Dan Giurca v. Montefiore Health System, Inc., et al.

The “Fraud on the Court” Circuit Split: Whether the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit’s restrictive interpretation of “fraud on the court” under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(d)(3)—which strictly limits relief to instances of bribery or fabrication of evidence and categorically excludes the intentional, strategic concealment of dispositive documents by an officer of the court during discovery—creates an untenable conflict with the broader integrity-based standards adopted by the Third, Sixth, and Ninth Circuits, and contravenes this Court’s foundational holding in Hazel-Atlas Glass Co. v. Hartford-Empire Co., 322 U.S. 238 (1944).

The Integrity of Voluntary Dismissals: Whether a voluntary dismissal with prejudice pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) constitutes a binding waiver of rights when it was induced by the opposing counsel’s fraudulent affirmative representations of full discovery compliance, made while simultaneously withholding “smoking gun” evidence of whistleblower retaliation—specifically, a defamatory “Security Alert” blacklisting campaign— that was only revealed years later through collateral litigation.

The Scope of the Saving Clause: Whether the “saving clause” of Rule 60(d), preserving the judiciary’s inherent power to set aside judgments for fraud, requires a showing that the fraud literally “defiled” the court in a manner that the court itself could not detect (the Second Circuit view), or whether it extends