However the defendants filed a "motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, or in the alternative for a new trial " which Judge Decker allowed on the grounds that closer reading of the law persuaded him that "Times" applied insofar as it brought "matters of public interest" into the scope of requiring "actual malice" (knowledge of untruth or reckless disregard for the truth). Decker opined (in a memorandum opinion) that Gertz had failed to show actual malice. (Gertz remarks in his book, that since he had been specifically instructed that there was no need to show actual malice, he expected, at this point in the opinion, a new trial to be ordered.) Decker granted the motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, saying that the law compelled it.