Written By: Joseph J. Nardulli
The Superior Courts in the State of California are governed by the “Fast Track” system, more formally referred to as the Trial Court Delay Reduction Act (Government Code § 68600 et seq.). This portion of the Government Code governs the way in which Courts manage litigation. Prior to the adoption of this Act, the attorneys were primarily responsible for moving their cases forward. Under the Fast Track rules it is the Court, specifically the Judge’s responsibility, to assume and maintain control over the litigation, rather than the attorneys. It is the Court that is charged with various time limitations under which the Judge must attempt to have the case disposed of either by trial or by settlement. The rule says essentially that 75% of the cases filed must be disposed of within 12 months, 85% must be disposed of within 18 months and 100% of the cases must be disposed of within 2 years after filing of the Complaint. (C.R.C. 209(b)(1) – Standards of Judicial Administration §2.1(f)(1) California Rules of Court C.R.C. Appendix Division 1).
There is a third category of exceptional cases, sometimes known as complex cases which, because of the number of parties and issues involved, are so complicated that they have an outside limit of three years within which to be disposed of either by trial or settlement.
Prior to the adoption of the Fast Track system it was very common for cases to take as much as five years or longer to be disposed of, because the attorneys were in charge of whether cases would be continued and the pace at which the case would proceed. Now it is the Judge’s responsibility to make sure each case proceeds at a relatively rapid pace during the course of the litigation, meeting various time standards that are monitored by the Court through various hearings, such as Case Management Conferences and Status Conferences. The Court actively supervises control over all cases and has almost entirely removed this role from the attorneys. What is of particular importance is that under the Fast Track Rule as found in the Government Code, Judges must set firm trial dates with no continuances and must commence those trials on the date scheduled. In view of the Fast Track system, the pace at which litigation proceeds is such that the various important parts of litigation, such as discovery, i.e., conducting depositions and propounding interrogatories, must be handled at a much earlier stage than they previously had. Therefore, the litigation of a particular case is generally compressed into a shorter time frame than had normally occurred prior to Fast Track.
The litigation firm or attorney therefore must make certain evaluations as early as possible as to how to deal with the case in terms of whether to settle the matter, whether to take the case to trial and spend the money necessary to do so, how much discovery to undertake and whether to utilize alternate dispute resolution, such as mediation or binding arbitration, as a cost saving approach. As a consequence, it is extremely important when engaging in litigation under the Fast Track system, that the case be analyzed at the outset with appropriate scrutiny as to what the issues are, how complex those issues are, what the likelihood of success in the case is, whether there is a more cost-effective method of resolving the dispute and at what point settlement should be considered an option.
There is always a cost benefit analysis in every civil litigation matter. The question is always posed: how great is the benefit to be gained by taking this matter all the way to trial versus the cost of doing so versus the likelihood of success? These three factors must be weighed in every case. If they are not considered from the very beginning of the case, and continually reevaluated throughout the case, then there is the great potential that the case will take on a life of its own and either becomes cost prohibitive or it will be very difficult to obtain an appropriate result.