§ 580.Relief Grant to Plaintiff

This is one of the most consequential limits in California civil procedure, and it starts with a basic fairness idea: a defendant who never answers shouldn't face a surprise. If there's no answer, the relief the plaintiff can recover can't exceed what the complaint demands, or what a required statement of damages discloses under § 425.11 or § 425.115. A defaulting defendant is entitled to know, from the pleadings alone, the ceiling on what a judgment against them could look like.

Once a defendant answers and the case is litigated, the cap loosens. The court can grant the plaintiff any relief consistent with the case made by the complaint and embraced within the issues tried, regardless of whether the theory of liability rests on legal or equitable principles. The complaint still frames the boundaries of what's fair game, but the court isn't locked into the precise dollar figure or remedy first requested once the parties have litigated the dispute in full.

Subdivision (b) layers additional limits onto limited civil cases specifically. Relief can't exceed the maximum amount in controversy set for limited civil cases under § 85, apart from attorney's fees, interest, and costs. A limited civil case also can't produce a permanent injunction unless a statute authorizes one, can't determine title to real property, and can't award declaratory relief except as § 86 allows. These caps keep the streamlined limited civil track from being used to litigate remedies it wasn't built to handle.