order of the Court.

This matters in a multi defendant construction defect case that settles with some parties and not others: a partial settlement does not vacate the trial date. The rule opens with a notice duty on plaintiff, quoted verbatim: "If the plaintiff decides to take a trial off calendar, the remaining parties need to be contacted in person or telephonically as soon as possible after the determination is made." In person or telephonically, not by email.

An attorney or party in civil matters hiring their own court reporters shall provide the name, address, telephone number, and Certified Shorthand Reporter (CSR) number of the court reporter to the courtroom clerk prior to the commencement of the proceeding.

The rule adds a verification duty, quoted verbatim: "Attorney or party must ensure that the contracted court reporter is in good standing with the CSR certification board and all trial and appellate courts." It also provides that "The clerk shall note the court reporter's identifying information in the minutes." A privately retained reporter is the norm here. Rule 3.2.0, subd. (a) separately directs counsel to "See the Court's website, www.imperial.courts.ca.gov, for setting mandatory reported cases." Amended 01/01/13, 01/01/17, and by executive order 09/07/21.

All jury fee deposits shall be accompanied by a notice of jury fee deposit, which shall be served on all parties.

The local rule adds a served notice document to the deposit. It sets no deadline of its own. Deposit timing runs off Code of Civil Procedure section 631, not off this rule, so do not read a local deadline into it.

All Documents submitted of more than 15 pages and/or containing multiple exhibits/sections must be bookmarked. (Free PDF reader software is available online with bookmarking capabilities)

This is the closest thing Imperial publishes to a tabbed index requirement, and it lives in Chapter 2 rather than in the civil chapter, so it is easy to miss. The bookmarking and the OCR duties are stated as "must." The naming convention is stated as "should": subd. (2)(a) reads "Bookmarks should be named to match the bookmarked section/exhibit." Subd. (2)(b) reads "Examples of documents to be bookmarked include, but are not limited to, Civil Petitions with Exhibits and Motions with Exhibits," which reaches a set of in limine motions with exhibits. Subd. (3) reads "Also, all documents electronically delivered must be in a text-searchable format, i.e., OCR." E-filing is mandatory in civil unlimited and civil limited under the same rule, and a filer must use an accepted EFSP. Citation trap: the PDF's own table of contents misnumbers Chapter 2 and gives Rule 2.18 a different title. The body text controls and Rule 3.8.8, subd. (a) cross-references Local Rule 2.21 for remote appearances, which confirms the body numbering. Rule 2.18 adopted 07/01/2019, amended 01/01/20 and 01/01/22.

Documents submitted to the court electronically in all case types must be formatted so that each single, separate, and complete document or form is submitted as a single, separate, and complete electronic document. Electronic documents that consolidate multiple documents or multiple electronic documents that contain pieces of a single paper document will be rejected by the Court.

Rejection is stated flatly, not as discretion, which makes this a live risk when a trial documents package goes over on a deadline day. Each in limine motion, each declaration and each proposed order is its own file. The rule closes by requiring that "Electronic documents must comply with the formatting and quality rules provided in Local Rule 2.18," so the bookmarking and OCR duties travel with it. Same table of contents numbering trap as Rule 2.18. Adopted 01/01/2022.

Every motion must be filed separately, except as stated herein.

Added on audit. The draft missed it. The stated exceptions are a motion for summary judgment filed with a motion for summary adjudication, discovery motions to compel where there was no response at all and the motions involve the same legal and factual issues, requests for sanctions and stays that are ancillary to another motion, and a request for dismissal combined with a motion for good faith settlement. The rule closes: "However, all such 'combined' motions are subject to the length restrictions imposed by the CRC 3.1113 for single motions." Two limits on how far this reaches. It sits in the law and motion division, and nothing in the rules says in limine motions are governed by it rather than by Rule 3.1.10, which is silent on packaging. Read together with Rule 2.20, the safe practice is one in limine motion per document and per electronic file. Rule 3.2.4 amended 01/01/12.

In all general civil cases as the term is defined in CRC 1.6(4) a notice of case management conference will be delivered to the plaintiff upon the filing of the complaint, setting the case management conference one hundred eighty (180) days from the date of filing of the case.

Carried because it is the only conference the civil rules put a number on, and in practice the trial date and the Trial Management Conference come out of case management. The rules do not say that, so do not treat the connection as published. The rule does not name the clerk as the actor for subd. (a). Subd. (b) requires the notice to be served with the summons and complaint with proof of service filed. Subd. (c) provides an order to show cause re dismissal if a CRC 3.712(a) case is not on the civil active list within 180 days, with notice given by the clerk at the court's direction. Subd. (d) lets any party move to advance the conference. Subd. (e) states the policy of holding the conference on the date originally set. Subd. (f) exempts uninsured motorist, coordinated and collections cases. Separately, Rule 3.1.18 requires a proof of service listing parties served, with counsel of record identified by the party they represent, to accompany the CM-110 case management statement, and the court publishes local form CV-06 Service Matrix Attachment to Case Management Statement for it. Cases are direct calendared to one judge for all purposes at filing under Rule 3.1.1.