Overturning Final Orders
(CR 60) The tool of last resort.
Sometimes, for reason of mistake or justice, final orders entered in a matter need to be voided.
CR 60 motions are named after Washington Court Civil Rule 60. It adjudicates how parties can get final orders in a case overturned, and issues in a case subsequently reopened.
In general, there are three common ways a court closes a case:
- By default, when a party is served and does not respond to the lawsuit.
- By agreement of the parties arriving at settlement terms.
- At trial, by decision of the bench after reviewing the case.
When it does, the order it enters can be subject to a CR 60 motion to void the final orders for good cause shown.
Here are the most common reasons CR 60 motions are granted:
Errors or omissions by the court.
If the court makes a clerical mistake, it can void entered orders to do proper justice. This is very rare.
Mistake or excusable neglect.
The ‘whoopsie’ rule, CR 60 can be used when one party simply blunders and drops the ball. How ‘excusable’ the neglect might be is decided at the sole discretion of the Judge.
Fraud or deceit.
If trickery, crime, or outright deception is discovered (and can be convincingly proved) the court can re-open a case if the final orders were adjudicated on bad or partial information.
Unavoidable misfortune.
If you were trapped on a mountain without Wi-Fi for 12 months, and it wasn’t your fault, the court can void orders entered against you to let you litigate the case.
The conflict of theory and practicality:
Note: that we have seen the court enter large attorney fee awards against petitioners of frivolous CR 60 motions. To pay our client back for the trouble of having to defend the action, the book gets thrown at careless litigants. Pick your battles carefully.
The conflict of theory and practicality:
While it is true that, on paper, CR 60 provides litigants theoretical escapes to get out from under final orders know that CR 60 motions are viewed with great skepticism by the courts.
As a rule, the bench DOES NOT like to reopen cases it considered adjudicated. While the court will hear your CR 60 motion, expect a steep uphill battle in almost all circumstances. The judge will be looking for any hint of an excuse to deny CR 60 motions immediately.
While there is ‘catch-all’ language in CR 60, it is rarely used.
The narrow exception: Defaults.
Defaults occur when one party does not respond to a lawsuit and loses their opportunity to voice their side of the story before the court enters orders against them.
While courts will enter defaults on paper, in practice, courts hate deciding cases on anything except the merits. In most circumstances, if a party is defaulted and then motions for CR 60 to reopen the case, the court will generally bend over backwards to grant the motion – even if the default was properly entered.
If someone recently defaulted and motions for CR 60, prepare to likely lose.
What final order can be overturned? Any of them!
- Money judgements.
- Parenting plans.
- Child support orders.
- Divorces & separations.
- Division of property.
- Protection orders.
- And more!
The time limits of CR 60:
You can’t file CR 60 on an infinite time horizon, usually. If more than 1 year has passed for reason of mistake, erroneous proceedings, or newly discovered evidence, then you are out of luck.
The court WILL permit CR 60 longer than a year for other reasons, but even that is subject to a ‘reasonable time’ test. What is reasonable depends on the circumstances and is left to the discretion of the presiding judicial officer.
However, this 1-year rule is based on ENTRY of the final order, regardless of the other parties’ knowledge of the entry.
If the other party was notified of the order, or should have known about it’s entry, court’s will generally look dimly upon an effort to overturn order more than 2-4 months after it has been entered. This 2–4 month threshold does depend on the circumstances, though, so tread carefully.
WORD OF CAUTION:
It is ALWAYS better to be responsive to pending court action. Respond to paperwork promptly, attend hearings, and watch your mailbox for paperwork. This will save you a lot of heartache later.
Interested in other Family Law motions?
Writs of Habeas Corpus (“Writs”) are legal orders issued by the court.
Temporary family law orders (TFLO’s) are a versatile tool commonly seen in most contested family law cases.
In the State of Washington, you have a constitutional right to have your grievance heard by a full judge of the people.