Court Opinion

ID: 9479307
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:14:01.053837+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:56.408860
License: Public Domain

NIES, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the result.
Whether Rhone’s motion is viewed as substantive or ministerial is irrelevant to the resolution of this case. Moreover, I disagree that the term “jurisdiction” was used inappropriately by the trial court or by the government. A time limit fixed by statute within which to file a motion is a jurisdictional restriction. Accord Schacht v. United States, 398 U.S. 58, 68, 90 S.Ct. 1555, 1561-62, 26 L.Ed.2d 44 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring) (The Supreme Court “treats time requirements imposed by statute as jurisdictional.”). For example, the time limit of Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b), because it is statutory, see 28 U.S.C. app. (1982), is jurisdictional. See United States v. Marin, 720 F.2d 229, 231 (1st Cir.1983) (Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b) time limit “is an absolute bar to relief from the judgment.”) See also Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b) advisory committee’s note (“If the right to make a motion is lost by the expiration of the time limits fixed in these rules, the only other procedural remedy is by a new or independent action to set aside a judgment upon those principles which have heretofore been applied in such an action.”).
Unlike its federal rule counterpart, the provisions of CIT Rule 60(b) are not statutory, being merely court-adopted, and, therefore, are not jurisdictional. See Washington-Southern Navigation Co. v. *409Baltimore & Philadelphia Steamboat Co., 263 U.S. 629, 635, 44 S.Ct. 220, 222, 68 L.Ed. 480 (1924) (“no rule of court can enlarge or restrict jurisdiction”); Schacht, 398 U.S. at 68, 90 S.Ct. at 1561-62 (Harlan, J., concurring) (not anomalous that time limitations of Supreme Court Rules are not jurisdictional while statutory time limits are jurisdictional). Nevertheless, if the statutory time period of 28 U.S.C. § 2646 (1982) were applicable to a motion under CIT Rule 60(b), that period would be a restriction on the “jurisdiction” of the Court of International Trade.
I agree with the majority that section 2646 does not apply to a CIT Rule 60(b) motion. The decision in United States v. Torch Manufacturing Co., 509 F.2d 1187 (CCPA 1975), did not hold that section 2646 (formerly section 2639) restricted the time period for filing a Rule 60(b) motion. Because the Court of International Trade’s predecessor, the United States Customs Court, had neither equity jurisdiction nor a Rule 60(b) at that time, section 2646 was interpreted to grant relief in compelling circumstances in what might be called a 60(b) situation. Torch held only that par; ties had to seek such relief within the time limits of section 2646. Id. at 1192. The necessity for that interpretation ended in 1980 when Congress granted that court “all the powers in ... equity of ... a district court of the United States,” 28 U.S.C. § 1585 (1982), and the court adopted its Rule 60(b) pursuant to that authority. Thereafter, Rule 60(b)-type motions were decoupled from section 2646 and could be brought for what they are, motions for relief from judgment, and no longer needed to be deemed motions under section 2646 for rehearing or retrial. Thus, the Torch analysis has been preempted by the statutory change and by the court’s exercise of its equity powers. In sum, a party that moves for relief within the one-year time requirement of CIT Rule 60(b), as Rhone did here, is entitled to have its motion heard. The thirty-day time requirement of section 2646 is inapplicable.
For the above reasons, I agree with the majority that the Court of International Trade has the authority under CIT Rule 60(b) to grant a motion to vacate the dismissal order at issue and that the case must be remanded.