§ 25-906.Confession of judgment after action brought; effect.

Once a plaintiff has filed a money action, section 25-906 gives the defendant a way to narrow the dispute without conceding the whole case. The defendant may offer in court to confess judgment for part of the amount claimed, or for part of the causes involved in the action.

What happens next depends on the plaintiff’s response. If the plaintiff is present and refuses to accept the confession in full satisfaction of the claim, or, having had reasonable notice of the offer’s amount and timing, fails to attend, and the plaintiff then recovers no more than the offered amount at trial, the plaintiff must pay all of the defendant’s costs incurred after the offer was made.

The section protects a defendant who makes this move: the offer is not deemed an admission of the cause of action or of the amount the plaintiff is entitled to, and it cannot be given in evidence at trial. A defendant can propose a partial confession of judgment without weakening its position on the merits if the plaintiff declines it.

This in-court, post-filing tool pairs with section 25-901’s pretrial offer of judgment, which lets a defendant offer to allow judgment for a full stated sum before trial, and with section 25-907’s pre-suit version of the confession-of-judgment idea.