California Motion for Summary Judgment: Filing, Opposition, and Reply

A California motion for summary judgment asks the court to decide the case without trial on the ground that the material facts are undisputed and one side wins as a matter of law. The motion carries a $500 filing fee, must follow the formatting rules in California Rules of Court 3.1350, and runs on the rigid deadlines in Code of Civil Procedure section 437c.¹ Any one of those pieces, done wrong, can sink the motion no matter how strong the underlying case is.

When You Can File

You can file the motion once 60 days have passed since every party you are moving against has made a general appearance. The court can shorten that wait for good cause. There is a hard back-end deadline too: the hearing must take place no later than 30 days before trial, unless the court orders otherwise.¹

You get one motion for summary judgment against any given opposing party. If the court denies it, you cannot refile without leave of court on a showing of good cause. That one-shot rule does not apply to summary adjudication, which is the narrower sibling: it targets individual causes of action, affirmative defenses, claims for damages, or issues of duty, and follows the same procedural rules and deadlines. If you ask for adjudication as an alternative, the notice must list every specific issue, and those issues must be repeated verbatim in the separate statement.²

What Goes in the Motion Package

A complete motion has four core pieces plus any judicial notice request.

The Notice of Motion tells the opposing party and the court what relief you are seeking and when the hearing will be. It must state clearly whether you want full summary judgment, summary adjudication, or both.²

The supporting evidence must be admissible. In practice this means declarations signed under penalty of perjury by witnesses with personal knowledge who are competent to testify. You can also use answers to interrogatories, responses to requests for admission, and excerpts from deposition transcripts. Every document referenced has to be attached as a numbered exhibit and properly authenticated.

If you want the court to accept court records, statutes, or regulations as established without formal evidentiary proof, file a separate Request for Judicial Notice. It is its own document, distinct from the declarations and exhibits.

The Separate Statement of Undisputed Material Facts

The separate statement is the most technically demanding piece of the motion and the one judges scrutinize hardest. It uses the two-column format in Rule 3.1350. The first column lists each undisputed material fact in numbered sequence, immediately followed in the same column by the evidence supporting that fact. The second column is left blank for the opposing party’s response.²

Each fact must relate directly to a claim or defense at issue. The supporting citation needs to be specific enough that the court can find the evidence without hunting: exhibit number, document title, exact page and line. A vague reference to “the deposition transcript” is not enough.

Formatting compliance is not optional. A court can deny the motion based on separate-statement defects alone.¹

The Memorandum of Points and Authorities

The memorandum is where the legal argument lives. It takes the undisputed facts from the separate statement and explains why those facts entitle you to judgment as a matter of law. Opening and opposition memoranda are capped at 20 pages; replies at 10. Those limits exclude exhibits, declarations, tables of contents, and proof of service.

How the Burden Shifts

The rules differ depending on which side is moving.

A defendant meets its initial burden by showing that at least one element of the plaintiff’s claim cannot be established, or that a complete defense exists. Only after that showing does the burden shift to the plaintiff to come forward with specific facts creating a genuine dispute. The plaintiff cannot rest on the allegations of the complaint.¹

A plaintiff moving for summary judgment faces a higher bar. The plaintiff must prove every element of the cause of action, and only then does the burden shift to the defendant to raise a triable issue as to the claim or a defense.¹ That is why plaintiffs file these motions far less often than defendants do.

Tying Facts to Law

Open the memorandum with a brief summary of the case and the basis for the motion. Walk through each element of the cause of action or defense, and tie each element to specific numbered facts from the separate statement. The court grants the motion if the papers show no triable issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.¹ Every legal argument must rely on facts and citations already in the separate statement. No new factual assertions in the memo.

Filing Fee and Service Deadlines

The filing fee for a motion for summary judgment or summary adjudication is $500, on top of any initial case filing fee.³

The statutory deadlines run backward from the hearing date, and missing them by a day can be fatal.

Service method changes the math. Mail inside California adds 5 calendar days to the 81-day notice period, making it 86. Mail elsewhere in the United States adds 10 days, and mail outside the country adds 20. Fax, express mail, and overnight delivery each add two court days.¹ Electronic service, which is mandatory in many California counties, adds two court days to any statutory or rule-based deadline.⁴ Court days exclude weekends and judicial holidays, so count carefully.

Opposing the Motion

The opposition package mirrors the moving papers: an opposition memorandum (also 20 pages), an opposition separate statement, and supporting evidence.

The opposition separate statement is where the case often turns. Using the same two-column format, you fill in the second column for each fact the moving party listed, marking it undisputed, undisputed for purposes of the motion only, or genuinely disputed. Every disputed fact must be supported by a specific citation to evidence.² Writing “disputed” without pointing to contradicting evidence creates no triable issue.

Asking for More Time Under 437c(h)

If you need discovery you have not yet been able to get, section 437c(h) is the safety valve. The court can deny the motion or continue the hearing to let you gather essential facts.¹ You must back the request with an affidavit that identifies the specific facts you are seeking, explains why they are essential, gives reasons to believe they exist, and explains why you need more time. Courts weigh how long the case has been pending, how diligent you were in discovery, and how close trial is. File the request by the opposition deadline. Raising it orally at the hearing almost never works.

The Reply Brief

After the opposition is filed, the moving party gets one final shot: a reply brief due at least 11 days before the hearing. The reply is tightly constrained. No new evidence, no new material facts, no new separate statement.¹ It exists to answer the opponent’s arguments, not to shore up weak moving papers. Evidence held back for the reply gets excluded.

Tentative Rulings and the Hearing

Many California trial courts issue tentative rulings before the hearing. Under Rule 3.1308, a court that uses tentative rulings follows one of two procedures. Under the more common version, the court posts its tentative by 3:00 p.m. the court day before the hearing. If neither party notifies the court and all other parties by 4:00 p.m. that day of an intention to appear and argue, the tentative becomes the final ruling automatically.⁵

Under the alternative procedure, the tentative does not auto-finalize; the court still holds the hearing and rules afterward.⁵ Which procedure applies depends on the court. Check the local rules and the assigned judge’s procedures before the hearing. Missing a notification deadline under the first procedure can cost you the chance to argue at all.

Sanctions for Bad Faith Affidavits

Section 437c(j) gives courts the power to sanction a party that submits an affidavit in bad faith or purely to delay. If the court makes that finding, it must order the offending party to reimburse the other side for the reasonable expenses the bad faith filing caused. Sanctions require either a written request in the opposing party’s papers or a noticed motion from the court, plus an opportunity for the sanctioned party to be heard.⁶ The statute sets no cap, so exposure tracks whatever the other side actually spent.

After the Ruling

When the court grants summary judgment, the order becomes a final judgment on entry and is immediately appealable. The losing party generally has 60 days from service of the notice of entry of judgment to file a notice of appeal, or 180 days from entry if no notice of entry is served.

When the court denies summary judgment, the case proceeds to trial. A denial is not a final judgment and is not immediately appealable. The losing movant must wait until trial concludes and a final judgment is entered to raise the issue on appeal, and in most situations needs to re-raise the argument in a post-trial motion to preserve it.

1
California Legislative Information. California Code CCP 437c – Summary Judgments and Motions for Judgment on the Pleadings
2
Judicial Branch of California. California Rules of Court Rule 3.1350 – Motion for Summary Judgment or Summary Adjudication
3
Judicial Branch of California. Statewide Civil Fee Schedule
4
California Legislative Information. California Code CCP 1010.6 – Electronic Service
5
Judicial Branch of California. California Rules of Court Rule 3.1308 – Tentative Rulings
6
California Legislative Information. California Code CCP 437c – Summary Judgments and Motions for Judgment on the Pleadings