California bill aims to give judges more time to act on summary judgment motions

A recently introduced bill aims to give judges more time to act on summary judgment motions before cases end up in their courtrooms.

"Summary judgment is critical in civil procedure because the motions help courts weed out non-meritorious claims, thus reducing court backlog," said the bill's author, Assemblywoman Blanca Pacheco, D-Downey, in a statement.

The bill passed without debate on the Assembly Judiciary Committee's consent calendar on Tuesday and has no formal opposition. It was introduced in February and amended last month.

AB 2049 adjusts the deadlines around summary judgments motions give judges an additional six days to evaluate arguments before a hearing. A party would have to submit its opposition to a motion for summary judgment 20 days before a hearing, up from the current 14. The party that moved for summary judgment would have 11 days to reply to the opposition motion.

"Because summary judgment may dispose of a case without trial, the motions may be momentous to both plaintiffs' and defense lawyers," added Pacheco, who is an attorney who has worked in real estate and probate. "For many years, summary judgment time limitations established in the Code of Civil Procedure have been insufficient for courts to scrutinize the motions before trials."

AB 2049 is a joint effort for the California Judges Association, the California Defense Counsel and the Conference of California Bar Associations. In a support letter to lawmakers, they wrote that the bill would be "the first structural change" to the rules around summary judgment motions in California "in 20 years."

"This simple change is designed to address a problem with current law, which 'backloads' the deadlines to submit replies too close to summary judgment hearings, leaving judges with insufficient time to thoughtfully evaluate these important motions," the letter stated.

These groups won the support of the Consumer Attorneys of California by adding two amendments last week. One would prohibit a party from filing more than one summary judgment motion without leave from the court. The other would prohibit parties from introducing new facts into a reply to the opposition from a summary judgment motion. According to the bill analysis, these changes are designed to "prevent repetitive or unnecessary motions." The analysis noted that further changes could be coming, designed to address calendaring problems that have sometimes resulted in summary judgment hearings being scheduled after the start date of trials, leading to additional delays.

Many courts around the state have struggled with growing backlogs since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. This closed courts for several weeks during the spring of 2020 and led to a cascade of follow-on effects. These included civil courts being turned over to criminal matters with constitutional deadlines, even as some jurisdictions dismissed hundreds of criminal cases because they were unable to hear them in time. Many courts also saw the departure of key staff, including court reporters and judges.

According to the Judicial Council's 2023 Court Statistics Report, California's superior courts saw an overall improvement in backlogs during 2022. This was driven in part by a drop in filings. But the report showed that civil filings rose that year, including both complex civil filing and civil cases overall, while dispositions fell.