CCP 170.6(a)(2) provides that a peremptory challenge of a judge must be filed within 30 days after a party’s initial appearance “if the court in which the action is pending is authorized to have no more than one judge.” The provision is a holdover from the days before unification of trial courts, when some superior courts had only one authorized judge. But now all superior courts have at least two, one a position formerly held by the municipal court judge. This decision holds that the 30-day rule does not apply to branches of a single county’s superior court where only one judge sits—here the South Lake Tahoe branch of the Nevada County Superior Court. Instead, the deadline for filing a 170.6 challenge in such a branch court is ten days after the party receives notice of an all-purpose assignment to the judge sitting in that branch court.
California Court of Appeal, Third District (Hoch, J.); April 8, 2016; 2016 WL 1403646