Suppose a court enters a judgment against you, but it turns out that the court lacked personal jurisdiction over you. Is there a time limit for you to challenge the lack of jurisdiction?
As part of a bankruptcy proceeding, Burton sued Coney Island Auto Parts, and a Tennessee court entered a default judgment against Coney Island. Years then pass, but eventually Burton was able to have a New York court freeze Coney Island’s bank account. That led Coney Island to challenge the Tennessee judgment on the grounds that the court lacked personal jurisdiction. They argued that service was improper—they weren’t properly put on notice of the complaint against them. The notice was addressed to “Coney Island Auto Parts Unltd, Inc.,” without mentioning any officer or other agent.
The Tennessee court denied the motion to vacate as untimely. The court observed that rule 60(c)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requires such motions to be filed “within a reasonable time.” About seven years had passed between the default judgment and the motion to vacate; and about six years since Coney Island had actual notice of the judgment. Coney Island gave no explanation for the delay, and the court denied the motion as not being filed within a reasonable time. The Sixth Circuit affirmed.
This all seems straightforward enough, but there was a dissent on the Sixth Circuit, and it turns out that other circuits interpret 60(c)(1) to not impose a time limit on allegedly void judgments. A legal nullity is a legal nullity, they reason, regardless of time. They interpret 60(c)(1) to implicitly incorporate that understanding, which apparently was the widespread view at the time it was amended to its present form.
The bot predicts that the Court reverses (about 70 percent chance)—so that a nullity is treated as a nullity, regardless of time—though that estimate is fairly uncertain. This is not a politically charged case, and traditional legal signals pull in different directions. Most likely votes to affirm the time limit are Sotomayor and Jackson.
Vote Predictions
