Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: amend a complaint

Either you get a license to practice law by Friday, or hire someone who does have a license, or your wife is in pro per.

Re: amend a complaint

I assume that by "Complaint filed in wife's name" you mean that your wife is the sole plaintiff. That being the case, the judge is properly limiting comments to the court to the plaintiff herself (she apparently not being represented by counsel).

I also gather that for some reason or other, she is, in your opinion, unable to speak for herself, and that you need to appear and speak before the court. (If your contribution were to be as a witness, she could call you to testify as such at trial, of course).

Only persons with standing can be plaintiffs. "Standing" means that the person is a party in interest, i.e., who has a direct personal stake in the matters to be litigated because, for example, they sustained physical or financial injury or some other right they possessed was invaded by defendant(s).

If I properly understand the judge's comment about amending, she can amend her complaint to include you as a co-plaintiff until Friday. This is not something for YOU to do; it's something SHE will have to do.

The process is simple (for a lawyer). A power of attorney won't work. She needs to re-file the original complaint, with changes, and re-serve it on all defendants.

The minimum changes would be to re-caption the Complaint to read "First Amended Complaint;" to add the husband's name in the caption and any introductory paragraph where the Complaint states who the Plaintiff(s) is/are, and to include husband in any other statement identifying the parties. If Husband is entitled to relief for reasons that differ from Wife's, other portions of the First Amended Complaint should be expanded and revised accordingly.

Finally, when you are able to speak in court as a party to this case, you will be allowed to speak on your own behalf, and probably on your joint behalf as a married couple, but you are never going to be allowed to act as your wife's attorney - the days when a husband could represent his wife as though he were her attorney ended well before the present Code of Civil Procedure was adopted in 1872.