Court Opinion

ID: 9690198
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:56:26.506614+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:54.045013
License: Public Domain

SABERS, Justice
(dissenting).
The majority’s result-oriented treatment tends to brush past the clear and settled rule that relief under SDCL 15-6-60(b) is available in attorney negligence situations only if the client can affirmatively show either (1) that the attorney’s negligence was excusable or (2) that the client herself was not negligent. First Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass’n v. Strub, 427 N.W.2d 836, 837-838 (S.D.1988); Midcontinent Broadcasting Co. v. AVA Corp., 329 N.W.2d 378, 380 (S.D.1983).
Since the majority states and the “record supports the trial court’s finding that the neglect of the estate attorney was [not] excusable,” this neglect cannot be classified as “excusable” and (1) above does not apply. That would leave, as the only alternative, a showing that Julie Madsen was guilty of no negligence herself. It is difficult to conclude that she has affirmatively shown this, given that she signed the Petition for Order Confirming Sale despite her grave misgivings. In fact, she was the one who supplied all of the “better offer information” to her attorney. Therefore, the information and the acts of her attorney are imputed to her and binding upon her. Ackerman v. Burgard, 79 S.D. 119, 124, 109 N.W.2d 10, 12 (1961). Moreover, despite this information and these misgivings, she failed to ask the advice of another attorney in the months prior to the entry of the order, although she did seek out a second opinion less than a week after-wards. This was nothing more than a bad case of seller’s doubt. Therefore, neither (1) nor (2) above apply.
*393The same analysis applies equally to the three sons of the decedent because they were aware of all relevant information, and, despite similar misgivings, grudgingly acquiesced in the court proceedings.
The fact that the judgment from which Julie seeks relief was not entered against Julie, but in her favor and upon her petition, is also troubling. See Dym v. North American Carbide Corp., 95 P.R.D. 371, 372 (E.D.Pa.1982) (citing 7 Moore’s Federal Practice ¶ 60.24[5]). To read Rule 60(b) broadly enough to grant a party relief from a favorable judgment which the party previously pursued opens wide the door to abuse of the rule by those who simply change their mind about what they want after it is too late.
Because the circumstances of this case cannot be shoehorned into SDCL 15-6-60(b) * without doing violence to the rule, Julie’s remedy to recover any claimed loss is limited to an' action against her former attorney.
I would reverse the trial court.

 The majority concedes (at p. 8391) that "the trial court used a broad brush in citing sections (1), (4), (5) and (6) of SDCL 15-6-60(b).” The majority "express[es] no opinion” on sections (1), (4) and (5) but agrees with the trial court that section (6) “is applicable." However, as explained above, Julie is not entitled to any relief under section (6) on these facts either.