The emergency order described in this post has been superseded by an emergency order from the Washington State Supreme Court.
The Clallam County Superior Court has implemented changes to court proceedings to help combat the spread of the COVID-19 virus effective March 12, 2020, including new call-in and ex parte procedures. At this time, courts in King and other counties have implemented more drastic changes and Clallam County may do so eventually.
SUPERSEDED: THE RULES BELOW HAVE BEEN SUPERSEDED BY EMERGENCY ORDER #1
Civil hearings
Parties and attorneys may request to appear at hearings by phone, if the hearing does not involve live testimony. The new procedure to request a phone appearance is governed by the guidelines below, and must comply with all of the following requirements:
- Made by email only to [email protected]
- Made before 8:00 a.m. the day of the hearing for morning hearings, or by 12:00 noon for afternoon hearings
- Subject line must state: Phone Appearance Request
- Include the case number
- Identify the date and time of the hearing
- Include the name of the person making the request
- Include a contact telephone number
Guidelines for phone requests:
- Land line’s are recommended and preferred but not required. If a phone connection is garbled the call will be terminated and the matter decided based upon materials previously and properly filed with the court.
- The Court will call the identified phone number only one time. If the phone is not answered the matter will be based upon materials previously and properly filed with the court.
- A person wishing to appear by phone must be available during the entire calendar schedule until their case is actually called. For example, most family law hearings are held on the Friday morning Family Law Calendar which is scheduled to occur from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon, so a hearing may be called at any time between 9 and noon.
- The Court will initiate one call per party per hearing. In other words, the Court will not call an attorney at one number and the attorney’s client at a different number.
- Hearings with parties appearing by phone will be heard after cases where parties are personally appearing in the courtroom.
Certain hearings are excluded from the above call-in procedure and, at least currently, require in-person appearances. These currently include an initial request for a restraining order, any hearing with live testimony, Therapeutic Court hearings (with some exceptions), and any hearing involving more than three people who need to be called (because of limitations with the Court’s phone system).
Ex parte hearings which do not require a request for a restraining order may be addressed without a personal appearance. Deliver materials for the Court to consider to the Court Clerk. If delivered before 11:00 a.m. requests will be decided on the record at the normal ex parte hearing time (usually 1:00 p.m.). If received after 11:00 a.m., requests may be addressed the next day. All such requests must include a phone number in case the Court has questions.
Other changes, and the complete March 12, 2020 procedure changes are included in a PDF letter from Judge Basden and Judge Erickson: