Opinion ID: 2595805
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: The district court proceeded properly

Text: A party seeking to vacate a final judgment based on fraud upon the court bears a heavy burden. It is only after a proper hearing, Universal Oil Co., 328 U.S. at 580, 66 S.Ct. 1176, in which the fraud has been established by clear and convincing evidence, Occhiuto, 97 Nev. at 146 n. 2, 625 P.2d at 570 n. 2, that relief can be granted. Even then, the motion is addressed to the sound discretion of the trial court. Id. The district judge in this case conducted an evidentiary hearing and entered specific and adequate findings of fact and conclusions of law. He viewed this as a terrible case... one of the worst cases I have seen in my... years on the bench. He knew Davidson as a talented lawyer, talented practitioner, talented trial lawyer, who had tr[ied] a jury trial or two here. In his view, everybody  was  bamboozled, including the court, by Mr. Davidson. Recognizing the concern with two innocent victims, one of whom hired the dishonest agent, the court fashioned a remedy that credited Valley Hospital with the $160,000 Davidson stole against any eventual recovery by the Garners. But the district court stopped there, declining to penalize the Garners with the loss of the right to adjudicate their claim for their father's alleged wrongful death by reason of their lawyer's fraud: [W]e lawyers, judges, and practitioners alike are very ... concerned about how our profession is perceived. We're very proud of what we believe is an honorable profession and  we're very concerned when something like this happens. It hurts us all. It really does. The district judge's finding that the court, equally with the Garners, the Hospital, and the Hospital's lawyer, was defrauded by Davidson, and its conclusion that this fraud was intolerable and justified vacating the stipulated judgment the court had signed, were well within its discretionary authority to decide.