§ 439.Meeting Before Filing Motion For Judgment

Before filing a motion for judgment on the pleadings, the moving party must meet and confer, in person, by phone, or by video conference, with the party who filed the challenged pleading, to see whether the dispute can be resolved without a motion. If that pleading is later amended, the parties must meet and confer again before a new motion can target the amended version. The moving party has to identify, with legal support, the specific allegations it believes are subject to judgment; the responding party has to offer legal support for why the pleading survives, or explain how it could be amended to fix the problem.

The conference has to happen at least 5 days before the motion is filed. If the parties cannot connect in time, the moving party gets an automatic 30-day extension, triggered by filing and serving, by the original filing deadline, a declaration made under penalty of perjury describing the good-faith attempt to meet and confer and explaining why it did not happen. That extension resets the deadline from the date the motion would have been filed; the moving party cannot be defaulted during the extension, and any further extension needs a court order on a showing of good cause.

Every motion under this chapter must be filed with a declaration stating either how the parties met and conferred without reaching agreement, or that the responding party failed to respond to the request or to participate in good faith. A court that finds the process fell short cannot use that finding as a reason to grant or deny the motion; the meet-and-confer requirement is a filing prerequisite, not a substitute for the merits.

The requirement does not apply to a self-represented party incarcerated in a correctional institution, to unlawful detainer or other forcible entry and detainer actions, to a special motion brought under Section 425.16, or to a motion filed less than 30 days before trial.

Responding to a motion for judgment on the pleadings also caps how often a pleading can be amended before the case is at issue: no more than three times, unless the pleader offers the court additional facts that create a reasonable possibility the defect can be cured. Amendments made without leave of court under Section 472, filed before the motion targeting the original pleading, do not count against that limit. None of this affects appellate review or a party’s rights under Section 430.80, and a party whose motion is denied without a further amendment keeps its right to appeal after final judgment without having to file the motion again.