Gonzalez

An attorney wishes to file a complaint in the Ventura Municipal Court. The clerk will not accept the complaint for filing unless the attorney first submits a completed “case information sheet” required by a local court rule.

We are called upon to answer a question, universal to the legal profession, “Can they do that?”

Here we offer our answer to this weighty inquiry — “Sure.”

The Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company (Hartford) appeals from the order denying its petition for writ of mandate to compel respondent, Sheila Gonzalez, as Clerk of the Ventura Municipal Court (clerk), to file its complaint without a case information sheet.

Facts

The clerk refused to file the underlying complaint because Hartford failed to provide a case information sheet pursuant to local rule 3.10 (Mun. Ct. Ventura County). The two-page case information sheet requires that the case caption and certain blanks be filled in, and that various boxes be checked. The completed sheet informs the court whether plaintiff requests: fast track, mediation, and a jury trial. It also gives the court a brief description of the nature of the case and the relief sought. Page 2 of the sheet explains that…