Court Opinion

ID: 9560886
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:58:35.535943+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:18.410299
License: Public Domain

ON DENIAL OF REHEARING
BAKES, Chief Justice.
Two petitions for rehearing were filed in this matter, one by the limited guarantors, and the other a joint petition filed by Bliss Valley Foods and Mr. and Mrs. Erkins. Both petitions for rehearing are denied.
However, footnote 17 to the original opinion is withdrawn. We do not decide whether the “Assumption of Liability Agreements” or “Amended Assumption of Liability Agreements” signed by the limited partners were guaranties, or constituted agreements making these parties principal borrowers under the promissory notes. The trial court should make this determination on retrial in determining whether the affirmative defenses raised by the limited partners are to be resolved by the court as part of the equitable action of foreclosure, or by the jury as a separate legal claim against guarantors, giving due consideration to this Court’s analysis in David Steed & Associates v. Young, 115 Idaho 247, 766 P.2d 717 (1988).
Additionally, we do not, by our action in Part V of the opinion in which we set aside the defamation award in favor of Robert Erkins because it was barred by the statute of limitations, intimate one way or the other whether or not on retrial Erkins may assert the defamation claim as an offset to the claims of the Idaho First National Bank. The offset issue was never raised below because the district court concluded that the statute of limitations had not run on the defamation claim contained in Er-kins’ amended counterclaim. Our opinion does not preclude Erkins from seeking to amend his answer to assert such a setoff claim.
BOYLE, J., and SCHROEDER and McKEE, JJ. Pro Tern., concur.