Rhode Island summary judgment: everything counts backwards from the hearing date
Rhode Island procedure · Last verified August 17, 2026
Most states give the party opposing summary judgment a fixed number of days measured from service of the motion. Rhode Island does not. Rule 56(c) fixes one number, and it runs to the hearing: the motion must be served at least ten days before it. The opposition is keyed to the same event.
That single design choice changes how you calendar a Rhode Island motion, and it is the thing to get right before anything else.
Who may move, and when
A claimant — Rule 56(a) must wait out a hold:
A party seeking to recover upon a claim, counterclaim, or cross-claim or to obtain a declaratory judgment may, at any time after the expiration of twenty (20) days from the commencement of the action or after service of a motion for summary judgment by the adverse party, move with or without supporting affidavits for a summary judgment in the party's favor upon all or any part thereof.
Twenty days from commencement — the same figure Maine uses. Note the escape hatch: a claimant who is served with a summary-judgment motion may move immediately in response, without waiting out the twenty days.
A defending party — Rule 56(b) has no hold at all: it "may, at any time, move with or without supporting affidavits for summary judgment in the party's favor as to all or any part thereof."
The ten-day rule, and what it does not say
Rule 56(c) opens with the only firm deadline in the rule:
The motion shall be served at least ten (10) days before the time fixed for the hearing. The adverse party prior to the day of hearing may serve opposing affidavits.
Read those two sentences together and three practical points fall out.
The clock runs from the hearing, not from service. Ten days is a minimum notice period, not a briefing schedule. If the hearing is six weeks out, the movant has satisfied Rule 56(c) by serving five weeks before it.
There is no deadline for the opposition, only an outer limit. Affidavits may be served "prior to the day of hearing." On the face of the rule, that is the day before. As a practical matter, filing opposing affidavits the afternoon before a hearing invites a continuance request rather than a considered ruling, and a scheduling order or the court's own practice may impose something tighter — check both.
Nothing in Rule 56 provides for a reply. Compare Montana, where Rule 56(c)(1)(C) gives the movant 14 days to reply, or New Mexico, where Rule 1-056(D)(2) gives 15.
The standard
The rest of Rule 56(c) carries the familiar formulation, updated to name electronic materials:
The judgment sought shall be rendered forthwith if the pleadings, depositions, documents, electronically stored information, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as matter of law.
Partial judgment is available on the same terms as elsewhere: "A summary judgment, interlocutory in character, may be rendered on the issue of liability alone although there is a genuine issue as to the amount of damages."
Rhode Island has no separate statement-of-undisputed-facts requirement. There is no Rhode Island analogue to Wyoming's Rule 56.1 or Maine's Rule 56(h); the record citations belong in the memorandum and the affidavits.
What an opposing party must do
Rule 56(e) sets the affidavit form — made "on personal knowledge," setting forth "such facts as would be admissible in evidence," and showing "affirmatively that the affiant is competent to testify to the matters stated therein" — and requires that sworn or certified copies of papers referred to "be attached thereto or served therewith."
Then the response obligation:
When a motion for summary judgment is made and supported as provided in this rule, an adverse party may not rest upon the mere allegations or denials of the adverse party's pleading, but an adverse party's response, by affidavits or as otherwise provided in this rule, must set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial. If the adverse party does not so respond, summary judgment, if appropriate, shall be entered against the adverse party.
Combine that with the hearing-driven schedule and the risk becomes clear. Because no deadline forces the opposition into being, it is possible to arrive at the day of hearing having filed nothing — and Rule 56(e) says what follows.
When the facts are not available yet
Rule 56(f) is the continuance:
Should it appear from the affidavits of a party opposing the motion that the party cannot for reasons stated present by affidavit facts essential to justify the party's opposition, the court may refuse the application for judgment or may order a continuance to permit affidavits to be obtained or depositions to be taken or discovery to be had or may make such other order as is just.
The relief is triggered by an affidavit stating reasons, not by argument. Given the twenty-day hold in Rule 56(a), an early plaintiff's motion is exactly the situation Rule 56(f) exists for.
Where the motion only partly succeeds
Rule 56(d) has the court narrow the case, and Rhode Island's version includes a detail other states' do not — it contemplates the unrepresented party expressly:
If on motion under this rule judgment is not rendered upon the whole case or for all the relief asked and a trial is necessary, the court at the hearing of the motion, by examining the pleadings and the evidence before it and by interrogating counsel or a self-represented litigant, shall if practicable ascertain what material facts are actually and in good faith controverted.
The court then makes an order "specifying the facts that appear without substantial controversy, including the extent to which the amount of damages or other relief is not in controversy," and those facts carry into trial: "Upon the trial of the action the facts so specified shall be deemed established, and the trial shall be conducted accordingly."
Bad-faith affidavits
Rule 56(g) makes the fee award mandatory once the finding is made. Where affidavits "are presented in bad faith or solely for the purpose of delay, the court shall forthwith order the party employing them to pay to the other party the amount of the reasonable expenses which the filing of the affidavits caused the other party to incur, including reasonable attorney's fees, and any offending party or attorney may be adjudged guilty of contempt."