The Utah Supreme Court’s Committee on Civil Rules finished its rewrite of the post-trial motion rules (Rules 50, 52, 41, 59, and 60) last Wednesday, May 27th.
The proposed amended rules will now be sent out for comment to the bar, and then all comments will be considered by the Rules Committee, any necessary changes made, and the final version will be submitted to the Supreme Court for its consideration.
These are mostly stylistic changes only, to bring our post-trial motions rules into line with the federal rules by eliminating such antiquated language as “Motion for JNOV” in favor of “Renewal of Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law.”
The only substantive changes are to extend the deadline for post-trial motions to 28 days (from 14) after the entry of judgment, and to eliminate the “gotcha” which requires a motion for directed verdict to be renewed at the close of all the evidence.
I am no longer on the Rules Committee (my term having expired last summer) but I have worked on these changes for several years, and recently assisted the Committee in this rewrite.
Lawyers will be receiving the usual email from the Administrative Office of the Courts regarding these changes, probably next week. Take a few minutes and read over the proposed changes– make sure that the Committee hasn’t missed something, or is creating issues that were not intended.
FJC
