Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

Re: Summons and Court Date.

In superior or municipal court the summons and complaint must be served within 60 days of the date of filing, and the person served has 30 days within which to file their answer or other responsive pleading.

In small claims, I am uncertain of the time necessary. I would assume about 10 days would be required, although you should serve as quickly as possible.

The person who served the complaint could be called as a witness against you, although I am not sure why. Getting someone who would otherwise testify for the defense to serve will certainly not exclude them as a witness. The proof of service should be all that is necessary from the process server to show when, where and how the summons and complaint were served.

A final word of advice, which I hope does not apply to you, do not play games with service. It will come back to haunt you, and really annoys a judge.

Re: Summons and Court Date.

Laypeople often confuse the terms "summons" and "subpoena". Ordinarily there is no court date scheduled at the time a summons is issued; the summons is one of the first steps in a lawsuit and court dates typically don't become established until later. Things do work a bit faster in some areas of law like unlawful detainer (i.e. eviction) cases, so there may indeed be a date scheduled in your particular action.

Subpoenas have to advise you of the date, time and place where you are scheduled to appear. Most subpoenas are for depositions, which are usually held in a lawyer's office rather than in court. Subpoenas do sometimes require the subpoenaed party to come to court to testify -- usually at trial, but sometimes at other proceedings.

Different proceedings have different rules, so there is no precise figure I can offer as to how much notice you are supposed to receive. If you can tell me more about the subpoena I may be able to offer more guidance on this point.

As for the person who served the document (whether it was a summons or a subpoena): Ordinarily these documents are served by professional process servers or by employees of the law firm representing the party who wants your involvement in the case. In most instances these people don't know the witness / defendant and don't have first-hand knowledge of the case anyway, so there is no reason to call them to testify -- unless there is a dispute about whether service was carried out properly, in which case their testimony may be needed. At any rate, there is no rule barring these people from testifying. All that is required is that they have something pertinent to say when they take the stand.

Re: Summons and Court Date.

I have to agree with counsel that it sounds as though you are talking about a "subpoena", rather than a "summons". A summons is normally served along with a complaint for damages, and does not have a court date, although most courts required that the plaintiff serve the parties within 60 days, or obtain an extension from the court.

A subpoena may be served at anytime requesting that you show up in court at a certain date and time to give testimony.

Regarding your question as to the person serving the summons, yes, they can appear as a witness against you, either to testify regarding service, or otherwise. The law does require that they not be a party to the lawsuit, but if they are a witness, and are above the age of 18 and not a party, service will be good.

I hope this helps, but if you want to provide more details, or have other information or questions, please feel free to email me at [email protected]