First Community Financial Services v. Ronald Simmons and Sunny Simmons

The plaintiff financial services company filed actions in the General Sessions Court against defendants alleging they had defaulted on promissory notes. The court entered judgments for the plaintiff on both notes, including attorney fees. After making installment payments on the judgments for well over a year, the defendants filed a Rule 60 motion in the same court to set the judgments aside, accompanied by affidavits alleging that their signatures on the notes were forgeries. The court overruled the motion because it was filed more than ten days after the challenged judgments were entered and thus was not timely in accordance with Tenn. Code Ann. § 16-15-727(b). The defendants then appealed to the Circuit Court, which dismissed the appeal on the ground of lack of jurisdiction because of the untimeliness of the defendants’ filing in the court below. We affirm the Circuit Court.