Definition
Motion for summary judgment is a request made by the defendant in a civil case. It asserts that the plaintiff has raised no genuine issue to be tried and asks the judge to rule in favor of the defense. This motion is typically made before trial. Summary judgment is a legal term which means that a court has made a determination (a judgment) without a full trial. Such a judgment may be issued as to the merits of an entire case or of specific issues in that case. In such a motion, “each element must be supported in the same way as any other matter on which the plaintiff bears the burden of proof, i.e., with the manner and degree of evidence required at the successive stages of the litigation.” In order to defeat a summary judgment motion, the nonmoving party (e.g., plaintiff) may not simply rely on his pleadings but must present some evidence on every material issue for which he will bear the burden of proof at trial. Absent an award of summary judgment (or some other type of...
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References and Readings
Celotex Corp. v. Catrett 477 U.S. 317, 324 (1986).
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, No. 56.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this entry
Cite this entry
Heilbronner, R.L. (2018). Motion for Summary Judgment. In: Kreutzer, J.S., DeLuca, J., Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_1012
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_1012
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-57110-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-57111-9
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences