Court Opinion

ID: 9754008
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:38:14.135077+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:55:14.605708
License: Public Domain

KELLY, Associate Judge,
dissenting:
I disagree that this case presents the unusual situation where Rule 60(b)(6) is applicable. In my view, appellant’s motion to amend was a Rule 60(bXl) motion and was properly denied as untimely.
Superior Court Civil Rule 60(b) provides in pertinent part:
On motion and upon such terms as are just, the court may relieve a party or his legal representative from a final judgment, order, or proceeding for the following reasons: (1) mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect; ... or (6) any other reason justifying relief from *540the operation of the judgment. The motion shall be made within a reasonable time, and for reasons (1), (2), and (3) not more than one year after the judgment, order, or proceeding was entered or taken... .
As explained in Railway Express Agency, Inc. v. Hill, D.C.App., 250 A.2d 923, 925 (1969), “[t]he dominant purpose of this rule is to ‘buttress the finality of judgments’ by providing a definite time limit within which to attack final judgments.” Thus the application of subsection (b)(6), which is not limited by time, has been restricted to unusual and extraordinary situations. Id. Moreover, subsections (b)(1) and (b)(6) are mutually exclusive. Clark v. Moler, D.C.App., 418 A.2d 1039, 1041 (1980).
Appellant’s and her counsel’s ignorance of the alleged practice according to which appellant could have received a broker’s commission cannot be characterized as unusual and extraordinary; it amounts at most to mistake and excusable neglect. Appellant’s motion, therefore, must be considered a Rule 60(b)(1) request for relief. In Day v. United Securities Corp., D.C.App., 272 A.2d 448, 451 (1970), we rejected a claim that appellants’ impecunious circumstances and ignorance of available legal resources gave rise to the exceptional or extraordinary situation contemplated by subsection (b)(6). Similarly here, appellant’s unfamiliarity with a local court practice which she might have relied upon in urging the court to allow the estate to pay her a broker’s commission, is not a circumstance compelling relief under the catch-all provision of subsection (b)(6).
In Ackermann v. United States, 340 U.S. 193, 71 S.Ct. 209, 95 L.Ed. 207 (1950), the Supreme Court held that the failure to appeal from a judgment of denaturalization because of improper legal advice, did not justify relief under Rule 60(b)(6) of the Fed.R.Civ.P., and that since appellant’s failure to appeal was excusable, relief could only be had under Rule 60(b)(1). However, the petitioner’s motion under that subsection was foreclosed as untimely. In distinguishing Klapprott v. United States, 335 U.S. 601, 69 S.Ct. 384, 93 L.Ed. 266, modified on other grounds, 336 U.S. 942, 69 S.Ct. 384, 93 L.Ed. 1099 (1949), where the Court had found that petitioner’s illness, poverty and imprisonment were extraordinary circumstances justifying relief pursuant to Rule 60(b)(6) from a denaturalization judgment entered by default, the Ackermann opinion found no such extraordinary circumstances excusing the decision not to appeal by the petitioner in that case. Specifically, the Court explained that '“[t]he comparison strikingly points up the difference between no choice and choice, imprisonment and freedom of action; no trial and trial; no counsel and counsel; no chance for negligence and inexcusable negligence.” Id. 340 U.S. at 202, 71 S.Ct. at 213. In the present case, as in Ackermann, appellant had her day in court, was represented by counsel, and was free to act in what she perceived as her own best interests.
Ackermann’s policy that “[tjhere must be an end to litigation someday, and free, calculated, deliberate choices are not to be relieved from,” id. at 198, 71 S.Ct. at 211, was furthered by the Second Circuit in a case upholding the trial court’s refusal to vacate a default judgment. United States v. Erdoss, 440 F.2d 1221 (2d Cir.), cert. denied sub nom. Horvath v. United States, 404 U.S. 849, 92 S.Ct. 83, 30 L.Ed.2d 88 (1971). In Erdoss, the decision made by a junior member of the law firm representing appellants proved to be based on a mistaken assumption of law. The motion for relief was denied under Rule 60(b)(1) for the reason that “when a conscious decision has been made by counsel, ignorance of the law ‘is not the sort of excusable neglect contemplated by .. . Rule 60(b).’ ” Id. at 1223 (quoting Ohliger v. United States, 308 F.2d 667 (2d Cir. 1962)). Nor could appellants obtain relief under subsection (b)(6) which was held inapplicable since the alleged grounds for relief concerned mistake.
In this case, appellant was bound by her lawyer’s representations and legal tactics. The “acts and omissions of counsel are imputed to the client even though detrimental to [him] . .. [unless] the conduct of counsel *541is outrageously in violation of either his express instructions or his implicit duty to devote reasonable efforts in representing his client.” Railway Express Agency, Inc. v. Hill, supra at 926 (citations omitted). To the extent that counsel misunderstood the practice of the Superior Court or was neglectful in discovering it, his conduct was neither so extraordinary nor so outrageously in violation of his duties that it should not be imputed to appellant. Compare Citizens Building & Loan Ass’n of Montgomery County v. Shepard, D.C.App., 289 A.2d 620, 622 (1972) (Rule 60(b)(6) applied to relieve appellees of attorneys’ actions which were found “patently erroneous,” “curbstone, uninformed advice reaching] the level, almost, of absurdity”); L. P. Steuart, Inc. v. Matthews, 117 U.S.App.D.C. 279, 329 F.2d 234, cert. denied, 379 U.S. 824, 85 S.Ct. 50, 13 L.Ed.2d 35 (1964) (Rule 60(b)(6) relief applicable where counsel’s neglect was not excusable, but grossly negligent).
Additionally, none of the other arguments advanced by appellant provide compelling equitable reasons to grant her relief under subsection (b)(6). I do not accept the majority’s position that a practice of allowing commissions to brokers is favored by public policy. On the contrary, as noted by the trial court, the relief sought by appellant would defeat the purpose of the nisi process which is to assure the maximum sale price to the estate. Appellant seeks now to deplete the estate by an amount equivalent to six percent of the sale price of the subject property. This would not only reduce the net return to the estate from the sale, but would also mean that the true nature of the Sandys’ offer was not correctly reflected to the public present at the order nisi hearing. Had appellant not waived her commission, the Sandys’ $129,-000 bid would not have been the highest bid since the amount recovered by the estate would only have been $121,800, and the next highest bidder (who bid $128,500) would have been the ultimate purchaser.1
Moreover, there is no firm evidence of record that the practice which appellant cites would have entitled her to a broker’s commission or that it was anything other than a permissive rule. The fact that appellant’s waiver was uninformed would not be significant since she had no enforceable right to the commission. Thus even if the alleged unwritten practice had been brought to Judge Haywood's attention at the nisi proceeding, there is no assurance that she would have allowed the estate to award a brokerage commission in this case, or that the estate would have elected to do so, if allowed. Therefore, I conclude that appellant’s motion was a Rule 60(b)(1) motion and, having been filed more than one year after the order it sought to amend was entered, was correctly denied by the trial court as untimely.
Even if I could accept the majority’s conclusion that there exist in this case the extraordinary circumstances required to support the application of Rule 60(b)(6), thus rendering appellant’s motion timely because presumably filed within a reasonable time, I would still uphold the trial court’s denial of appellant’s motion to amend. Since “[t]he decision to grant or deny a motion under Rule 60(b)(6) is committed to the sound discretion of the trial court judge,” Ohio Valley Construction Co., Inc. v. Dew, D.C.App., 354 A.2d 518, 521 (1976),2 our review of such motions is corre*542spondingly limited. The order of January 26, 1979, was supported by reasonable and just equitable considerations. Therefore, to deny appellant the ability to reduce the assets of the estate on the basis of a practice, the nature and existence of which are unclear, would be well within the sphere of the trial court’s discretion under Rule 60(b)(6). I respectfully dissent.

. When counsel announced to the court before the start of the bidding that appellant wished to waive her commission, other prospective bidders protested that such an action was a change in the advertised terms of sale. Counsel insisted that it was appellant’s right to waive her commission. To allow appellant to receive a commission now would, as the trial court correctly determined, constitute fraud.

. Appellant’s reliance on Ohio Valley, supra, is misplaced, even if we consider her motion under subsection (b)(6). In that case, we upheld dle trial court’s discretion in granting a motion to vacate pursuant to Rule 60(b)(6) where, following a multi-vehicle accident, appellee’s insurer had brought a property damage suit without appellee’s authorization and obtained a judgment which would have been res judicata of appellee’s personal injury action against the same defendants. Unlike the present case, in Ohio Valley, the trial court found that the case warranted extraordinary relief and exercised its discretion to grant that relief. Also, the action *542taken on behalf of the appellee in Ohio Valley was unauthorized, whereas the representations made to the court on behalf of appellant in this case had her express approval.