Stay of enforcement of California judgment

The stay of enforcement of a California sentence is the subject of this article. Section 918 of the Code of Civil Procedure is the California statute that authorizes a trial court to stay the execution of any judgment, but only for a limited period of time. For most California judgments, such as money judgments, the trial court can stay the enforcement for no more than 10 days after the last date a notice of appeal could be filed.

A California stay of enforcement request requires the plaintiff to file a served motion or, more commonly, an ex parte request for what is known as a stay of enforcement of judgment.

Any party in California that has had a monetary judgment issued against them in California must realize the vital importance of immediately requesting a stay of enforcement of any monetary judgment as soon as possible after the judgment has been entered. The reason for this is section 683.010 of the Code of Civil Procedure which states that, “Unless otherwise provided by law or in the judgment, a judgment is enforceable under this title at the time of entry.” This means that California law allows a judgment creditor to initiate collection proceedings to enforce the judgment as soon as the court clerk has entered the judgment, in some cases it can be the same day!

In cases where the judgment creditor is particularly aggressive and one of the parties believes that collection efforts can begin immediately, that party may wish to file an ex parte application for stay of enforcement.

The period of time in which enforcement of a judgment can be stayed varies depending on whether the case is a limited civil or unlimited civil case and whether the clerk of the court or any other party to the action. Therefore, each case is unique and this is why there are several different deadlines for filing a notice of appeal for both limited civil cases and unlimited civil cases. Examples of the different time frames are given below.

California Court Rule 8.822 governs the deadline for filing a notice of appeal in limited civil cases.

For most limited civil cases in which a notice of sentencing has been served on the defendant by the clerk of court or either party, the deadline for filing a notice of appeal is 30 days from the date the notice of the delivery of the sentence the accused is delivered.

For most limited civil cases, if no notice of judgment was served on the defendant, the deadline for filing a notice of appeal is 90 days from the date the court clerk renders judgment.

California Court Rule 8.104 governs the deadline for filing a notice of appeal in limited civil cases.

For most unlimited civil cases in which the court clerk or either party has served a sentencing notice on the defendant, the deadline for filing a notice of appeal is 60 days from the date on which the notification of sentencing is delivered to the accused.

For most unlimited civil cases, if no notice of judgment was served on the defendant, the deadline for filing a notice of appeal is 190 days from the date the court clerk renders judgment.

Although the trial court has the power to stay the execution of the sentence, whether or not a notice of appeal has been filed in the real world, there are some judges who can only grant a stay of execution in the following situations :

A judgment was obtained against the plaintiff for non-compliance and they have filed or will file a motion to vacate that judgment that shows valid reasons to vacate the judgment.

The moving party has already filed a notice of appeal or will file a notice of appeal and can show at least plausible reasons to appeal the judgment and the moving party can make a strong showing that it will suffer irreparable harm if enforcement of the judgment is did not stay.

The plaintiff must include a detailed statement with specific facts and evidence detailing the irreparable harm they will suffer if a stay of enforcement is not granted and must also include all relevant documents as attachments.

Possible grounds could include that the judgment was obtained by default and the plaintiff has filed or will file a motion to vacate the judgment, that allowing enforcement of the judgment will result in the sale of a key asset of significant value, would devastate an ongoing business . or it would likely lead to insolvency or bankruptcy proceedings.

To view the text of the sections of the Code of Civil Procedure cited in this article, visit http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes.xhtml

To view the text of any California Court Rule cited in this article, visit http://www.courts.ca.gov/cms/rules/index.cfm?title=eight

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