Recent Case Law

One Year Time Limit to Seek Relief From Judgment Runs From Time of Entry of New Judgment

By Patrick Russell, Esq.

Jan 10, 2007 - 2:16:09 PM

Molinos Del S.A. v. E.I. Dupont De Nemours and Company, 2006 WL 3733553 (Fla. 4DCA 2006).

Civil Procedure Rule 1.540(b) requires that a motion for relief from a judgment be issued within one-year from the date of entry of the judgment.  In this case, judgments were entered in 2001.  However, upon appeal those judgments were set aside and new judgments were entered in 2005.  In 2005 and shortly after the issuance of the new judgments, the Plaintiff filed a motion for relief from the judgment on the basis of newly discovered evidence.  The trial court denied the motion as being untimely since the motion was not filed within one-year from the time of the original judgment in 2001. 

The general rule is that an appeal does not toll the time for the filing of a motion from relief of a judgment.  As a case of first impression, the appellate court reversed the trial court and held that a party may file a motion for relief from a judgment within one-year after the time that a new judgment is entered after appeal.  The appellate court's rationale was that after appeal, substantive changes were made to the judgments and thus the Plaintiff had one-year from their rendition to move to set them aside.