Opinion ID: 1192020
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Frederick C. Lyon, Clerk

Text: Appeal from the District Court of the Fifth Judicial District, State of Idaho, Twin Falls County. Hon. D.B. Meehl, District Judge. Hon. M.C. Edwards, Magistrate Judge. District court decision, upholding magistrate's summary judgment for plaintiff in contract action, reversed. Case remanded. Kathleen E. Rivers (Roark, Donovan, Praggastis, Elkins & Phillips), of Ketchum for appellant. William Hollifield (Decker & Hollifield), of Twin Falls, for respondent. BURNETT, J. The dispositive question in this case is whether a party opposing a motion for summary judgment should have been allowed to verify a previously unsworn pleading in open court. A magistrate rejected the offer of in-court verification. He then granted a motion for summary judgment solely on the ground that it had not been opposed by affidavit or other sworn statement under I.R.C.P. 56. On appeal, the district court affirmed. Today we reverse the district court's decision and remand the case. The background facts may be recited briefly. George Loomis, a building contractor, engaged the services of another contractor, Byrd Golay, in a residential construction project. A dispute arose over compensation for extra work. Golay filed a complaint seeking payment of $2,111.25. The complaint was signed only by Golay's attorney. Loomis, acting pro se, submitted to the court a document entitled Response to Complaint, in which he detailed the underlying transaction and controverted most of Golay's allegations. Upon receiving the appropriate filing fee, the court clerk accepted this document and filed it as an answer. Neither the answer nor Golay's complaint was verified. Apparently unaware that Loomis had answered, Golay's attorney sought the entry of a default and filed his client's affidavit of amount due. In pertinent part, the affidavit simply averred that Loomis was to pay an additional sum of $2,111.25 for extra work done on the fireplace, column 12' block, and for heating charges[,] and he has failed to pay the sum which is due and owing. Upon learning of Loomis' answer, Golay's attorney abandoned his effort to obtain a default. Instead, he filed a motion for summary judgment based on the files and records herein. On the date set for hearing on the motion, Loomis appeared in court and argued against summary judgment for the reasons set forth in his answer. When the magistrate noted that the answer was unverified, Loomis offered to verify it under oath in open court. However, the magistrate granted Golay's motion for summary judgment, observing that the answer was not sworn to and it would have to have been done prior to you coming to court. Loomis then retained an attorney who promptly filed a motion for relief from the summary judgment under I.R.C.P. 60(b). The motion was accompanied by an affidavit in which Loomis reiterated the contents of his previous answer and stated that he had assumed the court would allow a sworn statement at the hearing. This assumption, he explained, was based on his prior experience in small claims litigation. The magistrate refused to grant relief. Loomis appealed to the district court from the summary judgment and from the order denying his Rule 60(b) motion. His counsel argued that the magistrate should have permitted Loomis to verify the answer and, in any event, that relief from the summary judgment should have been granted for excusable neglect. The district judge upheld the magistrate's denial of the Rule 60(b) motion, reasoning that Loomis' asserted neglect actually was a mistake of law, for which relief would not be granted. In upholding the summary judgment, the district judge said that verification by an oral statement under oath would not have been appropriate in proceedings under I.R.C.P. 56. He elaborated as follows: It is apparent that the rules regarding summary judgment proceedings envision the use of pleadings, depositions, admissions, answers to interrogatories and affidavits by the judge in reaching his decision on the motion. The purpose of summary judgment would be defeated by the use of oral testimony. The end result, if oral testimony were allowed, would be a full-blown trial or at least a mini-trial during the hearing. It is conceivable that if one party were allowed to present oral testimony, the opposing party would insist, and rightly so, on being allowed to present rebuttal testimony. The end result is foreseeable, a trial at the summary judgment hearing.... [T]he magistrate did not abuse his discretion .. . by refusing to allow appellant to present oral testimony or swear to the truth of the contents of his answer. In the appeal now before us, Loomis again challenges the summary judgment and the order denying his Rule 60(b) motion. We do not reach the Rule 60(b) question today, except to remind our readers that excusable neglect is not always vitiated by a mistake of law. See Schraufnagel v. Quinowski, 113 Idaho 753, 747 P.2d 775 (Ct.App. 1987); Stirm v. Puckett, 107 Idaho 1046, 695 P.2d 431 (Ct.App. 1985). In this case, however, the dispositive question is whether the summary judgment was proper  that is, whether the judgment should have been entered on the rationale that it had not been opposed by an affidavit or other sworn statement, after the magistrate disallowed an in-court verification of Loomis' answer. With all due respect to the district judge, we are constrained to disagree with his sweeping assertion that oral statements or testimony have no place in summary judgment proceedings. Rule 43(e), I.R.C.P., provides that a court may consider a motion on affidavits or may direct that the matter be heard wholly or partly on oral testimony or depositions. Referring specifically to Rule 43(e), we said the following in Rawson v. Idaho State Board of Cosmetology, 107 Idaho 1037, 1042, 695 P.2d 422, 427 (Ct.App. 1985): [Oral] testimony is a permissible, albeit seldom used, method of presenting information in support of, or in opposition to, a motion for summary judgment. The federal counterpart to Rule 43(e), I.R.C.P., authorizing the use of oral testimony on motions in general, has been held applicable to motions for summary judgment under Rule 56. E.g., Hayden v. First National Bank, 595 F.2d 994 (5th Cir.1979). Nothing in Rule 56 precludes such use of testimony. To the contrary, the practice has been recognized. See 10A C. WRIGHT, A. MILLER & M. KANE, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 2723 (1983). Accordingly, we hold that testimony may be used in connection with motions for summary judgment in Idaho. It logically follows that such testimony, when introduced for this limited purpose, does not convert a Rule 56 hearing into a trial. Of course, Rule 43(e) does not compel a judge to accept oral statements or testimony. It says the judge may do so. However, the judge must exercise this discretion reasonably. Here, if the magistrate rejected an in-court verification of Loomis' answer upon the supposition  expressed by the district judge  that any form of oral testimony is precluded in a summary judgment proceeding, then his exercise of discretion was tainted with legal error. We have considered an additional possibility that the magistrate rejected the in-court verification because it would have been similar to admitting an affidavit after the fourteen-day filing deadline contained in Rule 56(c). But if this was the magistrate's concern, he did not expressly say so. Moreover, he did not acknowledge his discretionary power, under the same rule, to alter or shorten the fourteen-day time period. Generally speaking, when a trial judge misperceives the law governing a discretionary decision, or fails to recognize the proper scope of his discretion, the appropriate appellate response is to remand the case for reconsideration under the clarified legal standard. Kunzler v. Kunzler, 109 Idaho 350, 707 P.2d 461 (Ct.App. 1985). However, as we further noted in Kunzler, such a remand is unnecessary if the proper decision is so clear and compelling that any contrary determination would constitute, ipso facto, an abuse of discretion. Id. at 355, 707 P.2d at 466. In the peculiar circumstances of this case, we believe it was an abuse of discretion to disallow an in-court verification of Loomis' answer. It will be recalled that neither the complaint nor the answer was verified. There was no affidavit in support of the motion for summary judgment, except the terse affidavit of amount due which had been filed during the aborted effort to obtain a default. Loomis' answer, containing detailed allegations of fact, had been on file, and its contents had been known, for some time prior to the motion for summary judgment. The answer simply required verification to be cognizable under Rule 56. Camp v. Jiminez, 107 Idaho 878, 693 P.2d 1080 (Ct.App. 1984). Loomis' offer of oral testimony was limited to this narrow purpose. It would not have triggered the kind of mini-trial envisioned by the district judge. Neither does it appear from the record that allowing the answer to be verified would have produced unfair prejudice to Golay. To the contrary, verification of the answer would have properly framed the issue of whether there was a genuine dispute of material fact, requiring a trial on the merits. We conclude that the summary judgment was entered improperly on the ground that it had not been opposed by affidavit or other sworn statement. The decision of the district court, upholding the judgment, is reversed. On remand, the district court shall direct the magistrate to vacate the judgment and to conduct further proceedings in accordance with this opinion. Costs to the appellant, Loomis. Attorney fees on appeal shall be reserved for determination and award by the magistrate, upon his ultimate adjudication of the prevailing party in this case. WALTERS, C.J., and SWANSTROM, J., concur.