I (Plaintiff) filed complaint, then Defendant filed Special Motion to Strike and Demurrer responses to the complaint. Is it permissible to respond with single document to both Special Motions to strike and Demurrer? I'm not asking if it is a good idea, just if it is permissible? That is in fact what I did.
Case is antitrust civil case in Superior Court in San Francisco. I am pro se attorney on this, as I have been unable to find an attorney.
Answer
If your papers clearly state that you are opposing both the motion and the demurrer in the same document, then you should not have any problems. Better form, however, would have been to write separate oppositions.
Answer
It is generally possible unless explicitly forbidden by local court rules. However, you should make it clear that the document contains opposition to both motions. I would use a title like "Plaintiff's Combined Opposition to Defendant's Demurrer and Motion to Strike.
A demurrer and motion to strike generally address differently issues and that makes it more difficult for the judge or research attorney to address the issues of the motion. Furthermore, the judge or research attorney might not noticed that it is a combined opposition. If they see opposition to the demurrer and not the motion strike despite it being a combined document, they could deed opposition waived. So that is why it was a bad idea.
Answer
The effectiveness of your document will depend upon the quality of the contents more than how it is presented or how many separately-titled documents you file. However, proper titling is often necessary to call the attention of overworked judges (or their clerks) to the nature of the document and the extent of issues it addresses. By the way, I'd be curious why you haven't been able to find an attorney.......a lot of us are out there scrambling for new clients and cases.
No comments:
Post a Comment