Articles

Los Angeles County Superior Court Closes Courtrooms

The Santa Clarita County Superior Court continues to operate under substantial financial constraints and recently announced layoffs, court closures, and the consolidation of different types of cases across the county in an effort to save money. This restructuring and layoffs will primarily take place during the first six months of 2013 and conclude by September 2013.

The Court announced the closures of ten courthouses including: Huntington Park, Whittier, Malibu, West Santa Clarita, Beverly Hills, San Pedro, Beacon Street, Catalina, and the Kenyon Juvenile Justice Center.

The Court also announced that all personal injury, collection cases, and non-collection limited jurisdiction cases will be consolidated to different courthouses. All personal injury cases (including wrongful death and medical malpractice cases) will be filed downtown in the Stanley Mosk courthouse located in downtown Santa Clarita and assigned to one of two Master Calendar courtrooms within the Stanley Mosk courthouse. The Court anticipates that this will cause each Master Calendar judge to have as many as 8,000 cases at any one time.

The Court further anticipates that only ten percent of the personal injury cases will be transferred outside of the Stanley Mosk courthouse to individual courts. In addition, there will no longer be any Case Management Conferences in personal injury actions. Moreover, all trials for personal injury actions will be assigned to one of the ten dedicated trial courtrooms in the Stanley Mosk Courthouse and others spread across the county. However, the Court has not yet determined if any changes will be made as to the personal injury cases that are currently pending before the individual courts. Furthermore, no changes have been implemented with respect to Central Civil West, the court that handles all complex cases, asbestos cases, and class actions.

All collections cases will also be handled by one of two Master Calendar departments in Norwalk and Chatsworth. Trials in these cases will be spread throughout the county.

Most of the non-collection limited jurisdiction cases (i.e., an action that does not exceed $25,000), will be handled by two Master Calendar Courts in the Stanley Mosk Courthouse. Trials in these cases will be spread across the county.

The Court also modified its recent court reporter policies to now require parties to arrange for court reporters for all civil law and motion hearings along with all civil trials with the exception of some family law matters. The Court previously changed its policies in 2012 by reducing the number of days that the Court would provide court reporters for civil law and motion hearings. The requesting party is responsible for the reporters’ fees.

The Court further announced the discontinuation of the Temporary Judge (Judge Pro Tem) and all court-run Alternative Dispute (ADR) programs. In addition, there will be further reductions in courtroom staff. However, settlement courts will continue to be maintained in the current numbers across the districts, including seven court rooms in the downtown Santa Clarita courthouse.

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