Legal Question in Construction Law in California

There is a procedure under the civil discovery laws for demanding and obtaining site inspections. Look at the Code of Civil Procedure sections 2031.010 et seq. In particular, 2031.010 says an inspection and the right to take photographs of land and any other tangible thing in the other party's possession may be demanded. Section 2031.020 allows a defendant to make the demand at any time, without leave of court. Section 2031.030 specifies the form and content of the (written) demand, and I should note here that understanding and complying with the firmat, timing, service and other technical rules for making discovery requests or demands is generally tough for self-represented parties. Note also CCP section 2031.060, which gives the party upon whom the demand is made certain rights to object to the demand.

There is also a discovery cut-off date. See Code of Civil Procedure sections 2024.010 and 2024.020.primarily; also thru 2024.060 may be important. Most attorneys prefer to complete discovery well before the cut-off date in case it is necessary to make a motion to compel further responses or the results are unsatisfactory and other corrective actions are needed.

I can explain to you how you make a demand for inspection of places and things under the Code of Civil Procedure, but it won't do you any good. I have been a construction litigation attorney for almost 25 years. I have never seen a pro per defendant succeed against a plaintiff's lawyer. In fact, well over 9 times out off ten the defendant never even gets to trial before they lose the case to summary judgment or they blow it in discovery and the court issues a judgment against them as a sanction (penalty) for not complying with discovery law that they don't even understand. If you want to make the inspection demand you need to follow the process set forth in Code of Civil Procedure sections 2031.010 through 2031.320. Those provisions are written in as close to plain English as the law gets. So you should be able to understand them. If not, you really need to give up on self-representation. The request for inspection must be sent out at least 30 days before the date set for the inspection if the request is hand delivered (hand delivery must be by someone who has no interest in the outcome of the case), 32 days if they are sent by overnight service such as FedEx, and 35 days if they are sent by mail. The date for inspection must be at least 30 days before the date initially set for trial. Continuances of trials to a later date do not reset that time unless specifically ordered by the court or agreed by the parties. The request must be written up on pleading paper, the stuff with lines on each side, and numbers down the left margin. It must be formatted the same as a court filing as far as caption on the first page, etc. Once you've done all that, if you do it right, you will be allowed to inspect the premises. Of course turning what you see and any pictures you take into admissible evidence is a whole other story. But of course if you don't do it right at the time of the inspection, none of it will be admissible in court anyway. I know I am coming across harshly, but you need to understand that this is serious, and you WILL lose if you don't have help. So I cannot recommend strongly enough that you either try to settle the case instead of trying to figure out the Civil Discovery Act, or that you hire an attorney. Otherwise you may as well just agree to having a judgment entered against you. Lastly, if you read my history of posts on LawGuru, you will see that I favor people helping themselves with their own legal work as much as possible. So I am not saying all this because I want business for myself or other lawyers. I am saying it to save you a world of frustration and expense trying to defend yourself, only to find you get slammed in court at the end no matter what you do.