Good afternoon!

        The San Diego Superior Court has recently announced that they will begin using a new case numbering system.  The following text is taken from a press release available on the court's website.  Immediately following this text is a list of all 58 California counties and the code number assigned to them.  With this system, you will know that if a superior court case number starts with a "19," the court is located in Los Angeles County, no matter what the attorney tells you otherwise.  San Diego County was one of the first to start using a new case management system so it may be awhile before other counties are using this new numbering system.  That means you are on the cutting edge of something new!

                      Nanna Frye, Law Librarian
                      Court of Appeal
                      San Diego, CA

The San Diego Superior Court is in the process of implementing a new statewide case management system (known as CCMS V3) for Civil, Small Claims, and Probate.

The system is currently operating in the Central Division Small Claims-Kearny Mesa, the Small Claims Appeals section of the Downtown Courthouse, North County Civil and Small Claims, and will go live in the Hall of Justice, Main Courthouse Downtown, East, South, and Probate locations by mid-May 2007.

Court users will see some significant changes in the foreseeable future, but one major change that will go into effect as each site implements the new system is a new case number.

The standardized statewide case number format is as follows:

37-YYYY-00000519-CC-CT-LLL

•         37 – 2 digit numeric court code, which is the court code that designates the case as originating in San Diego
•         YYYY – 4 digit numeric code for the calendar year the case is initiated
•         00000519 – 8 digit numeric sequence number that identifies each case
•         CC – Case category representing Civil Limited (CL), Civil Unlimited (CU), Small Claims (SC), and Probate (PR)
•         CT – Case type representing the specific case type within the Case Category – such as Small Claims (SC),

               Breach of Contract (BC), Collections (CL), and Unlawful Detainer (UD)

•         LLL – Location where the case is managed – Central (CTL), North (NC), East (EC) or South (SC)

COUNTY CODE NUMBERS

COUNTY  NUMBER  COUNTY  NUMBER
ALAMEDA 01      NAPA    28
ALPINE  02      NEVADA  29
AMADOR  03      ORANGE  30
BUTTE   04      PLACER  31
CALAVERAS       05      PLUMAS  32
COLUSA  06      RIVERSIDE       33
CONTRA COSTA    07      SACRAMENTO      34
DEL NORTE       08      SAN BENITO      35
EL DORADO       09      SAN BERNARDINO  36
FRESNO  10      SAN DIEGO       37
GLENN   11      SAN FRANCISCO   38
HUMBOLDT        12      SAN JOAQUIN     39
IMPERIAL        13      SAN LUIS OBISPO 40
INYO    14      SAN MATEO       41
KERN    15      SANTA BARBARA   42
KINGS   16      SANTA CLARA     43
LAKE    17      SANTA CRUZ      44
LASSEN  18      SHASTA  45
LOS ANGELES     19      SIERRA  46
MADERA  20      SISKIYOU        47
MARIN   21      SOLANO  48
MARIPOSA        22      SONOMA  49
MENDOCINO       23      STANISLAUS      50
MERCED  24      SUTTER  51
MODOC   25      TEHAMA  52
MONO    27      TRINITY 53
MONTEREY        27      TULARE  54
                TUOLUMNE        55
                VENTURA 56
                YOLO    57
                YUBA    58