Lyncon Construction, Inc. v. Linda Lester, Studio 37 LLC

Case Name: Lyncon Construction, Inc. v. Linda Lester, Studio 37 LLC, et al.

Case No.: 16CV294788

This is primarily an action for breach of contract, alleging that Defendant failed to fully pay Plaintiff for work performed at Defendant’s restaurant. Presently before the Court is Plaintiff’s motion “for order correcting clerical error in filing date of complaint.” (See caption of Plaintiff’s Notice of Motion.) To be clear, there is no “clerical error” at issue here. Plaintiff seeks to reverse the Court Clerk’s determination, as stated in the Clerk’s April 27, 2016 Civil Filing Rejection Letter (exhibit A to the declaration of Michael Durfey), that the initial version of Plaintiff’s Complaint left in the Court’s drop box on April 27, 2016 was defective and could not be filed. No statutory basis for the motion is identified.

It is the Court’s view that Plaintiff’s motion is best understood as seeking to have the May 5, 2016 Complaint (the only pleading actually accepted for filing in this action) serve as an “amendment” deemed filed as of April 27, 2016, the date Plaintiff indisputably attempted to begin the action by leaving the original version of the pleading in the Court’s drop box. (See Plaintiff’s P&As at 3:7-8 [“Plaintiff simply requests that the Court use its inherent authority to correct the record to reflect the true filing date of the Complaint.”]) Accordingly, the Court, on its own authority pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure (“CCP”) §473(a)(1) and §576, orders the corrected pleading filed by Plaintiff on May 5, 2016 to be deemed filed on April 27, 2016. (See Board of Trustees v. Sup. Ct. (2007) 149 Cal.App.4th 1154, 1163 [“It is well established that ‘California courts ‘have a policy of great liberality in allowing amendments at any stage of the proceeding so as to dispose of cases upon their substantial merits where the authorization does not prejudice the substantial rights of others.’’”]; Natkin v. California Unemployment Ins. Appeals Board (2013) 219 Cal.App.4th 997, 1012 [“A trial court has broad discretion to control the proceedings before it in the furtherance of justice. (Code Civ. Proc., § 128.) This includes allowing amendments to pleadings to correct any errors or mistakes. (Code Civ. Proc., § 473, subd. (a)(1).”]

The only defects in the original pleading identified in the clerk’s rejection letter (as opposed to all those that may have existed) were that the document was missing an original signature and that the summons and complaint captions did not match. No failure to comply with Rule of Court 2.100-2.1119 was identified, nor did the Clerk note any failure to provide a mandatory filing fee. Accordingly the pleading should have been accepted for filing while Plaintiff’s Counsel was notified of the identified errors in need of correction.

The discrepancy between the summons and complaint captions was not a proper basis for refusing to file the original pleading. A pleading cannot be rejected for filing because of minor formatting errors. (See Rojas v. Cutsforth (1998) 67 Cal.App.4th 774, 776-777 (Rojas) [stating (in a case in which a plaintiff’s complaint was not filed timely because the pleading was originally rejected for failure to include the correct address of the courthouse on the document and because a required document accompanying the pleading was unsigned), that “[w]here, as here, the defect, if any, is insubstantial, the clerk should file the complaint and notify the attorney or party that the perceived defect should be corrected at the earliest opportunity”].) While Defendant is correct that Rojas (and some of Plaintiff’s other cited authorities) arose from the failure to comply with a local court rule, this does not limit the general authority of its holding. (See Weil & Brown, Cal. Prac. Guide: Civ. Pro. Before Trial (Rutter Group 2015) §6:46, citing Rojas.)

The one substantive flaw identified in the Clerk’s rejection letter was Plaintiff Counsel’s negligent failure to sign a pleading filed the last day of the limitations period. While this failure constitutes a violation of CCP §128.7 and CCP §446, it was also not a basis to refuse to file the pleading. “California appellate courts have held that a pleading may be amended for the purpose of curing a signature defect. . . . Moreover, ‘[a]mendments may cure such a defect even when submitted after the statute of limitations has run on the time to file the original complaint, since verification of a complaint is not a jurisdictional requirement.’ Similarly, it has been held that an unsigned complaint is an irregularity, rather than a ‘nullity,’ that may be cured by amendment. (See Board of Trustees, supra at 1163-1164, internal citations omitted.)

There is no authority to support Defendant’s contention that that the clerk is required to refuse to file any pleading that does not conform to any requirement of state law such as the failure to sign a pleading. (See Carlson v. Dept. of Fish & Game (1998) 68 Cal.App.4th 1268, 1278 [“It is the legislative and judicial policy of this state to prefer disposition of litigation on the merits rather than on procedural grounds.”]) Defendant has otherwise failed to identify any material prejudice it will suffer from the Court’s determination to deem this action timely filed on April 27, 2016 and allow it to proceed as it otherwise would have.

Thus, while it has failed to identify any “clerical error,” Plaintiff is entitled to have its existing May 5, 2016 Complaint deemed filed on April 27, 2016.

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