Opinion ID: 414420
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Timeliness of the Motion to Vacate

Text: 13 In vacating the funding provision, the district judge acted on defendants' motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b). 2 The rule provides relief from a final judgment or order for five enumerated reasons or, under a sixth provision, for any other reason justifying relief. Defendants specified the sixth subsection as the ground for their motion. The district judge said the motion could also be characterized as a 60(b)(4) motion that the judgment was void. 14 PLSO contends that the motion was untimely. If we accept each step of its argument, relief would be barred. 15 First, PLSO disputes the district judge's characterization of the motion as a 60(b)(4) challenge of a void judgment. Next, it contends that the motion is really a 60(b)(1) motion on grounds of mistake, i.e., a mistake about defendants' authority to bind the state to the funding provision. It argues that case law prohibits a 60(b)(6) residual category motion for something fitting under one of the specific grounds enumerated in 60(b)(1)-(5). Any 60(b) motion must be made within a reasonable time, but for 60(b)(1) that time cannot exceed one year. 16 Finally, PLSO argues that the timeliness of defendants' April 1982 motion should be measured from the 1978 decree when the defendants, as the district judge found, knowingly undertook to fund legal services. The judge measured it from her February 1982 finding that defendants had so undertaken, reasoning that any prior motion would have been premature. 17 In view of the important state interests implicated here, we conclude that the motion was allowable under Rule 60(b)(6). See United States v. 119.67 Acres of Land, 663 F.2d 1328, 1330-31 (5th Cir.1981); cf. Klapprott v. United States, 335 U.S. 601, 613-14, 69 S.Ct. 384, 389-90, 93 L.Ed. 266 modified on other grounds, 336 U.S. 942, 69 S.Ct. 384, 93 L.Ed. 1099 (1949). We need not address the propriety of the motion under 60(b)(4). 18 As there is no specified time limit for 60(b)(6), whether the motion was timely is a matter of the district court's discretion. Perrin v. Alcoa, 197 F.2d 254 (9th Cir.1952). In view of the extraordinary circumstances, there was no abuse of discretion in concluding that this motion was made within a reasonable time.