§ 65.014.Limitations on Stay of Execution of Judgment

A limitations rule for equitable relief against a judgment, with three escapes.

An injunction to stay execution of a valid judgment may not be granted more than one year after the date the judgment was rendered, subject to the exceptions.

The rule protects the finality of judgments. A judgment creditor should not face an equitable attack on enforcement years later, and a debtor with a ground for relief should raise it promptly.

"Valid judgment" is the section’s premise. It governs relief against a judgment that is good — a void judgment is attacked on different grounds and is not what this addresses.

The first exception is fraud: where the application has been delayed because of fraud or false promises of the plaintiff in the judgment, practiced or made at the time of or after rendition.

A creditor who kept the debtor from acting cannot rely on the delay, which is the ordinary principle applied here — and it reaches false promises as well as fraud.

The second is a matter arising later: an equitable matter or defense arises after the rendition of the judgment.

That answers the obvious objection to a fixed period. A ground for relief that did not exist within the year cannot properly be barred by it.

The third is absence from the state. Where the applicant was absent when the judgment was rendered and unable to apply within one year, the injunction may be granted at any time within two years.

Note that this is an extension rather than an exception — two years rather than none — and both conditions must hold: absence at rendition and inability to apply within the year.