Rule 60.Relief from Judgment or Order

Rule 60 is identical to its civil counterpart and the source says so in a line of its own before subsection (a). It is the route back to a judgment after the Rule 59 windows have closed.

Clerical mistakes

Clerical mistakes in judgments, orders or other parts of the record, and errors arising from oversight or omission, may be corrected at any time — on the court's own initiative or a party's motion, after such notice as the court orders. While an appeal is pending, they may be corrected before the appeal is docketed, and after that only with leave of the appellate court.

The six grounds

On motion and on such terms as are just, the court may relieve a party or a legal representative from a final judgment, order or proceeding for:

1. mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect;
2. newly discovered evidence which by due diligence could not have been discovered in time to move for a new trial under Rule 59(b);
3. fraud — whether formerly called intrinsic or extrinsic — misrepresentation, or other misconduct of an adverse party;
4. the judgment is void;
5. the judgment has been satisfied, released or discharged, a prior judgment on which it is based has been reversed or vacated, or it is no longer equitable that the judgment should have prospective application;
6. any other reason justifying relief from the operation of the judgment.

Ground (5)'s prospective-application branch is the one that does the most work in a court whose judgments run forward in time.

Timing, and what a Rule 60 motion does not do

Every motion must be made within a reasonable time, and for grounds (1), (2) and (3) not more than one year after the judgment, order or proceeding was entered or taken. The one-year cap is an outer limit, not a safe harbor — the reasonable-time requirement applies as well.

A Rule 60(b) motion does not affect the finality of a judgment or suspend its operation. Rule 62(b) is the companion: the court may in its discretion stay execution pending disposition of a Rule 60 motion.

The rule preserves an independent action to relieve a party from a judgment and the power to set aside a judgment for fraud upon the court. Writs of review, of error, of audita querela and petitions to vacate judgment are abolished; relief comes by motion under these rules or by independent action.