Short answer. Yes. If there's no genuine issue of material fact or the answer fails to tender an issue, the court may, on its own initiative, include in the pre-trial order that the case be submitted for summary judgment or judgment on the pleadings, without need for position papers, deciding within ninety calendar days.
What the law says
Should there be no more controverted facts, or no more genuine issue as to any material fact, or an absence of any issue, or should the answer fail to tender an issue, the court shall, without prejudice to a party moving for judgment on the pleadings under Rule 34 or summary judgment under Rule 35, motu proprio include in the pre-trial order that the case be submitted for summary judgment or judgment on the pleadings, without need of position papers or memoranda. In such cases, judgment shall be rendered within ninety calendar days from termination of the pre-trial.
Rule 18, Section 10 — Judgment after pre. Read the full provision →
The triggering conditions
This particular provision applies whenever, at the pre-trial stage, it becomes reasonably apparent that there are no more genuinely controverted facts remaining, no genuine issue as to any material fact left to try, an outright absence of any issue at all in the case, or that the answer simply fails to tender any issue in the first place. Any single one of these situations is enough to open the door toward resolving the case without a full-blown trial.
The court can act on its own initiative
The court here is not limited merely to waiting passively for one of the parties to formally move for judgment on the pleadings or for summary judgment on their own. It may instead act motu proprio, including directly in the pre-trial order itself that the case be submitted for summary judgment or judgment on the pleadings — and this is expressly stated to be without prejudice to either party's own separate right to move for that same relief.
No position papers or memoranda required
When the court proceeds this way entirely on its own initiative, it does so without any need of position papers or memoranda being separately submitted by the parties beforehand. The clear absence of any genuine issue is itself treated as sufficient basis for skipping that additional procedural step, since there is essentially nothing substantively contested left over for extended written argument to meaningfully resolve at that point.
A firm deadline for judgment
Once a case has actually been submitted this way, judgment shall be rendered within ninety calendar days counted from the termination of the pre-trial. The court's own order submitting the case for this particular kind of judgment is also expressly not the proper subject of an appeal or certiorari, which keeps the case firmly moving toward a final decision within that fixed ninety-day window.