Rule 56.Summary judgment

Trial Rule 56 is Indiana’s summary judgment rule — the mechanism for ending a case, or narrowing it, without a trial when the facts that matter are not in dispute. Section A lets a party seeking relief on a claim, counterclaim, cross-claim, or declaratory judgment move for summary judgment once twenty days have passed since the case began, or sooner if the other side has already filed its own summary judgment motion. Section B removes that waiting period for a defending party, who can move at any time. Either way, the court is not limited to ruling only on the motion that was filed — if one party moves for summary judgment, the court can grant judgment to a different party on the same issues even though that party never filed a motion of its own.

Section C contains the procedural core of the rule, and the piece most distinctive to Indiana practice: the requirement that each side “designate” to the court the specific evidence it relies on — the particular parts of the pleadings, depositions, interrogatory answers, admissions, and other materials that support its position. A party opposing the motion has thirty days after service to respond and must designate, with the same specificity, each material fact it claims is disputed and the evidence backing that claim. A hearing is not automatic, but any party can force one by asking within ten days after the response is filed or due, and that hearing must then be held at least ten days after the response deadline. Judgment follows if the designated evidence shows no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law — a standard the court applies to the evidence the parties designated, not the record as a whole. A court can grant summary judgment on part of a case, such as liability alone, while leaving the rest for trial, and that kind of partial ruling is not immediately appealable unless the court expressly certifies it for appeal the same way it would certify a partial judgment under Trial Rule 54(B). A non-moving party’s silence does not hand the moving party a win on its own — the court still has to find, from what has been designated, that judgment is warranted.

The remaining sections fill in the edges. When a motion does not dispose of the whole case, the court can still narrow what is left — examining the pleadings and evidence, questioning counsel, and issuing an order pinning down which facts are no longer contested, so the eventual trial focuses only on what is still disputed. Affidavits must rest on personal knowledge and admissible facts, and a party who cannot yet marshal the facts needed to oppose a motion can ask the court for a continuance to gather affidavits, take depositions, or complete discovery rather than lose the motion outright. A party who files affidavits in bad faith or purely to stall risks paying the other side’s resulting expenses, including attorney’s fees, and possibly facing contempt. Because denying a summary judgment motion does not end the case, that denial is not something a party can appeal right away — Rule 56(E) directs a party to raise it through a motion to correct error once a final judgment or order is entered. And on appeal from a grant of summary judgment, the reviewing court will not reverse for a genuine issue of material fact unless that fact and the evidence behind it were specifically designated to the trial court in the first place, which makes the designation step under section C not a formality, but the boundary of what an appellate court can even consider.