806.07.Relief from judgment or order.

Section 806.07 gives a court authority, on motion and on just terms, to relieve a party or legal representative from a judgment, order, or stipulation. It lists eight grounds: mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect; newly discovered evidence that would entitle a party to a new trial; fraud, misrepresentation, or other misconduct by an adverse party; a void judgment; a judgment already satisfied, released, or discharged; a prior judgment the current one was based on that has since been reversed or vacated; a judgment that is no longer equitable to apply prospectively; and, as a catch-all, any other reason justifying relief from the judgment’s operation. Because of that range of grounds, litigants and lawyers often refer to a motion under this section as a motion for relief from judgment, or compare it to a 60(b) motion in federal practice.

Timing matters. The motion generally must be made within a reasonable time, and if it rests on mistake, inadvertence, surprise, excusable neglect, or fraud, misrepresentation, or misconduct, it must be made within one year after the judgment was entered or the order or stipulation was made. A motion based on newly discovered evidence follows the timing set for new-trial motions on that ground. Making the motion does not itself affect the judgment’s finality or suspend its operation while the motion is pending.

The section preserves an independent path outside this motion process: a court’s power to entertain a separate action to relieve a party from a judgment, order, or proceeding, or to set aside a judgment for fraud on the court, is not limited by anything in this section.

One category of judgment is off-limits to this remedy altogether. An adoptive parent cannot use a motion under this section to be relieved from a judgment or order granting the adoption of a child. Instead, a petition to terminate parental rights and an appeal to the court of appeals are the exclusive remedies for an adoptive parent who wants to end the parental relationship with an adopted child.