Rule 3.925.Objection to reference

Rule 3.925 does for court-ordered references what rule 3.905 does for stipulated ones, with an extra piece attached. Filing a motion for an order appointing a referee under section 639 does not waive a party's grounds for objecting to the specific person named as referee under Code of Civil Procedure section 641. It also does not waive a separate objection to the rate or apportionment of the referee's compensation, a category of dispute that matters more here than under a section 638 stipulation because rule 3.922(f) requires the appointment order itself to set hourly rates and divide costs among the parties.

For an objection to the particular person appointed, the rule requires it to be made with reasonable diligence and in writing, and it has to be heard by the judge assigned to the case or, absent an assignment, the presiding judge or the law and motion judge. The rule's own text focuses on that timing, form, and forum for objections to the referee personally; a compensation objection is preserved by the same non-waiver language but is not tied to the identical procedural requirements the rule spells out for challenging the person named.