Cite as: 528 U. S. 440 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
an error in the admission of evidence, the appellate court may not order the entry of judgment for the verdict loser, but must instead remand the case to the trial court for a new trial determination. Brief for Petitioner 20, 22; Reply Brief 1, 17. Nothing in Rule 50 expressly addresses this question.5
In a series of pre-1967 decisions, this Court refrained from deciding the question, while emphasizing the importance of giving the party deprived of a verdict the opportunity to invoke the discretion of the trial judge to grant a new trial. See Cone v. West Virginia Pulp & Paper Co., 330 U. S. 212, 216-218 (1947); Globe Liquor Co. v. San Roman, 332 U. S. 571, 573-574 (1948); Johnson v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 344 U. S. 48, 54, n. 3 (1952); see also 9A Wright & Miller § 2540, at 370. Then, in Neely, the Court reviewed its prior jurisprudence and ruled definitively that if a motion for judgment as a matter of law is erroneously denied by the district court, the appellate court does have the power to order the entry of judgment for the moving party. 386 U. S., at 326; see also Louis, Post-Verdict Rulings on the Sufficiency of the Evidence: Neely v. Martin K. Eby Construction Co. Revisited, 1975 Wis. L. Rev. 503 (surveying chronologically Court's decisions bearing on appellate direction of judgment as a matter of law).
Neely first addressed the compatibility of appellate direction of judgment as a matter of law (then styled "judgment n.o.v.") with the Seventh Amendment's jury trial guarantee. It was settled, the Court pointed out, that a trial court, pur-5 According to the Advisory Committee Notes to the 1963 Rule 50 amendments, this "omission" was not inadvertent:
"Subdivision (d) does not attempt a regulation of all aspects of the procedure where the motion for judgment n.o.v. and any accompanying motion for a new trial are denied, since the problems have not been fully canvassed in the decisions and the procedure is in some respects still in a formative stage. It is, however, designed to give guidance on certain important features of the practice." Advisory Committee's Notes on Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 50(d), 28 U. S. C. App., p. 769.
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