BLOM Bank SAL v. Honickman
The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that parties seeking to reopen a final court judgment must meet a demanding 'extraordinary circumstances' standard, and that standard does not soften simply because the party wants to file an amended complaint afterward.
The decision reinforces that final judgments are final: a more permissive rule allowing pre-trial amendments to complaints cannot be blended in to lower the bar for undoing a case that is already closed.
How it got here: The district court dismissed the complaint and later denied a motion to reopen it; the Second Circuit reversed the denial of reopening; the bank asked the Supreme Court to step in and the Court agreed to hear it.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Victims and families of Hamas terrorist attacks between 2001 and 2003 sued BLOM Bank SAL, a Lebanese international bank, claiming it aided Hamas by providing financial services to Hamas-affiliated customers. Before the district court dismissed the suit, the plaintiffs repeatedly and explicitly told the court they would not seek to amend their complaint. After losing their appeal, they returned and asked the court to reopen the case so they could file an improved complaint under the appeals court's newly clarified legal standard.
The question before the Court
When a lawsuit has been dismissed and become final, must a party still show "extraordinary circumstances" to reopen it — even if the only goal is to file an updated complaint?
The Court's answer
Yes — a party seeking to reopen a final court judgment under Rule 60(b)(6) must demonstrate "extraordinary circumstances," and that demanding standard does not relax simply because the party plans to file an amended complaint if the case is reopened. The Court rejected the Second Circuit's approach of blending Rule 60(b)(6)'s strict standard with Rule 15(a)'s more permissive amendment policy, holding that the two rules operate in sequence, not together.
Rule 15(a)'s policy of freely allowing pre-trial amendments applies only while a case is open. Once a final judgment closes the case, there is no pending complaint left to amend, and Rule 15(a) does not come into play. A party must first clear Rule 60(b)(6)'s extraordinary-circumstances hurdle entirely on its own terms. Because the district court correctly applied that standard — and had sound reasons for finding the plaintiffs fell short — its denial of reopening was upheld.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Litigants who lose a case and want to return to court with a revised complaint face a high, largely unchanged bar. A later clarification of legal standards by an appeals court will rarely be enough to justify reopening. This affects anyone pursuing complex civil litigation — including terrorism victims, fraud plaintiffs, and others who may only discover pleading gaps after losing on appeal.
What changes now
The case is sent back to the Second Circuit, which must now apply the correct legal framework — Rule 60(b)(6)'s extraordinary-circumstances test standing alone, not blended with Rule 15(a)'s amendment policy. The plaintiffs will need to demonstrate extraordinary circumstances to get their case reopened. Given the Supreme Court's endorsement of the district court's reasoning, clearing that bar will be difficult.
What this does not decide
The Court does not decide whether a plaintiff's prior choice to appeal rather than amend a complaint must always count against Rule 60(b)(6) relief. Justice Jackson's concurrence specifically cautions that choosing to appeal is not "abandonment" of litigation and should not automatically foreclose reopening when extraordinary circumstances otherwise exist.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence in part — Justice Jackson
Justice Jackson joined all of the majority opinion except Part III, which assessed whether the district court abused its discretion. She agreed with that conclusion but wrote separately to challenge one piece of the district court's reasoning: its treatment of the plaintiffs' deliberate choice not to amend as a mark against them under Rule 60(b)(6). Jackson argued that declining to amend and choosing instead to appeal is not 'abandonment' of the case — it is the exercise of a statutory right to appellate review. Courts should not reflexively penalize a party for appealing; doing so would deter litigants from seeking review and could leave important legal questions about pleading standards unresolved.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- Rule 60(b)(6) is a 'catchall' provision that lets courts reopen a final judgment for 'any other reason that justifies relief.' Because it follows five specific enumerated grounds in Rules 60(b)(1)-(5) — mistake, new evidence, fraud, and others — a broad reading of the catchall would swallow those provisions and let parties sidestep the one-year filing deadline that applies to those specific grounds. Basic principles of legal interpretation forbid reading a provision in ways that make others superfluous.
- Because of that narrow scope, courts have consistently required 'extraordinary circumstances' to justify reopening under Rule 60(b)(6), a standard first established in Klapprott v. United States (1949) — where a man lost his citizenship by default judgment while jailed, ill, and without a lawyer — and reaffirmed ever since. The standard reflects the foundational principle that court judgments must at some point become truly final, and that parties who made free, deliberate choices to end litigation cannot easily undo those choices.
- Rule 15(a), which directs courts to 'freely give leave' to amend a complaint before trial, operates at an entirely different stage of litigation. Once a case is closed by a final judgment, there is no pending complaint left to amend. Rule 15(a)'s permissive policy is simply inapplicable in that posture, and applying it there would undermine the finality of judgments.
- The Second Circuit had developed a hybrid 'balancing' approach: when a party seeks to reopen a case specifically to file an amended complaint, courts should weigh Rule 60(b)(6)'s strict standard against Rule 15(a)'s lenient amendment policy together. The Court unanimously rejected this, holding the two rules work sequentially — a party must fully satisfy Rule 60(b)(6)'s extraordinary-circumstances test before the question of amendment under Rule 15(a) even arises.
- Applying the correct standard, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying reopening. Intervening clarifications of the law — like the appeals court's refinement of the aiding-and-abetting test — rarely constitute extraordinary circumstances on their own. And the plaintiffs' repeated, deliberate decisions to stand on their original complaint rather than amend it further weighed against finding the kind of faultlessness that Rule 60(b)(6) relief typically requires.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Klapprott v. United States (335 U. S. 601)
Reaffirmed as the foundational case establishing that Rule 60(b)(6) requires extraordinary circumstances.
Distinguishes Foman v. Davis (371 U. S. 178)
Distinguished because it dealt with Rule 59(e), which threatens finality far less than Rule 60(b)(6).
Reaffirms Gonzalez v. Crosby (545 U. S. 524)
Reaffirmed that strict interpretation of Rule 60(b)(6) is essential to preserving the finality of judgments.