Court Opinion

ID: 9851569
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:15:08.251629+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:21:52.760393
License: Public Domain

KLEINSCHMIDT, Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result. I do not find the distinctions drawn by many of the cases cited by the majority between what is “procedural” and what is “substantive” to be very helpful. I tend to agree with the observation of the Colorado Supreme Court in Page v. Clark, 197 Colo. 306, 314-15, 592 P.2d 792, 800-01 (1979), that a particular rule may be procedural in one context and substantive in another, depending on the underlying social policies of the competing rule of court and statute. Viewed this way, a very strong argument can be made *415that the legislative policy of finality embodied in A.R.S. § 13-4234(F) ought to prevail in this case. Given cases like Daou v. Harris, 139 Ariz. 353, 678 P.2d 934 (1984) (reasonable time limits are procedural), and the fact that the right to prescribe the rules of evidence, a field in which there is great room for fundamental policy considerations to operate, remains a province of the supreme court, I cannot say that the statutory one year limitation is substantive. Nor can I say that the statute is “reasonable and workable” in relation to the rule so that the two can co-exist. See State ex rel. Collins v. Siedel, 142 Ariz. 587, 691 P.2d 678 (1984).