Remedies Under California Law for Missed Deadlines
Fortunately, California’s legal framework does provide limited relief when missed deadlines stem from “technical failure.” The key provisions are Rule 2.259(c) of the California Rules of Court and Code of Civil Procedure §473(b).
Rule 2.259(c) explicitly states:
“If a technical problem with a court’s electronic filing system prevents the court from accepting an electronic filing on a particular court day, and the electronic filer demonstrates that he or she attempted to electronically file the document on that day, the court must deem the document as filed on that day. This subdivision does not apply to the filing of a complaint or any other initial pleading in an action or proceeding.”
In practice, this means litigants who were unable to file because of an outage must (1) act promptly once the system returns online, and (2) provide evidence that the system was down — such as an official vendor notice or screenshot.
For filings affected by broader circumstances — such as the AWS outage, which impacted thousands of users — courts may take judicial notice of the outage and extend relief more broadly.
Meanwhile, Code of Civil Procedure §473(b) allows parties to seek relief from defaults or dismissals resulting from “mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect.” If a litigant missed a deadline because a state-approved e-filing system failed, courts could reasonably find excusable neglect — particularly when the outage was well-documented.
In extreme cases, courts or the Judicial Council can issue administrative orders extending filing deadlines statewide, similar to the emergency measures implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic or wildfires.
