Short answer. If the grounds affect only part of the controversy, or only some of the parties, the court may order a new trial or grant reconsideration limited to those severable issues, without interfering with the judgment or final order on the rest.
What the law says
If the grounds for a motion under this Rule appear to the court to affect the issues as to only a part, or less than all of the matter in controversy, or only one, or less than all, of the parties to it, the court may order a new trial or grant reconsideration as to such issues if severable without interfering with the judgment or final order upon the rest.
Rule 37, Section 7 — Partial new trial or reconsideration. Read the full provision →
When partial relief is available
Rule 37, Section 7 applies where the grounds raised for the motion appear to the court to affect the issues as to only a part, or less than all, of the matter in controversy, or as to only one, or less than all, of the parties to the case. In that situation, the court is not forced to treat the motion as an all-or-nothing request covering the entire judgment. That flexibility matters most in cases involving multiple claims, multiple parties, or both, where a defect affecting one piece of the case has nothing to do with how the rest of it was resolved.
The severability condition, and what stays untouched
The court may order a new trial or grant reconsideration limited to those particular issues, but only if they are severable without interfering with the judgment or final order on the rest of the case. Everything outside the affected issues or parties is left standing exactly as it was decided, since the partial new trial or reconsideration is not meant to disturb parts of the case that were never actually in question. If the affected issue cannot genuinely be separated from the rest of the controversy without risking an inconsistent or incomplete result, the court is not meant to grant only partial relief just to save time.
Why this matters
Confining the relief to what is genuinely severable lets a court correct a real, narrow problem without forcing the parties to re-litigate issues that were resolved correctly the first time. This saves both the court and the parties from redoing work on parts of the case that nobody is actually contesting. It also preserves the finality of the parts of the case nobody is actually disputing, so only the genuinely contested issues go through the added time and expense of a second look.
Related provisions
- Rule 37, Section 7 — Partial new trial or reconsideration
- Rule 37, Section 6 — Effect of granting of motion for new trial
- Rule 37, Section 8 — Effect of order for partial new trial