Rule 63.Judgment Notwithstanding the Verdict

A judgment notwithstanding the verdict lets a trial judge undo what a jury decided, when the jury never should have gotten the question in the first place. The rule ties this power to the directed verdict motion made at the close of all the evidence: if that motion should have been granted but the judge refused it, and the jury then rules against the party who asked for it, the judge can step in after the verdict and enter judgment for that party instead. Rather than force a judge to cut off the jury mid-trial on a close call, section B lets the court send the case to the jury anyway, at the losing party’s request, while preserving the right to revisit the question later if the verdict comes back the wrong way or the jury cannot agree.

Because a JNOV motion revisits the same question as the directed verdict motion, section C lets a party pair it with a request for a new trial in the alternative. Skip that pairing and file only the JNOV motion, and the new trial request is waived. When both are filed, the court rules on the JNOV motion first, but if it grants that motion, the judge still has to rule on the new trial motion, stating the reasons that would have applied had the JNOV motion been denied — protection for the case if an appellate court later reverses the JNOV. The deadlines are tight and self-enforcing: the motion must be filed within 10 days of the judgment (or a court-approved extension), decided within 55 days of the judgment, and if the court lets that window close without ruling, the motion is deemed denied. A notice of appeal does not stop any of this — the trial court can still decide the motion, though the moving party then owes the appellate court a copy of the motion and, once the trial court rules, a copy of the order within seven days. A party whose verdict gets set aside this way gets one more shot: a motion for a new trial under Rule 64, due within 10 days of the JNOV judgment.