Kentucky's ten days: the motion to alter, amend or vacate a judgment
Kentucky procedure · Last verified August 17, 2026
Kentucky's post-judgment window is ten days. Not twenty-one, not twenty-eight, not thirty. Ten, from entry of the final judgment, and the rule measures it by service, not filing.
It is among the shortest in the country, and missing it pushes you into a different rule with a much harder standard.
The rule
Ky. CR 59.05 is a single sentence:
A motion to alter or amend a judgment, or to vacate a judgment and enter a new one, shall be served not later than 10 days after entry of the final judgment.
Three things to extract from it.
Ten days from entry. Not from the date the judge signed it, not from notice, not from receipt.
Served, not filed. The rule sets a service deadline. File as well, of course — but the ten days is measured by service.
Three forms of relief in one motion: alter, amend, or vacate and enter a new one.
The companion rule runs on the same clock. CR 59.02:
A motion for a new trial shall be served not later than 10 days after the entry of the judgment.
So both post-judgment motions share the ten-day period.
The grounds for a new trial
If what you want is a new trial rather than an amendment, CR 59.01 lists eight causes:
A new trial may be granted to all or any of the parties and on all or part of the issues for any of the following causes:
(a) Irregularity in the proceedings of the court, jury or prevailing party, or an order of the court, or abuse of discretion, by which the party was prevented from having a fair trial. (b) Misconduct of the jury, of the prevailing party, or of his attorney. (c) Accident or surprise which ordinary prudence could not have guarded against. (d) Excessive or inadequate damages, appearing to have been given under the influence of passion or prejudice or in disregard of the evidence or the instructions of the court. (e) Error in the assessment of the amount of recovery whether too large or too small. (f) That the verdict is not sustained by sufficient evidence, or is contrary to law. (g) Newly discovered evidence, material for the party applying, which he could not, with reasonable diligence, have discovered and produced at the trial. (h) Errors of law occurring at the trial and objected to by the party under the provisions of these rules.
Two of these repay attention.
(d) and (e) are different grounds. (d) requires damages given "under the influence of passion or prejudice or in disregard of the evidence or the instructions" — a finding about how the jury behaved. (e) is a plain error in the assessment of the amount, with no such requirement. If the number is simply wrong, (e) is the cleaner ground.
(h) requires a contemporaneous objection. Errors of law are a ground only where "objected to by the party under the provisions of these rules." An unpreserved error of law is not a CR 59.01(h) ground.
CR 59.05 or CR 60.02?
This is the decision the ten days forces, and it is worth making deliberately.
| CR 59.05 | CR 60.02 | |
|---|---|---|
| Deadline | 10 days from entry | reasonable time; 1 year on grounds (a), (b), (c) |
| What it does | alter, amend, or vacate and enter a new judgment | relief from a final judgment |
| Grounds required | none enumerated in the rule | six lettered grounds, including "extraordinary nature" |
| Typical use | the judgment is wrong on the record before the court | something outside the record — mistake, fraud, a void judgment |
Inside ten days, CR 59.05 is the better route: it does not require you to fit an enumerated ground. Outside ten days, you are on CR 60.02, where the grounds are enumerated, the catch-all requires a reason "of an extraordinary nature", and three of the six grounds expire at a year.
That is why the ten days matters so much. It is not merely a deadline — it is the difference between a general power to correct the judgment and a targeted remedy with a threshold.
The court can act on its own
CR 59.04 allows the court to order a new trial on its own initiative, which is worth knowing when a judge raises a problem at the bench — that is not necessarily an invitation to move.
How Kentucky compares
| Kentucky | Michigan | Texas | Federal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time to move | 10 days | 21 days | 30 days | 28 days |
| Measured by | service | filing | filing | filing |
| Runs from | entry of judgment | entry of order | signing of judgment | entry |
| Enumerated grounds for a new trial | eight, CR 59.01 | — | — | — |
| Separate later route | CR 60.02 | MCR 2.612 | bill of review | Rule 60(b) |
Ten days measured by service is the tightest combination in that table. A Kentucky judgment entered on a Friday leaves very little room.
A short checklist
- Find the date of entry — that is the trigger, not the signing date or the date you learned of it.
- Diarise ten days, and treat it as a service deadline, not a filing one.
- Decide which motion you want. CR 59.05 alters, amends or vacates; CR 59.02 asks for a new trial. They share the deadline.
- If you want a new trial, identify the CR 59.01 ground by letter.
- On a damages complaint, consider (e) before (d) — (e) does not require showing passion, prejudice, or disregard of the evidence.
- Check whether the error of law was objected to at trial. Ground (h) requires it.
- If the ten days have passed, move to CR 60.02 — and read its grounds and time limits before drafting.
- Do not assume filing the motion stops enforcement. Kentucky's relief-from-judgment rule says expressly that it does not, and nothing in CR 59.05 provides a stay.
Where these rules live
- Ky. CR 59.01 — Grounds
- Ky. CR 59.02 — Time for motion
- Ky. CR 59.04 — On initiative of court
- Ky. CR 59.05 — Motion to alter, amend or vacate a judgment
- Ky. CR 60.02 — Relief by motion on grounds of mistake, newly discovered evidence, fraud, etc.
This page explains what the rules say. It isn't legal advice, and the standards applied to each CR 59.01 ground are developed in case law this site doesn't cover.