BLOM Bank SAL v. Honickman
The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the tough standard for reopening a final court judgment — requiring proof of 'extraordinary circumstances' — cannot be diluted just because the person seeking to reopen the case wants to file an amended complaint.
The decision settles a split among lower courts and makes clear that two procedural rules operate in sequence, not in tandem: a party must first clear the high bar for reopening before any more flexible rules about amending lawsuits can come into play.
How it got here: The district court dismissed the lawsuit and later denied a motion to reopen it; the Second Circuit reversed the denial; BLOM Bank asked the Supreme Court to step in, and the Court agreed to hear the case.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Victims of Hamas terrorist attacks between 2001 and 2003 sued BLOM Bank, a Lebanese international bank, claiming it helped Hamas by providing banking services to Hamas-affiliated customers. The lawsuit was dismissed after the victims' lawyers repeatedly declined — including when directly offered the chance by the judge — to file an improved complaint, choosing instead to appeal. After losing on appeal, they returned to try to reopen the closed case and file a new complaint under the standard the appeals court had clarified.
The question before the Court
Can a court weaken the strict "extraordinary circumstances" test for reopening a final court judgment by balancing it against a generally more permissive policy for allowing amended complaints?
The Court's answer
No — a court cannot use a balancing approach that softens the "extraordinary circumstances" test for reopening a final judgment by weighing it against the generally more permissive policy for allowing amended complaints. The Court ruled that the rule governing motions to reopen a final judgment (Rule 60(b)(6)) always demands a showing of extraordinary circumstances, and that requirement does not shrink just because the person seeking to reopen the case intends to file an amended complaint afterward.
The two procedural rules at issue operate in sequence, not together: a party must first satisfy the demanding reopening standard on its own terms before the more relaxed amendment policy can even come into play. The Second Circuit's hybrid "balancing" approach — treating the two rules as working in tandem — improperly diluted a long-established and strict standard that exists precisely to protect the finality of court judgments.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Litigants who lose a case and later want to come back with a revised complaint now must first clear the demanding "extraordinary circumstances" hurdle — a difficult standard to meet — before courts can consider whether to allow an amended filing. This preserves the finality of court judgments and makes it harder for losing parties to seek a second chance at pleading their case after a lawsuit is closed.
What changes now
The case goes back to the Second Circuit with instructions to apply the correct legal framework. Because the district court applied the right standard and gave well-supported reasons for denying the motion to reopen, its ruling is effectively reinstated. The terrorism victims' lawsuit against BLOM Bank remains dismissed. Any future litigant in similar circumstances must clear the full "extraordinary circumstances" bar before courts will consider letting them file an amended complaint.
What this does not decide
The Court does not decide whether a prior refusal to amend a complaint always — or even usually — bars a party from satisfying the "extraordinary circumstances" standard. Justice Jackson's concurrence expressly flags that courts should not reflexively treat a choice to appeal, rather than amend, as disqualifying a later reopening motion.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence in part — Justice Jackson
Justice Jackson joined all but Part III of the majority opinion, agreeing that Rule 60(b)(6)'s extraordinary circumstances standard governs and that the district court did not abuse its discretion. She wrote separately to push back on the district court's reasoning that the plaintiffs were at fault because they chose to appeal rather than amend their complaint. In her view, choosing to appeal is not the same as abandoning litigation, and courts should not reflexively treat a prior refusal to amend as disqualifying a later request to reopen, as long as the party can otherwise show extraordinary circumstances.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- Rule 60(b)(6) is a 'catchall' provision in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that allows courts to reopen a final judgment for 'any other reason that justifies relief' not already covered by the rule's first five specific paragraphs. Because it follows five enumerated grounds, reading it broadly would swallow those specific provisions and undermine their time limits — a basic principle of legal interpretation counsels against that result.
- The Court has consistently held since its 1949 decision in Klapprott v. United States that only 'extraordinary circumstances' can justify relief under this catchall — situations going well beyond ordinary litigation setbacks, where a party was essentially powerless to protect its interests. The 1950 Ackermann decision sharpened the point: deliberate, freely made choices in litigation generally do not qualify as extraordinary circumstances.
- Rules 60(b)(6) and 15(a) — the rule that courts should 'freely give leave' to amend complaints before trial — apply at entirely different stages of litigation and ask different questions. Once a final judgment has been entered and the case is closed, there is no longer an open complaint to amend, so Rule 15(a)'s liberal policy simply has no foothold.
- The Second Circuit's 'balancing' approach — requiring district courts to weigh Rule 60(b)(6)'s strict standard against Rule 15(a)'s liberal amendment policy in tandem — necessarily weakens the extraordinary circumstances requirement. That approach is inconsistent with a long line of Supreme Court precedents holding that Rule 60(b)(6) must be applied strictly to preserve the finality of judgments.
- The Court distinguished the 1962 decision in Foman v. Davis, which plaintiffs relied on: that case involved Rule 59(e), a different procedural rule for motions filed within 28 days of a judgment, which suspends the finality of a judgment entirely while the motion is pending. Rule 60(b)(6), by contrast, threatens judgments that may already be years old, so a higher bar is appropriate.
- Looking at what the district court actually did, the Court found no abuse of discretion: the district court correctly applied the extraordinary circumstances standard and gave solid reasons for its denial — that a clarification of the legal standard by an appeals court rarely qualifies as extraordinary circumstances, and that the plaintiffs' repeated deliberate choices not to amend their complaint further cut against them.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Klapprott v. United States (335 U.S. 601)
Confirmed as the origin of the 'extraordinary circumstances' test for reopening final judgments under Rule 60(b)(6).
Reaffirms Ackermann v. United States (340 U.S. 193)
Reaffirmed that deliberate litigation choices generally do not satisfy the extraordinary circumstances standard.
Distinguishes Foman v. Davis (371 U.S. 178)
Distinguished as involving Rule 59(e), a different rule that does not require the same extraordinary circumstances showing as Rule 60(b)(6).
Reaffirms Gonzalez v. Crosby (545 U.S. 524)
Reaffirmed that the strict extraordinary circumstances standard is essential to preserving the finality of judgments.