Most civil cases are shaped long before anyone steps into a courtroom.
By the time a case reaches opening statements, the parties have usually spent months—sometimes years—gathering evidence, arguing motions, exchanging documents, and exploring settlement. For law students, junior litigators, and anyone trying to understand civil litigation, the pre-trial process can feel like a maze of procedural steps.
But it follows a recognizable structure. And by looking at how California courts actually rule on these issues, we can see what that structure looks like under real-world pressure. To ground this piece in something more than theory, we pulled recent tentative rulings and docket data from Trellis—a legal research platform that indexes state court records across California and beyond—to show what judges are actually deciding right now.
Here’s what typically happens before trial—and what the courts are doing about it in real time.
Discovery: the evidence-gathering phase
Discovery is the formal process where both sides exchange information and gather evidence. The goal is to avoid trial by surprise and give each party access to the facts needed to build their case.
In practice, discovery becomes the most time-intensive—and most contested—phase of litigation.
The core tools are:
Depositions — sworn testimony taken outside the courtroom. Attorneys use them to question witnesses under oath, evaluate credibility, preserve testimony, and uncover new facts. Depositions often shape strategy because they reveal how a witness will actually perform on the stand.
Interrogatories — written questions one party sends to another, answered under oath. They lock parties into positions early: who are your witnesses, what damages are you claiming, what defenses are you asserting?
Requests for Production — demands for relevant documents, communications, and electronically stored information (ESI). Emails, contracts, text messages, internal reports, medical records. In modern litigation, document discovery is often the most expensive part of the case.
Requests for Admission — asks a party to admit or deny specific facts, helping narrow the trial to genuinely disputed issues.
Physical or Mental Examinations — when a party’s condition is directly at issue (personal injury, disability claims, emotional distress), courts may permit an independent examination.
Discovery disputes: where things break down
Discovery rarely goes smoothly, and California courts see a relentless stream of discovery motions. What’s striking about real case data is how often the breakdown is procedural rather than substantive—missed deadlines, incomplete responses, email failures—rather than outright bad faith.
A textbook example from Los Angeles (May 2026): In Golden State Investment Corp. v. Altius Investment Corp. (LASC Case No. 21STCV19593), Cross-Complainant Altius served written discovery—interrogatories, requests for production, and requests for admission—on January 21, 2026. Responses were due February 20. They never came. By the time Altius filed motions to compel on March 24, its opponent still hadn’t responded.
The court granted sanctions but denied the underlying motions—because by the time of the hearing, responses had finally trickled in.
“MIA did finally serve responses on April 9, 2026. Because of MIA’s failure to respond to the relevant discovery requests within the allotted timeframe, [the] motions to compel discovery… are proper but moot.”
The lesson: even when motions to compel become technically moot because a party finally responds, sanctions remain on the table. The court awarded Altius $1,272—reduced from the requested $12,288, but a real consequence for dilatory conduct.
This is exactly what the discovery rules envision. Under California Code of Civil Procedure § 2033.280, a party who fails to timely respond to requests for admission waives all objections—and the requesting party may seek sanctions regardless of whether the substantive motion is ultimately moot.
Sanctions: the nuclear option
When a party genuinely abuses the discovery process, courts have serious firepower: monetary penalties, evidence exclusion, adverse inference instructions, and in the most egregious cases, dismissal or default judgment.
But courts use escalating sanctions deliberately—and a recent Fresno case illustrates exactly where the line is drawn.
The Costco surveillance footage case (Fresno, May 2026): In Jane Doe No. 1 v. Kerry Hirahara et al. (Case No. 24CECG02869), plaintiffs moved for terminating sanctions against Costco Wholesale Corporation for alleged spoliation of electronic evidence—specifically, lost surveillance footage and a sold laptop relevant to the incident.
The court denied terminating sanctions, but the reasoning is instructive:
“Before imposing a ‘terminating’ sanction, courts should usually grant lesser sanctions… It is only when a party persists in disobeying the court’s orders that the ultimate sanction of dismissing the action or entering default judgment… are justified.”
The court found that Costco had a duty to preserve the surveillance footage once it was served with a police search warrant—but not necessarily the floor-display laptop, which had been cleared and resold under routine procedures. Critically, there was no evidence the deletion was intentional or occurred after the May 2024 preservation notice.
The takeaway for practitioners: the ESI preservation duty is triggered when future litigation is “probable or likely to arise”—not merely a “remote possibility.” And courts won’t impose terminating sanctions without evidence of willful destruction after notice.
Summary Judgment: the case-ender that often isn’t
A motion for summary judgment argues that no genuine dispute of material fact exists, and that one side is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. In plain terms: even viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the opposing party, there’s nothing left to try.
Summary judgment is one of the most strategically significant moments in any civil case. It can end litigation entirely—or narrow the battlefield dramatically.
Two recent examples show the range of outcomes:
In Jasmine Grotegeer v. City and County of San Francisco et al. (SFSC Case No. CGC24618231, May 2026), the City moved for summary judgment in what appears to be a civil rights action. Plaintiff did not oppose the motion. The court granted it, finding the moving papers carried their burden of showing no triable issue of material fact—and with no opposition, plaintiff had not shown otherwise.
The result: dismissal without trial.
Contrast that with Oppenheimer v. City of Coachella (Riverside County, Case No. CVPS2305408, May 2026)—a civil rights case involving a 3rd Amended Complaint. The court denied outright summary judgment but granted partial summary adjudication on the 2nd, 11th, and 12th causes of action. The remaining claims proceed to trial.
This is exactly how partial summary adjudication is supposed to work: trimming the case down to its genuinely disputed core, rather than forcing a jury to wade through claims that should never have gone that far.
For litigators, the strategic implication is clear: failing to oppose a summary judgment motion—or opposing it inadequately—is often fatal. And courts will not do your work for you.
Pre-trial conferences and motions in limine: the final filter
As trial approaches, courts schedule pre-trial conferences to organize logistics, set deadlines, and address evidentiary disputes. This is also when parties file motions in limine—pretrial motions to admit or exclude specific evidence before it can reach the jury.
Motions in limine are where the real evidentiary battles are fought. By the time parties reach this stage, they know what the other side’s witnesses will say, what their experts will testify to, and where the vulnerabilities are.
A Sacramento personal injury case (May 2026) illustrates just how granular this gets. In Henry Luan Nguyen v. Dezerae Silva (Sacramento Superior Court, Case No. 34-2022-00313717), Judge Steven M. Gevercer issued tentative rulings on 22 motions in limine—covering everything from expert testimony on human factors to accident reconstruction animation to surveillance video impeachment.
A few standout rulings:
- Animation evidence: The defense sought to admit an accident reconstruction animation during opening statement. The court withheld ruling pending an offer of proof about foundation—noting that while animation can be admissible to illustrate expert testimony, it was presented in Duenas during testimony, not opening statement.
- Surveillance video: Defense sought to use surveillance footage to impeach plaintiff’s disability claims. The court denied exclusion—but required notice before calling foundational witnesses. Surveillance films impeaching injury claims are treated as qualified work product under Coito v. Superior Court.
- “Reptile Theory” arguments: Defense moved to preclude plaintiff’s counsel from using so-called “Reptile Theory” closing arguments—appeals to juror self-interest and community safety fears. The court agreed to sustain such objections at trial, citing Allen v. Patel (2025).
- Medicare eligibility: A nuanced ruling on future medical costs: plaintiff’s Medicare eligibility is a relevant and admissible data point on the reasonable cost of future care, regardless of whether Medicare ultimately becomes the primary payor, per Audish v. Macias (2024).
The breadth of these rulings underscores something practitioners know but law school often undersells: the pre-trial phase doesn’t just set the stage. In many ways, it is the case. By the time a jury is seated, every major evidentiary battle has already been fought.
Settlement: the most common ending
Most civil cases never reach a jury. Settlement pressure intensifies as trial approaches—because both sides, having invested in pre-trial litigation, have a clearer picture of their risks and a sharper sense of what they stand to lose.
Courts often require formal settlement conferences, where parties assess litigation risk, estimate costs, and explore negotiated resolution. Settlement can happen at any stage, but the dynamics shift considerably once summary judgment has been decided and motions in limine have been ruled on. The evidentiary map is now visible to everyone.
Closing thoughts
The pre-trial process is not a formality. It’s where cases are won and lost.
Real California court data from spring 2026 confirms what experienced litigators already know:
- Discovery failures have real consequences, even when motions become moot before the hearing.
- Terminating sanctions require willful destruction—courts won’t infer bad intent from routine record management, even when evidence is lost.
- Summary judgment is fatal when unopposed—and can dramatically narrow cases even when denied outright.
- Motions in limine shape what the jury hears—and by extension, how the trial is likely to end.
For anyone navigating civil litigation, the pre-trial phase deserves the same attention as trial itself. Often, it deserves more.