Legal Question in Business Law in California

No. The filing of a motion for summary judgment has no impact on the trial date. Given the trial date is set, moreover, your summary judgment motion will be rejected as untimely.

If your arguments are as clear as you suggest, you will win at trial -- making the motion unnecessary.

No. Trial dates don't depend on whether or when an MSJ is filed. Instead, the deadline for filing an MSJ depends on the trial date. If your trial is to begin on October 16, it is already too late for an MSJ. You could apply ex parte for a continuance of the trial and for leave to bring your motion even though the deadline has passed. But unless you have some very unusual circumstances, you should expect the court to say no.

Let me add that few plaintiffs could win an MSJ, which can only be granted when there is no genuine dispute about material facts which could lead a reasonable judge or jury to enter a verdict for the defense. The case may seem clear to you, but that does not mean you would be entitled to summary judgment even if you could still ask for it.

You can't even file a summary judgment motion this late. The last day for a hearing on a summary judgment motion is 30 days before the trial date, and the motion must be filed and served 75 days before the hearing. If any attorney told your father that a trial automatically gets continued because a summary judgment has been filed, either it was not in California, you misunderstood what you were told, or the lawyer is incompetent.

The deadline to file the motion for summary judgment would have been set well before the trial date, so it is too late now. Also, filing a MSJ rarely has any impact on the trial date even when filed on time..

For a limited civil case, the judge would probably rather just hear the trial than sort through briefs in support of an MSJ. Besides, a plaintiff winning an MSJ is nearly impossible even with an attorney. It only takes one dispute over a material fact to justify denial of the entire motion.