Ventura County Superior Court — Courtroom 20 - Rules &… — CA · BenchPath

Ventura County Superior Court — Courtroom 20 - Rules & Procedures (effective July 1, 2026)

High confidence· verified October 7, 2026Judge PreferencesCourtroom 20 - Rules & Procedures (effective July 1, 2026), Superior Court of California, County of Ventura; posted on the court's Judicial Assignments - Ventura Courthouse page (https://ventura.courts.ca.gov/judicial-assignments-ventura) and the court's Remote Appearances page (https://ventura.courts.ca.gov/remote-appearances) at https://ventura.courts.ca.gov/system/files/c20_rules_and_procedures_20250101.pdf, fetched 2026-10-07.

Summary

Courtroom 20, Hon. Maureen M. Houska: case management and the steps that avoid an OSC re sanctions - a CMC statement 15 days before the CMC, default requests within 10 days and default judgment within 45 days; remote appearances by Zoom (Department 20 does not accommodate Court Call), registration by 3:00 p.m. the court day before; ADR Status Conferences with a joint statement five (5) court days before; informal discovery conferences requested by email to Courtroom20@ventura.courts.ca.gov, papers of no more than five (5) pages; law and motion at 8:30 a.m., tentative decisions by 5:00 p.m. the day before, summary judgment on Thursdays; and trial rules - Monday 1:30 trial calls, trial documents emailed (the clerk's office does not accept them), witness and exhibit lists exchanged thirty (30) days before, trial briefs and in limine motions of five (5) pages, court reporters, exhibits, jury instructions, jury questionnaires, six-pack jury selection and the trial schedule.

Applies to

California > Second Appellate District > Ventura County > Superior Court of California, County of Ventura > Courtroom 20

Source of truth

COURTROOM 20 - RULES & PROCEDURES HON. MAUREEN M. HOUSKA (Effective July 1, 2026) I. Case Management Counsel and self-represented parties must comply with all deadlines associated with ensuring a case is “at issue.” In particular, litigants must timely: • comply with deadlines related to the service of summons of complaints and the filing of proofs of service thereof; • file and serve responses to

Official source: Superior Court of California, County of Ventura — court website
Source health: Healthy · checked September 28, 2026
Effective date: July 1, 2026
Last verified: October 7, 2026benchpath-ca-t4-ventura-2026-10-07

Reviewer note: Composed 2026-10-07 (California T4 Ventura build 2026-10-07) from BenchPath custody ca/t4/ca-ventura/docs/c20_rules_and_procedures_20250101.pdf (204371 bytes, sha256 328c9920f92566c6b7af8925e89a4b63d9455eb934a32a6cde14450b05bbb439; 8 pages) with the shared verbatim composer (v2 reflow): page marks and running headers or footers removed as chrome (a running header or footer kept once where it names or dates the document); lines reflowed into the document's paragraphs; proof 1 (whitespace-only) and proof 2 (same character multiset as the text layer minus chrome) pass. Documented settings (whitespace-only or same-character changes; the proofs hold): the hyphen printed at the end of “complaint/cross-”, which the text layer stores as a soft hyphen (U+00AD), set as the hyphen the print shows and the compound “cross-complaint” joined across the line. Attached to Judge Maureen M. Houska: the document is Courtroom 20's, and the court's Judicial Assignments page for the Ventura Courthouse (effective as of August 31, 2026) seats Judge Maureen M. Houska in Courtroom 20. Review note: The file's name reads 20250101; the rules print “(Effective July 1, 2026)”. They refer indigent parties to “Administrative Order No. 18.06”, which the court's Administrative Orders page does not list (a review task). Tentative decisions are published by 5:00 p.m. the day before (Local Rule 8.00: by 4:00 p.m.). Published as printed: “self-represented litigations”; “ESA John Smith”.