60 days, 30 days, and the deadlines you can't fix later.
The most common reason a meritorious California appeal dies is not a weak legal issue. It is a clock that ran out before anyone realized it was running. Some of those clocks can be fixed. Most of them cannot. This post is the version of that conversation we have with new clients almost every week.
The two deadlines almost everyone has heard of
If you lose a civil case in California Superior Court, the basic deadline for filing a notice of appeal is 60 days from the date the trial court (or one of the parties) serves you with a written, file-stamped copy of the judgment or appealable order, or 180 days from entry of judgment if no one ever serves it. Whichever happens first wins. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.104.)
If you lose a misdemeanor criminal case, the deadline is 30 days from the rendition of judgment or the order. For felonies it is 60 days. (Rules 8.308, 8.853.) Family law and probate orders have their own rules, but most of them end up in the 60-day bucket too.
The deadline almost nobody hears about until it's too late
A handful of post-trial motions can extend the appeal clock — a motion for new trial, a motion to vacate, a motion for JNOV. They are powerful, but they have to be filed on time to do you any good. The deadline for most of them is fifteen days after you receive notice of entry of judgment, with no more than 180 days from entry of judgment as the absolute outer wall. (Code Civ. Proc. § 659.)
And here is the part that surprises people: if you file the post-trial motion even one day late, two things happen. The trial court loses jurisdiction to rule on it. And the appeal clock does not get extended. So you are now waiting for an order on a motion the court cannot grant, while the 60-day appeal clock runs out behind you.
What "can't be fixed" really means
The deadline for filing a notice of appeal is what lawyers call jurisdictional. That is a technical word, but in practice it means: if you file even one day late, the Court of Appeal has no power to hear the appeal at all. It is not a matter of asking the court to forgive a missed deadline. There is nobody to ask. The court does not have the authority to extend that clock, no matter how good the reason for missing it.
By comparison: missing a discovery deadline can usually be cured with a motion for relief. Missing a deadline to oppose a motion can sometimes be cured. Missing the deadline to file the notice of appeal cannot be cured. The appeal is over before it began.
The small set of deadlines that can sometimes be fixed
- Constructive filing — a self-represented prisoner can sometimes get credit for the date a notice of appeal was handed to prison authorities. The doctrine is narrow and almost never applies to represented civil clients.
- Relief under § 473(b) — the "discretionary and mandatory relief" statute can sometimes vacate a default judgment or an order of dismissal entered because of attorney mistake or neglect. It cannot revive an expired appeal deadline directly, but if § 473(b) gets the underlying judgment vacated, the appeal clock can restart from the new order.
- A premature notice of appeal — filing the notice of appeal too early is usually treated as valid; filing it too late never is.
Three things to do if you think you may have a case for appeal
- Find the date of the order or judgment. Not the date of the hearing. The date the court entered the order, and the date you (or your lawyer) were served with a file-stamped copy of it. Those two dates are the start of the clock.
- Find any post-judgment motions that were filed. A timely new-trial motion or motion to vacate will extend the appeal clock. An untimely one will not.
- Talk to an appellate lawyer before the clock runs. Even a 30-minute call before day 50 of a 60-day window is worth the trouble. After day 60, there may be nothing anyone can do.
What this post is not. It is not legal advice for your case. The rules are simpler in summary than in application. If you have a real deadline running, talk to a lawyer about your facts. The point of this post is to make sure you know there is a deadline at all, and that the deadline is not the kind a court can forgive later.
If you are inside one of these windows and trying to decide whether to appeal, the intake form on this site asks for the dates we need. We can usually tell you within a few days whether the case is worth taking to the Court of Appeal.