Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

Your question isn't entirely clear, but it suggests that the court deemed you to have admitted certain factual allegations made by the opposing party because you failed to respond properly to discovery about those allegations. Such an order can devastate the case of the receiving party. But there are time limits on challenges to such an order, as well as limits to how the challenge is made and the grounds on which it can be based.

One type of challenge is a motion for reconsideration. These motions must be filed within 10 days after service of a written copy of the order (f the parties waive written notice, the 10-day period starts immediately) and must be based on new facts, circumstances, or law which the moving party could not reasonably have presented the first time around.

Another type is a writ petition in the Court of Appeal. You would be able to raise other grounds in a writ petition, and you might have more time depending upon the circumstances. But such petitions are very hard to win. You would have to show both that the trial court was wrong and that, unless the error is corrected quickly, you will suffer serious harm which could not be remedied by an appeal from the eventual judgment. That's a very difficult showing to make. And meeting these standards would mean only that the appellate court *could* grant the petition, not that it would. There are many reasons the court might say no -- and waiting until the first day of trial is a very good reason unless there was no way to seek the relief much sooner.

In some situations, the aggrieved party could instead move the trial court for relief from default ("default" is interpreted broadly in this context, and does not just mean failure to answer a complaint on time). Here again, there are strict time limits for such a motion and only limited grounds on which it could be granted. I have no idea whether this was ever a viable option in your case; even if it was, the timing would work against you.

Most orders deeming facts admitted are made long before trial, so the limited time in which to take any of these steps almost always expires before the trial begins. Asking for relief from that type of order on the first day of trial could only be proper in *very* unusual situations. And asking a judge to grant this type of relief on the same day you ask for it would require an ex parte application -- which, in turn, would require you to at least notify the other parties you planned to bring such an application no later than 10:00 a.m. on the prior court day. (There are very narrow exceptions to this requirement, too, but I doubt any of them apply here.) It was already too late to do this when you posted your question at around 3:45 p.m.. Indeed, it was too late to do much of anything by then.

Sorry I can't be more encouraging.

Good luck.