{"id":36,"date":"2012-02-02T11:24:12","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T15:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/?p=36"},"modified":"2014-09-05T10:06:09","modified_gmt":"2014-09-05T14:06:09","slug":"if-youve-ever-encountered-a-difficult-court-clerk-heres-your-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/2012\/02\/02\/if-youve-ever-encountered-a-difficult-court-clerk-heres-your-case\/","title":{"rendered":"If You\u2019ve Ever Encountered A Difficult Court Clerk, Here\u2019s Your Case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you have ever run into a court clerk who seems set on making things difficult, take comfort in a December 14, 2011 decision issued by the California Court of Appeal for the Sixth District, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><em>Voit v. Superior Court of Santa Clara County<\/em><\/span>, __Cal.App.4th__(December 14, 2011) (No. H037034). There, the clerk refused to accept for filing a request for appointment of counsel in a civil case submitted by an incarcerated and indigent individual. Four times Voit tried to get the Court to accept the filing and each time it was rejected for a claimed deficiency, the last few times with a note explaining that the court does not assign counsel for civil matters and requesting authority to the contrary.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Finally, out of exasperation apparently, Voit filed a petition for Writ of Mandate seeking to have his request for appointment of counsel filed by the clerk. The Court of Appeal agreed and issued the Writ along with a terse three page published decision that made the following point:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">\u201cThe actions of the court clerk\u2019s office are quite troubling. \u2018It is difficult enough to practice law without having the clerk\u2019s office as an adversary.\u2019 (<em>Rojas v. Cutsforth<\/em> (1998) 67 Cal.App.4th 774, 777 (<em>Rojas<\/em>).) Whether Voit\u2019s motion has legal merit is a determination to be made by a judge, not the clerk\u2019s office. No statute, rule of court, or case law gives the court clerk\u2019s office the authority to demand that a petitioner cite or quote precedent before his motion will be filed.<br \/>\nIf a document is presented to the clerk\u2019s office for filing in a form that complies with the rules of court, the clerk\u2019s office has a ministerial duty to file it. (See <em>Carlson v. Department of Fish &amp; Game<\/em> (1998) 68 Cal.App.4th 1268, 1276.) Even if the document contains defects, the clerk\u2019s office should file it and notify the party that the defect should be corrected.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And for those wondering, there is precedent (cited by the court) for the appointment of counsel for indigent inmates facing civil suits. (See <em>Payne v. Superior Court<\/em> (1976) 17 Cal.3d 908.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you have ever run into a court clerk who seems set on making things difficult, take comfort in a December 14, 2011 decision issued by the California Court of Appeal for the Sixth District, Voit v. Superior Court of Santa Clara County, __Cal.App.4th__(December 14, 2011) (No. H037034). There, the clerk refused to accept for &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/2012\/02\/02\/if-youve-ever-encountered-a-difficult-court-clerk-heres-your-case\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;If You\u2019ve Ever Encountered A Difficult Court Clerk, Here\u2019s Your Case&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[23,21,11,20,22],"ppma_author":[235],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-california-court-of-appeal","tag-difficult-clerk","tag-paul-killion","tag-sixth-district","tag-voit-superior-court"],"authors":[{"term_id":235,"user_id":37,"is_guest":0,"slug":"pjkillion","display_name":"Paul J. Killion","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2014\/08\/killionpaul-125x150.jpg","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/appellatelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}