Finality and Rule 60(b)

Relief From Final Judgment

Finality and Rule 60(b)

A final judgment ends the case in the trial court, and people act on it. Money changes hands, and the parties, along with others who hear of the result, alter their conduct. Those reliance interests deserve protection, and they explain why a court treats a judgment as settled even when the loser is sure it is wrong.¹

Rule 60(b) is the exception. On motion and just terms, a court may relieve a party or its legal representative from a final judgment, order, or proceeding, but only for the reasons the rule lists.² Rules of this kind name specific grounds and set definite time limits. The grounds codify well-recognized exceptions to finality, and they reflect a decision that in those circumstances the desire for truth and justice outweighs the value of immediate finality. The time limits protect the stability of judgments by ensuring that finality is postponed rather than avoided.³

The rule comes at the end of a line of chances. By the time a party reaches it, the loser has had a trial, post-trial motion practice, and an appeal. An appeal is review, not a fresh start: appellate courts review what the trial court did, and absent exceptional circumstances a party may not raise on appeal an error it never asked the trial court to correct.⁴ When the time for a post-trial motion or an appeal has passed, a Rule 60 motion is the last remaining recourse, and courts apply it ungenerously, construing the rule narrowly and enforcing its time limits.⁵

Two limits give that narrowness its shape. First, the grounds for relief are narrower than the grounds for a new trial, JMOL, or appeal. A verdict against the weight of the evidence is not a ground, nor is a verdict unsupported by sufficient evidence, nor are most process errors, unless they involve fraud, misrepresentation, or misconduct by an opposing party. Jury misconduct, for example, is missing from the list unless a party's conduct or fraud produced it. Second, even a listed ground supports relief only if the motion is brought within a reasonable time, and no later than one year after entry of judgment for the first three grounds.⁶

Within those limits, the power to grant relief belongs to the court, and it is a discretionary power. The Supreme Court described the authority to reopen a final judgment in Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc. as no legislative mandate to reopen, but as the courts' own inherent and discretionary power, firmly established in English practice long before the founding, to set aside a judgment whose enforcement would work inequity.⁷ A movant therefore asks the court to exercise discretion, not to honor a right, and courts exercise it warily. They repeat that Rule 60(b) is no substitute for appeal, that finality should not be lightly disturbed, and that they must consider and protect good-faith reliance on the judgment. A movant who asks the court to set the judgment aside in order to litigate again must also show a meritorious claim or defense. The motion starts uphill.⁸

A hypothetical shows where the line falls. Peter Painter sues Toyota over a design defect in a Camry sedan that, he says, caused an accident that injured him. His complaint gives little more than minimal notice, but it states the claim adequately, so Toyota has no motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim.⁹ The case goes to trial, Painter wins, and the deadlines for a post-trial motion and an appeal pass. Six months after judgment, Toyota learns that Painter's lawyer lobbied a juror at home during the trial. That is misconduct by an opposing party, the third listed ground, and the motion falls within one year, so Toyota may seek relief.¹⁰ Now change one fact. Toyota learns of no misconduct and moves under Rule 60(b) on the argument that the verdict was against the weight of the evidence. That complaint appears nowhere on the list; it belonged in a post-trial motion or an appeal, and the motion fails however strongly Toyota believes the jury erred.¹¹ The difference lies in the source of the defect. A party's wrongdoing is a listed ground, while disagreement with the jury's weighing of the evidence is not.

Three grounds carry a one-year ceiling:

• Clause (1): mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect.¹²
• Clause (2): newly discovered evidence that, with reasonable diligence, could not have been discovered in time to move for a new trial under Rule 59(b).¹³
• Clause (3): fraud (whether previously called intrinsic or extrinsic), misrepresentation, or misconduct by an opposing party.¹⁴

Each was a recognized ground for relief before the Federal Rules were adopted in 1938, each is concrete, and courts interpret each narrowly so that relief does not encourage sloppy practice at the first trial.¹⁵ Every ground must be raised within a reasonable time, whatever its number; the one-year ceiling attaches to these first three.¹⁶ The remaining three grounds come later in this chapter.

A clerical slip in the judgment is a different problem with a different remedy. A party, or the court on its own, may correct an error that results from a clerical mistake or from an omission or oversight at entry. Because the correction is ministerial, it does not formally reopen the judgment or require a retrial.¹⁷ Most systems allow correction of clerical mistakes at any time, while the federal courts limit alteration of a judgment for an omitted element to 28 days, in recognition that such a change may be more substantial.¹⁸

One structural rule governs every ground. A Rule 60(b) motion does not affect the judgment's finality or suspend its operation.¹⁹ That sets it apart from the post-trial motions that precede it.²⁰ The winner may keep relying on the judgment until a court actually grants relief; if filing froze the judgment, the filing alone would give the loser the benefit of delay. How the motion interacts with a pending appeal is taken up later in this chapter.