Court Opinion

ID: 9475135
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:18:08.153627+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:31.736602
License: Public Domain

GEE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b) allows a district court to order a new trial if newly-discovered evidence is presented:
*73On 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: ... (2) newly discovered evidence which by due diligence could not have been discovered in time to move for a new trial under Rule 59(b).
I commence my analysis by distinguishing the facts of a case from the evidence presented. The facts involved are those events or conditions the occurrence or existence of which creates, or relates to, the dispute between the parties. Evidence, on the other hand, is any species of proof offered in court to convince the decision-maker of certain facts. One does not — cannot — offer “facts” in evidence; it is evidence of facts that is offered the court and received by it. Thus in today’s case the fact of overpayment will never be tendered in evidence, only the audit that evidences it.
In the context of Rule 60(b), three different combinations of circumstances can be imagined. First, both the facts and the evidence of those facts exist before trial begins.1 This situation clearly falls within the ambit of Rule 60(b); a party may thus seek relief from judgment if he meets certain other requirements. Second, both facts and evidence come into being only after judgment is rendered. Unquestionably, a party here may not invoke Rule 60(b) under any circumstances, else we might endure never-ending trials. The third situation is presented today: the fact (overpayment to HTC) allegedly occurred before trial, but the tendered evidence of the fact (the audit) came into existence only after judgment. The applicability of Rule 60(b) is most problematic in this last situation.
N.L.R.B. v. Jacob E. Decker and Sons, 569 F.2d 357 (5th Cir.1978), is the only Fifth Circuit case that touches on this issue. We there reiterated the idea, often recognized, that “evidence must be in existence at the time of trial____” Id. at 364. (citations omitted). We relied particularly on Prostrollo v. University of South Dakota, 63 F.R.D. 9 (D.S.D.1974). The court there stated that “there can be no Rule 60(b)(2) relief for evidence which has come into existence after the trial is over, for the obvious reason that to allow such a procedure could mean the perpetual continuation of all trials.” Id. at 11, quoted in Jacob E. Decker, 569 F.2d at 364. Careful reading of these cases, however, reveals that this pronouncement is premised on the desire to avoid new litigation based on facts, not evidence, that arise after the original judgment’s entry. In Jacob E. Decker, for example, we concluded that “(n)ewly discovered evidence under Rule 60(b) refers to evidence of facts in existence at the time of trial of which the aggrieved party was excusably ignorant.” 569 F.2d at 364, quoting Prostrollo, 63 F.R.D. at 11. We also cited Washington v. United States, 214 F.2d 33 (9th Cir.1954), in which the court had ruled that new facts cannot justify relitigation; “(t)he policy of law in having an end to litigation, would in most cases prevent the reopening of a case because of after occurring events.” Id. at 46. These cases, therefore, do not adequately address our situation, that in which the facts concerned predate the trial but the evidence of them comes into being only after judgment. For several reasons, however, I conclude that the same rule should apply in both instances.
First, Rule 60(b) quite clearly says so: its reference is to newly-discovered evidence. The distinction between “new” and “newly-discovered” evidence which I have drawn and, perhaps, belabored is not one of great subtlety or abstruseness nor, as such, one unlikely to have occurred to the confectors of the rule. They were at least as capable as I of saying what they meant, and had they wished to admit new evidence to the rule’s ambit could easily have done so.
Second, the rule requires a showing that the proffered evidence “by due diligence could not have been discovered in time to move for a new trial under Rule 59(b).” No degree of diligence can discover evi*74dence which is not in being at the required time of search, and such evidence as we treat of today certainly fulfills this requirement of the rule with a vengeance: The fact of overpayment existed and might have been discovered; the audit did not exist and for that reason was undiscoverable. As to such evidence, the clause is such a clumsy circumlocution that it is hard to avoid the conclusion that had the drafters had in mind covering evidence not in existence, they would have simply said so.
Finally, such a construction serves the interests of finality. True, an occasional case such as today’s may arise in which new evidence of existing fact comes to light after the time for seeking a new trial expires; but such cases will be exceptional. Repose has its merits, and I cannot say that in choosing language that rules out such evidence as is tendered in today’s case the rule-makers act irrationally. I therefore respectfully dissent.

. Technically speaking, in view of the reference to Rule 59(b), the critical moment is not the beginning of trial, but rather ten days after the entry of judgment.