Judge: Armen Tamzarian, Case: 22STCV29497, Date: 2022-12-14 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 22STCV29497    Hearing Date: December 14, 2022    Dept: 52

Jones v. Jones (22STCV29497)

            Plaintiff Ronnie L. Jones and defendants Kenneth Jones, Synergy Traffic Control, Inc., and American Traffic Barricade & Safety, Inc. filed two stipulations and related proposed orders.  The first is to grant defendants additional time to respond to plaintiff’s complaint.  The second is for a protective order regarding alleged confidential documents.

            Defendants filed an ex parte application for the court to enter the proposed orders.  The application is improper.  Ex parte applications are granted only in extraordinary circumstances.  To obtain ex parte relief, “[a]n applicant must make an affirmative factual showing in a declaration containing competent testimony based on personal knowledge of irreparable harm, immediate danger, or any other statutory basis for granting relief ex parte.”  (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 3.1202(c).)  As explained by Judge Edwards:

When an ex parte motion is filed, .... [t]he judge drops everything except other urgent matters to study the papers. It is assumed that the tomatoes are about to spoil or the yacht is about to leave the jurisdiction and that all will be lost unless immediate action is taken. Other litigants are relegated to a secondary priority.  The judge stops processing other motions.  Even hearings or trials—where a courtroom full of deserving users of the court are waiting—are often interrupted or delayed. It is rare that a lawyer’s credibility is more on the line, more vulnerable, than when he or she has created this kind of interruption. Lawyers must understand that filing an ex parte motion, whether of the pure or hybrid type, is the forensic equivalent of standing in a crowded theater and shouting, “Fire!” There had better be a fire.

(Mission Power Eng’g Co. v. Cont’l Cas. Co. (C.D. Cal. 1995) 883 F. Supp. 488, 491-92.)

            There is no emergency justifying ex parte relief.  Defendants did not file a declaration satisfying the requirements of California Rules of Court, Rule 3.1202(c).

Defendants can obtain the relief they seek by simply submitting stipulations and proposed orders and waiting in line like all other litigants in Department 52. 

            The application is denied.