Seventh Circuit Uses Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(B)(5) To Reopen 23-Year Old Judgment

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(5) allows a party to move for relief from a final judgment on the ground that "it prospectively is no longer equitable." Motions under Rule 60(b)(5) must be made "within a reasonable time" under Rule 60(c)(1), but subsection (c)(1) otherwise sets no firm deadline.

So what is "a reasonable time"? According to the Seventh Circuit's decision today in Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians v. State of Wisconsin, it could be as much as 23 years. No. 14-1051 (7th Cir. Oct. 9, 2014).

Judge Posner wrote for the court in a case in which the Wisconsin Indian tribes sought to reopen a 1991 judgment of the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Wisconsin. That judgment upheld a Wisconsin statute prohibiting the tribes' members from hunting deer at night outside of their reservations. The land at issue is a large swath of northern Wisconsin that the tribes ceded as part of treaties with the federal government