Definition
A motion for judgment is a formal request by a party that the court enter a ruling in that party's favor. The term functions as both a general procedural category and a label for several specific procedural devices, depending on the context in which it is invoked.
1. As a general category: Any motion asking the court to render a final determination of rights in the moving party's favor — whether before trial, during trial, or after verdict.
2. Motion for judgment on the pleadings: A request that the court decide for the moving party based solely on the pleadings, without proceeding to trial. The court accepts the opposing party's well-pleaded facts as true and asks whether the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
3. Motion for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL): A motion made during or after jury trial contending that no reasonable jury could find for the non-moving party on the evidence presented. In federal practice, this replaces the older terminology of directed verdict (mid-trial) and judgment notwithstanding the verdict (post-verdict). Many states retain the older labels.
4. Motion for judgment on the verdict: A post-trial motion asking the court to formally enter judgment consistent with the jury's verdict, where the court has not automatically done so.
5. Motion for default judgment: A request that the court enter judgment against a party who has failed to appear, plead, or otherwise defend.
Each of these forms shares the essential characteristic — a party is asking the court to resolve the case or a portion of it in their favor without (or after) full factual adjudication by the trier of fact.
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Common Confusion
The term "motion for judgment" is frequently conflated with "motion for summary judgment," but they are procedurally distinct. Summary judgment is decided on the record outside of trial — affidavits, depositions, discovery materials — and requires a showing that there is no genuine dispute of material fact. A motion for judgment on the pleadings looks only to the pleadings themselves. A motion for judgment as a matter of law arises during or after trial based on the trial record. Researchers encountering these terms in historical sources must be especially cautious: "motion for judgment" in 19th-century English and American practice often described what modern courts would call a motion for judgment on the pleadings or a motion for judgment on the verdict, not a summary judgment motion, which is a comparatively modern device.
The term "judgment notwithstanding the verdict" (JNOV) is historically important and still appears in many state court systems. Federal practice consolidated it into JMOL under the 1991 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Treating JNOV and JMOL as equivalent in substance is generally correct; treating them as identical in nomenclature across all jurisdictions is an error.
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Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
- Motion for judgment on the pleadings
- Motion for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) / directed verdict / JNOV
- Motion for judgment on the verdict
- Motion for default judgment
- Motion for summary judgment (related but distinct — see COMMON CONFUSION)
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Why It Matters in Research
The phrase "motion for judgment" is a chameleon in the corpus. Its meaning shifts dramatically depending on the procedural era, the jurisdiction, and the specific procedural posture of the case. Researchers working in pre-20th-century American and English materials will encounter "motion for judgment" as the standard mechanism for obtaining any ruling from a court of record after the pleadings or after trial — a broad, catch-all procedural label rather than a named device. Bouvier and Black both treat this as a distinctly English practice concept rooted in the Judicature Acts, and their definitions capture this historical snapshot without accounting for the substantial divergence that American procedural reform introduced.
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (1938) and their subsequent amendments systematically replaced common law motion nomenclature with new standardized labels. Researchers tracing a procedural issue from common law pleading through the code pleading era (mid-19th century) into modern federal practice will encounter at least three distinct terminological regimes for what is substantively the same procedural maneuver. Failure to account for this terminological shift produces false distinctions and missed connections across the corpus.
In criminal practice, "motion for judgment" typically appears as a motion for judgment of acquittal — a motion during or after trial challenging the legal sufficiency of the evidence. This is the criminal analog to JMOL in civil practice. Researchers should not assume that a "motion for judgment" in a criminal source maps cleanly onto any of the civil subtypes above.
Cross-corpus connections are important here: motions for judgment as a matter of law feed directly into post-judgment enforcement questions, because a judgment entered on such a motion is a final judgment fully subject to enforcement mechanisms. The path from a JMOL motion to execution proceedings runs through the same remedies framework as a judgment after full trial.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's and Bouvier's definitions are largely identical and clearly derive from English practice under the Judicature Act of 1875. Both treat the motion for judgment as a party's mechanism for invoking the court's judgment-rendering power in circumstances where that judgment has not automatically issued. This reflects the English common law tradition in which judgment did not simply follow verdict — it required an affirmative procedural step.
Rapalje & Lawrence is more instructive. Their entry captures the practical mechanics: where a trial judge does not direct entry of judgment, the prevailing party must move for it, and the motion is the vehicle for translating a favorable verdict or finding into an enforceable judgment. This detail — that judgment entry was not automatic — is a genuine trap for researchers reading historical records. A "verdict" in the historical corpus is not the same as a "judgment," and the motion for judgment is precisely what bridges them.
What the historical sources collectively miss is the fragmentation of this general category into distinct named devices under American procedural reform. None of Black's, Bouvier's, or Rapalje predict the emergence of summary judgment, JMOL, or the formalized distinction between directed verdict and JNOV. Researchers should treat the historical dictionary entries as accurate for their period and jurisdiction — English practice under common law pleading — and not as guides to modern American procedural practice.
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Jurisdictional Note
Federal courts use "judgment as a matter of law" uniformly under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50. Many state courts retain "directed verdict" and "judgment notwithstanding the verdict" as operative terms. Louisiana and a handful of other states have procedural frameworks that diverge further. Researchers working across jurisdictions should identify the controlling procedural rules before assuming terminological equivalence.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Pretrial Motions — Motion to Dismiss (Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia): For context on the broader landscape of dispositive pretrial motions, including the distinction between motions that challenge pleadings and motions that challenge the merits.
Enforcement of Judgments — Execution, Domestication, and Post-Judgment Discovery (Law Mind Remedies & Equity Encyclopedia): For the downstream consequences of a judgment entered on a successful motion for judgment, including enforcement mechanisms.
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