Have you ever had that dream that you had prepared for the biggest presentation of your life? You have your charts and handouts all ready, you've ordered the freshest danishes and then...you showed up on the wrong day. Oops.
That's kinda how things went for one person/plaintiff I met the other day.
Seems they had been working on the same civil case for little over 6 years. They went through hellish discovery. They went through hellish settlement conferences. They did hellish meet and confers. They repeatedly fought back the desire to kill opposing counsel for impinging their character over and over.
Then, when the end was in sight and a trial date was actually set, person misread the notice and appeared for trial on the wrong day.
Yep, the trial was on Wednesday and plaintiff showed up on Thursday. Oops!
Had the judge simply dismissed the case, plaintiff could have just refiled and started over.
Yeeeeah, plaintiff wasn't so lucky. What the judge did, instead, was let the trial proceed She accepted testimony from the defendant and submitted her judgment in favor of....wait for it....the defendant.
Plaintiff is now freaking out wanting to know what to do next (since they don't really have a good reason to vacate the judgment).
Long story short and not a few dozen resources laying around (not the least of which included):
- California Forms of Pleading and Practice (Lexis; Vol. 33, Chp. 374, Motions to Reconsider & Renewed Motions)
- California Civil Practice: Procedure (TR)
- California Civil Appellate Practice (CEB)
- American Jurisprudence Pleading and Practice Forms (TR)
Sometimes these things happen. Good thing there are county law libraries around to help people when life smacks them upside the head.
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