Rule 52.Findings by the Court

When a civil case is tried without a jury, or with an advisory jury whose verdict does not bind the judge, Rule 52(A) puts the judge in the role the jury would otherwise play: determining the facts and entering judgment on them under Rule 58. Sometimes the judge has to go further and issue special findings — a detailed, issue-by-issue account of what the judge found true and the conclusions drawn from it — rather than a bare ruling. That happens automatically when the court grants or denies a preliminary injunction, when the court is reviewing an administrative agency’s action, or whenever another rule or statute calls for it. Beyond those situations, either side can trigger the same requirement just by filing a written request before evidence starts coming in, or the judge can choose to make special findings without anyone asking. On appeal, those findings and the judgment built on them stand unless clearly wrong, and the appellate court gives real weight to the trial judge’s read on witness credibility, since the judge — not the appellate panel — watched the witnesses testify. Findings are not required for rulings on most motions, including motions under Rules 12 and 56, with two exceptions carved out for dismissals under Rule 41(B) and for parts of a motion to correct errors under Rule 59(J).

Subsection (B) gives the trial court a path to revisit its own findings and judgment. Acting on its own before a motion to correct errors is due, or as part of a party’s motion to correct errors, the court can reopen the judgment, take more evidence, and amend or add findings for four reasons: the findings or judgment run against the weight of the evidence or are not supported by it, the required special findings are missing or too thin to cover the issues raised, the findings contradict each other, or the findings and the judgment do not match up. Rather than fixing a set number of days after judgment, as some other court systems do, Indiana ties this deadline to whenever a motion to correct errors under Rule 59 would be due, keeping the two rules on the same clock. A party who does not object to the findings when they are first entered, or does not move to modify them right away, has not given anything up — the rule preserves the right to raise the same problem later in a motion to correct errors or on appeal.

Subsection (C) lets the lawyers get involved in drafting: the court has to let them, and can require them, to submit their own proposed findings and conclusions for the judge to consider. Subsection (D) confirms that a judge does not have to make findings on every issue in the case — only on the ones the rule requires or a party specifically asked about. If the court skips a finding it was required to make, a reviewing court will not just assume the gap resolves itself one way or the other; that omission can be challenged under subsection (B). And where a judge volunteers findings on issues nobody was entitled to demand them on, those findings bind only the matters they cover — the general judgment controls everything else.