K.S.A. 60-260.Relief from judgment or order

K.S.A. 60-260 is Kansas's escape valve from a judgment that's already final -- the section lawyers elsewhere often call a "60(b) motion." Subsection (a) handles the easy case first: a clerical mistake, or a mistake from oversight or omission, in a judgment, order, or any other part of the record. The court can fix that type of error on motion or entirely on its own, with or without notice to the parties. The one limit is timing relative to an appeal -- once an appeal has been docketed and is pending in the appellate court, the trial court can only correct the mistake with that court's leave.

Subsection (b) sets out six grounds for relieving a party or its legal representative from a final judgment, order, or proceeding, on motion and on just terms. The first three sound in fault or surprise: mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect; newly discovered evidence that reasonable diligence couldn't have turned up in time to support a new-trial motion under 60-259(b); and fraud -- whether traditionally labeled intrinsic or extrinsic -- misrepresentation, or misconduct by an opposing party. The fourth is a void judgment. The fifth covers a judgment that's already been satisfied, released, or discharged; one built on an earlier judgment that's since been reversed or vacated; or one where continuing to apply it prospectively would no longer be equitable. The sixth is a catch-all: any other reason that justifies relief.

Timing depends on which ground applies. Every motion under subsection (b) must be made within a reasonable time. But for the first three grounds -- mistake or excusable neglect, newly discovered evidence, and fraud or misconduct -- the motion also can't come more than one year after the judgment or order was entered or the proceeding took place. Filing the motion doesn't touch the judgment's finality or put its operation on hold; the judgment keeps working unless and until the court grants relief.

Subsection (d) makes clear that none of this narrows a court's existing power to entertain an independent action to relieve a party from a judgment, order, or proceeding; to grant relief under K.S.A. 60-309 to a defendant who was never personally notified of the action; or to set aside a judgment for fraud on the court -- none of which carries the one-year cap that applies to the first three grounds in subsection (b). Subsection (e) closes out a set of older devices that once did similar work: bills of review, bills in the nature of bills of review, and writs of coram nobis, coram vobis, and audita querela are all abolished.