MURPHY VS. MURPHY (DIVORCE PROPERTY & ALIMONY)

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

The court held that the six-month limitation on fraud-based challenges (NRCP 60(b)) does not apply to fraud upon the court, jurisdiction over which is inherent, citing Savage v. Salzmann, 88 Nev. 193, 495 P.2d 367 (1972). Fraud upon the court includes conduct that prevents a real trial upon the issues involved. The court distinguished older decisions (Mazour v. Mazour, 64 Nev. 245, 180 P.2d 103 (1947); Calvert v. Calvert, 61 Nev. 168, 122 P.2d 426 (1942)) that had rejected threat-based relief, noting those decisions relied heavily on the aggrieved party being represented by counsel. Reading NRCP 60(b), the court held the better interpretation permits a party to proceed by motion rather than by independent action, both because a contrary reading would render the fraud-upon-the-court provision superfluous and because a court may act sua sponte to remedy such fraud (citing Kupferman v. Consolidated Research & Mfg. Corp., 459 F.2d 1072 (2d Cir. 1972), and other federal authority).

In plain language

Charles Murphy was granted a divorce in mid-1985 and was awarded essentially all of the couple's community property, leaving Alicia Murphy with only a twelve-year-old car. Nearly a year later, Alicia asked the court to set aside that lopsided property division. She claimed that Charles had threatened to kill her if she sought any more property, so she had been too afraid to fight over the issue, and that she had no lawyer at the time and moved to set aside the decree soon after first meeting with counsel. A domestic relations referee, and then the trial court, dismissed her motion, ruling that the court had lost jurisdiction because more than six months had passed since the divorce decree was entered (the general time limit for challenging a judgment for fraud). The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. It explained that the usual six-month limit does not apply to "fraud upon the court" - conduct that prevents a real trial of the issues. Threats that intimidate a spouse into not litigating her property rights can amount to fraud upon the court, especially where (unlike in older cases denying relief) the intimidated spouse was not represented by counsel. The court also held that Alicia could raise this by motion rather than being forced to file a separate lawsuit. The case was sent back for further proceedings on her claim.