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Page Number: 8.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

5 

Opinion of the Court 

was  adopted  in  1938  and  revised  in  1946,  the  word  “mis-
take” applied to any “misconception,” “misunderstanding,”
or “fault in opinion or judgment.”  Webster’s New Interna-
tional Dictionary 1383 (1914) (Webster’s); see also Funk & 
Wagnalls  New  Standard  Dictionary  of  the  English  Lan-
guage 1588 (1944) (Funk & Wagnalls) (defining “mistake” 
as an “error in action, judgment, or perceptions,” including, 
e.g., “a mistake in calculation”).  In ordinary usage, then, a 
“mistake” was not limited only to factual “misconception[s]”
or “misunderstanding[s],” or to mistakes by non-judicial ac-
tors.  Webster’s  1383.  Likewise,  in  its  legal  usage,  “mis-
take” included errors “of law or fact.”  Black’s Law Diction-
ary 1195 (3d ed. 1933) (Black’s).  Thus, regardless whether
“mistake” in Rule 60(b)(1) carries its ordinary meaning or
legal meaning, it includes a judge’s mistakes of law. 

Had  the  drafters  of  Rule  60(b)(1)  intended  a  narrower 
meaning, they “easily could have drafted language to that 
effect.”  Mississippi ex rel. Hood v. AU Optronics Corp., 571 
U. S. 161, 169 (2014).  The difference between “mistake of 
fact” and “mistake of law” was well known at the time.  Both 
lay and legal dictionaries identified them as distinct cate-
gories.  See  Funk  &  Wagnalls  1588;  Black’s  1195.    Thus, 
Rule 60(b)(1)’s drafters had at their disposal readily availa-
ble language that could have connoted a narrower under-
standing of “mistake.”  Yet they chose to include “mistake” 
unqualified.

Similarly,  Rule  60(b)(1)’s  drafters  could  just  as  easily
have excluded mistakes by judges from the Rule’s ambit.  In 
fact, the Rule used to read that way.  When adopted in 1938,
Rule 60(b) initially referred to “his”—i.e., a party’s—“mis-
take,”  so  judicial  errors  were  not  covered.    Fed.  Rule  Civ. 
Proc. 60(b) (1938).  In 1946, however, the Rule’s amenders 
deleted the word “his,” thereby removing any limitation on 
whose  mistakes  could  qualify.  See  Fed.  Rule  Civ.  Proc. 
60(b)(1)  (1946).  Thus,  as  currently  written,  “mistake”  in