Rule 78.09.Exception Unnecessary to Rulings or Orders of the Court.

Rule 78.09 does away with a formality that used to matter a great deal in older procedure: the formal exception. Where earlier practice required a party to state a technical "exception" to preserve its objection to a ruling, this rule replaces that formality with a simpler, substance-focused requirement.

What a party must do instead is make known to the court, at the time the ruling or order is made or sought, either the action it wants the court to take or its objection to what the court is doing, along with the grounds for that position. As long as that is on the record at the right moment, no separate, formal exception is necessary to preserve the point for later purposes, including appeal.

The rule also protects a party who never gets the chance to object in the first place. If a party has no opportunity to object to a ruling or order when it is made, the absence of an objection does not prejudice that party afterward. This prevents a rule aimed at encouraging timely objections from punishing a party for silence it had no real chance to break.

This rule connects directly to Rule 78.07, which allows a general statement of error in a motion for new trial where definite objections or requests, including specific objections to instructions, were made during trial in accordance with this rule. In that sense, Rule 78.09 sets the standard for what counts as an adequate objection at trial, and Rule 78.07 builds on that standard when deciding what the later motion needs to say.