The Oklahoma motion for new trial: ten days, nine grounds, and a fallback if nobody mailed you the judgment

Oklahoma's new trial statute is one of the older and more detailed in the country. Nine enumerated grounds, a ten-day deadline, and — unusually — a built-in remedy for the party who never received the judgment.

There is also a second route, by petition rather than motion, for grounds you could not have known about in time.

The nine grounds

12 O.S. § 651 defines the remedy and lists the causes:

A new trial is a reexamination in the same court, of an issue of fact or of law or both, after a verdict by a jury, the approval of the report of a referee, or a decision by the court. The former verdict, report, or decision shall be vacated, and a new trial granted, on the application of the party aggrieved, for any of the following causes, affecting materially the substantial rights of the party:

1. Irregularity in the proceedings of the court, jury, referee, or prevailing party, or any order of the court or referee, or abuse of discretion, by which the party was prevented from having a fair trial; 2. Misconduct of the jury or a prevailing party; 3. Accident or surprise, which ordinary prudence could not have guarded against; 4. Excessive or inadequate damages, appearing to have been given under the influence of passion or prejudice; 5. Error in the assessment of the amount of recovery, whether too large or too small, where the action is upon a contract, or for the injury or detention of property; 6. That the verdict, report, or decision is not sustained by sufficient evidence, or is contrary to law; 7. Newly discovered evidence, material for the party applying, which could not, with reasonable diligence, have been discovered and produced at the trial; 8. Error of law occurring at the trial, and objected to by the party making the application; or 9. When, without fault of the complaining party, it becomes impossible to prepare a record for an appeal.

Three observations that matter when choosing a ground.

Everything is filtered through the opening clause — the cause must be one "affecting materially the substantial rights of the party." A technical irregularity that changed nothing does not qualify.

Ground 5 is narrower than it looks. Unlike the parallel Kentucky provision, Oklahoma limits the plain assessment-error ground to actions "upon a contract, or for the injury or detention of property." In other cases you are pushed to ground 4, which requires passion or prejudice.

Ground 8 requires a contemporaneous objection, so an unpreserved error of law is not available.

Ground 9 has no counterpart in most states: impossibility of preparing a record for appeal, without fault of the complaining party.

Ten days from a conforming judgment

12 O.S. § 653(A):

Unless unavoidably prevented, an application for a new trial by motion, if made, must be filed not later than ten (10) days after the judgment, decree or appealable order prepared in conformance with Section 696.3 of this title has been filed. More than ten (10) days after the judgment, decree, or appealable order which conforms with Section 696.3 of this title has been filed, an application for a new trial by petition may be filed in conformance with the provisions of Section 655 of this title.

Two conditions are doing work.

"Prepared in conformance with Section 696.3." The ten days do not start on any document that looks like a judgment — it must be a conforming one. If the filed instrument does not comply with § 696.3, the clock is not running.

"Unless unavoidably prevented" is a genuine qualifier, not decoration.

And the sentence that follows opens the second route: after ten days, an application by petition under § 655.

The mailing fallback

§ 653(B) is the provision worth knowing about, and it is unusually protective:

If the moving party did not prepare the judgment, decree, or appealable order, and Section 696.2 of this title required a copy of the judgment, decree, or appealable order to be mailed to the moving party, and the court records do not reflect the mailing of a copy of the judgment, decree, or appealable order to the moving party within three (3) days, exclusive of weekends and holidays, after the filing of the judgment, decree, or appealable order, the motion for new trial may be filed no later than ten (10) days after the earliest date on which the court records show that a copy of the judgment, decree, or appealable order was mailed to the moving party.

Four conditions, all required: you did not prepare the judgment; § 696.2 required it to be mailed to you; the court records do not show mailing within three days (excluding weekends and holidays); and then your ten days runs from the earliest date the records do show a mailing.

The test is what the court records show — so the first step in any late new-trial motion in Oklahoma is to examine the docket for the mailing entry.

Filing early is safe

§ 653(C):

A motion for new trial filed after the announcement of the decision on all issues in the case but before the filing of the judgment or decree shall be deemed filed immediately after the filing of the judgment or decree.

A motion filed between the announcement and the entry is treated as filed immediately after entry. There is no penalty for being early.

The petition route

§ 655 covers grounds discovered more than ten days after the judgment was filed. That is the vehicle for newly discovered evidence that surfaced too late for a motion — and it is a petition, with its own requirements, rather than a motion in the existing sequence.

How Oklahoma compares

A short checklist

1. Check that the filed judgment conforms to § 696.3. The ten days run from a conforming judgment, not from any order.
2. Diarise ten days from that filing.
3. If you did not prepare the judgment, check the docket for the mailing entry. If the records do not show mailing within three days (excluding weekends and holidays), your ten days runs from the earliest mailing the records do show.
4. Pick your ground by number, and check it against the "materially affecting substantial rights" filter in the opening clause.
5. On a damages complaint, check whether the case is on contract or for injury or detention of property — that decides whether ground 5 is available or you are confined to ground 4.
6. Confirm the error of law was objected to at trial if you are using ground 8.
7. Do not worry about filing before entry. A motion filed after the decision is announced is deemed filed immediately after the judgment.
8. If the ground surfaced after ten days, use the § 655 petition, not a late motion.

Where these rules live

• 12 O.S. § 651 — New Trial - Definition - Causes For
• 12 O.S. § 653 — Time of Application
• 12 O.S. § 655 — Petition For New Trial On Grounds Discovered More Than 10 Days After Judgment
• 12 O.S. § 696.2 — Filing and mailing of judgments
• 12 O.S. § 696.3 — Contents of judgments, decrees and appealable orders
• 12 O.S. § 1031 — District court power to vacate or modify

This page explains what the statute says. It isn't legal advice, and what makes a cause "materially affect the substantial rights of the party" under § 651 is developed in case law this site doesn't cover.