California Code of Civil Procedure Section 1987: Notice and Service

California Code of Civil Procedure Section 1987 sets the rules for getting a witness or party into a civil proceeding: how a subpoena must be personally served, when written notice to a party’s attorney can stand in for a subpoena, what fees have to be offered, and how much advance notice the recipient is entitled to. Get any of these wrong and the demand may not be enforceable, even if everything else about your case is in order.¹

What Section 1987 Covers

Section 1987 is about service and notice, not about who has authority to issue a subpoena in the first place. It addresses three situations: personal service of a subpoena on a witness, written notice to a party’s attorney used as a substitute for formal subpoena service, and requests that a party bring books, documents, or electronically stored information to a proceeding.¹

The statute also cross-references separate rules for subpoenaing peace officers, firefighters, and other public employees under Government Code Sections 68097.1 through 68097.8, which carry their own fee-deposit requirements.

Personal Service on a Witness

For most witnesses, service means delivering a copy of the subpoena, or a summary of it, to the witness in person. Any adult can make the delivery. You do not need a sheriff, process server, or attorney, though using a professional creates a clean record if compliance becomes a fight later.¹

At the moment of personal service, the person delivering the subpoena must offer the witness fees for travel to and from the designated location plus one day of attendance, if the witness demands them. If those fees are not offered when demanded, the witness has grounds to refuse to comply. Service must also give the witness reasonable time to prepare and travel to the proceeding.¹

When the Witness Is a Minor

If the witness is a minor, the subpoena must be served on the minor’s parent, guardian, conservator, or similar fiduciary. When none of those individuals can be found with reasonable diligence, service goes to whoever has care or control of the minor, or the person the minor lives or works with. If the minor is 12 or older, the minor also receives a copy directly.¹

Written Notice Instead of a Subpoena

Some witnesses do not require a formal subpoena at all. If the person you want is a party to the case, someone whose benefit the case is being prosecuted or defended for, or an officer, director, or managing agent of such a party, you can compel attendance by serving written notice on that person’s attorney. The notice must state the time and place of the proceeding. Once properly served, it carries the same legal weight as a subpoena, and the court can impose the same sanctions for non-compliance.¹

This is the mechanism practitioners rely on when they want the opposing party, or a corporate officer of the opposing party, to appear at trial. There is no need to hunt the person down for personal service; the notice goes to counsel.

Notice Deadlines

The deadlines depend on whether you are asking the person to show up alone or to show up with materials. Mixing them up is one of the quickest ways to lose an otherwise valid demand.

Attendance only. Written notice to a party’s attorney must be served at least 10 days before the required attendance date, unless the court orders a shorter period.¹
Attendance plus documents. If the notice also requests that the person bring books, documents, electronically stored information, or other materials, it must be served at least 20 days before the attendance date, unless the court shortens the period.¹
Objection window. After receiving a notice that includes a document production request, the recipient has five days, or a longer period if the court allows, to serve written objections specifying which parts of the request they contest and why.¹

When the notice requests documents, it has to describe the exact materials wanted and confirm that the recipient has them in their possession or control. Vague descriptions are a common reason production requests fail.

Who Can Actually Be Compelled

Section 1987 tells you how to serve a subpoena, but it does not by itself reach every possible witness. Under CCP 1989, a person cannot be compelled to attend a civil proceeding in California unless they are a state resident at the time they are served. That residency requirement applies to every witness, including the parties, officers, and managing agents reachable through the written-notice procedure in Section 1987(b).²

If you need testimony from someone who lives out of state, a standard CCP subpoena will not do the job. You have to use out-of-state witness procedures involving the courts of the witness’s home state.

Related Rules Section 1987 Does Not Contain

Two neighboring statutes come up so often alongside Section 1987 that it helps to know where its coverage ends.

A subpoena duces tecum, meaning one that orders someone to produce documents, has an added requirement under CCP 1987.5: a copy of the supporting affidavit must be served on the witness at the same time as the subpoena. Skip the affidavit and the subpoena is invalid. If a subpoena duces tecum requires the witness to appear and produce materials at a deposition, the affidavit and the description of materials must also be attached to the deposition notice served on every party or their attorney. The issuing party keeps the original affidavit until final judgment and only files it if someone requests it. Subpoenas that only command production of business records for copying under CCP 2020.410 and following do not require the affidavit.³

Subpoenaing someone’s personal records from a third-party custodian, such as a bank, medical provider, or employer, triggers a separate notice regime under CCP 1985.3. Before a records custodian will hand anything over, the subpoenaing party generally has to show either proof that the consumer whose records are at stake was notified, or a written authorization signed by the consumer or their attorney releasing the records.⁴

What Happens If a Subpoena Is Ignored

Failing to obey a valid subpoena is treated as contempt of court. Under CCP 1218, a person found in contempt faces a fine of up to $1,000, up to five days in jail, or both.⁵

Courts rarely reach for jail as a first step. The more common sequence is an order compelling compliance followed by an award of attorney’s fees to the party that had to bring the motion. Penalties escalate if the non-compliance continues, and a court can also impose evidentiary sanctions. When a party refuses to produce critical documents in response to a subpoena, the court may issue adverse rulings related to those documents, treating the missing evidence as unfavorable to the non-compliant party.

For parties already in the case, Section 1987(b) is explicit that the written-notice procedure carries the same enforcement power as a formal subpoena. The same contempt and sanctions framework applies to a party who ignores an attorney-to-attorney notice.¹

1
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure 1987
2
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure 1989
3
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure 1987.5
4
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure 1985.3
5
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure 1218