§ 1034 Trial of application to vacate.

When someone asks a court to cancel or change a past judgment, the court can handle this in two steps. First, the court looks at whether there's a good enough reason to cancel or change the judgment in the first place. Only after deciding that question does the court move on to look at the actual defense or claim involved in the case.

This means the court doesn't have to review everything at once. It can decide the narrow question of whether the judgment should be vacated before spending time on the bigger issues underneath it. If the court decides there isn't a valid reason to vacate the judgment, the case may end there, and the court never needs to reach the other issues.

This approach saves time for everyone involved. It lets the court sort out procedural questions first, so people aren't forced to argue the full merits of a case unless the judgment actually gets reopened.