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Martinez v. Friede2/20/2004
to move for a new trial under Rule 1-059;
(3) fraud (whether heretofore denominated intrinsic or extrinsic), misrepresentation or other misconduct of an adverse party;
(4) the judgment is void;
(5) the judgment has been satisfied, released or discharged, or a prior judgment upon which it is based has been reversed or otherwise vacated, or it is no longer equitable that the judgment should have prospective application; or
(6) any other reason justifying relief from the operation of the judgment.
Petitioner's motion for new trial was deemed automatically denied on September 9, 1999. Also, Petitioner never filed a Rule 1-060(B) motion to seek relief from a final judgment and may actually have been precluded from filing such a motion. See Dozier, 118 N.M. at 71-72, 878 P.2d at 1020-21 (holding that a party's rejected motion for new trial may not be resubmitted as a Rule 1-060(B) motion). Nothing in the text of the rules, though, bars the district court from sua sponte reopening judgment and granting a new trial based on Rule 1-060(B), even though a motion for new trial has been automatically denied. The federal rule, which is identical to our Rule 1-060(B), has been interpreted as follows:
The rule says that the court is to act "on motion" and this is the usual procedure. However the court has power to act in the interest of justice in an unusual case in which its attention has been directed to the necessity for relief by means other than a motion.
11 Charles Alan Wright et al., Federal Practice and Procedure ยง 2865, at 380 (2d ed. 1995). In fact, we have previously stated that under Rule 1-060(B)(6) the district court retains a "reservoir of equitable power" to assure justice has been done. Stein v. Alpine Sports, Inc., 1998-NMSC-040, 17, 126 N.M. 258, 968 P.2d 769. We now make clear that while this "reservoir of equitable power" will more often be tapped by a party's timely motion to reopen judgment, the district court may in exceptional circumstances reopen judgment and order a new trial sua sponte. See Desjardin v. Albuquerque Nat'l Bank, 93 N.M. 89, 91, 596 P.2d 858, 860 (1979) ("A judge can initiate relief from a judgment or order under Rule 60 on his [or her] own motion.").
We recognize that the appellate courts of at least two other states have held that the trial court cannot reopen judgment to grant a new trial once a party's motion for new trial has been denied by operation of law. See Phillips v. Jacobs, 807 S.W.2d 923, 925 (Ark. 1991) ("Rule 60 under our Arkansas rules should not be used to breathe life into an otherwise defunct Rule 59 motion."), overruled on other grounds by Lord v. Mazzanti, 2 S.W.3d 76 (Ark. 1999); Dodge v. Superior Court, 91 Cal. Rptr. 2d 758, 760-61 (Ct. App. 2000) (holding that the sixty-day period for ruling on a new trial motion "may not be enlarged under the rubric of mistake, inadvertence, surprise, excusable neglect . . . or by means of a nunc pro tunc order"). We believe, however, that such a bright-line rule would unnecessarily infringe upon the district court's power to reopen judgment under Rule 1-060(B) without materially advancing the primary purpose of the automatic denial provision of Rule 1-059(D), which is to provide parties with a definite date for calculating when they must file their notices of appeal.
Specifically, Rule 12-201(A)(2) NMRA 2004 requires a notice of appeal to be filed within thirty days after the judgment in order to be timely. Rule 12-201(D), on the other hand, provides that if a party timely files a motion for new trial pursuant to Rule 1-059, the thirty days "shall commence to run and be computed from either the entry of a
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