Cite as: 528 U. S. 440 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
Weisgram relies on cases holding that, in fairness to a verdict winner who may have relied on erroneously admitted evidence, courts confronting questions of judgment as a matter of law should rule on the record as it went to the jury, without excising evidence inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702. See, e. g., Kinser v. Gehl Co., 184 F. 3d 1259, 1267, 1269 (CA10 1999); Schudel v. General Electric Co., 120 F. 3d 991, 995-996 (CA9 1997); Jackson v. Pleasant Grove Health Care Center, 980 F. 2d 692, 695-696 (CA11 1993); Midcontinent Broadcasting, 471 F. 2d, at 358. But see Lightning Lube, Inc. v. Witco Corp., 4 F. 3d 1153, 1198-1200 (CA3 1993). These decisions are of questionable consistency with Rule 50(a)(1), which states that in ruling on a motion for judgment as a matter of law, the court is to inquire
need for multiple appeals. See id., at 253. Rule 50 was amended in 1963 to codify Montgomery Ward's instruction. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 50(c)(1).
In the course of its elaboration, the Montgomery Ward Court observed that a "motion for judgment cannot be granted unless, as a matter of law, the opponent of the movant failed to make a case." 311 U. S., at 251. In contrast, the Court stated, a new trial motion may invoke the court's discretion, bottomed on such standard new trial grounds as "the verdict is against the weight of the evidence," or "the damages are excessive," or substantial errors were made "in admission or rejection of evidence." Ibid.; see also id., at 249.
Many rulings on evidence, of course, do not bear dispositively on the adequacy of the proof to support a verdict. For example, the evidence erroneously admitted or excluded may strengthen or weaken one side's case without being conclusive as to the litigation's outcome. Or, the evidence may abundantly support a jury's verdict, but one or another item may have been unduly prejudicial to the verdict loser and excludable on that account. See Fed. Rule Evid. 403 (relevant evidence "may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice"). Such run-of-the-mine, ordinarily nondispositive, evidentiary rulings, we take it, were the sort contemplated in Montgomery Ward. Cf. 311 U. S., at 245-246 (indicating that sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenges are properly raised by motion for judgment, while other rulings on evidence may be assigned as grounds for a new trial).
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