“A judgment or order of a court of general jurisdiction . . . is presumed to
be valid, i.e., the court is presumed to have jurisdiction of the subject matter and
the person, and to have acted within its jurisdiction. The judgment need not recite
the jurisdictional facts, and a party relying on it need not plead or prove the
jurisdictional facts. The burden of proof is on the party who attacks the judgment
to show lack of jurisdiction.” (8 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (5th ed. 2008) Attack on
Judgment on Trial Court, § 5, p. 589.)
The return of a registered process server “establishes a presumption, affecting the
burden of producing evidence, of the facts stated in the return.” (Evid. Code, § 647,
italics added.) Rawat claims she produced evidence sufficient to rebut the presumption,
so it should have disappeared. (Id., § 604; see Farr v. County of Nevada (2010) 187
Cal.App.4th 669, 680-682; In re Heather B. (1992) 9 Cal.App.4th 535, 560-561.) But the
trial court found Rawat appeared in the action, disbelieving her contrary declarations,
thereby trumping any issue about the service presumption.
The denial of a motion to vacate is reviewed for an abuse of discretion, and we
defer to the trial court’s resolution of any factual conflicts in the declarations. (See In re
Marriage of Connolly (1979) 23 Cal.3d 590, 597-598; Anastos v. Lee (2004) 118
Cal.App.4th 1314, 1318-1319; Baratti v. Baratti (1952) 109 Cal.App.2d 917, 921-922.)