Court Opinion

ID: 9844424
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:02:34.99498+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:34.892135
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Chief Justice,
dissenting:
If I were the finder of fact in this case, I would find exactly as the majority has done. However, the Industrial Commission is the finder of fact, and this Court can only reverse the Industrial Commission if it has erred as a matter of law, i.e., if there is no competent evidence to sustain the Industrial Commission’s finding of fact. Idaho Const.Art. 5, § 9. I believe that there was sufficient evidence to support the commission’s finding that the milk was not a finished product. The majority overturns the commission’s finding of fact based upon the Bureau of Dairying chief’s testimony that a producer could sell raw milk for consumption if the milk met certain standards and the producer obtained a license. However, there is no showing in the record of what standards the milk had to meet in order that it might be sold, and no evidence that the milk could indeed meet those standards. It is undisputed that defendant’s milk was of only Grade B quality. When confronted with this fact on cross examination, the bureau chief himself admitted that there was no market for Grade B milk (or “manufacturing milk” as the bureau chief termed it), except for selling it to a processor. There is clearly sufficient evidence to support the commission’s factual determination that the milk could not be utilized by the defendant until sold to the processor, and was therefore not a finished product. Certainly, if a single unsworn and unverified *663letter was sufficient evidence to sustain the commission’s findings in the case of Mager v. Garrett Freightlines, 100 Idaho 469, 600 P.2d 773 (1979), then there is sufficient evidence in this case that it should also be affirmed.