YTUARTE

Jacqueline Ytuarte filed a petition for writ of mandate directing respondent superior court to vacate its order denying her motion to reclassify her case from a limited to unlimited civil action. Among her assertions, Ytuarte claims the court applied the incorrect legal standard in mating its determination that the damages in her case would be less than the jurisdictional minimum of $25,000 to qualify as an unlimited civil action. In Walker v. Superior Court (1991) 53 Cal.3d 257 [ 279 Cal.Rptr. 576 , 807 P.2d 418 ], the Supreme Court held that a trial court may reclassify a case as a “limited” civil action only where the court determines the matter will necessarily result in a verdict below $25,000. Here, however, the trial court informed Ytuarte that to have her case reclassified and transferred to an unlimited jurisdiction court she had to demonstrate with a high level of certainty that the damage award would exceed $25,000. As we shall explain, the legal standard the court applied runs afoul of the principles and underlying rationale of Walker . In our view, Ytuarte was entitled to reclassification of her action as unlimited if she demonstrated a possibility the…