California’s courts have shut down before, most notably during COVID-19, and there’s no reason to assume it won’t happen again for the next wildfire, earthquake, or public health emergency. When it does, the real question isn’t hypothetical: does a closed courthouse actually stop your case, or just slow down certain parts of it?
Does a Court Closure Pause Your Filing Deadline?
Quick answer: A court closure doesn’t put a personal injury case on hold in the way most people assume. California Government Code Section 68115 gives courts broad authority to extend filing deadlines, postpone hearings, and even relocate proceedings during a declared emergency, and that authority applies automatically whenever a state of emergency or similar crisis threatens normal court operations. What it does not automatically do is pause the statute of limitations, the deadline to file your lawsuit in the first place. That required a specific, one-time action by the Judicial Council during COVID-19, and there’s no guarantee the same relief would apply the same way to a future emergency, which is why treating a courthouse closure as an automatic extension of your filing deadline is a mistake worth avoiding.
The Legal Authority Behind a California Court Closure
California Government Code Section 68115 gives courts a standing framework for operating during emergencies, natural disasters, epidemics, or any condition serious enough to prompt a gubernatorial state of emergency and threaten normal court functions. Under this authority, a presiding judge can hold court sessions elsewhere in the county, and the Judicial Council’s chairperson can extend a range of procedural deadlines, filing windows for civil cases, trial commencement timelines, and more, along with declaring emergency days as holidays for purposes of computing filing deadlines. These extensions are meant to be no longer than necessary, are generally capped in duration, and require renewal if the emergency continues. This is the mechanism that let California’s courts keep functioning, even if at reduced capacity, when they physically closed their doors in 2020, and it’s the same mechanism that would activate again for a future wildfire, earthquake, or public health crisis.
What this framework doesn’t do is treat every disruption the same way. A short-term closure, a single courthouse shutting for a few days after a regional wildfire, for example, generally triggers only limited, localized relief, whereas a statewide emergency serious enough to prompt a gubernatorial declaration can support broader, longer-running orders affecting deadlines across many counties at once. Knowing which category a given disruption falls into matters, because it directly shapes how much practical flexibility a court actually has to offer, and how quickly that flexibility can be expected to end.
Why a Closure Doesn't Automatically Extend Your Filing Deadline
It’s worth being precise about what Section 68115 actually controls, because it’s easy to conflate two different things: the court’s own operational deadlines, and the statute of limitations that governs when you’re allowed to file a lawsuit at all. Section 68115 gives courts flexibility over their own scheduling and procedural timelines. It does not, by itself, pause the clock on your underlying deadline to sue. That’s a separate, more significant step, and during COVID-19 it required its own specific action: the Judicial Council’s Emergency Rule 9, which suspended statutes of limitations for civil claims exceeding 180 days from April 6 to October 1, 2020, and for shorter deadlines from April 6 to August 3, 2020. That rule was an extraordinary, one-time measure tied to the severity and duration of that particular emergency. Absent a comparable rule for a future disaster, California’s ordinary two-year deadline for personal injury claims under Code of Civil Procedure Section 335.1 keeps running even if the courthouse itself is closed, which means assuming your deadline is automatically frozen during any future emergency could cost you your case.
Not Sure Where Your Case Stands During a Court Disruption? We can tell you exactly what’s still running and what isn’t. Call DKB Lawyers at (949) 776-2856.
How Your Case Can Still Move Forward During a Closure
A courthouse closure doesn’t stop the work that actually builds a personal injury case. Insurance companies keep processing claims on their own internal timelines regardless of whether a courthouse is open, and settlement negotiations don’t require a judge or a courtroom to continue. Evidence gathering, medical record requests, witness interviews, expert consultations, can all proceed remotely. Depositions and case conferences can be, and routinely are, conducted by video. Documents can be exchanged and even filed electronically in many California courts, and mediation or informal settlement talks often continue on their own schedule independent of whatever the court system is doing. The practical effect for most injury victims is that a court closure changes the pace and format of the parts of a case that genuinely depend on a judge or a physical courtroom, hearings, trial dates, in-person proceedings, without stopping the underlying claim from being built, negotiated, or in many cases resolved.
Dealing With a Claim While Courts Are Disrupted? Let’s keep it moving. Call DKB Lawyers at (949) 776-2856 for a free consultation.
Talk to an Orange County Personal Injury Lawyer
Whether courts are operating normally or working through a disruption, knowing exactly where your deadlines and your claim actually stand shouldn’t be a guessing game. DKB Lawyers helps Orange County injury victims keep their cases moving, and their filing deadlines protected, no matter what’s happening with the courts.
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