Rubicon Resources, LLC v. Keo Ratha, et al.

Rubicon obtained a final judgment in this case, Plaintiffs exhausted the appellate process, and this Court denied certiorari. Then Congress amended the operative statute. Plaintiffs invoked the amendment as a basis for reopening the judgment under Rule 60(b). The district court refused, both because the amendment did not apply to Plaintiffs’ case and because the district court had provided two alternative grounds for ruling in Rubicon’s favor, neither of which the statute affected. But on appeal, the en banc Ninth Circuit construed the statutory amendment as a legislative command to reopen the judgment. It then went even further and used the Rule 60(b) appeal to declare, de novo, that the district court had also erred as to the independent grounds that the statutory amendment did not affect. This petition presents two questions about the limits of Rule 60(b) and the finality of judgments:

1. Whether a post-judgment amendment to the governing statute is an impermissible basis for reopening a final judgment retroactively under Rule 60(b)(6).

2. Whether a court of appeals exceeds its authority under Rule 60(b) when it reviews the merits of the underlying judgment de novo, rather than limiting review to the Rule 60(b) decision and applying abuse of discretion.