summary judgment
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 369 U.S. 654 - United States v. Diebold, Inc. · 1962Most cited · 15,311 citing opinions
On summary judgment the inferences to be drawn from the underlying facts contained in such materials must be viewed in the light most favorable to the party opposing the motion.
How the Supreme Court has restated “summary judgment”
Each Supreme Court definition of “summary judgment,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “summary judgment”
Court decisions citing the 3 opinions that defined “summary judgment” — 18,270 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 3 definitions, chronological · 1944–1962
- ORIGINAL
Rule 56 authorizes summary judgment only where the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law, where it is quite clear what the truth is, that no genuine issue remains for trial, and that the purpose of the rule is not to cut litigants off from their right of trial by jury if they really have issues to try
Summary judgment may be given, under Rule 56, only if there is no dispute as to any material fact.