May 11, 2026
Court of Appeal of the State of California, Second Appellate District, Division Five
The Rule of J.N. et al. v. Jeffrey Goldberg is that a motion for Code of Civil Procedure section 128.7 sanctions must comply with statutory notice requirements by specifying the hearing date in the initial notice of motion to trigger the mandatory 21-day safe harbor period, under circumstances where the superior court's electronic Court Reservation System makes it impossible to obtain a hearing date more than three days in advance but the safe harbor period requires 21 days.
April 6, 2026
Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division Four
The Rule of In re Marriage of Jenkins is that a default judgment in a family law case must be set aside when it exceeds the relief requested in the petition and the defaulting party lacked adequate notice of the specific assets to be divided, under circumstances where the petition contained only "TBD" placeholders for property division and the prove-up hearing was conducted based on informal, off-the-record communications without proper notice to the defaulting spouse.
March 18, 2026
Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division Four
The Rule of In re Marriage of Jenkins is that a default judgment in dissolution proceedings that awards specific property division relief exceeds the relief requested where the dissolution petition listed all property division issues as "To be determined," under circumstances where the defaulted party lacked proper notice of the prove-up hearing and the specific property division being sought.
11/21/25
Appellate Division of the Superior Court, State of California, County of Los Angeles
The Rule of Gerard v. Cuevas is that a trial court cannot retroactively shorten a notice period under Code of Civil Procedure section 1987 to 91 minutes and then impose a terminating sanction when the defendant fails to appear, under circumstances where the original notice was untimely served and the court had not previously ordered shortened time.