§ 2024.020.Discovery cutoff

This section supplies the baseline calendar that most California civil cases run on. Measured backward from the date initially set for trial, a party has an absolute right to complete discovery proceedings up to 30 days before that date, and to have any motion concerning discovery heard up to 15 days before it. Those two deadlines work together: because a discovery motion typically has to be filed, noticed, and briefed before it can be heard, the earlier 15-day motion deadline effectively forces the underlying discovery dispute into the open well before the 30-day completion deadline arrives.

Subdivision (b) closes an obvious loophole. If a continuance or postponement automatically reopened discovery, a party could manufacture a trial delay just to buy more time to discover, or to force the other side to sit through another round of it. Instead, moving the trial date does not, by itself, reopen discovery measured against the old cutoff; a party who wants more time after a continuance has to make the showing Section 2024.050 requires, and a party who wants to lock in an extension by agreement instead can use the stipulation procedure in Section 2024.060.