I'm suing a contractor bond surety company in small claims court for denying my claim for damages done to my property by a contractor.

The court needs to have processed my proof of service at least ten days before.

The defendant MUST have a copy of ALL evidence that I submit before the court. So the way to do it is that when you serve the defendant in person, you include a copy of ALL the documents you intend to submit as evidence.

They don’t do the $15 submit the service by the court by mail anymore that is old on the website and needs to be updated.

For the service most people pay for a process server, but it can also be done by a family member or relative.

Once I have the actual proof of service, I can either drop that off myself or I can mail it in and check lacourt.org to be sure it was processed. Just has to be ten days before, but I’m sure earlier is better.

If the defendant has additional evidence that they want to provide, it’s not clear if they HAVE to provide that to me the plaintiff prior to the court date. But the court will ask me if I’d like to put a “pause” to review the defendant’s evidence before proceeding with the case. Just because I pause doesn’t mean we cancel. We just leave the court room, and then let the judge know when we’re ready to continue.

So to start you physically hand over to the judge a copy of all of your evidence. Hopefully you saved a copy for yourself. It seems like there might be a way to submit evidence digitally online through an online portal, but I haven’t seen that before. But of course the physical copy is more convenient.

There’s absolutely no interruptions. The plaintiff talks, and when the judge is ready and done asking them questions, then the defendant talks.

It looks like it’d be a really good idea to prepare a written opening statement as the plaintiff that I can read in about three minutes. What’s not clear is if it’s a prepared written opening statement if THAT has to also be included in the evidence when you serve the defendants, because it’s the opening statement, but that’s not evidence anyways that’s just you’re opening statement, so it’s probably fine. Ultimately I was told to check the self help center website. One guy was reading his opening statement off of his cellphone so I really think it doesn’t matter. I think the idea is that evidence is something you’re going to refer to that you want the judge to review, so since you’re reading the opening statement out loud it doesn’t really matter and we’re all going to hear it anyways. She’ll also interrupt you with questions I’m sure.

I need to be sure when I sue the defendants that I’m suing the businesses not the people.

The other thing I need to look up in the self help maybe is what do you do when there are multiple defendants. It makes sense to me to sue all three people at once, and maybe the judge will talk to each of them one at a time?

It will be up to the judge to decide if the case can proceed if the defendants don’t show up or if she’ll delay to a later date or if she’ll just dismiss the case. Up to them.

They say to have a binder ready to turn to any of your documents quickly, but from what I can tell it’s not clear how useful that is. Ultimately the judge absolutely does NOT give their decision right there in the court room. Looks like she will send the judgment in the mail. Also she is trying to move so fast she is REALLY only wanting to know the key facts of the case so that she can move on to the next one. She will remind both the parties over and over that she’s going to do a good job she’s going to go over all of the documents and all of the evidence very very carefully and take all of that into consideration when she chooses to decide her case.

It is very much “tell me your side” and then “ok, now u tell me your side” that’s why it’s so important to have things ready.

In the actual lawsuit I should definitely present all of my estimates for my damage because that’ll be one of the questions like well did you get more than one estimate have you had multiple people look into this?

One guy paid $275 to have his witness come to testify, but the judge makes the witness stay outside of the court room, and will only call in the witness if necessary. You HAVE to announce to the judge IMMEDIATELY if you do have a witness and not announce it later as a surprise or something.

So it’s just: Have you given me all of the evidence? Did all of the defendants already get all of the evidence? Did you bring witnesses. If you did, they will stay OUTSIDE of the court room! I will only call them in if I feel they are needed. Plaintiff tell me your side. Refer to any evidence items as needed. Defendant, now tell me your side. Judge asks for go-backs as needed. Plaintiff, do you submit? Do you approve final submission? Defendant, do you submit? Do you approve final submission?

Usually both the plaintiff and the defendant might start to get emotional or have emotion, but the judge tries to brush that aside. It’s about the facts of the case and the evidence. Also she gets annoyed if people try to start just reading the evidence because she says she has a copy of the evidence and will read it for herself later. So making a timeline is good.

Don’t do things like, “this has been a nightmare.” “I have a young child” “this guy is a scam artist”

You can see the judge fighting through those things to just ignore them.

If you have a video you want the judge to watch, you need to bring an ipad w/ the video pre-loaded so that the judge can watch it right then and there in the court room. Even then she wants to know how long it is to watch only the key moments.

Cases I remember watching all happening within about 45min:

Bought a used car from a used car dealership that already had an air bag light on

Got in a car accident leaving sofi stadium and were trying to resolve w/o insurance

Took a custom classing mustang to a car shop that was bleeding him for repairs

Took a truck to a mechanic and felt like they didn’t fix his car

Yea I think that was the four. Also really don’t get into it about your rights or not your rights. And not what the other person should do or should not do. Only up to you what you do. Really good I went ahead and filed a claim w/ my own insurance, and all the insurance, cuz she’ll ask did you do the insurance claims and I’ll be like yea I did literally all of them.