Court Opinion

ID: 9442291
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 18:42:29.831622+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:02.842229
License: Public Domain

HUTCHESON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Upon the authority of Klapprott v. United States, 335 U.S. 601, 69 S.Ct. 384, I think the trial court erred in holding that the motion of appellant did not state sufficient grounds to invoke the authority of the court to set aside the judgment, and that the judgment appealed from should be reversed and the cause remanded to the district court for a hearing on the merits of appellant’s motion to be relieved from the final judgment of denaturalization against him.-
Rule 60(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that, on motion and upon such terms as may be just, the court may relieve a party from a final judgment, order, or proceeding, for a number of specified reasons, and then adds: “or (6) any other reason justifying relief from the operation of the judgment.” The Klapprott case, supra, had not been decided at the time the court below entered its judgment in this case. According to the majority opinion in that court, this provision of the rule “vests power in courts adequate to enable them to vacate judgments whenever such action is appropriate to accomplish justice.” 335 U.S. page 615, 69 S.Ct. page 390.
I am not here indicating how I think the district judge should rule when the merits of the matter are before him for decision. I am stating merely that we should send the case back because the lower court, not having the benefit of the Klapprott case, held that the “grounds stated in the motion were not sufficient to invoke the authority of the court.”' I think the undenied facts stated in the motion called for the equitable consideration by the trial court of the matters presented therein.
I think the opinion of the majority misconceives the situation or denies the right to a hearing on the motion when it accords to the action of the district judge in “on his own volition” — reading the “evidence in the transcript” in the Keilbar case, the effect of granting petitioner’s hearing on his motion. Cf. the opinion of this court, Clay v. Callaway, Trustee, 5 Cir., 177 F.2d 741.
I dissent.