SC-135: Notice of Motion to Vacate Judgment and Declaration (Small Claims)

Were you the plaintiff or the defendant in the original SC-100? Drives which deadline rule applies. Plaintiffs file under 116.720 (30 days, no 180-day option). Defendants file under 116.730 (30 days) or 116.740 (180 days for service-defect).

• Filers sometimes flip plaintiff and defendant: a tenant who filed an SC-100 against the landlord IS the plaintiff in that case, not the defendant.
• On counter-claim cases, both sides have plaintiff and defendant roles; pick the role you played in the missed hearing.

Did you receive proper service of the original SC-100? If you are a defendant who was never served, or service was defective (wrong address, papers handed to a non-resident), you qualify for the 180-day window. Plaintiffs always answer 'properly_served' or this question does not apply.

• Filers conflate 'I never received the SC-100' with 'I was not properly served'. Substituted service can be valid even if the user never personally read the papers (papers left with a competent adult at the home address, plus a mailed copy, complete service after 10 days).
• Filers claim service-defect to get the 180-day window when they were actually properly served and just forgot the trial; the judge weighs credibility and may deny.

Full court caption: 'Superior Court of California, County of [name]', street address, city, state, zip. Must match the court that decided the original small claims case; SC-135 must be filed in the same court (section 116.720(a) / 116.730(a) / 116.740(a)).

• Picking a different courthouse than the one that decided the case (e.g. user moved counties since the trial). The motion gets routed to the wrong court and rejected.
• Writing only the county and forgetting the street address. The clerk needs the address to confirm the right courthouse for the motion.

The case number assigned by the clerk on the original SC-100, also printed on the SC-130 or SC-200 the clerk mailed after the trial.

• Leaving blank because the user lost their copy of the SC-130. The clerk can look it up by name plus filing date; call the clerk's office before filing.
• Mistyping a digit or letter. The clerk matches motions to cases by case number; a typo can stall the motion at intake.

Name and address of the first plaintiff in the original case, copied verbatim from the SC-100 caption. Required regardless of whether the moving party is the plaintiff or the defendant.

• Using a current address instead of the address used on the SC-100. The court matches case files on the original caption.
• Writing only the name and skipping the street address.

Plaintiff's telephone number. Form text shows the field but it is functionally optional; courts do not reject motions for missing phone numbers.

• Filer leaves blank assuming the court has it from SC-100; this is fine, but include if known.
• Filer types a number disconnected since the original SC-100.

Name and address of the second plaintiff if the original case had more than one. Leave blank for single-plaintiff cases.

• Filing on a multi-plaintiff case with only the first plaintiff listed and forgetting to check the additional-parties box.
• Filer types 'N/A' instead of leaving blank.
• Filer fills with their own attorney info.

Telephone for the second plaintiff. Optional even when a second plaintiff is listed.

• Filing parties leave plaintiff_2 fields blank when the original SC-100 had a second plaintiff. Match the caption to the original case so the clerk's docket pull works on the first try.
• Filers list the moving party's own phone here when they are the only plaintiff. If there is no second plaintiff, leave this row blank entirely.

Name and address of the first defendant in the original case, copied verbatim from the SC-100 caption.

• Using the current address of a defendant who has moved since the SC-100 was filed. The clerk matches on the original caption.
• For business defendants, dropping 'LLC', 'Inc.', or 'dba' suffixes from the name.

Defendant's telephone number. Optional.

• Filers guess at the defendant's current phone. If unknown, leave it blank; the clerk uses the address on file (and the Clerk's Certificate of Mailing on the form itself) to send hearing notice, not the phone number.
• Filers paste the phone from a years-old SC-100 without checking. If a number is no longer valid, leaving the row blank is cleaner than misleading the clerk.

Name and address of the second defendant if the original case had more than one. Leave blank for single-defendant cases.

• Filers list a co-defendant who was already dismissed from the case. The motion to vacate runs against parties still on the docket; review the SC-100 disposition before listing a second defendant.
• Filers shorten a business name (drop 'LLC', 'Inc.', 'dba') here when the SC-100 used the long form. The clerk matches names verbatim against the docket; the suffix matters.

Telephone for the second defendant. Optional.

• Filers reuse defendant_1's phone here for a different second defendant. If the second defendant has a different number (or none on file), leave this blank rather than duplicating.
• Filers fill this row when they did not list a second defendant in the row above. Both rows go together; an orphan phone with no name confuses the clerk.

Checkbox indicating that more than two plaintiffs or two defendants exist on the original case and the additional names are listed on a separate attachment.

• Checking the box but forgetting to attach a separate sheet listing the remaining parties.
• Listing all additional parties in the wizard's plaintiff_2 / defendant_2 fields and overflowing the small caption boxes; use the attachment instead.

Name of the responding party (the OTHER side, the party who won the original judgment). The clerk uses this name and the address from the caption to mail notice of the new hearing.

• Self-naming: writing the moving party's own name here. The NOTICE TO names the OTHER side, not the filer.
• On a defendant moving to vacate, writing the defendant's own name (the user) instead of the plaintiff's name.

Date the original small claims judgment was entered, as printed on the SC-130 or SC-200. Anchors the 30-day window in sections 116.720 / 116.730.

• Writing the trial date instead of the judgment-entry date. They can be the same day, but often the judge takes the case under submission and enters judgment days or weeks later.
• Writing the date the user received the SC-130. The form asks for the entry date, which is the date stamped on the SC-130 itself.

Date the moving party first found out about the judgment. For service-defect motions under section 116.740, this date anchors the 180-day window. The court will weigh whether the user 'should have discovered' the judgment sooner; section 116.740(a) uses the language 'discovers or should have discovered'.

• Padding the date later than reality to fit inside the 180-day window. The court compares this to the wage garnishment / bank levy / credit alert that exposed the judgment.
• On a 30-day motion, this date is usually the same as date_judgment_entered or a few days later (mail delivery delay). A long gap between the two on a properly-served motion is a credibility flag.

Choice between 5a (did not appear at trial of this claim because) and 5b (other). 5a is the most common path; 5b covers everything else (clerical error, fraud, newly discovered evidence). Exactly one of the two checkboxes should be checked.

• Checking both 5a and 5b. The form treats them as alternatives; checking both confuses the court about which 'good cause' standard applies.
• Picking 5b for a 'I missed the trial' scenario. Missing the trial is 5a; 5b is reserved for substantive defects in the judgment itself.

Free-text declaration explaining why the moving party missed the trial. Required when 5a is checked. The judge needs 'good cause'; vague reasons are denied. Strong reasons cite specific dates, places, corroborating documents (medical, employer, school).

• Vague reasons ('I forgot', 'I was busy', 'I had work'). Courts deny these.
• Long emotional narratives without dates or proof. Be specific: dates, what happened, who can corroborate, what document the user can bring to the hearing.
• Burying the service-defect claim. If the user was never properly served, 5a should explicitly state that fact ('I never received the SC-100; the only papers I have ever seen related to this case are the SC-130 the clerk mailed me on (date)').

Free-text declaration when 5b is checked. Used for grounds other than missed trial: clerical error in the judgment amount, court applied wrong law, fraud by the other side, newly discovered evidence that could not have been produced at trial.

• Disagreeing with the judgment on the merits. That is an appeal (SC-140), not a motion to vacate. The judge will deny.
• Citing 'newly discovered evidence' that was actually available at trial; the court reads section 116.725 narrowly.

Date the moving party signs the declaration under penalty of perjury. Normally the day the form is taken to the clerk. Must fall within the 30-day or 180-day window from date_judgment_entered or date_first_learned_of_judgment.

• Leaving blank. The declaration is invalid under section 2015.5 without a date.
• Pre-dating the signature ahead of when the user will actually sign and file. The dates should match.

Printed name of the moving party. Must match the moving party named in the caption (plaintiff or defendant), not a friend or family member filing on the user's behalf. The wet-ink signature goes on the line to the right after printing.

• Friend or relative signing for the moving party. The declaration is under penalty of perjury, so only the party themselves can sign.
• Mismatch between the printed name and the caption (e.g. 'Maria L. Lopez' on the caption but 'Maria Lopez' on the signature). Match exactly.