Rule 58.Entry of Judgment and Orders

Rule 15-6-58 fixes the moment a judgment or order takes legal effect. Subject to the Rule 15-6-54(b) certification requirement for partial judgments, a judgment on a jury verdict or the court’s decision has to be entered promptly, and every judgment stands on its own separate document rather than being folded into an opinion or combined with other rulings. A judgment or order becomes complete and effective only once it is reduced to writing, signed by the court or judge, attested by the clerk, and filed in the clerk’s office — at which point the clerk dockets it right away. Divorce judgments and foreclosure judgments get a shorthand docket notation of “see file” instead of a full entry. And entry of judgment does not wait on the costs being taxed; that process runs on its own separate timeline.

The rule also manages what happens when the parties cannot agree on how a proposed order or judgment should read. A party directed to prepare one without findings of fact and conclusions of law has to circulate the proposed document to all parties within five days of being told to prepare it, and the parties then get five days to confer and try to agree on its form. If everyone agrees, or no one objects in time, the preparer marks the final page “NO OBJECTION AS TO FORM BY COUNSEL.” If a party does object and the parties cannot work it out, each side submits its own proposed order or judgment to the court within two days after the confer period ends — and a party who misses that deadline waives any objection to form, unless the court excuses the delay for good cause.