Rule 2-533.Motion for new trial

A motion for new trial has to be filed within ten days after the judgment is entered. If a party's verdict was set aside on a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, or a party's judgment was later amended, that party gets its own ten-day window running from entry of the JNOV or the amended judgment. And if a party files the motion after the judge announces or signs the judgment, or after the verdict comes back, but before the clerk enters it on the docket, the motion still counts — it's treated as filed the same day as the docket entry, just after it. The grounds for the motion have to go in writing within that same ten-day period; a party can't add new grounds later without the court's permission.

Once a motion for new trial is properly before it, the court has room to work with. It can set aside all or part of a judgment and order a new trial for any or all of the parties, on every issue in the case or only some of them, so long as those issues split apart cleanly from the rest. If the court grants a new trial on part of the case, the judge can either enter judgment on the untouched parts right away or hold that judgment until after the retrial. A motion for new trial can also travel alongside a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict: if the court grants the JNOV motion, it must decide at the same time whether it would also grant a new trial — a conditional ruling that only matters if an appellate court later reverses the JNOV judgment. Separately, if a trial or appellate court has ordered costs paid as part of granting a new trial, the trial court can freeze all further proceedings until those costs are paid.