Judge: Joel L. Lofton, Case: 22STCP04170, Date: 2023-03-29 Tentative Ruling
Case Number: 22STCP04170 Hearing Date: March 29, 2023 Dept: X
MANDAMUS HEARINGS ORDER
Hearing dates on petitions
for writ of mandate are set by the court at the trial setting conference and
are not reserved with the clerk. In each
mandamus case, the parties will be ordered to:
·
Prepare a trial notebook.
·
Meet and confer and submit a stipulation as to a
briefing schedule.
·
Observe the page limits for your respective
briefs as set out in CRC 3.1113(d), unless
a party seeks, and the court
grants an order for an oversized brief.
·
Hold a settlement meeting consistent with PRC
21167.8(a).
·
Lodge a printed
out copy of the Joint Appendix, and a (flash drive) copy of the
Administrative record in Dept X.
·
Remember that all documents shall be filed/lodged in Dept
X at least 30 days prior to the trial date.
JOINT APPENDIX AND TRIAL NOTEBOOK
JOINT APPENDIX
If
you have been ordered to provide a Joint Appendix for a mandamus trial, it
should be prepared as follows:
1. The purpose of a Joint Appendix is
to enable the court to easily review the pertinent cited pages from the record
in a single take-home binder. The Joint
Appendix should consist of a single three-ring binder -- preferably a
three-inch binder -- or a binder that is spiral bound on the side. The Joint Appendix along with all other documents shall be lodged with
the court at least 30 days prior to the trial date.
2.
The Joint Appendix shall include the
agency decision followed by the pages actually
cited in the parties’ briefs. The pages in the joint appendix
must be in numerical Bates-stamped order no matter which party cited the page.
3.
Generally, only the cited pages from
a document should be included in the Joint Appendix, not the entire
document. To reduce the number of pages, your briefs should pin
cite, not blanket cite, to pertinent record pages. If
it is necessary to provide context to a cited page, the Joint Appendix may
include a cover page, witness identification page, or other pertinent pages
from a document even though not actually cited.
The Joint
Appendix may have labeled side tabs separating the
pages that come from different documents.
4.
The parties may, but are not
required to, highlight significant information on the Joint Appendix pages,
using different colors to show which party highlighted the information on a
particular page.
5.
Petitioner
has the responsibility to ensure that the Joint Appendix, with all pages cited
by either side, is timely lodged with the court. The mere failure of opposing counsel to
provide copies of the relevant pages cited in their opposition does not excuse
this responsibility. Where the
Petitioner is self-represented, Respondent or Real Party is tasked to prepare
and lodge the Joint Appendix.
TRIAL NOTEBOOK
You
will be ordered to provide a Trial Notebook for a mandamus trial, and it should
be prepared as follows:
1. The Trial Notebook shall be in a one, three,
or four-inch, three-ring binder as appropriate, and lodged with the court when
the reply brief is filed.
2. The Trial Notebook shall contain only the
bates-stamped copy of the agency decision (if applicable), the parties’ briefs,
and any requests for judicial notice. The documents should be separated by labeled
tabs. Documentary evidence should not be
included.
3. Petitioner has the responsibility
to timely prepare and lodge the Trial Notebook.
Where the Petitioner is self-represented, Respondent (Real Party) is
tasked to prepare the Joint Appendix.
4.
The
parties must also provide the court with a memory stick containing the moving,
opposition, and reply briefs on Word from which the court may cut and paste in
preparing its tentative decision.
IT IS SO ORDERED
Dated______________ ______________________________
Joel
L. Lofton
Judge
of the Superior Court