Modoc County trial binder and trial document requirements

An Additional Case Management Conference, where the parties must be prepared to declare the case to be at issue, to identify all issues to be tried, to inform the Court as to all case management issues, to summarize the pertinent results of discovery activity, to address alternative dispute resolution and settlement, and to schedule, trial, or other proceedings.

Chapter 4 is titled Setting for Trial, and Trial in Civil Matters. Rule 4.01.1 creates exactly two conferences, the Initial Case Management Conference under subdivision (a) and this one, and its lead-in is conditional: "In most cases, the Court will implement that mandate by conducting pre-trial conferences, described as follows." Rule 4.01 applies by its opening paragraph to general civil cases filed in or transferred to this court on or after July 1, 1993. Rule 4.01.3.a puts the initial conference on the first case management calendar falling no earlier than the 90th day after case initiation; the rule gives no comparable timing for the Additional conference and no offset from the trial date, because this conference precedes trial setting rather than following it. This is the only conference in the civil rules at which the court identifies the issues to be tried.

Civil cases, whether or not subject to the Trial Court Delay Reduction Act, may be set for settlement conference, at the discretion of the Court.

Rule 5.06.A.2 adds that "Any matter may be voluntarily submitted to the Court for settlement conference." Outside unlawful detainer, no rule ties the conference to a fixed number of days before trial and no rule requires one in every case with a trial date. The court's ADR Information Package says the settlement conference is the court's only ADR program and that the assigned judge runs it: "When a civil case is set for trial, the judge may also set a settlement conference. The judge assigned to the case will assist the parties in attempting to arrive at a negotiated resolution." The same packet states that the court "does not offer mediation, neutral evaluations, or arbitration."

If a jury trial is demanded, then the Clerk will assign the earliest available date for settlement conference (to be held within the next ten (10) days), and will assign the earliest jury trial date within the next twenty (20) days, and will promptly notify all parties in writing of both dates.

Chapter 4, so this is civil, not a family law or criminal provision. The trial-setting request is itself on a clock: Rule 4.08.C.1 requires the plaintiff to file and serve it within twenty-five days after filing the unlawful detainer complaint. Rule 4.08.D.1 handles the court trial branch, where the clerk assigns a trial date no sooner than five days after the request and within the next twenty days, with no settlement conference. Neither branch is discretionary on its face; the clerk assigns. Read alongside Rule 4.05.A, which sets the jury fee deposit at least five days before the unlawful detainer trial date.

No later than five (5) calendar days prior to the date fixed for the settlement conference, the parties must lodge with the Court, and must serve upon all other parties, a brief statement of the facts and the law of the case. These statements will become a part of the Court's file.

Calendar days. The rule prescribes no page limit, no required headings, no content list beyond "a brief statement of the facts and the law of the case," and no joint statement. It does not require a demand or offer history, a damages itemization, or an insurance disclosure. Nothing in the rule says how it is lodged, so confirm delivery method with the clerk. It applies to any settlement conference the court fixes, including the automatic unlawful detainer conference under Rule 4.08.D.2, where the ten day setting window leaves very little room.

At the settlement conference, all parties must: 1. Be prepared to make a bona fide settlement offer; 2. Have all principals or clients either in attendance or available by telephone, unless excused in advance for good cause shown, after notice to all other parties that a request to be excused will be made (requests for non-appearance may be made by letter); 3. Produce memoranda of items of any special damages claimed; and 4. Have available any and all medical reports (if a personal injury is claimed), depositions, photographs, records, diagrams, maps, bills, contracts, memoranda and other documents pertinent to settlement of the case.

This is the closest thing in the Modoc civil rules to a document assembly obligation, and it is a bring-it-with-you duty at the conference, not a lodging or filing requirement. No tabs, no index, no copy count, no delivery deadline. The special damages memoranda under subdivision 3 are the only document the rule tells you to produce rather than merely have available. A request to excuse a principal must be made in advance, on notice to all other parties, and may be made by letter. Subdivision 4 is also the only place the word deposition appears anywhere in Chapters 3, 4 or 5.

Not later than five (5) calendar days prior to every Case Management Conference (including Additional Case Management Conferences unless expressly excused by the Court), each party must file, and serve on all other parties, a fully-completed case management conference statement prepared on Judicial Council Form CM-110.

Calendar days, not court days. This is the only pre-trial statement the Modoc civil rules require of every party in every general civil case. Rule 4.02.C repeats the five day CM-110 requirement whenever a trial date is continued and the matter returns to the case management calendar: "at least five (5) days before that date each party must file a current and complete case management statement (JC Form CM-110)."

In any case where a party has in excess of ten (10) exhibits to enter in evidence at a hearing, the party or attorney must arrange to have all exhibits pre-marked prior to the hearing, and the exhibits must be accompanied by a cover sheet for the clerk that identifies the nature of each exhibit, and provides a place for the clerk to mark, "admitted", "withdrawn" or "excluded" after each marked exhibit.

Scope is the whole question. Rule 3.02.C sits in Chapter 3, which Rule 3.01 calls "a guide to the conduct of all civil pretrial matters" and "controlling for law and motion matters," and which expressly hands trial to Chapter 4. The operative words are "at a hearing" and "prior to the hearing," not trial, and the rule states no numeric offset. The court does apply it to trial exhibits in at least one division: Family Law Rule 13.06.D.7 closes with "See Rule 3.02.C regarding the duty of parties to have their exhibits pre-marked" in a contested trial. This cover sheet is the only thing in the Modoc civil rules that functions as an exhibit list. The source PDF uses curly quotation marks around admitted, withdrawn and excluded; transcribed here as straight quotes.

Pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 607a, all jury instructions covering the law as disclosed by the pleadings must be delivered in writing to the trial judge before jury voir dire commences, unless indicated by the judge. At the same time, copies thereof must be served upon all opposing counsel or unrepresented parties.

Offset token before_voir_dire means delivered before jury selection starts, so at the opening of trial rather than a set number of days out. Delivered to the trial judge, not filed with the clerk, and the rule says nothing about copy count or electronic delivery. The source PDF prints the section symbol before 607a; it is transcribed here as the word section for encoding safety, and nothing else in the sentence is altered. The clause "unless indicated by the judge" is the one place in the civil trial rules where the deadline itself is handed to the assigned bench officer, so ask chambers before assuming the rule's default.

Thereafter, but before commencement of argument, any additional proposed instructions upon questions developed by the evidence and not disclosed by the pleadings may be delivered to the trial judge and served upon the opposing side or sides.

Offset token before_argument means before closing argument commences. The verb is permissive as to whether you offer the instruction and mandatory as to the cutoff. This subdivision is limited to questions developed by the evidence and not disclosed by the pleadings, so it is not a general second window for instructions you could have submitted under subdivision D.1.

The parties may designate their desired standard CACI instructions by giving the trial judge a list of same, referenced by number. The judge may provide the form of such standard instructions, or the parties may be ordered to do so.

Timing comes from Rule 4.07.D.1, not from this subdivision, which is silent on when the list is due. Ask the assigned judge whether the court will produce the CACI text, because the rule leaves that open and Modoc publishes no standing order answering it. The subdivision heading reads "Duty to Prepare, Submit and Modify CACI Instructions."

Desired CACI instructions in which deletions, strikeouts, insertions or other changes have been made must be referenced by number, and must carry a notation that there has been a modification thereto, and a copy of the instruction, as modified, must be provided to the trial judge.

Applies to deletions, strikeouts and insertions alike. The rule does not say the modification has to be shown in redline, only that the instruction carry a notation that it was modified. Timing again comes from Rule 4.07.D.1.

All proposed jury instructions must conform to the requirements of Rule 2.1055 of the California Rules of Court.

Modoc adopts the statewide format rule whole and adds nothing to it. Read CRC 2.1055 itself for the cover page, one instruction per page, numbering and party identification requirements; the local rule supplies no local variant and no local form.

A party who requests a special verdict or special findings must, in connection with requested instructions, comply with Rule 3.1580 of the California Rules of Court, and must serve and file such request or proposed special findings forms before jury voir dire commences.

Note the difference in handling from jury instructions. Instructions are delivered to the trial judge under Rule 4.07.D.1; a special verdict or special findings request must be served and filed. The phrase "in connection with requested instructions" ties the submission to the instruction package. The rule is silent on general verdict forms and imposes nothing on them.

A special verdict or special findings form must be drafted so as to require, if possible, an answer of "yes" or "no", or, if that is not possible, then to require the most concise answer that will be sufficient.

A drafting mandate, not a deadline; the timing rides on Rule 4.07.G.1. The source PDF uses curly quotation marks around yes and no, transcribed here as straight quotes. No local verdict form is published in Appendix B or on the court's local forms page.

Exhibits admitted into evidence will be handed to jurors in the jury box only after leave to do so is obtained from the trial judge. Exhibits such as writings, which are not subject to cursory examination, ordinarily will not be provided to jurors until they retire to the jury room after the cause has been submitted.

The same subdivision closes with a sentence pointing at the statewide motion-exhibit rules: "Rules 3.1110 and 3.1113 of the California Rules of Court govern the form and format of exhibits to a motion or application, including photographs used as exhibits." That sentence is about motion exhibits, not trial exhibits, even though it sits inside the jury trial rule. Practical consequence for a document-heavy case: build the enlargement or the callout, because the document itself is not going into the box mid-testimony.

A party who wishes to preserve the right to a jury trial must deposit with the Clerk, no later than the date of the initial Case Management Conference, the sum of $150.00, Code of Civil Procedure section 631(b), (c), or at least five (5) days prior to the date set for trial in an unlawful detainer action, CCP section 631(c) (1).

Offset token at_initial_cmc means the deadline is the date of the initial case management conference itself, not the trial date and not a court order in the abstract. Rule 4.01.3.a puts that conference on the first case management calendar falling no earlier than the 90th day after case initiation, and Rule 4.01.3.b says the clerk hands plaintiff a form Notice of Case Management Conference at filing that specifies the date. The unlawful detainer branch of the same sentence is a minus five day offset from the trial date. The same subdivision adds the daily obligation: "at the beginning of the second trial day and each succeeding trial day, the courtroom clerk will ask the party or parties who demanded the jury to pay a sum equal to one day's actual jury fees plus the accrued mileage of and/or transportation for the jury, if any there be. Each such request must be honored on the day it is made." Rule 4.05.D gives the non-demanding parties five court days from the clerk's mailed notice of waiver to post one day's fees and says that period is not extendable under CCP 1005 or any other provision, but it carries a proviso the five day window does not survive: "However, if the waiver occurs within five (5) days of the commencement of the trial, or if it occurs after trial has commenced, then the other party or parties must make the deposit on the first or next trial day." The source PDF prints the section symbol before 631; transcribed here as the word section. The local rule was last amended in 2015, so read current CCP 631 alongside it rather than relying on the rule's figure and timing alone.

All dates for trial are firm and no trial date will be changed without Court approval. Motions to advance a trial date, to reset or specially set a case for trial, or to continue a trial date must be made on written notice to all parties who have appeared, and must be set for hearing.

Rule 4.02.B.1 requires the continuance motion to be noticed "as soon as possible after the need for a continuance has been ascertained" and permits none "except upon an affirmative showing of good cause (CRC Rule 3.1332; Standards of Judicial Administration)." Rule 4.02.B.2 allows a stipulation in lieu of a motion on three conditions: all parties agree in writing, the stipulation sets out good cause under the Standards and CRC 3.1332 and states that it is subject to court approval, and a proposed order accompanies it. Rule 4.02.B.3 lets the court refuse an untimely request. Rule 4.02.C then sends the case back to the case management calendar and demands a fresh CM-110 from each party five days out.

If a named party has not been served, then ordinarily, at or before the time of trial, the plaintiff will be required to dismiss, without prejudice, as to that party.

Companion subdivisions handle the other absent-party situations. Rule 4.06.A allows judgment against a served but non-answering party under CCP 585 or 586 when the case has been set for trial as to others, and Rule 4.06.B sends a served, answering, non-appearing party's case forward under CCP 594. Doe defendants in a construction defect case are the obvious target of subdivision C.

Whenever a case that has been assigned a trial date settles, then the attorneys or unrepresented parties must immediately notify the Court of the settlement. The plaintiff bears the primary obligation to notify the Court. Notification may be by telephone to the Clerk, but, in such case, must be followed within five (5) days by a confirmation letter copied to all parties.

The rest of the rule explains what the notice triggers: the clerk vacates the trial date, removes the action from the master calendar and civil active list, and the court may set a further case management conference "to assure that the case is dismissed or judgment entered." Rule 5.06.D is the settlement conference counterpart and is stricter: a calendared settlement conference will not come off calendar until settlement papers or a dismissal are filed and the clerk has been told it can be dropped, and otherwise the matter returns to the case management calendar for status review.

All civil cases shall be assigned to a particular bench officer for all purposes at the time of the initial filing by stamping notice of assignment on the initiating case document and upon any conformed copies of same for service upon opposing counsel or opposing party(s) by the filing party.

This is the practical answer to where trial binder specifics come from in Modoc, so it earns a row even though it sits in Chapter 2, Administrative Matters. By its own terms it reaches all civil cases. Because the assignment is for all purposes, the judge who sets trial at the Additional Case Management Conference is the judge who tries it and the judge whose preferences under Rules 4.07.D.1 and 4.07.E.1 will control. Modoc lists one judge, Presiding Judge Wendy J. Dier, appointed in 2021, plus judges pro tem under Rule 2.01 and assigned judges, and publishes no standing order for any of them. Rule 3.02.G shows out-of-county judges do get assigned here, requiring notice of non-appearance no later than two court days before hearing "If an out-of-county judge has been assigned to the case." The service burden for the assignment notice is on the filing party, not the clerk.