In a personal injury action, can a plaintiff specify an amount in the prayer to which he is willing to be limited in the case of a default?

The conundrum for a plaintiff who is unable to specify an amount in the prayer to which he is willing to be limited in the case of a default is thus solved. By analogy to the statutes on wrongful death and personal injury damages and in recognition of the mandatory notice to a defaulting defendant of the degree of his liability, we find a plaintiff who seeks an accounting has the solution of post-complaint and pre-default notice to the defendant of the amount plaintiff will seek to prove due him if the defendant defaults. As with Code of Civil Procedure section 425.11, the notice must be given with adequate time for the defendant to respond before a default is entered. We do not find such a requirement burdensome since a plaintiff [224 Cal.App.3d 1264] must be able, as this plaintiff was, to prove some level of defendant's financial liability to receive an award of damages upon default. (Code Civ.Proc., 585, subd. (b).) This solution was available to plaintiff and common sense should have led him to act accordingly even without any awareness of the illustrative procedures of Code of Civil Procedure section 425.11. (See Nicholson v. Rose (1980) 106 Cal.App.3d 457, 462-463, 165 Cal.Rptr. 156.)