May 20, 2025

Motion to Renew and Reargue: Two Very Different Statutes Within One

By Laura Trachtman
There are times when you’ve brought a motion before a judge, and you strongly believe that the judge wrongly ruled against your client.  When this happens, you have a couple of options. You can notice an appeal (which must be done within 30 days of the filing of the Notice of Entry), you can make a motion to reargue, and you can make a motion to renew. Please note that these are conjunctives, not disjunctives, so you can take all of these steps if you can satisfy the requirements.

Why are there so many different options? Great question. Each serves a different purpose.

The appeal is simple – you’re going to ask the appellate court to review the lower court’s decision and see if it was properly decided. 

  • The pros of appealing is that your claim will be reviewed by a panel of appellate division judges, and I have usually been fairly impressed with their legal acumen.
  • The cons are that it’s both expensive and time consuming. I once waited for 18 months to have an appeal decided after it was fully briefed and oral argument was made before the panel. 
  • Also, if you request oral argument, you’d better bring your A game, because the judges on the appellate division do not play around and the oral arguments are livestreamed, so you can make a fool of yourself in front of everyone tuning in to spectate. 

The motion to reargue is based on CPLR § 2221(d), and applies where a judge misapprehended a matter of fact or law. In other words, if you think the judge misunderstood something in their Decision + Order, you can make this argument and see if this second bite at the apple helps them to better understand the point you’re trying to make. 

  • The pros of making a motion to reargue is that it costs no more than the filing fee for the motion.  
  • The cons are that I find making a motion to renew to be a bit awkward. You’re literally telling the judge that you think they were wrong, which doesn’t always go over so well – especially if you’re going to continue to appear before the same judge. 
  • The other sticky wicket on a motion to reargue is that there’s no appeal from the decision on a motion to reargue, so your best bet is to both file an appeal and a motion to reargue as a belt-and-suspenders approach, and withdraw the appeal if you win the motion to reargue. 

The motion to renew is based on CPLR § 2221(e), and is based on new information not previously known to the movant at the time the motion was made: either the law has changed or new facts have emerged.  In other words, if you learned new information after you submitted your motion, you can make a motion to renew. You must also provide a reasonable justification for why the new information included in the motion to renew was not included in the prior motion to ensure that the new information is actually new.  

  • The pros of a motion to renew are that it can be very effective, and in my experience, a judge is more likely to grant a motion to renew than one to reargue.  Like its statutory sibling, the motion to renew is also cheap: the cost of a motion filing fee.  
  • The cons are that elements of a motion to renew are much more stringent than a motion to reargue. You must have new information — either a new legal argument or new facts, and you must be specific in both making your argument about the new information and explaining why this information had not previously been submitted.  In fact, the court lacks discretion to grant renewal without a justifiable excuse for the failure to present new facts on the prior motion – in other words, the court literally cannot grant renewal if you haven’t satisfied the prerequisites.  
  • You can appeal the decision on a motion to renew, which gives you a little extra time to pull yourself together if you end up losing and you haven’t submitted an appeal on the underlying motion. 

Both the motion to renew and reargue must be clearly labeled by the movant, and that can be a bit tricky composition-wise, as often facts pertain to both a motion to renew and one to reargue. I personally love drafting CPLR § 2221 motions because they are so persnickety, and I find rising to the challenge of clear and careful drafting eminently satisfying.