Rule 50.Judgment as a Matter of Law in a Jury Trial; Related Motion for a New Trial; Conditional Ruling

Rule 50(a) sets the standard: once a party has been fully heard on an issue during a jury trial, if the court finds that a reasonable jury would not have a legally sufficient evidentiary basis to rule for that party on that issue, the court may resolve the issue against the party and grant judgment as a matter of law on any claim or defense that, under the controlling law, depends on a favorable finding on that same issue. A party can move for this relief at any time before the case goes to the jury, and the motion has to specify both the judgment sought and the law and facts that support it.

Rule 50(b) covers what happens next if the court doesn't grant that motion. The case still goes to the jury, but the court is deemed to have submitted it subject to deciding the legal questions the motion raised later. No later than 28 days after judgment is entered — or, if the motion concerns a jury issue the verdict never decided, no later than 28 days after the jury is discharged — the moving party can renew the motion for judgment as a matter of law, paired if it likes with an alternative or joint motion for a new trial under Rule 59. This renewed motion is the modern version of what practitioners used to call a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, or JNOV: it lets the court override a verdict the evidence can't support. Ruling on it, the court may let the verdict stand, order a new trial, or direct entry of judgment as a matter of law.

If the court grants that renewed motion, Rule 50(c) requires it to also rule, conditionally, on any accompanying new-trial motion — deciding now whether a new trial should follow if the judgment as a matter of law is later vacated or reversed on appeal, and stating the grounds for that conditional ruling. The conditional ruling doesn't affect the judgment's finality one way or the other: a conditional grant means a new trial goes forward if the judgment falls, unless the appellate court says otherwise; a conditional denial preserves the losing party's right to argue on appeal that the new-trial motion should have been granted. Rule 50(d) gives the party against whom judgment as a matter of law is entered its own new-trial motion deadline: no later than 28 days after judgment.

Rule 50(e) handles the opposite outcome — the court denies judgment as a matter of law and the case proceeds to a verdict. The prevailing party can still argue, as appellee, that it deserves a new trial if the appellate court decides the trial court erred in denying the motion. If the appellate court does reverse, it can order a new trial outright, send the new-trial question back to the trial court, or direct entry of judgment.