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Chapter 6 (Rules 6.1 to 6.5): probate matters submitted without an appearance, filings setting a hearing no later than 1:30 p.m. four court days before (6.1); ex parte and emergency probate guardianship orders under local rule 1.15, disfavored without a strong showing of potential harm (6.2); compromise of claims of minors and incompetent persons under Probate Code § 3500 and Code of Civil Procedure § 372 - full disclosure, deposits in a financial institution and the receipt filed no later than 15 days after the order (6.3); attorney's fees for a compromise - 25 % before trial, 33-1/3 % after trial has commenced and 40 % after the appellant's opening brief, within MICRA's limits (6.4); and withdrawal of funds by verified petition or ex parte application (6.5).
California > First Appellate District > Mendocino County > Superior Court of California, County of Mendocino
Chapter 6: Probate Court Rules 6.1 Submission of Matter Without Appearance by Counsel or Witnesses A matter that by law may be determined by declaration, affidavit or verified pleading and without testimony may ordinarily be submitted for appropriate action by the court without appearance by counsel or witnesses provided that all necessary papers, including declarations and proposed orders must be delivered to the clerk within the time limit prescribed. The proposed orders must bear the date on which the hearing is originally noticed. a. All filings of probate matters setting a hearing must be filed no later than 1:30 p.m. four court days before hearing. All filings for a hearing that are presented to the clerk after 1:30 p.m. will be set for the next probate calendar allowing for four (4) court days before the hearing. The clerk will not accept any moving papers setting a hearing date less than four (4) days from the filing date unless a signed court order shortening time is presented along with the moving papers. b. Failure of the moving party to appear at a required hearing may result in the matter being dropped from the calendar. c. Counsel for the moving party must promptly notify the court when a matter is to be dropped from the calendar. (Effective 1/1/99; renumbered 1/1/19; renumbered & amended 1/1/22) 6.2 Ex Parte/Emergency Probate Guardianship Orders a. Please review local rule 1.15 for general procedures on filing Probate Guardianship ex parte/Emergency Order applications. b. Ex Parte/Emergency Orders Disfavored Except Upon Strong Showing of Potential Harm. It is the policy of this court not to grant ex parte/emergency orders in probate guardianship cases without a strong factual showing of grave danger, emergency, or severe detriment to a party or a child prior to the time the issues can be properly set for a noticed hearing with the parties present and afforded an opportunity to be heard. c. Declarations in Support of Ex Parte/Emergency Orders 1. All declarations in support of ex parte/emergency orders must be based upon personal knowledge of the declarant. The court may decide not to consider the merits of an unsubstantiated declaration based on hearsay and not subject to any recognized hearsay exception in deciding the request for ex parte/emergency relief. 2. All declarations in support of ex parte/emergency relief must specifically describe the dates of incidents, provide a detailed factual description of what happened, and identify the specific harm which has been threatened or caused. Conclusions, feelings, wishes, or fears will not support a request for ex parte/emergency relief. 3. The court must have accurate, complete information before deciding a request for ex parte/emergency orders. Parties and attorneys must fully disclose relevant facts in preparing declarations in support of ex parte/emergency orders. YOU MUST DISCLOSE WHETHER THE REQUESTED EX PARTE/EMERGENCY ORDER WILL RESULT IN A CHANGE OF THE STATUS QUO. (Effective 7/1/21; renumbered & amended 1/1/22; amended 7/1/22; amended 1/1/23; amended 7/1/26) Compromise of Claims of Minors and Incompetent Persons 6.3 Compromise of Claims All petitions and orders for the compromise of claims of minors or incompetent persons pursuant to Probate Code § 3500 and Code of Civil Procedure § 372, must comply with the California Rules of Court and the following: a. The petition must contain a full disclosure of all information which has any bearing upon the reasonableness of the compromise and settlement, such as the sums, if any, to be paid to the other claimants in the same case. b. In any case in which the court orders the sum received by the minor to be deposited in a financial institution, the order must contain the additional wording, “a certified or endorsed copy of this order shall be delivered to the manager of said financial institution to be deposited, and that there shall be a receipt of said financial institution filed with the clerk of the department in which the compromise was approved, acknowledging receipt of both the sum deposited and said order.” c. The receipt of the financial institution must include the name of the account, account number, account type, the initial deposit amount, the amount on deposit as of the date of the receipt, and the date the account was opened. The receipt should acknowledge that “No withdrawals of principal or interest be made from said account (s) without the written order under this case name and number therefore signed by a judge and bearing the seal of said court. The monies are not the subject of escheat.” d. It is the duty of the petitioner or their counsel to file the receipt described above with the court no later than 15 days after the order requiring the sum to be deposited in a financial institution. e. In any case where the court order was made prior to March 4, 1972, any use of or reference to the words “age of majority,” “adult,” “age of minority,” “minor” or words of similar intent must make reference to persons older or younger than 21 years of age, consistent with the law then in effect, provided, however, that such orders made prior to March 4, 1972, will be subject to amendment to reflect the new age of majority where such amendment is deemed proper in the discretion of the court. In orders made for compromise on or after March 4, 1972, the age of majority will be 18 years of age. f. If no action is pending, or if an action is pending and settlement is reached before trial has commenced, a petition for compromise of the claims of minors or incompetent persons must be filed and heard in the department regularly hearing probate matters. If a petition is presented after the trial has commenced, approval of the settlement will be made in the trial department. (Effective 1/1/99; amended 1/1/00; amended 7/1/08; amended 1/1/09; amended 1/1/10; renumbered 1/1/19; renumbered & amended 1/1/22) 6.4 Attorney’s Fees for Compromise The attorney’s fees set forth on an application for approval of compromise of a claim will be considered reasonable under normal circumstances. In computing fees on the basis of the amount of the judgment, special damages allotted to the parents and costs paid or incurred by any attorney must be first deducted. a. Settlement without commencement of a court trial, under either Code of Civil Procedure § 372 or Probate Code § 3500: 25 %. b. Recovery of judgment or obtaining settlement after court trial has commenced: 33-1/3 %. c. Settlement after filing appellant’s opening brief on appeal: 40 %. The foregoing fees will be subject to variation by the court in cases involving unusual circumstances or conditions to meet such circumstances or conditions. In actions governed by the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA), the fees authorized by this rule may not exceed the amount of fees permitted by 6146(a) of the Business and Professions Code. To the extent the fees permitted by 6146(a) exceed the fees allowed under this rule, the provisions of this rule will prevail. (Effective 1/1/99; renumbered 1/1/19; renumbered & amended 1/1/22) 6.5 Withdrawal of Funds a. It is the duty and the policy of the court to protect the funds of minors and not to allow withdrawals except in very urgent and unusual situations. It is the duty of parents of minors to provide for their support and education. Funds belonging to minors should not ordinarily be used for such purposes. The court will never allow withdrawals for the benefit of parents or any person other than the minor. b. Requests for withdrawal of funds deposited for minors and incompetent persons will be allowed upon filing a verified petition or ex parte application which must include a showing of the amounts previously withdrawn, the balance on deposit at the time of filing the petition, a justification for the withdrawal (including the reasons why the parents or parent are unable to provide the needed funds) and the attorney’s fees, if any, that are requested. c. The order will fix such fees and no other fees will be charged. In the absence of unusual circumstances where the attorney for the petitioner was allowed fees at the time of settlement, the court will consider this an incidental service for which payment has been included in the original allowance. d. Any order authorizing the withdrawal of funds for the purpose of transferring funds from one financial institution to another must include the language contained in local rule 6.3(b) and provide that the draft of the institution from which the funds are withdrawn must be payable to the financial institution to which the funds are to be transferred for deposit in such a blocked account. A receipt from the financial institution to which the funds are transferred containing the information and language contained in local rule 6.3(c) must be filed with the court. e. Applications for withdrawal of sums will be filed and heard in the probate department. (Effective 1/1/99; renumbered & amended 1/1/19; renumbered & amended 1/1/22)
Chapter 6: Probate Court Rules 6.1 Submission of Matter Without Appearance by Counsel or Witnesses A matter that by law may be determined by declaration, affidavit or verified pleading and without testimony may ordinarily be submitted for appropriate action by the court without appearance by counsel or witnesses provided that all necessary papers, including declarations and proposed orders must be
Reviewer note: Composed 2026-10-10 (California T4 Mendocino build 2026-10-10) from BenchPath custody ca/t4/ca-mendocino/docs/local-rules/localrules.pdf (the court's rule book, its cover “Superior Court of California County of Mendocino Local Rules Effective July 1, 2026”, as fetched 2026-10-10; 2190010 bytes, sha256 10c2f9fe33dd913b755e1e05ef7b947b851dc38c30ff0a08807e7ad866117b0c; 152 pages) with the shared verbatim composer (v2 reflow) chapter by chapter - Chapters 1 to 8 (PDF pages 7 to 50; 51 to 63; 64 to 70; 71 to 86; 87 to 104; 105 to 108; 109 to 112; 113 and 114), each beginning at the top of a page: each page's running header (“Superior Court of California, County of Mendocino”) and footer (the page number) removed as chrome; lines reflowed into the rules' paragraphs; no struck run on any of the 152 pages (review/strike-report-2026-10-10.txt); Chapter 1's 55 rule numbers, which the book prints as images the text layer does not carry, set before their headings from their placements on the page (read by eye, and against the book's History Table; build/labels.py, build/labels-report.json); 12 whitespace-only fixes (build/book-fixes.json: Rule 1.8's stacked list of the departments' courtesy copy email addresses, which the reflow ran into one line, set one address a line, and its file-name example set on its own line; seven form numbers broken after the hyphen at a printed line's end set as one number - EFS-007, EFS-020, FW-003, MMC-323-327, MFL-250, FL-150 and JV-220; Rule 1.39's bulleted item “Copies of discovery or motions” set apart from the item before it; and two sentences rejoined where a printed line ended short before a long word - Rule 2.11's sentence on the USB drive's “ADMINISTRATIVE RECORD” label across a page break and Rule 4.2's “Notice of Family Law Case Management Conference”; the vertical-gap, short-line, right-edge, page-break, bold-line, false-break, fragment and row audits find no other); no same-character fix; proof 1 (whitespace-only) and proof 2 (same character multiset as the text layer minus chrome) pass. The cover, the table of contents, the lists of local and Judicial Council forms, the History Table and the index belong to no card.
Division XI: information forms for data processing (Rule 11.2); required action - action taken on all calendared cases and a future date always set (Rule 11.19); and pro tem judges - an attorney named as a plaintiff in a civil or small claims case may not sit as a judge pro-tem during the case or within six months following its resolution, nor one named as a defendant in two or more such cases (Rule 11.22). Rules 11.1, 11.3 to 11.5, 11.7 to 11.18, 11.20 and 11.21 are repealed, and Rule 11.6 (voluntary arbitration; see Local Rule 10.2) was repealed and renumbered.
Duval County's indigent-defense and magistration rules under the Texas Fair Defense Act (S.B. 7): who may be booked into the county jail and on what paper; arrest-case numbering; presentment to a magistrate within 48 hours (art. 15.16); the magistrate's warnings, counsel inquiry, interpreter duty, indigence determination and appointment of counsel within 24 hours of a request; the alternative appointment plan under art. 26.04(g)-(h) with annual applications, seven attorney categories (capital, first and second degree, third degree/state jail/misdemeanor, competency, appeals, post-conviction, extradition), CLE and experience standards, random rotation within each category, written acceptance within 48 hours, first contact by the end of the next working day, replacement and suspension of counsel, fee applications within five days of completing services and the compensation attachment ($500 pleas; $175/$150 hourly; $1,400 per jury-trial day; appellate caps); bail schedules by offense class with a personal bond office (fee $20 or 3%), pre-trial supervision and revocation hearings within two working days; arraignment settings and notice; repeal of conflicting rules.