California Supreme Court Watch

#23-16 California Capital Ins. Co. v. Hoehn, S277510. (C092450; nonpublished opinion; Placer County Superior Court; SCV0026851.) Petition for review after the Court of Appeal affirmed an order in a civil action. This case presents the following issues: (1) Is there a time limitation for filing a motion under Code of Civil Procedure section 473, subdivision (d) to vacate a judgment that is allegedly void based on extrinsic evidence? (2) In the alternative, does an equitable motion to vacate an allegedly void judgment for lack of service require proving intentional bad conduct in order to show extrinsic fraud?

Petition for review granted: 1/25/2023

Case fully briefed: 6/16/2023

Cause argued and submitted: 9/04/2024

Opinion filed: Judgment reversed: 11/18/2024

See the Court of Appeal Opinion.

See the Petition for Review.

See the Oral Argument.

See the California Supreme Court Opinion.  (California Capital Insurance Company v. Hoehn (2024) __ Cal.5th __.)

“Code of Civil Procedure section 473, subdivision (d) (hereafter section 473(d)), provides in relevant part that a court ‘may . . . on motion of either party after notice to the other party, set aside any void judgment or order.’ Under this provision, a party may move to vacate a judgment on the ground of improper service of process. A line of decisions, followed by the Court of Appeal below, has held that such motions must be made within a ‘reasonable time’ if the challenged judgment is not void on its face and its invalidity must be established by extrinsic evidence. To set the outer limit for what constitutes a reasonable time, courts have borrowed the two-year time limit of section 473.5, which applies where proper constructive service was given but the defendant did not receive actual notice.

We granted review in this case to decide whether these decisions are correct. We hold that they are not. As explained below, we conclude that this judicially created rule finds no footing in the statute’s text, has not been adopted by the Legislature, and lacks any sound justification. We reverse the Court of Appeal’s judgment.”  (fns. omitted.)

Justice Jenkins authored the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Guerrero and Justices Corrigan, Liu, Kruger, Groban, and Evans concurred.