Reported / Citable
Background
In December 2021, a tractor-trailer operated by an employee of KJ Win, Inc. was parked on the shoulder of I-20 in Newton County, Mississippi. Plaintiffs Cheryl Roberts and William Chambers allege that the parked truck caused another tractor-trailer to change lanes suddenly, triggering a chain-reaction collision that seriously injured them both. Roberts suffered traumatic brain injury with ongoing neurological, orthopedic, and psychological effects; Chambers sustained a fractured sternum, headaches, and PTSD. They sued KJ Win in October 2023 under theories of negligence, negligence per se, gross negligence, and respondeat superior.
Serving KJ Win proved difficult. Its registered agent’s California address on file with the Secretary of State was vacant, and service at a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration address also failed. The district court authorized substituted service through the California Secretary of State under California Corporations Code § 1702. KJ Win still did not appear, and the district court clerk entered a default in January 2024. Following an evidentiary hearing, the court entered a $2,839,806.73 default judgment in July 2024—$1.8 million to Roberts and just over $1 million to Chambers.
KJ Win surfaced in October 2024 and moved to set aside the default judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b), arguing its default was not willful, that plaintiffs would suffer no prejudice from vacatur, and that it had meritorious defenses. The district court denied the motion in April 2025, finding KJ Win had willfully defaulted. KJ Win timely appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Fifth Circuit affirmed, finding no abuse of discretion in the district court’s denial of Rule 60(b)(1) relief. Applying the standard from Wooten v. McDonald Transit Associates, Inc., the court noted that KJ Win offered no explanation whatsoever for what happened between the time service was attempted and its eventual effort to vacate the judgment—its counsel could not produce a supporting affidavit or even affirmatively deny that KJ Win knew of the suit. Because a finding of willful default ends the Rule 60(b)(1) inquiry, the court was not required to separately analyze prejudice or the merits of any proffered defense.
The court also addressed—and rejected—three arguments KJ Win raised for the first time on appeal. KJ Win argued the default judgment was void under Rule 60(b)(4) because substituted service was defective, depriving the district court of personal jurisdiction. Adopting the reasoning of the Seventh and Eleventh Circuits, the Fifth Circuit held that personal jurisdiction challenges to default judgments are forfeited if not squarely raised in the Rule 60(b) motion filed in the district court. KJ Win had raised a different Rule 60(b)(4) argument below (lack of notice of the evidentiary hearing) and abandoned it on appeal, making its new service-defect theory doubly forfeited.
Similarly, KJ Win’s new arguments that Mississippi’s statutory cap on non-economic damages applied collectively to all plaintiffs, and that it was entitled to a pro tanto offset for a settlement with another defendant, were forfeited for the same reason. The court declined KJ Win’s invitation to invoke the “miscarriage of justice” exception to the forfeiture rule, finding that the forfeited arguments involved mixed fact-and-law questions unsuited to first-time appellate review, and that KJ Win’s own conduct—failing to maintain a valid service address, offering no explanation for its default, and omitting damages arguments from its Rule 60 motion—did not merit equitable relief.
Key Takeaways
- A finding of willful default under Rule 60(b)(1) ends the inquiry; courts need not separately consider prejudice to the plaintiff or the merits of the defendant’s asserted defenses.
- A defendant who offers no evidence or explanation for its failure to respond—and cannot even deny knowledge of the lawsuit—cannot meet its burden to show excusable neglect.
- The Fifth Circuit adopted the Seventh and Eleventh Circuits’ rule that personal jurisdiction challenges to default judgments are forfeited if not raised in the Rule 60(b) motion in the district court, treating such challenges as functionally equivalent to a Rule 12(b)(2) motion to dismiss.
- Unpreserved damages arguments—including statutory cap and comparative-fault offset claims—are likewise forfeited and will not be considered on appeal absent a miscarriage of justice, which requires more than a defendant’s own procedural failures.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces the Fifth Circuit’s strict preservation rules in the default judgment context and signals that defendants who fail to appear cannot use a Rule 60(b) motion as a vehicle to hold back threshold jurisdictional objections for a second bite on appeal. By aligning with the Seventh and Eleventh Circuits on forfeiture of Rule 60(b)(4) personal jurisdiction challenges, the court narrows the window for defaulting defendants to collaterally attack judgments and brings the Fifth Circuit closer to a clear circuit consensus on this previously unsettled question.
For trucking companies and their insurers, the case is a stark reminder that ignoring litigation—whether due to deficient registered-agent maintenance, poor record-keeping with the FMCSA, or otherwise—carries severe consequences. A defendant that emerges only after a multi-million-dollar judgment has been entered faces an uphill battle: it must explain its absence with actual evidence, and it may find that strategic arguments it hoped to deploy on appeal are lost for good if not raised in the district court first.