Legal Question in Business Law in California

Yes, Plaintiff will still be required to timely respond to the discovery you served (if properly served). If this is a state court case (not federal), Plaintiff's responses are due to be served to you within thirty days of when you served the discovery (plus five days if you mailed it).

Motions for Summary Judgment are extremely complex and I would highly recommend getting an attorney to assist you, even if you can't afford the attorney for the entirety of your case. If you can't afford an attorney at all, find a local law library and see if they have a set of books called Rutter Guide, "Civil Procedure Before Trial." You should be able to find very helpful information and even a sample format for your opposition to the motion for summary judgment. Also review Code of Civil Procedure Section 437c and the California Rules of Court, starting at 3.1350. If you lose on the motion for summary judgment, you are likely losing the entire case.

Bringing a summary judgment motion against you does not excuse the plaintiff from responding to your discovery. And yes, you should be able to use his responses when you oppose the summary judgment motion.

If you properly served your discovery and if the due date for the plaintiff's responses has passed, then you should bring a motion to compel him to respond. If he has given you some kind of response (for example, blanket objections), then you must try to resolve your dispute informally before bringing the motion. If he hasn't responded at all, then he has waived any objections he could have raised in a timely response.

Note that you only have 45 days in which to bring your motion if the plaintiff gave you partial responses. There is no such time limit if he failed to respond at all. Either way, though, you should act quickly due to the pending summary judgment motion. You may even want to apply ex parte for an order shortening the time in which to bring your motion so that you can get the responses before your opposition to the summary judgment motion is due.

You really should get an attorney to either represent you or at least advise you if at all possible. Opposing a summary judgment motion is not easy. Moving to compel discovery isn't exactly a cakewalk, either. It's important that you do these things correctly, and few pro pers know how.

Good luck.

I'd say it depends on the time frame.