Tehama County trial binder and trial document requirements

The short answer

What the deadlines run off

Not published

Departments with their own order

None published by this court

County trial binder rule

None in the county rules

Rules this court publishes

8

The county rule is a floor. Where your department publishes its own order, that order controls and it is usually stricter.

Why your department can set a different date

The civil rules delegate almost nothing in express terms, and they also require almost nothing, so the delegation is by silence rather than by a hand-off clause. The preamble to the rules points users outward to state law rather than to a department: "Parties, attorneys, and all court users should consult with California statutes, case law, and California Rules of Court in addition to Local Rules." Rule 10(A) lets the court set further settlement conferences beyond the one it sets about a month before trial. Rule 3(A) and rule 3(B) reserve court reporter arrangements to the court. Rule 10(B) sets additional case management conferences "as determined by the court." No rule says the assigned judge will issue a trial preparation order, a pretrial order, or a trial-setting order, and no rule says trial document deadlines come from the department. The practical consequence is total: because the rules require no trial document at all, everything a Tehama civil trial actually needs comes from the trial-setting minute order or from the assigned department, not from a published rule. Where that department is: the court's Court Calendars page assigns unlimited civil and probate law and motion to Department 5 on Tuesday at 8:30 a.m., civil case management conferences to Department 5 on Monday at 4:00 p.m., and civil settlement conferences to Department 5 on the first Wednesday of the month, all before Hon. Matthew C. McGlynn, who is also the Assistant Presiding Judge. The Case Management Conference page independently lists Dept. 5, Hon. Matthew C. McGlynn as the contact. This is a five-judge court (Presiding Judge C. Todd Bottke, APJ Matthew C. McGlynn, Jonathan W. Skillman, and Judge Woods appear on the calendar page), and jury trials are calendared in Departments 2, 3 and 5, so the trial department is not necessarily the civil law and motion department.

County rules, area by area

These are the 8 rules this court publishes county wide. They apply everywhere in the county, and your department can require more.

What happens if you miss it

Four express consequence provisions, none of them attached to a trial document, because no trial document is required. Settlement conferences, rule 10(A)(2): "The settlement conference judge may issue sanctions for failure to comply with rules applying to settlement conferences. Said sanctions may include striking out all or any part of any pleading of the offending party and/or dismissal of the action or striking an answer to allow default." Fees and costs are available where a party brings the motion, and terminating sanctions come only after the court has first directed the party to cure. Case management, rule 10(B): "Failure to appear and comply with these requirements and those set forth in CRC 3.700 et. Seq. will result in sanctions, including termination sanctions." Note the mandatory "will," which is stronger than the discretionary "may" in the settlement conference provision. Court reporter deposits, rule 3(B): "A failure to post fees as required may result in a discontinuation of the proceedings, an absence of a court reporter at the proceeding, a court order or citation to the attorney who failed to pay, or such other orders as necessary." Unopposed and dropped matters, rule 2: a party or attorney who does not promptly notify opposing counsel and the court by appropriate written filing that a motion is unopposed or has been taken off calendar, "may subject the party and/or attorney to sanctions."

Is a trial binder required at all?

No trial binder or trial notebook requirement. This is a finding, not a gap. I read the entire January 1, 2026 local rules PDF, all 25 pages, and searched the converted text for binder, notebook, tab, index, exhibit and witness. The words binder and notebook appear nowhere in the rule set, and the alphabetical subject matter index at the back carries no entry for either. The rules also require no indexed set of trial documents, no tabbed exhibits, no exhibit list, no witness list, and no courtesy or bench copies of anything. There is no joint submission of any kind and no per-party trial submission of any kind. The single provision touching exhibits is rule 7(A)(4)(d), which bars electronic filing of exhibits while rule 7(A)(1)(a) makes e-filing mandatory for unlimited civil. So exhibits have to be physically delivered, and the rules say nothing about when, where, how marked, or in what format. That question goes to Department 5 or to the trial-setting minute order.

What this page does not tell you

Not published by this court

• No trial readiness conference. The words trial readiness and readiness appear nowhere in the January 1, 2026 local rules or in the alphabetical subject matter index at the back of the rule set.
• No final status conference. The phrase final status appears nowhere in the rule set or the index.
• No issue conference. The phrase issue conference appears nowhere in the rule set or the index.
• No trial binder or trial notebook requirement, and no rule requiring an index, tabs, or copies of trial documents for the bench. Binder and notebook appear nowhere in the rule set or the index.
• No motions in limine rule. The word limine appears nowhere in the January 1, 2026 edition. The superseded 2015 edition carried one at Rule 20, and it sat in Section 4, Criminal Cases, requiring complex or extensive in limine motions to be filed in writing and heard at least five days before trial. That rule is gone from the current edition and never applied to civil.
• No jury instruction rule for civil. The phrase jury instruction appears nowhere in the January 1, 2026 edition. The superseded 2015 edition carried Rule 21, titled Criminal Jury Instructions, in Section 4, Criminal Cases, and that rule is gone from the current edition.
• No verdict form requirement. The word verdict appears nowhere in the rule set or the index.
• No witness list requirement. The rule set uses the word witness exactly once, in rule 14 on family law mediators, and there is no witness list provision in Section 2, Civil Cases, or anywhere else.
• No exhibit list requirement. The rule set uses the word exhibit exactly once, in rule 7(A)(4)(d) barring electronic filing of exhibits. There is no exhibit list, exhibit marking, or exhibit exchange provision.
• No trial brief requirement. The only narrative submission the civil rules require is the settlement conference statement under rule 10(A)(1), and it is keyed to the settlement conference, not to trial.
• No deposition designation rule. The word deposition appears nowhere in the rule set.
• No statement of the case requirement. The phrase appears nowhere in the rule set.
• No trial setting conference rule and no trial-setting deadline rule. Trial setting is handled through case management conferences under rule 10(B) and CRC 3.700 et seq., and the only trial timing statement in the rules is the aspirational line in rule 6, that each civil case should be set for trial as soon as appropriate for that individual case.
• No local civil trial form. The Forms and Filing page lists the court's complete local form inventory: one fiscal form, one family law case management conference statement, one interpreter request, the certificate of rehabilitation packet, and the Prop 47 and Prop 64 petitions. There is no trial readiness, trial setting, witness list, exhibit list, or trial brief form.
• No department or judge standing order on civil trial preparation. The Local Rules page publishes all thirteen of the court's 2026 standing orders openly, numbered 2026-01 through 2026-13. Every one is court-wide administration: rescission of the 2025 orders, expenditure authorization, delegation of fee waiver approval to clerks, the official reporter fee, release of juvenile information, the family law facilitator complaint procedure, preparation of reporter transcripts, body worn cameras, provisional qualification of interpreters, official court reporters pro tempore, the statewide civil fee schedule, destruction of reporting notes, and photography in the courthouse. None is department-specific, judge-specific, or about civil trial procedure.

Still open

• Whether Department 5, or whichever department gets the trial, issues its own trial preparation order, pretrial order, or trial-setting order when a civil case is set for trial. Nothing of that kind is posted on the court's website, and the court publishes no department or judge standing orders. The answer will be in the trial-setting minute order in the individual case, or from a call to the department.
• How and when trial exhibits are delivered to the court, given that rule 7(A)(4)(d) bars e-filing them while rule 7(A)(1)(a) makes e-filing mandatory in unlimited civil. The rules give no method, no deadline, no marking convention, and no copy count.
• Whether the five days in rule 10(A)(1) for the settlement conference statement are court days or calendar days. The rule says only five days. Rule 3(B) by contrast says ten calendar days expressly, which suggests the drafters knew how to specify when they meant to, but that is an inference and not a finding.
• Whether the court sets anything between the mandatory settlement conference and trial. Rule 10(A) permits further settlement conferences but describes no trial readiness event, and the rules do not say whether a second conference is routine or exceptional.
• Whether the trial department is ordinarily Department 5. The Court Calendars page puts civil law and motion, civil case management and civil settlement conferences in Department 5 before Judge McGlynn, but calendars jury trials in Departments 2, 3 and 5 and at the Juvenile Justice Center, so the trial judge may be a different judicial officer from the one who handled the case.
• Whether Tehama runs a tentative ruling system in civil, which would bear on how in limine and other pretrial motions get heard. The superseded 2015 edition had a tentative rulings subdivision at Rule 11(C). The January 1, 2026 edition dropped it and the website has no tentative rulings page. I could not determine whether the practice continues without a published rule.
• Whether the court communicates any trial preparation requirements through the case management conference itself. Rule 10(B) and the CMC page describe the CM-110 filing and appearance requirements but say nothing about what the court orders at the conference.

Sources

Superior Court of California, County of Tehama

Court rules change and department assignments change every January. Check the court’s own page and your department’s order before relying on this.

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