Definition
A case to move for new trial is a formal procedural document prepared by the party who received an adverse verdict, setting out the grounds and factual basis upon which that party asks the court to set aside the jury's verdict and order the matter tried again. It is, in essence, the written vehicle for a new trial motion — a structured presentation of the record, evidence, or legal errors that allegedly warrant relief from the verdict.
The document organizes the relevant facts, rulings, and procedural history into a form the court can consider without re-reading the entire trial record. Once prepared, it serves as the foundation upon which counsel argues that the verdict was against the weight of the evidence, that legal error infected the trial, that the damages awarded were excessive or inadequate, or that some other recognized ground for a new trial exists.
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Common Confusion
The phrase is sometimes read as if "case" means a lawsuit. Here, "case" carries its older procedural meaning: a stated or settled account of facts prepared for the court's consideration — closer to a "case stated" or "special case" than to an action or suit. Bouvier's cross-reference to CASE, SPECIAL and AGREED CASE is deliberate; all three belong to the same family of documentary devices by which parties crystallize a factual or legal question for court resolution. Researchers who encounter "case to move for new trial" in historical pleading records should not mistake it for a reference to the underlying action itself.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in older American and English procedural sources and is functionally obsolete in modern practice. Contemporary lawyers simply file a motion for new trial, supported by a memorandum of law and references to the trial record; the separate preparation of a formal "case" document is no longer required or customary.
For researchers working with pre-twentieth-century trial court records, understanding this term is essential for correctly identifying what a document is and where it sits in the procedural sequence. A "case to move for new trial" would appear after verdict and before any ruling on the post-trial motion — sometimes bound or filed separately from the pleadings and the trial minutes. It can be a valuable source of the moving party's factual theory, because it captures what that party believed the record showed, often more candidly than the pleadings.
Bouvier's cross-references signal a broader research caution: the word "case" in historical procedural vocabulary is a chameleon. CASE, SPECIAL and AGREED CASE both refer to structured fact-documents submitted to courts for legal rulings, not to lawsuits. When reading nineteenth-century practice manuals, docket entries, or court orders, researchers should pause every time "case" appears without a party name and ask whether it denotes a document rather than an action.
The grounds on which a new trial could be sought varied by jurisdiction and changed considerably across the nineteenth century. A case to move for new trial prepared in 1820 Massachusetts may assert grounds that would not have been cognizable in Virginia at the same period, or that later became standard everywhere. The document itself is therefore also a window into what procedural rights were recognized locally at the time.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary provides the only formal definition in the Law Mind corpus: "A case prepared by the party against whom a verdict has been given, upon which to move the court to set aside the verdict and grant a new trial." The definition is spare but accurate. Bouvier treats the term as self-explanatory to a nineteenth-century practitioner and moves on quickly, cross-referencing CASE, SPECIAL and AGREED CASE to situate it within the broader category of prepared-fact documents.
No divergent definitions appear in the corpus. The term does not appear to have been contested or redefined over time; it simply fell out of use as procedural codes replaced common-law pleading practice. The absence of the term from modern legal dictionaries reflects the displacement of the entire documentary form, not any change in the underlying right to seek a new trial.
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