Court Opinion

ID: 9543545
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:46:25.072079+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:10:34.210514
License: Public Domain

DONALDSON, J.,
concurs.
Keenan v. Brooks, 100 Idaho 823, 827-28, 606 P.2d 473, 477-78 (1980) (emphasis in original).
Simmered down to an essence, it is beyond dispute that Keenan, in illustrating how the Court went astray in McNabb was the failure to recognize the two distinct burdens which came into play where presumptions are concerned, namely the burden of proof, i.e., the burden of producing evidence and the burden of persuasion. The plaintiff is the party who always must carry the burden of persuasion. As the plaintiff opens his or her case, only enough evidence must be shown to shift the burden of production to the defendant.
The Rule 301, promulgated by a Court committee, said exactly the same as stated in Keenan by Justices Donaldson and Bistline, with one slight distinction, albeit a distinction without a difference. Rule 301 in speaking of the shifting of the burden of proof, a presumption, meaning all of the presumptions which came from the common law plus those attributable to the legislature, does so in terms not shifting the burden of proof in the sense of nonpersuasion, which remains upon the party on whom it was originally cast. Having always understood that the purpose, or at the least the effect, of a presumption was to cast to the defendant the burden of coming forward with his evidence which might rebut, meet, and to which I add, overwhelm or scuttle the presumption, it is seen that the distinguishing feature of Rule 301 is the language “in the sense of the risk of non-persuasion.” In my book that is a “risk” in any civil action. The plaintiff either has a winning case, or he does not.
Thereafter in the ill-starred Bongiovi case, having concurred only in the result, i.e., the reversal of the trial court judgment, Keenan v. Brooks was revisited to ascertain whether there was any need for a Bongiovi dissertation relative to presumptions, and the effect thereof, upon which I also commented at the same time: