Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) lets a federal court reopen a final judgment on six specific grounds: mistake or excusable neglect, newly discovered evidence, fraud by the opposing party, a void judgment, a judgment that has been satisfied or whose basis has changed, and any other reason justifying relief. Each ground has its own standard of proof and its own filing deadline. Choosing the wrong subsection, missing the deadline, or failing to make the required showing will sink the motion regardless of how unfair the underlying judgment looks.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 60 – Relief from a Judgment or Order
The Six Grounds for Relief
Rule 60(b)(1): Mistake, Inadvertence, Surprise, or Excusable Neglect
This is the ground most often used to attack a default judgment or a ruling that followed a missed deadline. Not every slip qualifies. Under the test from Pioneer Investment Services Co. v. Brunswick Associates, the court weighs prejudice to the other side, the length of the delay, whether the moving party acted in good faith, and whether the neglect was within that party’s reasonable control.2Cornell Law Institute. Pioneer Inv. Servs. v. Brunswick Assocs. A calendaring error that caused a missed filing can qualify. Ignoring a court order and later claiming surprise will not.
Rule 60(b)(2): Newly Discovered Evidence
The evidence must be genuinely new and likely to have changed the outcome. The moving party has to show that reasonable diligence during the original litigation would not have turned it up. A witness who surfaces after trial with testimony contradicting the key finding can support this motion. A document that was sitting in the moving party’s own files almost never can.
Rule 60(b)(3): Fraud, Misrepresentation, or Misconduct by an Opposing Party
This subsection targets conduct like fabricating evidence, hiding documents in discovery, or bribing a witness. The moving party has to prove both that the misconduct happened and that it actually affected the outcome of the case.
Rule 60(b)(4): Void Judgment
A judgment is void only when the court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction, lacked personal jurisdiction over the defendant, or failed to provide the notice due process requires. The Supreme Court has treated “void” narrowly: in United Student Aid Funds, Inc. v. Espinosa, even a serious legal error was held not enough to make a judgment void without a jurisdictional or due-process defect.3Legal Information Institute. Gonzalez v. Crosby When a judgment truly is void, though, the court has no discretion. It must be set aside.
Rule 60(b)(5): Satisfied, Reversed, or Prospectively Unfair
Three distinct situations sit under this subsection: the judgment has already been paid or discharged, it rested on an earlier ruling that has since been reversed or vacated, or continuing to apply it going forward is no longer equitable. The last of these comes up most often with long-running injunctions and consent decrees, where conditions on the ground shift over the years.
Rule 60(b)(6): Any Other Reason That Justifies Relief
The catch-all sounds broad and is not. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that 60(b)(6) requires “extraordinary circumstances,” a standard the Court has said is essential to the finality of judgments.3Legal Information Institute. Gonzalez v. Crosby In Liljeberg v. Health Services Acquisition Corp., the Court found extraordinary circumstances where a judge had an undisclosed financial interest in the case that only came to light after appeal.4Legal Information Institute. Liljeberg v. Health Services Acquisition Corp. In 2025, the Court reaffirmed in BLOM Bank SAL v. Honickman that the standard does not soften because a party wants to reopen the case for a favorable procedural reason such as amending a complaint.5Supreme Court of the United States. BLOM Bank SAL v. Honickman
One structural rule is easy to miss and often fatal. Subsection (6) is mutually exclusive with subsections (1) through (5). If the facts fit one of the specific grounds, the party has to use that ground and cannot fall back on the catch-all to escape its deadline or its burden.6Legal Information Institute. Kemp v. United States
Deadlines
Timing kills more Rule 60(b) motions than weak arguments do. The rule creates two tiers.
- One-year absolute cap. Motions under 60(b)(1), 60(b)(2), and 60(b)(3) must be filed no later than one year after entry of the judgment. The court cannot extend this deadline for any reason.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 60 – Relief from a Judgment or Order
- Reasonable time. Motions under 60(b)(4), 60(b)(5), and 60(b)(6) have no fixed outer deadline but must be brought within a reasonable time. Courts look at how long the party waited, why, and whether the delay prejudiced the other side. Courts read “reasonable” more generously for void judgments, because a court that lacked jurisdiction never had authority to bind anyone.
Even inside the one-year window, an unexplained delay hurts. Filing at month eleven when the party knew about the problem at month two draws skepticism.
Rule 60(b) Does Not Extend Your Appeal Deadline
This trap catches people who assume that filing a post-judgment motion protects their appeal rights. It usually does not. Under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(4), a Rule 60(b) motion resets the 30-day appeal clock only if it is filed within the time allowed for a Rule 59 motion, which is 28 days after entry of judgment.7Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure Rule 4 – Appeal as of Right, When Taken A 60(b) motion filed on day 29 or later does not toll the appeal period at all.
The practical rule: if there is any chance you will need to appeal the underlying judgment, file the notice of appeal within 30 days and pursue the 60(b) motion on a separate track.
The Motion Does Not Pause Enforcement
Rule 60(b) says plainly that the motion “does not affect the judgment’s finality or suspend its operation.”1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 60 – Relief from a Judgment or Order The winning side can keep collecting, keep enforcing an injunction, and keep exercising whatever rights the judgment gave them while the motion is pending. To pause enforcement, you have to separately ask the court for a stay, usually with a bond or other security. Stays are discretionary, and a weak 60(b) motion makes a stay less likely.
If the court denies the motion, that denial is itself appealable. The appeal is narrow, though. It tests only whether the trial court abused its discretion in denying relief, not the merits of the underlying case.
Rule 60(b) or Rule 59(e)?
A losing party often has to choose between a Rule 59(e) motion to alter or amend the judgment and a Rule 60(b) motion for relief. Rule 59(e) is the right tool inside 28 days after judgment, and it fits clear legal error, overlooked authority, or facts already in the record that the court did not account for. Rule 60(b) operates on a longer timeline and reaches further — new evidence, fraud, void judgments, extraordinary circumstances — but demands a heavier showing in return.
Courts use timing as a bright line. A post-judgment motion filed within 28 days is generally treated as a Rule 59(e) motion no matter what the party calls it; anything later falls under Rule 60(b). A party cannot use Rule 60(b) to sidestep Rule 59(e)’s tighter deadline and stricter requirements.
Not for Clerical Fixes
If the problem is a transposed digit in a damages figure, a misspelled party name, or an arithmetic error in interest, that is Rule 60(a), not 60(b). Rule 60(a) lets the court correct clerical mistakes, oversights, and omissions at any time, on a party’s motion or on its own.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 60 – Relief from a Judgment or Order No special showing, no deadline. Once an appeal has been docketed, though, the trial court needs the appellate court’s permission before making even a clerical fix.
Fraud on the Court Is a Separate Path
Rule 60(d) preserves the court’s inherent power to address fraud on the court itself, which is different from the party-versus-party fraud covered by 60(b)(3). Fraud on the court means conduct that corrupted the judicial process: a bribed judge, a lawyer who fabricated evidence and presented it to the court, a scheme that prevented any real adversarial proceeding from taking place. The rule states that it does not limit the court’s power to entertain an independent action for relief or to set aside a judgment for fraud on the court.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 60 – Relief from a Judgment or Order
This path has no fixed time limit. In an independent action, the timing constraints come from laches and any applicable statutes of limitations rather than the one-year or reasonable-time deadlines that govern 60(b) motions. It is a powerful remedy that courts rarely grant. The bar for what qualifies as fraud on the court, as distinct from ordinary fraud between parties, is high.
Preparing and Filing
The motion should identify the judgment being challenged, name the specific subsection of Rule 60(b) being invoked, and lay out the factual and legal basis for relief. The subsection choice is not cosmetic. It controls the deadline and the standard the court will apply.
Supporting evidence usually comes in as sworn declarations or affidavits. A 60(b)(1) declaration should explain exactly what went wrong and why it was outside the party’s reasonable control. A 60(b)(2) declaration has to show when and how the evidence was discovered and why reasonable diligence during the original case would not have found it sooner. Vague statements that “new information has come to light” do not survive scrutiny.
Many federal districts require the moving party to meet and confer with the opposing side in good faith before filing, and then to certify that the conference took place. Check your court’s local rules first; noncompliance can get the motion stricken. Motions are filed through the federal judiciary’s electronic filing system, CM/ECF.8United States Courts. Electronic Filing (CM/ECF) Response deadlines are set by local rule, usually somewhere between 14 and 21 days. The judge may decide on the papers or set oral argument, and rulings can take weeks or months.
Sanctions for Baseless Motions
Rule 60(b) is not a second chance to run the same arguments the court already rejected. Under Rule 11, every motion carries an implicit certification that it is not filed for an improper purpose, that its legal theory is supported by existing law or a good-faith argument to change it, and that its factual claims have evidentiary support. A frivolous 60(b) motion can lead to sanctions, including an order to pay the other side’s reasonable fees and expenses. Rule 11 includes a 21-day safe harbor when the opposing party brings the sanctions motion, but the court can act on its own initiative without giving that window.9Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 11 – Signing Pleadings, Motions, and Other Papers File only when the facts and the law genuinely support the relief you are asking for.