Rule 75.01.Judgments, Control by Trial Court.

A Missouri trial court does not lose all power over a case the instant it enters judgment. Rule 75.01 gives the court a built-in thirty-day window — subject to Rule 81.045 — during which it retains control over its own judgment. Within that period, after giving the parties a chance to be heard and for good cause, the court can vacate, reopen, correct, amend, or modify the judgment on its own.

The same thirty-day period lets the court order a new trial entirely on its own initiative, for any reason that would have justified granting a new trial if a party had asked for one. If the court does order a new trial this way, it must specify the grounds for doing so — it cannot grant a new trial without explaining the basis.

The rule also addresses what happens once an appeal is underway. After a notice of appeal is filed but before the record on appeal reaches the appellate court, the trial court — even after the initial thirty-day period has run — can still vacate, amend, or modify its judgment, but only if the parties stipulate to it and withdraw the appeal. Filing a notice of appeal does not shorten the thirty-day window for the trial court to order a new trial on its own initiative; that window closes only when the record on appeal is filed in the appellate court, or when the court shortens it under Rule 81.045.

Because Rule 74.06 offers separate, often longer-term paths to relief from a final judgment, Rule 75.01's thirty-day control period functions as the trial court's first and most flexible opportunity to fix its own judgment before the case moves fully into the post-judgment or appellate framework governed by that rule.