Court Opinion

ID: 9559224
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:24:46.042609+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:10:09.312718
License: Public Domain

HERNANDEZ, Judge (specially concurring). Plaintiffs’ complaint alleged fraud and conversion based on items submitted to and approved by the probate court. It also alleged fraud, conversion and misrepresentation, as to monies disbursed simultaneously with or subsequent to the entry of the final decree, which were neither reported to nor approved by the probate court. Defendants based their motions to dismiss plaintiffs’ complaint on the grounds that it constituted a collateral attack upon the final decree entered in the probate court and therefore the district court lacked jurisdiction to entertain it. The test to be applied in determining whether to grant a motion to dismiss a complaint is to accept, for the purposes of the motion, as true all facts well pleaded and question only whether plaintiffs might prevail under any state of facts provable under the claim. Groendyke Transp., Inc. v. Neva Mexico St. Corp. Com’n., 85 N.M. 718, 516 P.2d 689 (1973). In my opinion the allegations made by plaintiffs in their complaint stated a provable claim of extrinsic or collateral fraud and the trial court erred in dismissing it. In the case of Chisholm v. House, 160 F.2d 632 (10th Cir. 1947), arising out of a factual situation not too dissimilar from this case, the court stated the following: “Equitable relief from a judgment may be obtained on the ground of extrinsic or collateral fraud. Fraud is regarded as extrinsic or collateral where it prevents a party from having a trial or from presenting his cause of action or his defense, or induces him to withdraw a defense, or operates upon matters pertaining not to the judgment itself, but to the manner in which it was procured. Where, however, the judgment was founded on a fraudulent instrument or perjured evidence, or the fraudulent acts pertained to an issue involved in the original action and litigated therein, the fraud is regarded as extrinsic.” The rationale for this rule is set forth in Hazel-Atlas Glass Co. v. Hartford-Empire Co., 322 U.S. 238, 64 S.Ct. 997, 88 L.Ed. 1250 (1943): “Equitable relief against fraudulent judgments is not of statutory creation. It is a judicially devised remedy fashioned to relieve hardships which, from time to time, arise from a hard and fast adherence to another court-made rule, the general rule that judgments should not be disturbed after the term of their entry has expired. Created to avert the evils of archaic rigidity, this equitable procedure has always been characterized by flexibility which enables it to meet new situations which demand equitable intervention, and to accord all the relief necessary to correct the particular injustices involved in these situations.”