What this site does not calculate
This page sets out the boundaries of what the calculators cover. The entries below are deliberate limits on scope. The one entry that was a genuine defect in a published calculator has since been fixed, and it is kept first rather than deleted, because anyone who calendared a date off the old output needs to know.
A limitation that has since been fixed
This page used to open with a live warning: the MSJ calculator took only a trial date, assumed the hearing sat on the CCP § 437c(a)(3) cutoff, and so could show an opposition date later than the real one where the hearing had been reserved earlier. That was the unsafe direction, and the instruction here was to count the opposition from the notice by hand.
The MSJ calculator now takes an optional reserved hearing date, and given one it counts the 81-day notice, the opposition and the reply from that date. Left blank it behaves as it always did, with the cutoff assumption labeled on the row. The entry is kept here rather than deleted, because someone may have calendared an opposition off the old output. See the changelog for what the dates were before the change.
Things no calculator can know
- Department standing orders. Reservation requirements, page limits, courtesy copies. These appear in neither the code nor the local rules, but departments enforce them.
This matters most on ex parte. In several counties the assigned department, not the county local rule, sets the operative filing deadline and reservation requirement, and at least one department is stricter than its own county rule. Where a court publishes no rule on a point, this site says so rather than inferring one. Two of the seventeen counties covered publish no county-wide ex parte filing deadline at all, and those render as "Not published" rather than as "none." Verify with your department. See the county rule sheet. - Whether a hearing date is actually available. In a busy department the reservation system, not the statute, sets your schedule.
- Emergency closures. Individual superior courts may close by order under Government Code § 68115. See Rowan v. Kirkpatrick (2020) 54 Cal.App.5th 289. Such closures cannot be predicted and are not in the holiday dataset. The engine can now represent one as a whole-day closure under CCP § 12b, but it ships with none registered, because a closure is a factual claim about one courthouse on one day and this site has no verified source for any such claim.
Extensions the calculators do not assume you took
- Meet-and-confer extensions. CCP § 430.41 can push a demurrer out 30 days and § 435.5 does the same for a motion to strike. Both are automatic on filing a declaration. The response-to-complaint calculator asks whether you filed one; the motion calculator cannot know, so it shows the unextended date.
- Written agreements to extend. The 45-day motion-to-compel-further period can be extended by written agreement to a date certain. An agreement displaces the calculated date entirely.
- Orders shortening or extending time. Every output is the statutory floor, and a court order supersedes it.
Case types outside the scope
- Most of unlawful detainer. Three pieces are covered. The response-to-complaint calculator counts the answer period under CCP § 1167: 10 days, excluding Saturdays, Sundays and judicial holidays, plus five court days where service was completed by mail or in person through the Secretary of State's address confidentiality program (Safe at Home). A summons mailed outside the program gets none. The deposition and ex parte calculators each have an unlawful detainer setting. Written discovery responses, noticed motions and trial setting in an unlawful detainer run on their own periods, which the other calculators do not model, so do not take those dates from them.
- Family law, probate and federal deadlines, and appellate deadlines after the notice of appeal. These run on separate rule sets. The time to file the notice of appeal itself is on the notice of appeal calculator.
- Statutes of limitation and Government Code § 911.2 claim deadlines. These turn on facts about accrual that a date calculator cannot see.
- Juvenile delinquency. Whether a Welfare and Institutions Code § 602 proceeding is a "criminal action" for the Pitchess notice period is unresolved, so it is left alone rather than guessed at.
Motions not in the catalog
- Sanctions under CCP § 128.7, subd. (c)(1) and its 21-day safe harbor.
- Consolidation and bifurcation.
- Fee motions under CRC rule 3.1702(b)(1), which sets the deadline by reference to the time to appeal rather than as a fixed period.
- Post-conviction criminal motions and expungement. CRC 4.111 governs pretrial motions by its terms and supplies no period for these.
If you hit one of these edges
Please write, particularly if you think an item on this list should be covered. Coverage requests determine what gets built next. errors@calcourtdeadlines.com. See also how the rules are verified.