Rule 2.610.Motion for Judgment Notwithstanding the Verdict

A motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict asks the court to override the jury and enter judgment for the losing party as a matter of law, and it has to be filed within 21 days after judgment is entered, or within 21 days after the jury is discharged if it never reached a verdict at all. The motion can be joined with a motion for a new trial, or a new trial can be requested as an alternative, and a motion aimed at nullifying a verdict is automatically read to include a JNOV request as a backup. Ruling on it, the court either lets the judgment stand or reopens it and orders a new trial or the judgment the motion asked for, with a concise statement of reasons required either way.

If the court grants the JNOV motion, it doesn't get to skip the new-trial question: it has to conditionally rule on any paired new-trial motion too, spelling out whether a new trial would be granted if the JNOV ruling were later vacated or reversed, which matters a great deal on appeal — a conditional grant doesn't affect the judgment's finality, but triggers a new trial automatically if the judgment is reversed (unless the appellate court says otherwise), while a conditional denial lets the appellee argue on appeal that the new trial should have been granted anyway. A party whose verdict was set aside on a JNOV motion can still move for a new trial under Rule 2.611 within 14 days after judgment, but loses that right if the deadline passes. And if the JNOV motion itself is denied, the party who prevailed on that motion can still assert, as appellee, grounds entitling it to a new trial should the appellate court conclude the motion was wrongly denied, preserving that issue for appeal even without filing a separate motion.