Setting aside a Hawaii judgment: six grounds, one year, and a deadline the court cannot extend

Hawaii's relief-from-judgment rule is the federal six-ground model. What makes it stricter in practice is a sentence in a different rule: Rule 6(b) bars the court from extending the time for a Rule 60(b) motion, even for excusable neglect.

So the ordinary safety valve — ask the court for more time — is closed here.

The six grounds

Rule 60(b): on motion and upon such terms as are just, the court may relieve a party or a party's legal representative from a final judgment, order, or proceeding for:

(1) mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect; (2) newly discovered evidence which by due diligence could not have been discovered in time to move for a new trial under Rule 59(b); (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.

Six, including the residual clause in (6). Alaska and the federal rule use the same six; Oregon's ORCP 71 B(1) has five and no catch-all; Washington's CR 60(b) has eleven.

Ground (6) reaches reasons the enumerated grounds do not. It is not a way to revive a stale ground (1).

The timing

The motion shall be made within a reasonable time, and for reasons (1), (2), and (3) not more than one year after the judgment, order, or proceeding was entered or taken.

Two limits, and the second applies only to the first three grounds.

Reasonable time applies to all six. A void-judgment motion under ground (4), brought after years of silence, still has to be reasonable.

The one year runs from entry — as in Washington, Oregon and the federal rule, and unlike Alaska, whose Rule 60(b) runs its year from the date of notice of the judgment.

And it cannot be extended. Rule 6(b), which otherwise lets the court enlarge periods for cause or on a showing of excusable neglect, ends with an express carve-out:

but it may not extend the time for taking any action under Rules 50(b), 52(b), 59(b), (d) and (e) and 60(b) of these rules and Rule 4(a) of the Hawai'i Rules of Appellate Procedure, except to the extent and under the conditions stated in them.

Judgment as a matter of law, amended findings, new trial, motions to alter or amend, relief from judgment, and the notice of appeal. Six deadlines the court has no power to move.

A Rule 60(b) motion does not stay anything. The rule says so: it "does not affect the finality of a judgment or suspend its operation." Ask for a stay separately if enforcement is under way.

What survives outside the rule

This rule does not limit the power of a court to entertain an independent action to relieve a party from a judgment, order, or proceeding, or to set aside a judgment for fraud upon the court.

Writs are abolished — coram nobis, coram vobis, audita querela, bills of review and bills in the nature of a bill of review — "and the procedure for obtaining any relief from a judgment shall be by motion as prescribed in these rules or by an independent action."

Two preserved routes, neither bounded by the one year.

Clerical mistakes — Rule 60(a)

Clerical mistakes in judgments, orders or other parts of the record, and errors arising from oversight or omission, "may be corrected by the court at any time of its own initiative or on the motion of any party and after such notice, if any, as the court orders."

During an appeal, such mistakes may be corrected "before the appeal is docketed, and thereafter while the appeal is pending may be so corrected with leave of the appellate court."

Rule 60(a) makes the record say what the court did. It does not change what the court decided.

Default: two very different tiers

Rule 55(c):

For good cause shown the court may set aside an entry of default and, if a judgment by default has been entered, may likewise set it aside in accordance with Rule 60(b).

Before judgment: good cause. After judgment: the full Rule 60(b) apparatus, with its grounds, its reasonable-time requirement, its one-year cap, and the Rule 6(b) bar on extending any of it.

And Hawaii gives you less warning than its neighbours. Rule 55(a) provides that where a party "has failed to plead or otherwise defend … and that fact is made to appear by affidavit or otherwise, the clerk shall enter the party's default." No motion, no notice, no waiting period.

Compare Alaska, where Rule 55(a)(1) requires the default application to be served on everyone including the defaulting party and Rule 55(a)(2) makes the clerk wait seven days; and Washington, where CR 55(a)(1) requires a motion and CR 55(a)(3) gives an appearing party five days' notice.

So in Hawaii the practical protection comes later, at the judgment stage.

Rule 55(b)(2): where the party against whom default judgment is sought has appeared, that party "shall be served with written notice of the application for judgment at least 3 days prior to the hearing."

Three days — and because three is fewer than seven, Rule 6(a) excludes intermediate Saturdays, Sundays and holidays from the count. It is three working days, not three calendar days.

Judgment by the clerk — Rule 55(b)(1): available only where the claim is "for a sum certain or for a sum which can by computation be made certain," on request and affidavit of the amount due, and only where the defendant "has been defaulted for failure to appear" and is not an infant or incompetent person.

Judgment by the court — Rule 55(b)(2): everything else. No judgment against an infant or incompetent person unless represented by a guardian or other representative who has appeared and on whom service may be made under Rule 17. Where the court must take an account, determine damages, establish the truth of an averment or investigate another matter, it may conduct hearings or order references — "and shall accord a right of trial by jury to the parties when and as required by any statute."

Against the State or a county — Rule 55(e): no default judgment "unless the claimant establishes a claim or right to relief by evidence satisfactory to the court."

Rule 59, and choosing between the two

Rule 60(b)(2) refers to evidence that could not have been discovered "in time to move for a new trial under Rule 59(b)." That cross-reference is the line between the motions.

Rule 59(b) gives 10 days after entry of the judgment to move for a new trial — a deadline Rule 6(b) also forbids the court to extend.

So: inside 10 days, a new trial motion is the vehicle for newly discovered evidence and for trial error. Outside it, Rule 60(b) is the route, and only where due diligence could not have surfaced the evidence in time.

The guide on Hawaii post-judgment motions covers Rule 59 in full.

How Hawaii compares

A short checklist

1. Establish what was entered — an entry of default, or a judgment. Before judgment the standard is good cause; after it, Rule 60(b).
2. Calendar one year from entry for grounds (1), (2) and (3) — and treat it as immovable. Rule 6(b) bars the court from extending it.
3. Move within a reasonable time regardless of ground. That applies to all six.
4. Pick a ground that fits. Ground (6) is residual, not a second attempt at ground (1).
5. If you are inside 10 days of entry, consider Rule 59 instead — and note that deadline is equally unextendable.
6. Ask for a stay separately. A Rule 60(b) motion does not suspend the judgment.
7. If a default judgment application is coming and you have appeared, you get three working days' notice — Rule 6(a) excludes weekends and holidays from a period under seven days.
8. If the problem is a clerical error, use Rule 60(a) — no time limit, available on the court's own motion, and correctable during an appeal with the appellate court's leave.
9. If the one year has run, look at the preserved routes — an independent action, or fraud upon the court.

Where these rules live

• Haw. R. Civ. P. 6 — Times
• Haw. R. Civ. P. 12 — Defenses and objections
• Haw. R. Civ. P. 17 — Parties plaintiff and defendant; capacity
• Haw. R. Civ. P. 55 — Default
• Haw. R. Civ. P. 56 — Summary judgment
• Haw. R. Civ. P. 58 — Entry of judgment
• Haw. R. Civ. P. 59 — New trials; amendment of judgments
• Haw. R. Civ. P. 60 — Relief from judgment or order

This page explains what the rules say. It isn't legal advice, and what counts as excusable neglect is decided under case law this site doesn't cover.