Article 14: Uniform County Court Rules of Practice and Procedure · Not amended since adoption on record · Last verified July 22, 2026
No set of rules can anticipate every situation, so Article 14 ends its practice sections with a safety valve. Any of the foregoing rules can be modified by the court when special circumstances call for it — to meet an emergency, or to avoid an injustice or serious hardship that strict application of the rule would otherwise produce.
The provision has been renumbered several times over the years as Article 14 grew, but its substance has stayed the same since it was first adopted: a narrow, case-specific power to bend a procedural rule rather than a broad license to disregard the rules generally. It reaches the rules within Article 14 itself; it does not touch Nebraska statutes or rules found elsewhere.
Yes, but only in special instances where doing so is necessary to meet an emergency or to avoid injustice or great hardship, not as a routine practice.
The rule speaks in terms of emergencies and avoiding injustice or great hardship, leaving the judge to assess whether a particular case’s circumstances meet that standard.
No. It applies to modifying the rules set out earlier in Article 14, not to overriding statutory law.
Yes. Its history shows it moved from an earlier rule number through several renumberings before landing at its current section number, without any change to what it does.
The court handling the case makes that determination based on the specific circumstances presented.