If you’ve ever blanked on the difference between a motion for judgment as a matter of law and a renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law, you’re not alone. This distinction trips up bar takers constantly — and the MBE loves to test it.

What Is a Renewed Motion for JMOL?

The renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law (sometimes called a Rule 50(b) motion, or historically referred to as a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, or JNOV) is a post-trial motion that asks the court to enter judgment in favor of the moving party despite the jury’s verdict. Under FRCP 50(b), after the jury returns a verdict against a party, that party may renew a previously filed motion for judgment as a matter of law.

The key word there is renew. You cannot file a Rule 50(b) motion out of nowhere after trial. You must have first filed a Rule 50(a) motion — the pre-verdict motion for judgment as a matter of law — during trial, before the case was submitted to the jury. If you skipped that step, you’ve waived your right to bring the renewed motion entirely. That procedural trap is exactly the kind of thing the MBE will test.

The Rule 50(a) Motion: The Prerequisite You Cannot Skip

Before you can understand the renewed motion for JMOL on the MBE, you need to understand its prerequisite.

A Rule 50(a) motion may be made at any time before the case is submitted to the jury. The moving party argues that a reasonable jury would not have a legally sufficient evidentiary basis to find for the other side. The standard is whether the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, permits only one reasonable conclusion — and that conclusion favors the moving party.

If the court denies the Rule 50(a) motion (which courts often do, preferring to let the jury decide), the case goes to the jury. If the jury then returns a verdict against the movant, that party may renew the motion under Rule 50(b). But here’s the critical rule: you can only raise in your Rule 50(b) motion the same grounds you raised in your Rule 50(a) motion. You cannot introduce new arguments after the fact.

The Renewed Motion for JMOL: Elements and Timing

For the bar exam, you need to know the renewed motion for JMOL elements cold. Here’s what FRCP 50(b) requires:

1. A prior Rule 50(a) motion must have been filed. This is the threshold requirement. No pre-verdict motion, no post-verdict renewal. Full stop.

2. The motion must be filed no later than 28 days after entry of judgment. This deadline is strict. Miss it and the court has no authority to grant relief under Rule 50(b). Note that this same 28-day window applies to motions for a new trial under Rule 59.

3. The standard remains the same as Rule 50(a). The court asks whether a reasonable jury would have had a legally sufficient evidentiary basis for its verdict. The evidence is still viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party — the party who won at trial.

4. The grounds must match the original Rule 50(a) motion. You cannot sandbag new legal theories post-verdict. The renewed motion is limited to what was raised before the jury deliberated.

What the Court Can Do After Granting a Rule 50(b) Motion

This is another area where MBE questions get specific. If the court grants a renewed motion for JMOL, it has three options under Rule 50(b):

The court can also conditionally rule on a motion for a new trial at the same time it rules on the Rule 50(b) motion. This conditional ruling becomes effective only if the judgment is later vacated or reversed on appeal. This pairing of motions matters — it’s a procedural efficiency the rules explicitly contemplate.

A Hypothetical to Make This Concrete

Here’s the kind of scenario you might see on the MBE:

A plaintiff sues a defendant for negligence. At the close of all evidence, the defendant moves for judgment as a matter of law, arguing the plaintiff failed to present sufficient evidence of causation. The court denies the motion. The jury returns a verdict for the plaintiff. The defendant files a renewed motion for JMOL 30 days after judgment is entered, arguing both insufficient causation evidence and, for the first time, that the plaintiff assumed the risk.

What happens? Two problems. First, the 30-day filing is outside the 28-day window under Rule 50(b) — the motion is untimely. Second, even if it were timely, the assumption of risk argument is a new ground not raised in the original Rule 50(a) motion. The court cannot consider it.

This hypothetical captures exactly what the MBE is looking for: procedural precision. Getting the substantive law right isn’t enough if you miss the timing or the preservation requirement.

How This Interacts with Appeal

One more thing you should know: the Rule 50(a) prerequisite matters on appeal too. If a party fails to file a pre-verdict Rule 50(a) motion, they generally cannot challenge the sufficiency of the evidence on appeal. The renewed motion for JMOL is the mechanism that preserves that appellate right. Courts have held that without the Rule 50(a) motion, the appellate court is limited to reviewing for plain error at most — a very difficult standard to meet.

This is why the procedural sequence matters so much. It’s not just about the trial court. It’s about locking in your rights for the entire case.

Don’t Confuse Rule 50(b) with Rule 59

Bar takers sometimes blur the line between a renewed motion for JMOL and a motion for a new trial under Rule 59. They’re different remedies. A Rule 50(b) motion says the jury got it legally wrong — there wasn’t enough evidence to support the verdict. A Rule 59 motion says the jury got it factually wrong, or something procedurally unfair happened at trial. The remedies are different too: Rule 50(b) can result in judgment being entered for the other side, while Rule 59 only gets you a new trial. Both share the 28-day filing deadline, which is one reason they’re often filed together.

FlashTables is a set of professionally formatted two-column PDF rule tables covering all seven MBE subjects — 704 rules total, organized by the official NCBE Subject Matter Outline. The renewed motion for JMOL is one of the Civil Procedure rules laid out side-by-side in the table, with the rule of law on one side and the precise elements on the other. Whether you’re a law student building out your Civil Procedure outline or a bar taker drilling active recall in the final weeks before the exam, the tables give you a clean, scannable format to lock in rules like this one fast. You can see what’s covered at getflashtables.com.

Key Takeaways: Renewed Motion for JMOL on the MBE

Before you move on, make sure you can recite these without looking:

The renewed motion for JMOL is one of those Civil Procedure topics where the procedural sequence is the substance. Get the steps out of order and the whole motion collapses. Know the rule, know the timing, know what you waive if you skip a step — and you’ll be ready when the MBE tests it.