Definition (English):summary judgment. (18c) A judgment granted on a claim or defense about which there is no genuine issue ofmaterial fact and upon which the movant is entitled to prevail as a matter oflaw .• The court considers the contents of the pleadings, the motions, and additional evidence adduced by the parties to determine whether there is a genuine issue of material fact rather than one of law. This procedural device allows the speedy disposition ofa controversy without the need for trial. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56. Also termed summary disposition; judgment on the pleadings. See JUDGMENT.
Definition (Spanish):—
Comments:When an appeal is filed, opposing counsel generally files a motion for dismissal. This is, in many contexts, often referred to as a 'motion for summary judgment', and is often brought during trial, after a party has rested, as a way of pre-empting the remainder of the trial and asking the Judge to make a finding that said party has been unable to sustain their burden. A motion for summary dismissal is slightly different, in that it is made at the very beginning of a process (generally civil, administrative, or appellate), one could say before the process has already begun, and asks the appellate authorities to throw the case out due to legal or factual insufficiency. This is similar, but distinct in an important way, from a process that in Spanish is known as 'inadmisión a trámite'. In Spanish-language jurisdictions, commonly there is someone who has the authority (often a secretario judicial) and responsibility of deciding whether a case is admitted, or not, to the judicial process; this person makes a prima facie decision regarding jurisdiction and legal sufficiency, and either lo admite a trámite or lo inadmita a trámite. However, there is a fundamental difference here, because the person making the decision is the judicial authority itself, it is Court staff making a unilateral decision; a summary dismissal is action taken by the Court at the behest of counsel, already within the adversarial framework.