Court Opinion

ID: 9494364
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:36:19.624407+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:22.440815
License: Public Domain

BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join the majority in concluding that the district court committed reversible error by granting the Dukases’ motion for reconsideration and setting aside the judgment against them. Because I reach this result through somewhat different reasoning than the majority, I concur separately.
As the majority states, neither the parties nor the district court made clear under which provision of Rule 60(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure the Dukases brought the “Motion to Set Aside the Order Renewing Judgment.” Like the majority, I do not doubt that the district court acted pursuant to Rule 60(b)(6). Unlike the majority, however, I think that because the particular provision that ultimately governs the Dukases’ motion will determine the standard of review and the substantive legal rules for application in this appeal, the parties’ failure to argue whether the district court improperly used Rule 60(b)(6) cannot simply be ignored. In fact, the majority’s failure to examine this question leads to the incongruous result that, although this court normally reviews a district court’s grant of a motion to reconsider under Rule 60(b) for "abuse of discretion, the majority proceeds directly to a de novo review of the merits of the litigation. Such a course invites this court and litigants to overlook the procedural posture in which cases present themselves for appellate review, subjects judgments of the district court entitled to deference to inappropriately exacting scrutiny, and runs counter to the accepted principle that a Rule 60(b) motion does not bring the underlying judgment up for review. Hood v. Hood, 59 F.3d 40, 42 (6th Cir.1995) (per curiam) (citations omitted).
The majority could readily avoid the unusual course of reviewing de novo a question normally committed to the sound discretion of the district court by simply recognizing the Dukases’ motion for what it is: a motion under Rule 60(b)(4). In attempting to discern the clause of Rule 60(b) under which the Dukases brought their motion, this court looks to the substance of the relief requested. See Futernick v. Sumpter Township, 207 F.3d 305, 313 (6th Cir.2000); Sunfire Coal Co. v. United Mine Workers of Am., 335 F.2d 958, 962 (6th Cir.1964). Accord Prudential Real Estate Affiliates, Inc. v. PPR Realty, Inc., 204 F.3d 867, 880 (9th Cir. 2000) (“[T]he label attached to a motion *515does not control its substance.”) (quoting United States v. State of Oregon, 769 F.2d 1410, 1414 n. 4 (9th Cir.1985)). In their motion, the Dukases sought to set aside the order of the district court renewing the FDIC’s judgment against them on the ground that the court “lacks jurisdiction to renew the judgment because it had expired by operation of law prior to entry of the order.” (Emphasis added.) Although not doing so expressly, this claim invokes Rule 60(b)(4), which allows a court to relieve a party of a judgment if that judgment is void. Therefore, because the Du-kases’ motion invokes one of the more specific subsections of Rule 60(b) for granting relief, the standards of Rule 60(b)(4) should guide the majority’s review rather than the more amorphous and equity-driven concerns behind Rule 60(b)(6). Blue Diamond Coal Co. v. Trustees of the UMWA Combined Benefit Fund, 249 F.3d 519, 524 (6th Cir.2001) (quoting Olle v. Henry & Wright Corp., 910 F.2d 357, 365 (6th Cir.1990)).1
Under Rule 60(b)(4) a deferential standard of review is not appropriate because “[i]f the underlying judgment is void, it is a per se abuse of discretion for a district court to deny a movant’s motion to vacate the judgment under Rule 60(b)(4).” Antoine v. Atlas Turner, Inc., 66 F.3d 105, 108 (6th Cir.1995) (quoting United States v. Indoor Cultivation Equip. from High Tech Indoor Garden Supply, 55 F.3d 1311, 1317 (7th Cir.1995)). See also 11 Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Mary Kay Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2862 (2d ed. 1995) (“There is no question of discretion on the part of the court when a motion is under Rule 60(b)(4).”). As many circuits have recognized, the absence of discretion under Rule 60(b)(4) necessitates de novo review. SearLand Serv., Inc. v. Ceramica Europa II, Inc., 160 F.3d 849, 852 (1st Cir.1998); Carter v. Fenner, 136 F.3d 1000, 1005 (5th Cir.1998); Wilmer v. Board of County Comm’rs. of Leavenworth County, 69 F.3d 406, 409 (10th Cir.1995); Indoor Cultivation Equip., 55 F.3d at 1317; Export Group v. Reef Indus., Inc., 54 F.3d 1466, 1469 (9th Cir.1995); Page v. Schweiker, 786 F.2d 150, 152 (3d Cir.1986). For this reason — and not because of any arguments the parties did or did not make — de novo review is proper in this case.
Because Rule 60(b)(4) embodies an important distinction between a void judgment and an erroneous one, Chambers v. Armontrout, 16 F.3d 257, 260 (8th Cir. 1994) (“[A] judgment is not void merely because it is erroneous.”) (quotation omitted), a reviewing court only examines whether the judgment reconsidered is void.
A void judgment is to be distinguished from an erroneous one, in that the latter is subject only to direct attack. A void judgment is one which, from its inception, was a complete nullity and without legal effect. In the interest of finality, the concept of void judgments is narrowly construed. While absence of subject matter jurisdiction may make a judgment void, such total want of jurisdiction *516must be distinguished from an error in the exercise of jurisdiction. A court has the power to determine its own jurisdiction, and an error in that determination will not render the judgment void. Only in the rare instance of a clear usurpation of power will a judgment be rendered void.
Lubben v. Selective Serv. Sys. Local Bd. No. 27, 453 F.2d 645, 649 (1st Cir.1972) (footnotes omitted). For purposes of Rule 60(b)(4), a judgnent is void if a court entered an order outside its legal powers. Carter, 136 F.3d at 1005 (citation omitted). See also Antoine, 66 F.3d at 108 (stating that a judgment is void under Rule 60(b)(4) only “if the court that rendered it lacked jurisdiction of the subject matter, or of the parties, or if it acted in a manner inconsistent with due process of law”) (quoting In re Edwards, 962 F.2d 641, 644 (7th Cir.1992)). This distinction between void and erroneous judgments serves to prevent the use of the Rule as a substitute for an appeal. Hopper, 867 F.2d at 294 (“The parties may not use a Rule 60(b) motion as a substitute for an appeal”). “[I]f a party fails to appeal an adverse judgment and then files a Rule 60(b)(4) motion after the time permitted for an ordinary appeal has expired, the motion will not succeed merely because the same argument would have succeeded on appeal.” Kocher v. Dow Chem. Co., 132 F.3d 1225, 1229 (8th Cir.1997) (citation omitted).
In light of these principles, the question before this court is a narrow one: whether the district court lacked jurisdiction to enter the order renewing the judgment against the Dukases. Relying on Rule 54(b) Jalapeno asserts that in reconsidering its prior order the district court incorrectly calculated the date on which Tennessee’s ten-year statute of limitations for bringing actions on judgments began to run. Nothing about this argument implicates the jurisdiction of the district court to enter an order renewing the judgment against the Dukases. While the majority expresses its opinion that the Federal Circuit wrongly decided King Instrument Corp. v. Otari Corp., 814 F.2d 1560 (Fed. Cir.1987), and announces that Rule 54(b) applies during all phases of litigation, these conclusions go well beyond the question before the court in this appeal and are not necessary for its resolution. Whatever application Rule 54(b) has in this matter, under Tennessee law the ten-year statute of limitations in section 28-3-110 constitutes an affirmative defense to liability, not a jurisdictional bar to entry of a writ of execution or to other judicial enforcement action. Tenn. R. Civ. P. 8.03 (requiring parties defending actions to plead affirmatively the “statute of limitations ... and any other matter constituting an avoidance or affirmative defense”). See also, e.g., Epperson v. Robertson, 91 Tenn. 407, 19 S.W. 230, 231 (1892); Ballard v. Scruggs, 90 Tenn. 585, 18 S.W. 259, 260 (1891). Accordingly, the district court’s order renewing judgment against the Dukases at most represents an erroneous judgment because it implicitly rests upon an incorrect understanding of when the judgment against them became final. Therefore, the district court erred by reconsidering its judgment. Although I understand the majority’s desire to articulate a bright-line rule in this circuit regarding the applicability of Rule 54(b), the procedural posture of this case precludes such an effort by limiting the inquiry to the more narrow issue of whether the district court had jurisdiction to renew the judgment. Because I conclude that it did, the renewal of the judgment was not a void order, and I agree that the district court erred in reconsider*517ing that ruling.2
As a concluding note, I add that although the Dukases failed to respond to the FDIC’s motion to renew the judgment, the district court’s renewal of the judgment did not occur “in a manner inconsistent with due process” so as to render that order void. Antoine, 66 F.3d at 108. The record shows that the FDIC served the motion to renew the judgment upon the Dukases’ counsel of record as of 1987. Rule 5(b) provides that service of a party-represented by counsel “shall be made upon the attorney.” “Service upon the attorney ... shall be made by delivering a copy to the attorney....” Fed.R.Civ.P. 5(b). This court “exercise[s] plenary review over legal issues involving the adequacy of service[.]” LSI Inv. Co. v. O.L.D., Inc., 167 F.3d 320, 322 (6th Cir. 1999). See also Friedman v. Estate of Presser, 929 F.2d 1151, 1154 (6th Cir. 1991) (noting that where facts of service are not in dispute, adequacy of service of process presents a pure question of law). Under Rule 5, “there is no guarantee that the' party personally will receive notice. It can generally be presumed, however, that a party’s attorney will notify the party of important developments and take appropriate action to protect the party’s interests.” Barlow v. Ground, 39 F.3d 231, 233 (9th Cir.1994). To afford constitutionally adequate due process, service of process must be “reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action and afford them an opportunity to present them objections.” Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306, 314, 70 S.Ct. 652, 94 L.Ed. 865 (1950) (citations omitted). Applying this standard, the FDIC complied with Rule 5 by serving opposing counsel of record with the motion for renewal of the judgment and, on the facts of this case, service on the counsel of record provided adequate notice to the Dukases. See Guam Econ. Dev. Auth. v. Ulloa, 841 F.2d 990, 993 (9th Cir.1988) (holding that service upon the attorney of record satisfies the federal rules even if that lawyer no longer represents the litigant). That the Dukases in fact litigated the motion for reconsideration through different counsel does not alter this conclusion because the Dukases did not inform the court of the retention of new counsel prior to the filing of the FDIC’s motion to renew the judgment. If the counsel of record failed to contact either the Dukases themselves or their new representative upon being served with the FDIC’s motion, an action for malpractice might lie, but such eventualities do not alter the due process analysis. Moreover, the Dukases have not challenged the sufficiency of process and did not seek reconsideration on that ground.
For these reasons, when the district court entered the order renewing the judgment, the court did not act “in a manner inconsistent with due process of law.” Antoine, 66 F.3d at 108. Therefore, the court did not enter a void judgment. At most, renewal of the judgment implicitly rested upon an incorrect calculation of the date the judgment against the Dukases became final. Since the time for taking an appeal from this judgment had expired by the time the Dukases sought reconsideration, Rule 60(b)(1) can afford no relief. Pierce, 770 F.2d at 451. Since the judgment was not void within the meaning of Rule 60(b)(4), the district court erroneously reconsidered its renewal of the judgment against the Dukases. Although this result *518might reinstate a ruling premised upon misconceptions of the law, a Rule 60(b) motion cannot substitute for an appeal. Hopper, 867 F.2d at 294. Accordingly, I join the majority in reversing the judgment of the district court.

. Arguably, the motion could also have been brought under Rule 60(b)(1), which permits relief in the case of "mistake.” This court has read this basis for relief under Rule 60(b) as extending to claims of legal error. Hopper v. Euclid Manor Nursing Home, Inc., 867 F.2d 291, 294 (6th Cir.1989). Such a motion, however, must be brought within the normal time for taking an appeal. Pierce v. United Mine Workers of Am. Welfare & Ret. Fund for 1950 & 1974, 770 F.2d 449, 451 (6th Cir. 1985) (citing Barrier v. Beaver, 712 F.2d 231, 234 (6th Cir. 1983)). By the time the Dukases sought reconsideration, the time for taking an appeal had expired. Therefore, the Dukases’ motion can only be one brought under Rule 60(b)(4).

. I agree with the majority that resolution of this appeal based on consideration of the applicability of Rule 54(b) obviates the need to examine the availability of the 20 year statute of limitations under the Federal Debt Collection Procedure Act.