Rule 60.Relief from Judgment or Order

Rule 15-6-60(a) handles the easy case first: clerical mistakes in a judgment, order, or other part of the record, and errors from oversight or omission, can be corrected by the court at any time, on its own initiative or a party’s motion, with whatever notice the court orders. That power survives even during a pending appeal, though the process shifts slightly once the settled record has been sent to the Supreme Court, requiring that court’s leave for further corrections.

The harder case is Rule 15-6-60(b), which lists the substantive grounds for relieving a party from a final judgment, order, or proceeding: mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect; newly discovered evidence that due diligence could not have turned up in time to move for a new trial under Rule 15-6-59(b); fraud, misrepresentation, or other misconduct by an adverse party; a judgment that is void; a judgment that has been satisfied, released, or discharged, or that rests on a prior judgment since reversed or vacated, or that it is no longer equitable to keep applying going forward; and, as a catchall, any other reason justifying relief from the judgment’s operation.

Timing matters. A motion under Rule 15-6-60(b) has to come within a reasonable time, and for the first three grounds — mistake, newly discovered evidence, and fraud — no more than one year after the judgment, order, or proceeding at issue. Filing the motion does not by itself affect the judgment’s finality or suspend its operation; the judgment stands unless and until the court grants relief.

The rule does not close every other door. It expressly preserves a court’s power to entertain an independent action to relieve a party from a judgment, to grant relief to a defendant who was never personally notified as the law required, or to set aside a judgment obtained through fraud on the court — remedies that are not bound by the one-year cap that applies to a motion under Rule 15-6-60(b) itself.