A Summary Judgment motion is a request for the court to decide legal issues involved in the case, based on the evidence identified during discovery.
The Summary Judgment motion is filed with the court usually by the defendant at the end of discovery.
The purpose of Summary Judgment motions is to achieve one of two objectives: (1) either end the plaintiff’s case due to dispositive issues of law that preclude the plaintiff’s case; or (2) to narrow the plaintiff’s legal claims for trial.
In Georgia state courts, the Summary Judgment process begins when a party, usually a defendant, files a Motion for Summary Judgment with the court.
The responding party has thirty (30) days to file a response in opposition to the Motion for Summary Judgment.
After that, the parties usually request and schedule a hearing with the court to discuss the specific issues.
The court usually takes one to three months to read the parties' legal briefs and perform its own research before formalizing its decision in a final order.
