Summary judgment timing, and the separate statement that decides the motion

The four numbers, and which direction each one runs

Two of them are floors measured forward from an event. Two are ceilings measured backward from a date. Getting the direction wrong is how a motion ends up unheard.

A summary judgment motion sits inside a window with a hard edge at each end. CCP 437c(a)(1) opens it: the motion may be made at any time after 60 days have elapsed since the general appearance of each party against whom it is directed, or earlier if the court, with or without notice and on good cause shown, so directs. That period runs forward from an appearance, not from service of anything, so no service-method extension touches it.

CCP 437c(a)(3) closes it: the motion "shall be heard no later than 30 days before the date of trial, unless the court for good cause orders otherwise." Thirty calendar days counted backward from the trial date. Again no service extension, because nothing was served to start it.

Between those two sit the notice period and the briefing dates, all counted backward from the hearing.

The opposition and reply dates take no service extension. Each is expressed as a period preceding a hearing rather than as a period after service of a document, and both CCP 1013 and CCP 1010.6 extend only periods that run after service. The notice period is different, and the next section is about why.

Note also that both briefing dates key to the noticed or continued date of hearing. Continue the hearing and both dates move with it automatically. That is worth knowing before anyone stipulates to a continuance on the assumption the briefing schedule stays put.

What extends the 81 days, and the one extension that is not in the statute

Section 437c carries its own extensions, which is the opposite of how CCP 1005 works. Electronic service is the exception, and it took a case to settle it.

All of that is one paragraph, CCP 437c(a)(2). Read the list of methods again: mail, facsimile transmission, express mail, overnight delivery. The words "electronic service" and "electronic means" do not appear anywhere in it, which is a problem given how nearly every motion in California is now served.

Cole v. Superior Court (2022) 87 Cal.App.5th 84 answered it. The two-court-day extension in CCP 1010.6(a)(3) applies to the section 437c notice period, because that subdivision extends any period of notice prescribed by statute after service by electronic means "in the absence of a specific exception," and section 437c contains no such exception. So electronic service adds two court days even though the statute never says so.

Barefield v. Washington Mutual Bank (2006) 136 Cal.App.4th 299 is the same shape on overnight delivery, and it is a useful reminder that these extensions are counted, not estimated. The motion there landed on the last available day and was timely because it landed on it.

Nobody can shorten it, including the judge who wants to help

This is the part that distinguishes section 437c from every other motion statute, and four published decisions say it.

McMahon v. Superior Court (2003) 106 Cal.App.4th 112 is the foundation. The trial court had made an order permitting summary judgment motions on shortened notice, and the Court of Appeal issued a writ, holding that "trial courts do not have authority to shorten the minimum notice period for summary judgment hearings." The reasoning is a comparison: CCP 1005(b) expressly gives the court discretion to shorten notice, and section 437c does not, so the omission was deliberate.

Urshan v. Musicians' Credit Union (2004) 120 Cal.App.4th 758 applied it to an order shortening time and added the half that matters more in practice: the party who opposes the motion on the merits does not waive the defect by doing so. An unauthorized order shortening time is not the same thing as a moving party's own service mistake, and opposing under protest costs you nothing.

Boyle v. CertainTeed Corp. (2006) 137 Cal.App.4th 645 took it to local rules. A San Francisco general order allowed asbestos summary judgment motions on 60 days' notice against the 75 then required. The Court of Appeal held the general order conflicted with section 437c and was preempted. A local court cannot buy back what the Legislature withheld from every court.

Robinson v. Woods (2008) 168 Cal.App.4th 1258 is the one to read before agreeing to a short continuance as a fix. The motion had been noticed 76 days after mailing when 80 were required, being the 75 then in force plus 5 for California mail. The trial court continued the hearing four days, to the 80th day, which is arithmetically the right number. That did not cure it. The court held the notice period had to begin anew, and separately that the court could not make the good cause finding required to hear the motion within 30 days of trial at the hearing itself.

Put together, the four decisions say the notice period behaves like a floor rather than a default. The parties can stipulate to more. Nobody, including the court, can order less.

The separate statement, and what it actually decides

It is not a summary of the brief. It is the universe of facts the court is entitled to consider, and grounds that are not in it are not in the motion.

CCP 437c(b)(1) requires the supporting papers to include "a separate statement setting forth plainly and concisely all material facts that the moving party contends are undisputed," each followed by a reference to the supporting evidence. CCP 437c(b)(3) requires the opposition to include a statement responding to each of those facts, saying whether it agrees or disagrees that the fact is undisputed, and setting out any other material facts it contends are disputed.

The formatting sits in rule 3.1350 rather than in the statute, and it is more specific than most drafters expect. Rule 3.1350(d) requires the moving statement to separately identify each cause of action, claim for damages, issue of duty or affirmative defense that is the subject of the motion, then each supporting material fact for that item, in numerical sequence, with citations giving the exhibit, title, page and line numbers. Rule 3.1350(f) requires the opposition to reproduce each of the moving party's facts verbatim on the left with the moving party's own evidence, and to answer on the right, directly opposite, stating unequivocally whether the fact is "disputed" or "undisputed." Rule 3.1350(h) prescribes the two-column format both must use, and rule 3.1350(g) requires evidence exceeding 25 pages to be separately bound with a table of contents.

The consequence of leaving a ground out of the separate statement is not procedural, it is substantive. Roger H. Proulx & Co. v. Crest-Liners, Inc. (2002) 98 Cal.App.4th 182, 201 puts it in one line: "Without facts set forth in a separate statement to support a ground for summary judgment, summary judgment cannot be granted on that ground." The same opinion, at p. 198, limits appellate review to grounds supported by the separate statement, "because only those facts set forth in the separate statement are relevant when determining whether summary judgment should be granted."

When a separate statement is defective, and what a court may do about it

Every published decision treats the consequence as discretionary. No case holds that a court must deny, or must grant, on a separate statement defect alone.

Both statutory sentences use the same permissive construction. Under CCP 437c(b)(1) the moving party's failure "may in the court's discretion constitute a sufficient ground for denying the motion." Under CCP 437c(b)(3) the opposing party's failure "may constitute a sufficient ground, in the court's discretion, for granting the motion." There is no published California decision holding that either consequence is mandatory. That absence is worth stating out loud, because the sanction is routinely argued as though it were automatic.

What the cases actually do is police the exercise of that discretion at both ends.

The line running through all four is notice and a chance to fix. A party told about the defect and given room to correct it, who does not, loses. A party whose statement is imperfect but real, granted no opportunity, wins on appeal. Which puts a practical obligation on the moving party: if the opposing separate statement is defective, say so in the reply, specifically. That is what turned Whitehead.

Whitehead is also the source of the sentence worth keeping in mind while drafting, that the separate statement is "not merely a technical requirement" but "an indispensable part of the summary judgment or adjudication process."

Objections, and the continuance that is not discretionary

Evidentiary objections die if they are not made at the hearing. The discovery continuance under subdivision (h) is written in mandatory terms and is underused because of it.

CCP 437c(b)(5) is four lines long and ends two arguments: "Evidentiary objections not made at the hearing shall be deemed waived." An objection based on failure to comply with the requirements of that subdivision, if not made at the hearing, is also waived. So the written objections are not enough on their own, and neither is a tentative that resolves everything.

The other half is CCP 437c(q). The court "need rule only on those objections to evidence that it deems material to its disposition of the motion," and objections not ruled on "shall be preserved for appellate review." An unruled objection is not a lost one, which removes the reason to press a judge for rulings on all of them.

On timing, CCP 437c(h) is the provision to reach for when the opposition cannot be written yet:

Two things follow from the text. The showing has to be by affidavit and has to state the reasons the facts cannot presently be presented, so a request made in the memorandum alone does not engage the subdivision. And the application "may also be made by ex parte motion at any time on or before the date the opposition response to the motion is due," which is the route when the 20-day date is closer than a noticed motion can reach.

CCP 437c(i) carries the follow-through: if the court granted a continuance for specified discovery and the moving party then unreasonably failed to allow that discovery, the court "shall" grant a further continuance or deny the motion.

The local layer

Everything above is statewide, and section 437c is unusually resistant to what sits on top of it. Boyle v. CertainTeed Corp. (2006) 137 Cal.App.4th 645 held a local general order shortening the notice period preempted, so a local rule cannot take the statutory period away from you.

What local practice does control is the part before any of this starts: how a hearing date is reserved, how far out the calendar runs, and whether the department requires the papers within a set time of the reservation. In San Diego the reservation comes first and the available date is often months out, which in practice sets the whole schedule, because the 81 days and the 30-days-before-trial ceiling both measure from a date the clerk hands you rather than one you choose.

Riverside has litigated exactly that collision, and the statute won. Local Rule 3310, effective 1 July 2024, cancelled a law and motion reservation if the moving papers were not filed within 10 court days of making it. A party reserved an April 2025 hearing in November 2024, filed 81 days out on 10 January 2025, and had the reservation cancelled and the filing rejected for missing the local 10 days. The Court of Appeal issued a writ. CFP BDA, LLC v. Superior Court (2025) 112 Cal.App.5th 1006 held that a trial court "cannot refuse to consider a motion for summary judgment that is timely filed" and that "[l]ocal rules and practices may not be applied so as to prevent the filing and hearing of such a motion," noting that the local rule had "the practical effect of requiring litigants to prepare and file summary judgment motions weeks or months earlier than statutorily required." If the court vacates the date in that situation, "it must permit another hearing date that complies with the statute."

San Bernardino runs its own reservation system with its own lead times. For every other county, the statewide rule above is the rule, and this site does not guess at how a department runs its calendar.