The provisions of this Chapter respecting trials by jury, apply, so far as they are in their nature applicable, to trials by the court.
§ 25-1128.Trial by the court; provisions for jury trials applicable.
Article 11: Trial · Not amended since original codification · Last verified July 22, 2026
In one sentenceThis section applies the chapter’s jury-trial provisions to trials conducted by the court alone, to the extent those provisions fit a trial without a jury.
Full Text of § 25-1128
Source
R.S.1867, Code § 320, p. 448; R.S.1913, § 7866; C.S.1922, § 8811; C.S.1929, § 20-1128; R.S.1943, § 25-1128.
Plain-English Summary
Section 25-1128 is a bridge provision. Rather than restating every rule for a bench trial that already exists for a jury trial, it borrows those rules wholesale: the provisions of the chapter respecting trials by jury apply, so far as they are in their nature applicable, to trials by the court.
The qualifying phrase carries the weight here. Not every jury-trial rule can transfer to a bench trial — anything tied specifically to the presence, selection, deliberation, or polling of a jury has no counterpart when a judge alone decides the case. But procedural rules that do not depend on having a jury — governing the order of proceedings, the presentation of evidence, and similar trial mechanics — carry over by force of this section.
Read together with section 25-1127, which sets the specific rule for how a court states its findings in a bench trial, this section fills in everything else: the general trial procedures found throughout the chapter’s jury-trial provisions apply by default unless something about a bench trial makes a particular rule a poor fit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do the jury-trial rules in this chapter apply to a case tried by a judge alone?
Yes, so far as those rules are, in their nature, applicable to a trial without a jury, under section 25-1128.
Are there jury-trial rules that would not make sense in a bench trial?
Yes. Rules tied specifically to jury selection, deliberation, or polling have no natural counterpart in a trial conducted by the court alone, so this section only extends the rules that fit.
Does this section replace the specific findings requirement for bench trials?
No. Section 25-1127 sets the specific rule for how the court states its findings; this section separately extends the chapter’s general jury-trial provisions to bench trials where applicable.
Why would the legislature write a bridge provision like this instead of repeating every rule?
It avoids duplicating the same procedural rules twice — once for jury trials and once for bench trials — by extending the existing jury-trial provisions wherever their nature allows.
Does this section apply to trials conducted by a referee as well?
This section addresses trials by the court; section 25-1131 separately states that a trial before referees is conducted in the same manner as a trial by the court.
Source & verification. Section text and the amendment-history citation are
reproduced verbatim from the Nebraska Legislature, Revisor of Statutes, enacted by the
Nebraska Legislature. Last verified July 22, 2026. ·
Official source
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