In February 2022, Creditors Adjustment Bureau, Inc., suing as assignee of the State Compensation Insurance Fund, filed a collection action in Fresno County Superior Court against Barry Halajian, doing business as Industrial Electrical. The complaint sought $86,858.26 allegedly owed under four workers’ compensation insurance policies. According to the complaint, the insurer priced each policy at inception using an estimate based on Halajian’s own representations. When the insurer later tried to audit his payroll records as the policies allowed, he refused to cooperate, so the insurer calculated an estimated premium that increased his balance. Halajian refused to pay.
The bureau served Halajian by leaving the summons and complaint at the commercial mailbox center he used for all correspondence on his policies, and then mailing a second copy to that address—the same address Halajian later listed on his own court filings. He did not respond, and the court entered his default on May 25, 2022.
In August 2022, Halajian moved to set aside the default for excusable neglect under Code of Civil Procedure section 473, subdivision (b). He did not challenge service. Instead, he said extensive out-of-town travel and a heavy work schedule kept him from answering. The trial court denied the motion in November 2022, explaining that a “press of business” excuse is generally not a ground for relief and that Halajian had shown no effort to contact a lawyer or ask the plaintiff for more time. Because the court said it strongly preferred to decide the case on the merits, however, it denied the motion without prejudice so he could try again with a better factual showing.
Halajian’s second motion, filed in January 2023, simply elaborated on the same excuse. He declared that a construction project about 90 minutes from Fresno kept him working out of town from January through early April 2022, often 12 to 15 hours a day, and that he sometimes went days without checking his mail. Most of the motion argued the merits of his defenses. In May 2023 the court denied relief with prejudice, finding that neither a busy schedule nor a decision to proceed without counsel amounts to excusable neglect and that the merits of his defense were irrelevant to that question. Reconsideration was denied.
The court entered a default judgment on January 13, 2025. Halajian then moved to vacate it, invoking the court’s equitable power to set aside judgments for extrinsic mistake or fraud. He argued that he never received notice of the request for default judgment, that his defenses were meritorious, that he deserved leniency as a self-represented litigant, and that the bureau lacked standing. The court denied the motion in May 2025, noting he had not attached a proposed answer, that a defaulted party is not entitled to notice of the default judgment request, that he offered no evidence he had paid his premiums, and that he provided no new explanation for failing to answer. A further reconsideration motion was denied, and Halajian appealed in pro. per.
In the unpublished case of Creditors Adjustment Bureau, Inc. v. Halajian, No. F090331 (October 2026), the Fifth District Court of Appeal affirmed the default judgment, holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to set aside either the entry of default or the default judgment. The opinion, filed October 20, 2026, was not certified for publication, so under California’s rules of court it generally may not be cited or relied on by courts or parties in other cases. The court awarded the bureau its costs on appeal to the extent not covered by Halajian’s fee waiver.
As a threshold matter, the court rejected the bureau’s argument that the appeal should be dismissed or narrowed. Although it found Halajian’s briefing difficult to parse at times, it liberally construed his notice of appeal and briefs as challenging both the entry of default and the default judgment. That also disposed of the bureau’s contention that reversing only the judgment would be an “idle act” because the underlying default would still stand.
On the merits, the court reviewed the denial of relief for abuse of discretion. It acknowledged the strong policy, stated in Elston v. City of Turlock (1985) 38 Cal.3d 227, that doubts under section 473 are resolved in favor of the party seeking relief and that only very slight evidence is required. But the court emphasized that the policy has limits. The test, under Zamora v. Clayborn Contracting Group, Inc. (2002) 28 Cal.4th 249, is whether a reasonably prudent person in similar circumstances might have made the same error, and California courts have long held that the press of business is not excusable neglect. Elston itself observed that a litigant who was simply busy with other matters would not qualify. The court also relied on Bellm v. Bellia (1984) 150 Cal.App.3d 1036, which upheld denial of relief to a defendant overwhelmed by holiday-season sales orders.
The court analyzed the statutory and equitable requests together because both turned on the same question: why Halajian failed to answer in 2022. Equitable relief requires satisfying the “stringent three-pronged test” described in Rappleyea v. Campbell (1994) 8 Cal.4th 975 and Pittman v. Beck Park Apartments Ltd. (2018) 20 Cal.App.5th 1009: a meritorious defense, a satisfactory excuse for not defending in the first place, and diligence in seeking relief. Under Manson, Iver & York v. Black (2009) 176 Cal.App.4th 36, relief for extrinsic mistake or fraud is unavailable where the moving party’s own negligence allowed the mistake to occur. Across his motions, Halajian offered only his work schedule, and his equitable motion merely pointed back to the justification he had already given. The trial court acted within its discretion in rejecting it.
The court distinguished the cases Halajian relied on. Olivera v. Grace (1942) 19 Cal.2d 570 involved a litigant left mentally incapacitated by a head injury, a condition the opposing party exploited. Rappleyea involved a clerk’s miscommunication about a filing fee after a timely response. Gamet v. Blanchard (2001) 91 Cal.App.4th 1276 involved a disabled, out-of-state litigant whose attorney withdrew and who received confusing orders from the court. Halajian, by contrast, was validly served under Code of Civil Procedure section 415.20, which permits service at a private commercial mailbox, as recognized in Sweeting v. Murat (2013) 221 Cal.App.4th 507. He never disputed service and apparently took no action until August 2022.
Halajian’s reliance on Zamora and Minick v. City of Petaluma (2016) 3 Cal.App.5th 15 for the idea that failing to pick up his mail was an understandable mistake also failed. Both cases involved errors by counsel—a clerical mistake in one and an attorney’s serious illness in the other—raised within about a week. Section 473 distinguishes attorney fault from a client’s own negligence, and Halajian’s default resulted from his own conduct.
Finally, the court rejected Halajian’s remaining arguments. Self-represented litigants are held to the same procedural rules as attorneys, citing County of Orange v. Smith (2005) 132 Cal.App.4th 1434. His challenges to the insurer’s corporate structure and the bureau’s standing to sue on its behalf were summarily rejected as without merit, and due process arguments raised for the first time in his reply brief were not considered.