Handling of Civil/Domestic Orders

To: CWBA; Family Law Email Lists; Civil Law Email Lists

Fr: Judge Marilyn K. Haan

Dt: July 5, 2022

Re: Handling of Civil/Domestic Orders

There seems to be confusion about the processing and handling of Civil/Domestic orders, be it "proposed" or "originals" being submitted to the court, as well as the process necessary for presentation of orders in domestic cases.

"Proposed Orders" when marked as such and submitted to the Clerk's office are filed in the case. Do not look to have the judicial officer print this out of Odyssey and be the order the judicial officer will be signing. There have been times that has been done but that causes tracking problems for the Clerk's office and overall it just becomes problematic to do that in some cases but not other cases.

"Original Orders" when marked as such and submitted to the Clerk's office are not filed in the case unless, and until, the original order is signed by a judicial officer. These "original" orders are instead maintained by the Clerk's office, tracked and provided to the judicial officer hearing the case approximately one to two days before the date/time of hearing (sometimes the day of the hearing).

In domestic cases, regarding the preparation and presentation of orders, see CCLCR 88(3)(d), which reads as follows:

…(d) Preparation and Presentation of Orders.

(1) All proposed orders will be prepared and filed by the moving party. A copy of any proposed orders(s) by either party shall be provided to the Court and to the other party, or their attorney, not less than seven (7) days prior to the docket/decision date. Objections may be filed with the Court by the objecting party not less than five (5) court days prior to the presentation date.

(2) Objections to proposed orders will be considered by the Court on the pleadings only, without oral argument, unless the trial judge, on written application from the attorney or on their own motion, allows oral argument.

The Local Rules Committee will be working on this rule to get some further clarification, but at this point, in following what happens with "proposed" orders, people are believing when they file the "proposed" orders, that will be what the judicial officer will use to make changes and ultimately sign – but that is not the case. Not only do you need to file the documents as set forth in the rule, but you are also going to have to submit an "original" order for the judicial officer to make changes to, if any, before signing the "original" order. If the question being asked is: why do we have to file a "proposed" and submit an "original" of the order? It is because when the judicial officer is preparing for the docket, they may or may not yet have the "original" orders submitted to them from the Clerk's office and thus, will not be prepared at the time of the docket. [I note that if "objections" are not filed as set out in this rule, then the judicial officer assumes there are none, and may simply sign off on the "original" order submitted by the other party.]

These issues primarily come up on domestic cases, so I ask that this topic be added to the next Brown Bag Domestic meeting for further discussion.