Rule 50.Judgment on the Evidence (Directed Verdict)

Rule 50 is Indiana’s version of what other courts call a directed verdict or a motion for judgment as a matter of law — here bundled into one procedure called “judgment on the evidence.” The core standard sits in subsection (A): when the evidence on an issue is not enough to support a verdict for the party who needs it, or when a verdict already reached is clearly wrong given how thin the evidence is, the court takes that issue away from the jury and enters judgment itself. A party can ask for this relief at several points: after an opponent carrying the burden of proof finishes presenting evidence on an issue, after both sides finish presenting evidence on an issue, after all the evidence in the case is in and before judgment, or within a motion to correct error. Civil litigants cannot save this argument for appeal — subsection (A)(5) allows raising insufficiency for the first time on appeal only in criminal cases, not civil ones. And the trial court does not need anyone to ask: it can grant judgment on the evidence on its own, at any point before final judgment, before a notice of appeal is filed, or, if a motion to correct error has been made, before ruling on that motion. Moving for judgment on the evidence and losing does not cost a party anything — it can still put on its own evidence afterward, and doing so does not waive the right to renew the motion later on the same or different grounds, though evidence introduced afterward can cure whatever gap led the court to deny the earlier motion.

Subsection (B) makes clear that every jury trial carries this possibility built in — the court can enter final judgment on the evidence before or after the jury is discharged, without needing to have directed a verdict along the way. Subsection (C) gives the court an alternative when entering judgment outright would be impractical or unfair: instead, the court can order a new trial on part or all of the issues, whether or not either side asked for that option. Subsection (D) sets the paperwork bar low — a motion has to state its reasons but does not need a particular instruction attached or a specific request for relief — while making clear the court can grant relief to some parties or on some issues without granting it across the board.

Subsection (E) retires four older devices by name: the motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, the motion in arrest of judgment, the demurrer to the evidence, and the writ of venire de novo. Where a federal court or a court in most other states would handle a post-verdict challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence through a separate motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict — often called a JNOV or, more recently, a motion for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) — Indiana handles it with the same Rule 50 motion used earlier in the case. The label may shift with the moment it is used, but the standard and the underlying motion stay the same throughout the case.