{{Civil procedure (United States)
In
law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
, a motion to set aside judgment is an application to overturn or set aside a
court
A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in acco ...
's
judgment
Judgement (or US spelling judgment) is also known as ''adjudication'', which means the evaluation of evidence to make a decision. Judgement is also the ability to make considered decisions. The term has at least five distinct uses. Aristotle s ...
,
verdict
In law, a verdict is the formal finding of fact made by a jury on matters or questions submitted to the jury by a judge. In a bench trial, the judge's decision near the end of the trial is simply referred to as a finding. In England and Wales ...
or other final ruling in a case. Such a
motion
In physics, motion is the phenomenon in which an object changes its position with respect to time. Motion is mathematically described in terms of displacement, distance, velocity, acceleration, speed and frame of reference to an observer and m ...
is proposed by a party who is dissatisfied with the result of a
case. Motions may be made at any time after entry of judgment, and in some circumstances years after the case has been closed by the courts. Generally the motion cannot be based on grounds which were previously considered when deciding a motion for new trial or on an appeal of the judgment, thus the motion can only be granted in unusual circumstances, such as when the judgment was procured by
fraud which could not have been discovered at the time of the trial, or if the court entering the judgment lacked the
jurisdiction
Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' + 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, areas of jurisdiction apply to local, state, and federal levels.
J ...
to do so.
Motions to set aside judgments entered in civil cases in the
United States district court
The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district co ...
s are governed by Rule 60 of the
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The rule is quite straightforward; its court room application is mostly exactly as stated.
Motions to set aside judgment in criminal cases are rare: in U.S. jurisprudence the writ of ''
habeas corpus
''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...
'' is the usual method of attacking a criminal conviction after the right of
appeal has been exhausted.
Civil procedure
Legal motions