Court Opinion

ID: 9583394
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:38:10.489598+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:59.901687
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(dissenting).
Here, the trial judge decided the case correctly, i.e., to grant a summary judgment in favor of the City of Sioux Falls against the Millers, for the wrong reason (6 year statute of limitations). Notwithstanding, under our holdings, I would affirm the trial court. See Waddell v. Dewey County Bank, 471 N.W.2d 591 (S.D.1991); Garrett v. BankWest, Inc., 459 N.W.2d 833 (S.D.1990); Weatherwax v. Hiland Potato Chip Co., 372 N.W.2d 118 (S.D.1985); and Ruple v. Weinaug, 328 N.W.2d 857 (S.D.1983). Stare decisis.
Below, City moved for summary judgment based upon (1) a statute of limitations and (2) laches. Per the settled record, at pages 61 and 68, counsel for Sioux Falls based the motion to grant summary judgment upon the basis that the Millers believed they had a claim in 1973 and took no action thereon until they asserted a counterclaim in this lawsuit in 1989. (Judge Heege had these facts before him and, in essence, determined the Millers had slept on their rights.) And surely they did. As laches facts were before the trial court, there is no legal reason whatsoever to return this case to the trial court. It is marching the troops up the hill to march them down again. The Supreme Court can decide this case now, on the record, based upon stare decisis. We are not plowing any virgin ground in this case. I refer, as supporting authority, to Duncan v. Pennington County Housing Authority, 382 N.W.2d 425, 427 (S.D.1986) wherein we cited with approval Chicago and North Western Ry. Co. v. Bradbury, 80 S.D. 610, 612-13, 129 N.W.2d 540, 542 (1964):
[M]ere passage of time is not the test. The question of laches “does not depend, as does the statute of limitations, upon the fact that a certain time has elapsed since the cause of action accrued, but whether, under all the facts and circumstances of the particular case, the plaintiff is chargeable with want of due diligence in failing to proceed with reasonable promptitude.”
Let us apply the facts to the above passage: (1) Millers retained counsel in 1973 to determine if Millers had a cause of action for work on Blackhawk street and installation of a storm sewer system (2) Miller’s attorney advised the City of Sioux Falls’ Engineering Department by letter dated October 22, 1973, that a lawsuit was being considered for this construction (3) No suit was ever filed (4) No demand for damages or relief of any kind was requested until (5) The City of Sioux Falls started this lawsuit, a nuisance action, against Millers for maintaining an eyesore consisting of old scrap iron, scrap lumber, tires and inoperable machinery existing upon the Miller premises. Common sense tells us that Millers did not act with due diligence or with reasonable promptitude. And that is precisely why Judge Heege entered summary judgment to the City of Sioux Falls.
Elements of laches here? Obviously. Depositions and affidavits reflect:
1. Millers had full knowledge of the facts;
2. For over 16 years, with this knowledge, they did nothing; only when the City came after them for maintaining a nuisance did they arise from their legal slumber to cry out: “Foul, you owe us *122$50,000.00 (for diminishment of value of property) and $2,000.00 for each claimed periodic flooding;
3. Prejudice to the City (City attempted to find property owners — and could not — who had previously owned property near the Millers’ property and who would have knowledge of the claimed damages); further, in this connection, an affidavit is on file demonstrating prejudice: Millers contended there were many property owners who had actual knowledge of the flooding, damage, and drainage situation; thereupon, these “witnesses,” upon interview, could not substantiate or recall facts which Millers were advocating for the basis of a cause of action. The obscuration of evidence is an important consideration to the City of Sioux Falls in this case. In 27 Am.Jur.2d Equity § 170 (1966), it is noted:
The prejudicial situation in which the complainant’s suit places the defendant may be occasioned by inability on the part of the latter, because of the complainant’s delay in asserting his claim, to produce evidence in defense thereof, where matters of proof have been lost, witnesses have died, and the transaction giving rise to the suit has become obscured by the lapse of time.
Finally, you don’t have to kill a rabbit twice. This Court has held, oft-over, that “In reviewing a grant of summary judgment, we premise our decision on the principle that affirmance of such a judgment is proper if there exists any basis which would support the trial court’s ruling.” Weatherwax at 119; Ruple at 859, 860; Maryland Casualty Company v. Delzer, 283 N.W.2d 244 (S.D.1979). There is reason here: Laches.