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In light of Elkins v Superior Court (2007) 41 C4th 1337, then Chief Justice Ron George created a task force to look into measures that could ease the burden on both overcrowded courts and the large number of unrepresented family law litigants. The drafters of the Elkins Family Law Task Force: Final Report and Recommendations, issued April 2010, expressed concern, among other things, over the drastic reduction of live testimony in family court, which they felt deprived family law litigants of due process. In 2010 the legislature introduced a package of new statutes designed to address the concerns of the Elkins Task force (Assembly Bill 939).
One of these new statutes, Fam C §217, sought to address the task force’s concern by requiring that the court receive “any live, competent testimony that is relevant and within the scope of the hearing and the court may ask questions of the parties,” absent a contrary stipulation of the parties or a finding of good cause to refuse such testimony.
The Judicial Council has adopted a new rule, effective July 1, 2011, that relates to the new Fam C §217, Cal Rules of Ct 5.119. But it also amended Rule 5.118 to limit the length of a declaration that accompanies an order to show cause to 10 pages, and a reply declaration to 5.
For more on these new and amended rules, see CEB’s blog. On law and motion hearings in family law generally, see CEB’s books Practice Under the California Family Code: Dissolution, Legal Separation, Nullity and California Child Custody Litigation and Practice.
© The Regents of the University of California, 2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog's author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.
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