Vaidik, C.J.
Case Summary
Indiana Rule of Trial Procedure 60(B)(7) allows a court to grant relief from a judgment if (1) “the judgment has been satisfied, released, or discharged,” (2) “a prior judgment upon which it is based has been reversed or otherwise vacated,” or (3) “it is no longer equitable that the judgment should have prospective application.” Rule 60(B) provides that a motion for such relief “shall be filed within a reasonable time.” In this case, the trial court granted relief under the third clause of Rule 60(B)(7)—the “no longer equitable” provision—and the appealing parties argue that the motion was not filed within a reasonable time. We have said that what constitutes a “reasonable time” under Rule 60(B) depends on the specific circumstances of each case. Here, the motion was filed more than twenty-five years after the judgment was entered. That is a long time. But under the unique circumstances of this case, it was not an unreasonable time. We therefore affirm the decision of the trial court.
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Determining whether a motion under Rule 60(B) was filed within a reasonable time “depends on the circumstances of each case, as well as the potential prejudice to the party opposing the motion and the basis for the moving party’s delay.” Parham v. Parham, 855 N.E.2d 722, 728 (Ind. Ct. App. 2006), trans. denied. Here, Wayne and Donna focus on the fact that the Williamses filed their motion twenty-five years after judgment was entered. “Inherently,” they say, “asking for relief from a judgment after twenty-five years is not within a reasonable period of time.” Appellants’ Br. p. 15.
But the fact that judgment was entered more than twenty-five years ago must be balanced against the fact that the change giving rise to the motion—the construction of the new Kruer Road—did not occur until late 2012. Wayne and Donna make no argument that the Williamses contributed to the delay in the construction of the new road, that they could have done something to get the road built sooner, or that they should have filed their motion sooner than they did. Furthermore, Wayne and Donna offer no response to the following explanation by the Williamses for the three-year delay between the construction of the new road and the filing of the motion in December 2015:
In the three-year period between [the opening of the new Kruer Road] and the motion for relief from the 1990 order, [the Williamses] diligently conducted title searches to ascertain all persons who would be affected by the vacation of “Old Kruer Road.” They then obtained consent forms from each of these property owners. [The Williamses] also obtained a consent from Clark County. Significantly, [the Williamses] obtained this consent on October 22, 2015. [The Williamses] filed their motion for relief from the judgment less than six weeks later.
Appellees’ Br. p. 26 (citations omitted). Wayne and Donna do not deny that the Williamses did all those things, nor do they argue that it should have taken the Williamses less than three years to do them, nor do they otherwise assert that three years was an unreasonable amount of time. In fact, in addressing the timeliness of the motion, Wayne and Donna don’t even mention the new Kruer Road, let alone the fact that it was built twenty-two years after the judgment. [Footnote omitted.]
There is no question that twenty-five years is a long time. However, that does not necessarily mean it was an unreasonable time. Again, determining the timeliness of a motion under Rule 60(B)(7) requires consideration of the specific circumstances of the case, see Parham, 855 N.E.2d at 728, and we afford our trial courts discretion in making such determinations, Jordan, 549 N.E.2d at 384. In this unique case—where the county didn’t build the new road until twenty-two years after the original judgment, and where the Williamses could not have filed a viable 60(B) motion before the new road opened—we cannot say that the trial court abused that discretion by finding the motion to be timely.
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Because the trial court acted within its discretion in finding the Williamses’ Rule 60(B) motion to be timely, and because Wayne and Donna have not demonstrated any other error, we affirm the trial court’s grant of the motion.
Affirmed.
Barnes, J., and Pyle, J., concur.